Religious Freedom Project
Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs has received a $2 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation to support the interdisciplinary study of religious...
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AT THE CENTER
PROJECT LEADERS
Thomas Farr
Thomas F. Farr is Director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and a Visiting Associate...
Timothy Shah
Timothy Samuel Shah is Associate Director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center For Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and...
ASSOCIATE SCHOLARS
José Casanova
José Casanova is one of the world's top scholars in the sociology of religion. He is a professor at the Department of Sociology at Georgetown...
Jean Bethke Elshtain
Jean Bethke Elshtain is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she also has...
William Inboden
William Inboden is Assistant Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and Distinguished Scholar at the Strauss Center for International...
David Novak
David Novak holds the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies as Professor of the Study of Religion and Professor of Philosophy at the...
Daniel Philpott
Daniel Philpott is exploring Catholic and Protestant contributions to democracy from the years 1800-2000 for the Christianity and Freedom Project....
Mona Siddiqui
Mona Siddiqui, OBE is Professor of Islamic and Inter-religious Studies and Assistant Principal for Religion and Society at the University of...
Monica Duffy Toft
Monica Duffy Toft is Associate Professor of Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and Director of the Initiative on Religion in...
Roger Trigg
Roger Trigg, of St Cross College, Oxford, is Senior Research Fellow in the Ian Ramsey Centre, University of Oxford, and a member of both the...
PROJECT STAFF
A.J. Nolte
A.J. Nolte joined the RFP at the beginning of October 2012, after two years as a research assistant at the Center for Complex Operations, National...
Kyle Vander Meulen
Kyle Vander Meulen joined the Berkley Center in January 2011. Before coming to the Center, he completed his master's studies in Divinity at the...
March 1, 2012
Religious Freedom: Why Now? Defending an Embattled Human Right
This event celebrated the rollout of a new book, Religious Freedom: Why Now? Defending an Embattled Human Right, authored by RFP Associate Director Timothy Shah, under the auspices of the Witherspoon Institute’s Task Force on International Religious Freedom, chaired by RFP Director Thomas Farr. The event was co-sponsored by the Religious Freedom Project and the Witherspoon Institute. The keynote address was delivered by Robert P. George of Princeton University. Panels featured a wide range of participants, including noted Muslim scholar Sheikh Hamza Yusuf.
Why now? Religious freedom is under sustained pressure today around the world. In some places, it is fair to say that religious freedom is under siege. The publication of Religious Freedom: Why Now? is a response to that sobering fact. Although scant attention is paid by governments, the academy, or the media, the implications of this crisis—and we contend that it is a crisis—are quite serious. A worldwide erosion of religious freedom is causing large-scale human suffering, grave injustice, and significant threats to international peace and security.
For the last three years, the Witherspoon Institute’s Task Force on International Religious Freedom – under Tom Farr’s chairmanship -- has examined the various dimensions of the challenge faced by religious freedom, and has deliberated on the most effective policy responses by the United States and other governments around the world. In May 2011, the Witherspoon Institute convened an unprecedented interdisciplinary meeting in Princeton, New Jersey of more than thirty experts on the subject, from the fields of psychology, sociology, law, philosophy, theology, political science, and international relations. They included academics, policy analysts, and journalists, as well as advocates and adherents from a variety of religious traditions. The result was a focused discussion over two days of the basis of religious freedom, its present condition, and the prospects for its future.
Religious Freedom: Why Now? is the Task Force’s considered statement on these matters. Drafted by RFP Associate Director Timothy Samuel Shah, with contributions from the Witherspoon Institute’s Matthew J. Franck and the members of the Task Force, it is informed by insights from all these academic disciplines and religious traditions.
Event Schedule
11:45am-12:15pm Lunch
12:15-1:30pm Keynote Lecture
Speaker: Robert P. George
1:45 - 3:15pm Panel 1: Why Religious Freedom? The Challenge of Grounding Religious Liberty
Panelists: William A. Galston, Wilfred M. McClay, Timothy S. Shah, and Amy Sullivan
3:30-5:00pm Panel 2: Why Now? The Urgency of Advancing Religious Liberty in the Muslim World
Panelists: Thomas F. Farr, Allen Hertzke, Ed Husain, and Hamza Yusuf
For the last three years, the Witherspoon Institute’s Task Force on International Religious Freedom – under Tom Farr’s chairmanship -- has examined the various dimensions of the challenge faced by religious freedom, and has deliberated on the most effective policy responses by the United States and other governments around the world. In May 2011, the Witherspoon Institute convened an unprecedented interdisciplinary meeting in Princeton, New Jersey of more than thirty experts on the subject, from the fields of psychology, sociology, law, philosophy, theology, political science, and international relations. They included academics, policy analysts, and journalists, as well as advocates and adherents from a variety of religious traditions. The result was a focused discussion over two days of the basis of religious freedom, its present condition, and the prospects for its future.
Religious Freedom: Why Now? is the Task Force’s considered statement on these matters. Drafted by RFP Associate Director Timothy Samuel Shah, with contributions from the Witherspoon Institute’s Matthew J. Franck and the members of the Task Force, it is informed by insights from all these academic disciplines and religious traditions.
Event Schedule
11:45am-12:15pm Lunch
12:15-1:30pm Keynote Lecture
Speaker: Robert P. George
1:45 - 3:15pm Panel 1: Why Religious Freedom? The Challenge of Grounding Religious Liberty
Panelists: William A. Galston, Wilfred M. McClay, Timothy S. Shah, and Amy Sullivan
3:30-5:00pm Panel 2: Why Now? The Urgency of Advancing Religious Liberty in the Muslim World
Panelists: Thomas F. Farr, Allen Hertzke, Ed Husain, and Hamza Yusuf
Featuring
Robert P. George
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and founding Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He teaches constitutional law and jurisprudence, civil liberties, and philosophy of law. A member of the President’s Council on Bioethics during the George W. Bush administration, George previously served as a presidential appointee to the US Commission on Civil Rights and remains a corresponding member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Science and Technology. He is a former Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. George's books include, among others, Embryo: A Defense of Human Life (2008), The Meaning of Marriage: Family, State, Market, And Morals (2006), and Constitutional Politics: Essays on Constitution Making, Maintenance, and Change (2001).
Participants
Thomas Farr
Full List of Publications
Thomas F. Farr is Director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and a Visiting Associate Professor of Religion and International Affairs at Georgetown’s Edmund A....
Thomas F. Farr is Director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and a Visiting Associate Professor of Religion and International Affairs at Georgetown’s Edmund A....
William A. Galston
William A. Galston holds the Ezra Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, where he serves as a Senior Fellow. He is also College Park Professor at the University of Maryland. Prior to January 2006 he was Saul Stern...
Allen Hertzke
Allen Hertzke is Presidential Professor of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma. He has written extensively on religious advocacy in politics, and in particular faith-motivated activism in foreign policy. He is the author of Freeing God...
Ed Husain
Ed Husain is Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His work focuses on international threats from radicalization, extremism, and terrorism. Previously, Mr. Husain was cofounder and codirector of Quilliam Foundation, the world’s first...
Wilfred McClay
Wilfred McClay holds the SunTrust Bank Chair of Excellence in Humanities and is a professor of history at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He also holds a position on the National Council on the Humanities and the advisory board for the...
Timothy Shah
Timothy Samuel Shah is Associate Director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center For Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and Visiting Assistant Professor in the Government Department, Georgetown University. He is a political...
Amy Sullivan
Amy Sullivan is a reporter specializing in the relationship between religion and politics. She is a contributing editor to Time Magazine where she writes for the magazine’s political blog, Swampland. She has also written for the Washington Post,...
Hamza Yusuf
Born in Washington State and raised in Northern California, Hamza Yusuf became Muslim in 1977, after which he traveled to the Muslim world. He studied for ten years in the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, and in North and West Africa, and received teaching...