Religious Diversity and Multi‐Religiosity in Singapore

ABSTRACT Can government‐mandated exposure to religious diversity both reinforce exclusive identities and cultivate “multi‐religiosity”? This study leverages the 2024 Global East Survey of Religion and Spirituality to investigate how Singapore's state‐mandated and managed pluralism impacts the religious lives of its citizens. Challenging Abrahamic‐centric measures that assume exclusivity in belief, belonging, and behavior, we utilize multidimensional measures inspired by East and Southeast Asian religions to capture the fluidity of religious life among Chinese, Malay, and Indian Singaporeans. The results reveal a striking, bifurcated form of multi‐religiosity: Although religious belonging and practice remain highly isomorphic with race (supporting state‐defined categories), religious believing exhibits high levels of cross‐pollination. Although most Singaporeans identify with one of the major religions, a majority of people also report believing in two or more religions. Notably, 45% of Malays—a group often characterized by exclusive religious identity—report believing in multiple religions. We argue that this specific manifestation of multi‐religiosity—characterized by rigid social belonging but fluid cognitive believing—is a result of the tension between state categorization and the lived experience of pluralism. These findings suggest that in hyper‐diverse societies, traditional metrics fail to capture the cognitive bricolage that undergirds multi‐religiosity.