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Berkley Forum

Religious Freedom at 250: Assessing the United States' New Commission

By: Eric Patterson Michael Kessler

July 30, 2025

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The United States’ commitment to religious freedom—culturally, religiously, socially, and politically—is rooted in the earliest days of the colonies and, later, the republic. 

However, there have always been contested issues about religious freedom in practice, and how it can best be expressed and defended in a pluralistic society. As part of a series of sesquicentennial anniversaries that begin in April 2025 and will culminate with Independence Day 2026, President Trump established a domestic-focused religious freedom commission and a set of advisory committees to "promote citizens' pride in our foundational history, identify emerging threats to religious liberty, uphold federal laws that protect all citizens' full participation in a pluralistic democracy, and protect the free exercise of religion." The commission held its first public meetings on June 16, 2025 in Washington, DC, and is scheduled to conclude its work on July 4, 2026. 

Convening a group of experts to consider the commission, its aspirations, and its challenges, this Berkley Forum asks: How does the commission represent continuity or change with previous administrations? How will the commission relate to other government institutions and priorities? And how can the commission engage civil society, at home—and perhaps even abroad?

Editor’s Note: This series is ongoing and will continue to be updated as additional submissions are received.

In the Series

About the Authors

Eric Patterson headshot

Eric Patterson

Eric Patterson is president and CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and is a research fellow with the Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. He previously served as president of the Religious Freedom Institute, dean of the School of Government at Regent University, and before that, as associate director at the Berkley Center. He is an expert in two overlapping areas: the ethics of war and peace, and global religious trends and religious freedom policy. These two areas routinely intersect, such as in building post-conflict systems that represent diverse ethnoreligious factions, understanding the religious factors in conflict, and measuring U.S. democracy promotion efforts. His government experience includes time at the U.S. State Department, service as a White House Fellow, and over 20 years as an Air National Guard commander. He is the author or editor of 20 books, including Politics in a Religious World: Toward a Religious Informed U.S. Foreign Policy (2011).

Michael Kessler headshot

Michael Kessler

Michael Kessler is executive director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, a professor of the practice of moral and political theory in the Department of Government, and an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown Law. Kessler’s research and writing focus on theology, philosophical and religious ethics, and social, political, and legal theory. He is interested in problems of law and religion, both globally and in the U.S. constitutional context. Kessler is the author of several edited volumes, including The Oxford Handbook of Political Theology, co-edited with Shaun Casey (Oxford University Press, forthcoming); Political Theology for a Plural Age (Oxford University Press, 2013); and Mystics: Presence and Aporia, co-edited with Christian Sheppard (University of Chicago Press, 2003). He also wrote “Engaging Religion in U.S. Foreign Affairs,” a chapter in the Companion to Religion and Politics in the United States (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016). Kessler is a member of the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

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