2025-03-31T17:50:43-05:00

Why is the Administration Cancelling Religion? The Trump administration is eliminating Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) programs from government agencies. DEI critics have a point. They contend that DEI initiatives sometimes emphasize superficial diversity over merit, resulting in hiring and promotions that prioritize identity over qualifications. At the same time, President Donald Trump set up a White House Faith Office. The office is charged with protecting communities of faith. This includes identifying “any failures of the executive branch to enforce... Read more

2025-03-06T15:59:50-05:00

Ringing in Faith & Mutual Understanding into the New Year: a Georgetown Interfaith Delegation to Japan At the center of a 16th-century Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan lies an ancient Catholic bell, possibly the oldest preserved Jesuit bell in all of Japan. Its mere existence, through hundreds of years – including the era of Christian persecution by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the World War II era led by the Imperial Army – is a testament to interreligious dialogue and reverence... Read more

2025-02-27T15:49:56-05:00

When Persecution Becomes Politically “Inconvenient” Evil exists in the world. We know this, yet it’s hard to understand when we see it up close fully. The cruelty feels too extreme, too inhuman to make sense of. Fear Permeates All Aspects of Jewish Life The Bibas boys were kidnapped by Hamas and murdered by Gazan citizens. Hamas placed their bodies on display before being handed over to the Red Cross—a level of brutality that defies words. Yet, half the world stayed... Read more

2025-02-24T12:25:17-05:00

Covering, and Questioning, Anti-Christian Persecution If you report on religion long enough, you’re bound to be called an anti-Christian bigot at some point in time. In my 14 years of reporting, I’ve been labeled an atheist agent for my coverage of a book on how Jesus may have been a vegetarian, denounced as a prejudiced partisan as I covered instances of clergy abuse in Houston, Texas, and much worse for my writing on neo-Nazi ideology and racism among Lutherans in... Read more

2025-03-31T17:43:38-05:00

Most of last week I spent in meetings in and around Washington DC where the intermingling of politics and religion was on high display. U.S. Vice President JD Vance spoke at the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit and President Donald Trump addressed the National Prayer Breakfast. I pursued my doctorate in the sociology of religion in part to understand why the relationship between politics and religion is often uneasy. For example, New York Catholic archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan gave a... Read more

2025-02-11T16:00:24-05:00

Governments Use Religion for Control And Media Fails Many governments use religion to strengthen their power. The Russian government links Orthodox Christianity to national pride, reinforcing authority and discouraging dissent. Only government-approved religious groups in China are allowed, and those who worship outside these rules face harsh restrictions. Yet, major news outlets rarely focus on how faith is used this way. We must ask ourselves. Are some stories ignored because they don’t fit our views? Have we become so set in... Read more

2025-02-07T16:05:29-05:00

The Role of Media in Exposing and Combating Religious Persecution Religious persecution is not just a relic of history—it is a painful reality today for millions of people across the world. Among the most targeted communities are Muslims in countries like India, China, and Myanmar, where systematic oppression, legal discrimination, and violent suppression have stripped them of fundamental rights. Yet, even in Western democracies, Muslims face growing challenges, from bans on religious attire to cultural marginalization. In an age where... Read more

2025-02-07T15:55:04-05:00

Religious persecution now impacts 97% of countries. A new strategy involving business and diplomacy could help reverse this alarming trend. Would you, like many people, be surprised to learn that the share of the world’s countries experiencing religious persecution is 97%? That’s what the latest data from the Pew Research Center show. Pew reports that governments harassed religious groups in 186 countries and territories in 2022. That’s up from 118 in 2007, the year I led the first Pew Research Center... Read more

2025-01-16T10:05:08-05:00

When making small talk with a new face at a social gathering, once the banal topics of present happenings die out—what unpredictable weather we are having, the logistics of our travel itineraries, rote descriptions of the drink in our hands—and it becomes unreasonable to maintain such proximity with our torsos parallel without gleaning a single meaningful insight about the person before us, I can almost feel it coming—the inevitable question: “What do you do for work?” I shift uncomfortably in... Read more

2025-01-14T23:23:56-05:00

A Faith Rooted in Resilience As a follower of the Islamic faith, I was raised with the belief that this life on Earth is only temporary. In Surah Baqarah (2:155), God says, “And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient.” This verse reminds us that trials are inevitable, but patience and perseverance through hardships will be rewarded. Islam is not... Read more

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