AUG. 18, 2008

INTERNATIONAL
Religious liberty: America’s role in fostering the ‘first freedom’ abroad

From the ongoing tensions in the Middle East to the Chinese crackdown on Tibetan Buddhists and President Bush’s visit to the Beijing Olympics, religious freedom around the world has been a headline story in 2008. This year also brings the 10th anniversary of the International Religious Freedom Act, which set the template for how the United States government would seek to promote freedom of worship abroad. Now, a decade after President Clinton signed the measure into law on Oct. 27, 1998, the foreign policy objective of advancing religious liberty remains popular, but there is renewed debate about IRFA.

Among the pressing questions: Has it been successful? What is the best way for the U.S. to achieve this policy goal in light of the great changes in geopolitics in the past decade? Should Washington focus on constructive engagement rather than denunciation? Or vice versa? Or some combination of the two? Does the law need to be modified?

This edition of ReligionLink provides background and resources for journalists covering the issue of international religious freedom for the IRFA anniversary and beyond.

Why it matters

Religious freedom is a critical component of the campaign for human rights, to the extent that some call it “the first freedom,” and the foundation for all others. What is clear is that the issue matters greatly to most Americans, especially Christians who have become more attuned to persecution of their coreligionists overseas. Policy experts also believe that successfully promoting religious freedom abroad could be a crucial part of restoring America’s international reputation and may even be a tool in the fight against terrorism. In short, promoting religious freedom in an increasingly globalized yet violent world is a growing concern, and the debate over how to achieve that goal is also growing.

Background and resources

IRFA established two main structures for formulating and advancing religious freedom abroad. One is the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom, headed by an ambassador-at-large. Since 2002 that ambassador has been John V. Hanford III. The second principal structure is the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, or USCIRF. The commission is bipartisan and is made up of nine voting members. (The act also set up a position of special adviser on international religious freedom within the National Security Council.)

These two entities, the Office of International Religious Freedom and USCIRF, are often viewed as having different missions. The religious freedom office tends to stress the diplomatic, policy-centered approach to promoting religious freedom. USCIRF is independent, and its commissioners issue an annual report that is often pointed in denouncing offenders. Ideally, these missions are complementary, but there are differences of opinion.

A poll in May 2008 commissioned by Open Doors USA, a leading anti-persecution group, showed broad support for religious freedom and for making the issue a foreign policy priority.

Click the map for interview sources in your state and region

National sources

• The Web site of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom lists its current commissioners as well as past ones.
• Akbar S. Ahmed is a professor of comparative and regional studies and professor of international relations at American University in Washington, D.C., where he holds the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies. He has advised world leaders on Islam and was formerly High Commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain. Contact 202-885-1961, akbar@american.edu. Media are encouraged to reach him through his assistant, Jonathan Hayden, at 202-386-8624.
• Thomas F. Farr is a visiting associate professor of religion and world affairs at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University. He is a former U.S. diplomat and was the first head of the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom. He has written widely on this topic, including an article in the March/April 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs, “Diplomacy in an Age of Faith: Religious Freedom and National Security.” Contact 202-687-5185, tff8@georgetown.edu. (The Berkley Center also has a list of other experts who can speak on this topic.)
• Jonathan Fox is a professor in the department of political studies at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, and an expert on religion and international affairs. He is the author, with Shmuel Sandler, of Bringing Religion Into International Relations. Contact +972-3-531-8578, foxjon@mail.biu.ac.il.
• Ron E. Hassner is an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. With Steven Fish he is co-director of the Religion, Politics and Globalization Program at Berkeley. Contact 510-642-4657, hassner@berkeley.edu.
• Allen D. Hertzke is a professor of political science and director of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma and author of Freeing God’s Children: The Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights. Hertzke is a leading expert on international religious freedom. Contact 405-325-6421, ahertzke@ou.edu.
• Mark Juergensmeyer is director of the Center for Global & International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of the 2008 book Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State, From Christian Militias to al Qaeda. Contact 805-893-7898, juergens@global.ucsb.edu.
• Walter Russell Mead is the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Read a March 2008 Christianity Today interview with Mead about evangelicals, foreign policy and religious freedom. Contact 212-434-9548, wmead@cfr.org.
• Dalia Mogahed is executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and co-author of Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, written with Georgetown University professor John Esposito. The book is based on tens of thousands of face-to-face interviews conducted by Gallup with Muslims in 35 countries. Contact via Sarah Van Allen, 202-715-3030 or 877-242-5587.

ADVOCACY GROUPS AND LEADERS
• John Ackerly is president of the International Campaign for Tibet, a leading advocacy group on behalf of Tibetan Buddhists. Contact 202-785-1515, info@savetibet.org.
• Kit Bigelow is director of external affairs for the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’is of the United States. The Bahá’i community is deeply involved in issues of religious freedom because of the long-standing persecution its followers have suffered in Iran and elsewhere. Contact Bigelow at the Washington office, 202-833-8990, BahaisUS@usbnc.org.
• Ishani Chowdhury is executive director of the Hindu American Foundation, based in Kensington, Md. The foundation represents the interests of some 2 million Hindu Americans but also focuses on international freedom abroad, especially in India and the Asian subcontinent. Contact 301-770-7835, Ishani@hafsite.org.
• Samuel E. Ericsson is president of Advocates International, based in Springfield, Va. The organization focuses on legal strategies to advance religious freedom and seeks to build “a global network of skilled advocates committed to religious liberty, human rights, conflict resolution, reconciliation, and professional ethics.” The group says its network extends to more than 100 countries. Contact 703-894-1084, info@advocatesinternational.org.
• Abraham Foxman is national director of the Anti-Defamation League, a leading Jewish advocacy organization that also seeks to promote religious freedom. Contact through Myrna Shinbaum at media relations, 212-885-7747, adlmedia@adl.org.
• Bob Fu is head of the China Aid Association, based in Midland, Texas. Fu was a leader of the student democracy movement that ended in the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989, and he was later imprisoned. After his release, he and his wife fled to the United States. Fu was one of five dissidents who met with President Bush at the White House before Bush’s trip to Beijing for the Olympics. Contact 432-689-6985.
• Felice Gaer is chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, or USCIRF. She is also director of the American Jewish Committee’s Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights. Contact 212-891-1314, gaerf@ajc.org.
• Joseph K. Grieboski is founder and president of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. Grieboski is also a leader of the new generation of advocates who promote a longer-term, broader-based approach to influencing religious freedom overseas. He maintains a blog, The Grieboski Report. Contact 202-835-8760, Grieboski@ReligionAndPolicy.org.
• Jeremy Gunn is a widely cited expert on religious freedom who in 2005 was named to head the ACLU’s new Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. Contact 202-675-2307, jgunn@dcaclu.org.
• Sheherazade Jafari is the Washington-based assistant director of the religion and conflict resolution program at the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding in New York City. She wrote an essay, “Local Religious Peacemakers: An Untapped Resource in U.S. Foreign Policy,” for the fall/winter 2007 issue of the Journal of International Affairs. Contact 202-841-5208, sjafari@tanenbaum.org.
• Jeff King is president of International Christian Concern, based in Washington, D.C. Contact 301-989-1708, jeff@persecution.org.
• T. Kumar is advocacy director for Asia and the Pacific for Amnesty International USA. Kumar is frequently cited in stories about the Beijing Olympics, including this July 30, 2008, article from The New York Times. Contact 202-544-0200 ext. 224, tkumar@aiusa.org.
• Richard D. Land is president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and a USCIRF commissioner. Contact Jill Martin, 615-782-8401, jmartin@erlc.com (email preferred).
• Denton Lotz is vice president of the International Religious Liberty Association, based in Silver Spring, Md. The association was founded in 1893, originally by leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which saw promoting religious freedom as a chief concern. The focus remains for the IRLA, but the group is now “universal and non-sectarian,” and members of various religious traditions serve on its board of directors and rotate through its presidency. Lotz is the leading American-based association official. To contact Lotz or one of the organization’s many other board members or experts, call Carol Rasmussen, 301-680-6686, Info@irla.org.
• Carl Moeller is president and chief executive officer of Open Doors USA, a leading advocacy group for persecuted believers. Moeller estimates that there are 100 million Christians “suffering some sort of repression and even death for their faith,” and he says the figure is rising. A poll in May 2008 commissioned by the organization showed broad support for religious freedom and for making the issue a foreign policy priority. Contact through Jerry Dykstra at 616-915-4117, jerryd@odusa.org.
• The Rev. Keith Roderick is the Washington-based representative of Christian Solidarity International, which has affiliates around the world. CSI was founded in Switzerland in 1977 and describes itself as a “Christian human rights organization for religious liberty helping victims of religious repression, victimized children and victims of disaster.” Contact 202-498-8644, keith.roderick@csi-usa.org.
• Chris Seiple is president of the Institute for Global Engagement in Arlington, Va. Seiple is representative of a younger generation of advocates who promote a longer-term, broader-based approach to influencing religious freedom overseas. Contact 703-527-3100, cseiple@globalengage.org.
• Nina Shea is a senior fellow at the Center for Religious Freedom of the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and a USCIRF commissioner. She is a longtime advocate for international religious freedom and for a decade worked at Freedom House. Contact through Rachel DiCarlo Currie, 202-974-6456, rcurrie@hudson.org.
• Tad Stahnke was deputy executive director for policy at USCIRF from 2000 to 2007 before joining Human Rights First. Contact through Krista Minteer, 202-547-5692, MinteerK@humanrightsfirst.org.
• Tom White is head of The Voice of the Martyrs, an advocacy group based in Bartlesville, Okla., that fights persecution of Christians. Contact 877-337-0302, twhite@vom-usa.org.
• Angela C. Wu is a human rights lawyer and international law director at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a law firm that “defends religious freedom of people of all faiths through litigation and legal analysis.” Contact through Ben Kemmy, 202-955-0098, bkemmy@becketfund.org.

IN THE NORTHEAST
• Robert J. Barro is an economics professor at Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., who has written about freedom of religion and economic growth. Contact 617-495-3203, rbarro@harvard.edu.
• Peter Kuzmic is the Eva B. and Paul E. Toms Distinguished Professor of World Missions and European Studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. A native of Slovenia and a citizen of Croatia in former Yugoslavia, Kuzmic is an evangelical scholar and widely cited expert on international religious freedom. He is also a member of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights. Contact 978-468-7111.

IN THE EAST
• John L. Esposito is founding director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, where he teaches religion, Islamic studies and international affairs. He is an expert on Islam and its history, modernizing trends and forces, radicalism, terrorism, democracy, foreign policy and politics. Contact 202-687-8375, jle2@georgetown.edu.
• Philip Jenkins is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Humanities in the department of history and religious studies at Penn State University. He is a widely cited expert and author on global Christianity and religious pluralism. Contact 814-863-8946, jpj1@psu.edu.

IN THE SOUTHEAST
• Sam Cherribi is a senior lecturer in sociology at Emory University in Atlanta. His work focuses on the experience of Muslims in predominantly non-Muslim countries. Contact 404-727-7909, scherri@emory.edu.
• Phillip Charles Lucas is a professor of religious studies at Stetson University in DeLand, Fla. He is an expert on New Religious Movements and has written about the challenges they face in the international context. He wrote the essay “The Future of New and Minority Religions in the Twenty-First Century: Religious Freedom under Global Siege” for the 2004 collection New Religious Movements in the 21st Century: Legal, Political and Social Challenges in Global Perspective. Contact 386-822-8894, plucas@stetson.edu.

IN THE SOUTH
• The Rev. Frances Screnock Adeney is a professor of evangelism and global mission at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. She is an expert on Christianity and international human rights. Contact 502-992-9370, fadeney@lpts.edu.
• Rosalind I.J. Hackett is a professor of religious studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Hackett is an expert on law, religion and human rights in the international context. Contact 865-974-6980, rhackett@utk.edu.

IN THE MIDWEST
• John Richard Bowen is a professor of sociocultural anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis and writes widely on issues concerning Muslims in non-Muslim countries. Contact 314-935-5680, jbowen@wustl.edu.
• Daniel Philpott is associate professor of political science at the Joan B. Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He has written widely on religion and international affairs, including an article, “What Religion Brings to the Politics of Transnational Justice,” for the fall/winter 2007 issue of the Journal of International Affairs. Contact 574-631-7667, Philpott.1@nd.edu.

IN THE SOUTHWEST
• Derek H. Davis is a professor of humanities at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, Texas. He has written widely on religious freedom, including an article, “Respecting Religious Differences: The Missing Ingredient in Creating a Peaceful World Order,” in the 2005 Journal of Church and State. Contact 254-295-4143, ddavis@umhb.edu.
• W. Cole Durham Jr. is the Susa Young Gates University Professor of Law at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies. He is active in the study and promotion of religious freedom abroad. Contact 801-422-2281, durhamc@lawgate.byu.edu.

IN THE WEST/NORTHWEST
• John Eibner is head of the U.S. chapter of Christian Solidarity International, based in Westlake Village, Calif. Contact 805-777-7107, john.eibner@csi-int.org.
• M. Steven Fish is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. With Ron Hassner, he is co-director of the Religion, Politics and Globalization Program at Berkeley. Contact 510-643-1943, sfish@berkeley.edu.