The Department of Religious Studies prepares students to lead social change and navigate cultural differences. Religious Studies offers a wide variety of classes in global religious and cultural knowledge and a one-of-a-kind Nonprofit Leadership career track.
Individual attention from award-winning faculty & staff and advisors.
Program is dedicated to deepening your understanding of religious phenomena, and broadening your global cultural knowledge.
Religious Studies will help you on your path to a future career in Nonprofit and NGO leadership.
This interdisciplinary degree prepares students for leadership in nonprofit, philanthropic, and community-based sectors. Students develop intercultural competence, strategic thinking, and practical skills for creating meaningful social change at local and global levels.
Learning about religions means that you understand different cultures and develop a more global perspective. Religious Studies is the ideal major for those who seek a career in international & interdisciplinary fields.
The Concentration in Nonprofit Leadership is unique at Michigan State University, that will appear on your official transcript, and that gives you additional career options available only as a Religious Studies major at Michigan State University.
To study religion is to develop cultural knowledge that will be of value both to you and to your future employer. We offer minors in both Religious Studies & Religion in the Americas.
Our professional degree programs train and empower nonprofit leaders to tackle local and global challenges through an ethical lens while building intercultural competence and knowledge of human and ecological systems.
Learning about religions means that you understand different cultures and develop a more global perspective. Religious Studies is the ideal major for those who seek a career in international & interdisciplinary fields.
The Concentration in Nonprofit Leadership is unique at Michigan State University, that will appear on your official transcript, and that gives you additional career options available only as a Religious Studies major at Michigan State University.
To study religion is to develop cultural knowledge that will be of value both to you and to your future employer. We offer minors in both Religious Studies & Religion in the Americas.
Our Global Nonprofit Leadership M.A. is offered 100% online and our competency and knowledge-based curriculum allows you to build on your previous knowledge and experience while learning in a unique five-week course sequence that builds your skills and knowledge.
Nonprofit Leadership
What is Religious Studies?
“My emphasis on Nonprofit Leadership has given me immense perspective about how to help bring people together using the skills learned throughout my Religious Studies major, including learning about people’s beliefs and traditions.”
Liv Swanton
Religious Studies Major with Nonprofit Leadership Focus
The MSU Foglio Speaker Series on Spirituality is hosting three virtual talks this November exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping spirituality, religious practices, and questions of ethics, authority, and social justice. Across three consecutive Mondays, leading scholars of religion, technology, ethics, and culture will consider some of the most pressing questions emerging alongside AI.
When Michigan State University Religious Studies major Lucy Van Hof arrived in Monteverde, Costa Rica, in Spring 2026, she expected to learn about community engagement and sustainability. But her education abroad experience also gave her an opportunity to apply her academic training to help a local community navigate organizational change and envision its future.
A growing number of Americans are religiously unaffiliated, according to the Pew Research Center, but those broader shifts don’t necessarily mean Americans’ religious lives are