Macdonald Center Secures $30K Grant to Study AI’s Impact on Interreligious Studies

The Duncan Black Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at HIU has been awarded a $30,000 Educational Experimentation Grant from the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion. The grant will fund a two-year initiative exploring the pedagogical and ethical challenges artificial intelligence poses to interreligious studies and interfaith relations.

Religious and theological studies, and most particularly interreligious studies, are fields that require nuanced analysis and value judgments about the accuracy and, importantly, the tone of research content. Research using AI has risks that include hallucinations or content flawed from the source. Through a series of workshops with HIU faculty throughout 2026-2027, the center will invite specialists in AI and engage in colloquia that will guide faculty to learn about how AI systems collect and use data, how they might use AI tools to help students develop skills in evaluating AI-generated content, and how that data might be used in interreligious spaces, where information about religious beliefs and values requires innate human and spiritual assessments.

“AI has become a feature of daily life – for better or worse,” Rev. Dr. David D. Grafton of the Macdonald Center said. “But what are the ramifications of it on our spiritual professions? And, what affect - for good or ill - will it have in interreligious spaces and knowledge? As far as I know, no one is asking questions about how AI can help or harm our interreligious relations and work. We’re so glad that Wabash sees HIU as a place for us to explore these questions.”

After two years of learning and experimenting in our classrooms, HIU's goal is to become a center for the curating of content intelligence in interreligious studies.

This grant will provide space for the HIU faculty to explore questions around using AI in teaching and learning opportunities that require ethical and spiritual considerations around the fields of chaplaincy, peacebuilding, and interreligious dialogue and research.