Religion and Culture in Dialogue

For more on this event, visit: https://bit.ly/2rnPwPJ For more on the Berkley Center, visit: https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/ April 30, 2018 | MIT physicist and prolific writer Alan Lightman—a committed agnostic—poses questions commonly associated with religion from a physicist's perspective. This approach is strong in his new book, Searching for the Stars on an Island Off Maine, which the Guardian called “full of insight into some of the mysteries of the physical world, as well as the physics of mystery.” Columbia physicist Luca Matone—a committed Catholic who teaches at Regis High School in Manhattan—is a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, whose discoveries of gravitational waves and colliding neutron stars were each named “Breakthrough of the Year” by Science magazine (2016, 2017). Lightman and Matone will engage in a down-to-earth conversation about physics, spirituality, God, human life, and the universe. They will bring their distinctly different but congenial perspectives to the conversation, moderated by Berkley Center Senior Fellow Paul Elie.

March 22, 2018 | The values of the American Creed—pluralism, diversity, and tolerance—sustain U.S. global leadership and provide an aspiration to others. These principles contribute to the appeal and influence of the United States on the global stage. Insidious intolerance and delegitimizing rhetoric domestically undermines these ideals and provides space for hate crimes and degrading actions, threatening to devalue the currency of U.S. power. This panel discussion examined the impact of subtle and overt forms of domestic religious intolerance on the U.S. image and ability to pursue our policy objectives abroad. Looking forward, panelists discussed what the U.S. government and civil society can do to shape the narrative, rhetoric, and policies in the United States to preserve these unique components of the nation's power. This event was co-sponsored by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs; Campus Ministry; the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies; the Center for Jewish Civilization; the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding; the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy; the Office of the Vice President for Global Engagement; and the Walsh School of Foreign Service.

March 26, 2018 | Since 9/11, repeated episodes of terrorism, together with the refugee crisis, have dramatically increased the divide between the Muslim communities and the majority non-Muslim populations in Europe. Meanwhile, the parallel rise of right-wing, nationalist political parties throughout the continent—often espousing anti-Muslim rhetoric—has shaken the foundation of the European Union to its very core. Akbar Ahmed and his team of researchers traveled across Europe for four years and interviewed Muslims and non-Muslims from all walks of life to investigate questions of Islam, immigration, and identity. Their findings reveal a complex story of the place of Islam in European history and civilization and expose both the misunderstandings and the opportunities for European countries and populations to improve their relationship with minority Muslim communities. Along with an analysis of what has gone wrong and why, Ahmed offered recommendations for promoting integration and pluralism in the twenty-first century in a conversation with Professor Jocelyne Cesari.

March 20, 2018 | In this Faith and Culture series conversation, author and series moderator Paul Elie invites acclaimed novelist Jonathan Franzen to carry forward a conversation they began two decades ago, before the 2001 publication of Franzen's novel The Corrections, winner of the National Book Award in fiction and a worldwide bestseller. They will discuss fiction, contemporary affairs, and the religious imagination as they explore Franzen's most recent works—the novel Purity and the essay collection Farther Away.

March 16, 2018 | In 2016, Arturo Sosa, S.J., superior general of the Society of Jesus, named reconciliation as a top priority for Jesuits, stating that reconciliation requires that we “strive for reconciliation between human beings, reconciliation with God and reconciliation with the created world.” As a community of scholars, students, and staff, we continue to address reconciliation related to both historic and current events through Georgetown's Catholic and Jesuit mission. This difficult work requires open and frank dialogue on sensitive and challenging topics. The Doyle Program aims to foster and support these conversations across campus. This year’s Doyle Engaging Difference Symposium will bring together Jesuits, students, faculty, and staff at Georgetown to explore the task of putting reconciliation to work on our campus and in our world. Discussion will be centered on the following questions: How does the pursuit of a just society shape our academic mission? How do our teaching, learning, and research give voice to the mission of reconciliation? How can we mobilize our community’s diverse resources as we strive for peace and equity at Georgetown and beyond? Join us for a panel discussion followed by an audience conversation. Lunch will be served. This event is co-sponsored by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship. It is part of the Doyle Engaging Difference Program.

December 6, 2017 | In their latest book Islam, Gender, and Democracy in Comparative Perspective (2017), contributors Jocelyne Cesari, José Casanova, and Katherine Marshall attempt to reframe the debate around Islam and women's rights within a broader perspective that challenges the often portrayed binary opposition between liberal advocates of secular democracy and Muslim religious opponents of of women's full equality. Bringing together scholars from a range of disciplines, the book's essays examine the complex and contingent historical relationships between religion, secularism, democracy, law, and gender equality in Muslim-majority countries as well as in minority contexts. Azza Karam, senior advisor on culture and social development at the United Nations Population Fund, joined the three authors for this book discussion.

October 26, 2017 | Pulitzer Prize winner and U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith was raised in a Baptist household, and her mother's devout faith shaped her sense of self, language, life, health, and the past. Her childhood experiences are the inspiration for much of her work, which has received national acclaim. In this Faith and Culture series conversation, author and series moderator Paul Elie will invite Smith to talk about her poetry; her searching memoir, Ordinary Light (2015); and her forthcoming book, Wade in the Water (2018). They will explore the role a religious sensibility plays in her work and discuss the challenge of communicating home truths to future generations.

October 20, 2017 | Philippa Levine’s work underscores the long association between nakedness, race, and slavery. She argues that nakedness was a key historical construct on which morality, aesthetics, and scientific practice have drawn significantly. During this talk, Levine discussed these ideas as she engaged the audience in a conversation around the question provocatively asked by Marcus Woods: “What do we want to learn from the visual archive of slavery?” This event was co-sponsored by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and the Center for Australian, New Zealand, and Pacific Studies.

October 12, 2017 | Featuring Reverend Ken Bedell. In his latest book, Realizing the Civil Rights Dream: Diagnosing and Treating American Racism (2017), Ken Bedell argues that American society has not moved beyond white supremacy, suggesting that the ideal of “equality for all” primarily benefits white society and culture. Through examining our failure, Bedell offers hope and a model for cultural change, which includes identifying the goals for a twenty-first century civil rights movement and defining the role of the academy in combating racism. Drawing on his lifetime of experience as a scholar, minister, and Department of Education administrator, author Ken Bedell led a lunchtime discussion about the crisis of racism in America, addressing questions such as: Why is it so difficult to make civil rights a reality for all Americans? And how can we fulfill the dream of full participation for all in America's future?

June 2, 2017 | Can the new science of mind and brain help overcome longstanding perceived divisions between believers of different faiths? Members of one faith may think of members of another faith as fundamentally different from themselves. Viewed through the lens of modern cognitive and brain science, however, the basic characteristics of a brain are the same no matter where it lives or in which religious context it develops. Thus, it is likely that the brains of diverse believers actually manifest belief similarly, and that shared neuro-cognitive pathways lead to the development of belief across disparate faiths. “The Cognition of Belief” conference will convene leading scholars on religious cognition and feature scientific research demonstrating the embeddedness of religious belief in basic elements of human cognition, which are common to human beings across cultures and faiths. This meeting is the capstone convening of a larger project on religious cognition in the United States and Afghanistan, led by a Georgetown University research team and funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

June 2, 2017 | Can the new science of mind and brain help overcome longstanding perceived divisions between believers of different faiths? Members of one faith may think of members of another faith as fundamentally different from themselves. Viewed through the lens of modern cognitive and brain science, however, the basic characteristics of a brain are the same no matter where it lives or in which religious context it develops. Thus, it is likely that the brains of diverse believers actually manifest belief similarly, and that shared neuro-cognitive pathways lead to the development of belief across disparate faiths. “The Cognition of Belief” conference will convene leading scholars on religious cognition and feature scientific research demonstrating the embeddedness of religious belief in basic elements of human cognition, which are common to human beings across cultures and faiths. This meeting is the capstone convening of a larger project on religious cognition in the United States and Afghanistan, led by a Georgetown University research team and funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

June 2, 2017 | Can the new science of mind and brain help overcome longstanding perceived divisions between believers of different faiths? Members of one faith may think of members of another faith as fundamentally different from themselves. Viewed through the lens of modern cognitive and brain science, however, the basic characteristics of a brain are the same no matter where it lives or in which religious context it develops. Thus, it is likely that the brains of diverse believers actually manifest belief similarly, and that shared neuro-cognitive pathways lead to the development of belief across disparate faiths. “The Cognition of Belief” conference will convene leading scholars on religious cognition and feature scientific research demonstrating the embeddedness of religious belief in basic elements of human cognition, which are common to human beings across cultures and faiths. This meeting is the capstone convening of a larger project on religious cognition in the United States and Afghanistan, led by a Georgetown University research team and funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

February 14, 2017 | During its seventh year, the Education and Social Justice Project awarded summer fellowships to five students who spent three weeks with institutions engaged in efforts to promote social justice through education in Rwanda, Jordan, Kenya, Slovenia, and Mexico. The 2016 fellows presented their research findings and experiences abroad before answering questions from interested applicants for the upcoming year. Mariam Diefallah worked in Rwanda and discovered that education is a viable method to heal the social and psychological challenges associated with transgenerational trauma. Mariam's research reveals that Jesuit education enables students to create a positive identity and helps with the reconciliation process. Jonathan Thrall focused his research on the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) in Jordan. After investigating the multiple forms of discrimination that refugees in Jordan encounter, Jonathan argues that JRS plays an integral role in community building and engendering inclusivity and diversity during and after the refugee resettlement process. Khaliyah Legette conducted interviews and research in Kenya. Her research reveals that three separate programs established by Father Angelo D’Agostino, S.J., which focus on holistic healing for children with HIV/AIDS, enhance these children's abilities to navigate Kenyan social dynamics. Sarah Jannarone examined the only Jesuit-run residential college in Slovenia. She argues that their Magis program offers services to students that integrate academic, spiritual, and personal formation, including professional growth opportunities, thereby educating the whole person through informal education programs. Finally, Carolyn Vilter spent three weeks conducting research in Mexico City to understand how different stakeholders view and address the challenges associated with Central American migration through Mexico.

May 6-10, 2016 | The fifteenth Building Bridges Seminar, chaired by Professor Daniel A. Madigan, S.J., was held at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and the Airlie Center in Warrenton, Virginia. On the first afternoon, a public panel discussion on "Monotheism and Its Complexities” featured Richard Bauckham, Asma Afsaruddin, Christoph Schwöbel, and Sajjad Rizvi providing an overview of the issues the seminar would entertain. Daniel Madigan, S.J., moderated the conversation. During the succeeding three days, selected texts from the Bible, the Qur’an and hadith, the Christian tradition, and the Islamic tradition were studied in plenary and small group sessions. Each morning, the day’s theme and texts were introduced by a lecturer and a respondent. Thus Richard Bauckham spoke on “Worship of the one God in the Biblical witness and the complexities it raises,” with Maria Massi Dakake responding; Asma Afsaruddin on “The affirmation of God’s unity and unicity in Qur’an and hadith and the questions it poses,” with Sidney Griffith responding; Christoph Schwöbel, on “Grappling with the unity question in the elaboration of Christian doctrine,” with Martin Nguyen responding; and Sajjad Rizvi, on “Safeguarding tawhid in the elaboration of the Islamic tradition,” with Janet Soskice responding. The 2016 seminar’s topic, “Affirming the Unity of God,” was perhaps the most central and challenging theological theme that Christian-Muslim dialogue has to address. In previous years, Building Bridges considered subjects such as prayer, justice and rights, religion and science, death and the afterlife, which can be addressed by each tradition almost in isolation from the other. However, on the question of monotheism, Muslims and Christians have been directly and forcefully engaged with one another from the beginning of the Islamic tradition in the Qur’an.

March 31, 2017 | As President DeGioia reminded us in a message to the Georgetown community on November 29, 2016, as an institution and as a community, “we will continue to engage in constructive dialogue, maintain our commitment to freedom of speech, and hold each other to the very highest standards of civility and respect.” These commitments may sound different than they did prior to the 2016 election. What does engagement look like when we may find it challenging to recognize the viewpoints of those with whom we disagree; difficult to seek connections where few or none may appear to exist; and nearly impossible to reach greater understanding across differences of opinion, perspective, and identity? How do we build common ground amid increased polarization? How can we learn to hold constructive dialogue with those whose experiences, identities, and perspectives are not only different from but seem to challenge or threaten our own? This year’s Doyle Engaging Difference Symposium explored the challenges of fortifying democracy and flourishing amid the turbulence created by the 2016 elections. The symposium brought together a diverse panel of thought leaders to discuss this timely issue, followed by an audience discussion to continue the conversation.

March 2, 2017 | Political systems across the world have seen stunning upheavals in recent years, as voters fueled by anger and frustration have upset the established order. The historic Brexit vote, the election of Donald Trump, and the growing popularity of right-wing political parties across Europe serve as just a few examples of this global phenomenon. Pankaj Mishra—one of the most original and incisive public intellectuals working in English today—came to Georgetown for a public conversation centered on his acclaimed new book, Age of Anger: A History of the Present. In the book Mishra links up the political anger in the United States, the United Kingdom, and in right-wing-friendly France to the anger in Turkey, India, and elsewhere, and proposes that all this anger has a common source: the resentment articulated by Rousseau and then by Nietzsche, the anger of “young provincials against a largely metropolitan civilization of slick movers and shakers that seemed to deny them an authentic and rooted existence.” Mishra was in conversation with author and Berkley Center Senior Fellow Paul Elie, editor of Mishra’s books Temptations of the West and From the Ruins of Empire.

February 24, 2017 | An untold number of interfaith and intrafaith initiatives respond to the violence and uneasy tensions of our times. Especially where conflicts touch on religious identities or where leaders fuel fires with aspersions of “others,” these efforts aim to confront root causes of tensions that touch on religious beliefs and practices. At their best, with careful, persistent work, interfaith efforts address deep differences and wounded memories in sensitive but effective ways. A World Faiths Development Dialogue report supported by the GHR Foundation explores the history of interfaith work and ideas and theories that inspire it. Panelists discussed the report as they explore future directions for the work and institutions involved.

January 18, 2017 | The American Pilgrimage Project is a university partnership with StoryCorps, devoted to gathering the American people’s stories of religious faith in recording sessions conducted around the country. In Baltimore, Ralph Moore told his wife, Dana, of challenging racism in his church as a young man; in Charleston, West Virginia, ministers Ronald English and James Patterson recalled Reverend English’s work with Martin Luther King, Jr., during the civil rights movement. In Riggs, they shared their stories with the audience and reflected on them with one another. Paralleling the project's goals, the event took a fresh, informal, conversational approach to questions of religious faith and its role in our society.

April 10, 2014 | The American experience of democracy is inextricably bound with the country's history of religious and cultural pluralism. Yet in recent years, deep divides rooted in politics and ideology have challenged the American ideal. How can people of different faith traditions, as well as those who claim no religious affiliation, work together to enrich civic life in America? Georgetown convened two panels of leading scholars, journalists, and authors to examine this question. During the first panel, scholars and journalists discussed how our diverse traditions—religious and secular—can help in realizing the common good. A second panel with writers of diverse backgrounds explored how questions with a religious dimension are taken up in literature and specifically in their own work. Following each session, panelists, students, and the wider community were invited to break into smaller groups and continue the conversation in Tents of Dialogue on the university's front lawn. The event was part of the Faith, Culture, and the Common Good conference at Georgetown April 9-11, 2014. The conference was part of the Courtyard of the Gentiles initiative, a structure for permanent dialogue, created by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Culture in 2010. Georgetown University, the Pontifical Council for Culture, and the Archdiocese of Washington cosponsored the conference.

March 30, 2009 | The "Wenzhou Model" is often touted in China as a successful model of rural economic development and rural industrialization. Based on privatized household production, flourishing commodity markets, and rapid urbanization and industrialization, the local people of Wenzhou have rapidly transformed themselves from being one of China's poorest rural areas in the 1970s to one of its most prosperous today. This talk showed how the Wenzhou Model as described by economists and sociologists has ignored a highly visible phenomenon, the ritual economy and revival of expenditures on popular religious activities. Dr. Mayfair Yang suggested that the ritual economy cannot be ignored in any analysis of rural economic prosperity. Slides from anthropological fieldwork in 1991-2008 illustrated the many dimensions of ritual economy: deity temples, religious processions and festivals, Buddhist and Daoist temples, Protestant and Catholic churches, life-cycle rituals, and lineage ancestor rituals.

March 26, 2009 | Over the course of the last half-century, evidence from China has been used first to support and later to confound simplistic arguments about the decline of religion in the face of modernity. Without launching a defense of secularization theory in general, Dr. Michael Szonyi argued that there is something to be gained from situating scholarship on Chinese religion in relation to recent debates in the theory. He suggested on the one hand that secularization theory can be a useful tool in understanding the modern history of religions in China and on the other that thinking about what secularization has meant in China is crucial to a comparative global history of religion and modernity. He also argued that attention to the course of secularization both as a historical process and as a political ideology may help us better understand the religious policies of the People's Republic of China today.

April 8, 2016 | Issues of religion and world affairs are as salient in the media today as in 2006 when the Berkley Center was founded. And unfortunately much of the news is still negative. Still, there is every reason for hope. The religious people who comprise about four-fifths of humanity overwhelmingly reject faith-inspired violence and identify with values of justice and peace. And religious institutions—communities of worship, schools, hospitals, and aid organizations of different kinds—take roles in world affairs that affirm the essential dignity of human beings and advance the common good. How can we better tap the positive currents within and across traditions to advance deeper interreligious understanding? And how should we think about—and act on—the changing relationship between religion, violence, and peace in today’s world? The Berkley Center Tenth Anniversary Symposium convened thought leaders and practitioners to address these crucial questions. The symposium was preceded by a keynote address by Madeleine Albright on the afternoon of April 7.

April 22, 2015 | Rapid modernization takes various forms in the different societies of Southeast Asia, not least in the nature and pace of changing gender roles. Religious institutions react differently to these changes, with some deliberately supporting equal rights for men and women, others calling modern “feminisms” into question. The topic generates fierce debate, often with religious overtones. This panel discussion aims to generate a frank conversation of contemporary tensions, opportunities, progress and setbacks involving gender relations, focusing on religion’s role in the matter. The Berkley Center’s Katherine Marshall will moderate a panel including Siti Syamsiyatun (Indonesia), Farina So (Cambodia), Eleanor Dionisio (Philippines), Juliane Schober, Nancy Smith-Hefner, and Bernie Adeney-Risakotta.

April 8, 2016 | Issues of religion and world affairs are as salient in the media today as in 2006 when the Berkley Center was founded. And unfortunately much of the news is still negative. Still, there is every reason for hope. The religious people who comprise about four-fifths of humanity overwhelmingly reject faith-inspired violence and identify with values of justice and peace. And religious institutions—communities of worship, schools, hospitals, and aid organizations of different kinds—take roles in world affairs that affirm the essential dignity of human beings and advance the common good. How can we better tap the positive currents within and across traditions to advance deeper interreligious understanding? And how should we think about—and act on—the changing relationship between religion, violence, and peace in today’s world? The Berkley Center Tenth Anniversary Symposium convened thought leaders and practitioners to address these crucial questions. The symposium was preceded by a keynote address by Madeleine Albright on the afternoon of April 7.

April 19, 2012 | What is distinctive about Millennials? How do their personal and public values differ from those of previous generations? How will they shape the 2012 election and America's future? The Berkley Center convened authors Joshua Foer and Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, Sojourners founder Jim Wallis, and student leaders from around the country to discuss these questions. This event was cosponsored by the Division of Student Affairs. The event followed on the release, earlier in the day, of a groundbreaking national survey of 18-24 year olds on faith, values, and the 2012 election. To learn more visit the Millennial Values Survey Release event page and the Berkley Center's Campus Conversation on Values page.

October 4, 2012 | The Berkley Center and the Public Religion Research Institute launched a timely survey that explores how 18-25 year-olds view values, politics, and the 2012 election. The survey provides new insights about the values and religious beliefs that animate young adults, and how these factors impact their voting preferences and views on a range of topics including affirmative action, economic policy, and social issues. It also provides clues about what young people think about the presidential candidates and the campaign. The new survey is a follow-up to a study released in April and is part of the Millennial Values Symposium that brought student leaders to Washington, D.C. from around the country for a series of conversations about values and the future of American democracy. The day featured discussions with elected officials and media leaders, as well as an event on the Future of American Politics featuring Millennial Mayors Svante Myrick (Ithaca, New York) and Alex Morse (Holyoke, Massachusetts). Learn more about the event on the Berkley Center website.

September 24, 2014 | What are the most pressing issues at the intersection of faith and gender, and how can women of different faiths and views derive strength and meaning from their respective religions? A conference cosponsored by the the new web magazine altFem (from the founders of altMuslimah.com and altCatholicah.com), the Berkley Center’s project on Women, Religion, and the Family, and the World Faiths Development Dialogue explored these important questions. Panel discussions focused on: an examination and reframing of feminism to accommodate religious traditions; gender norms in religious dating and marriage; and achieving work-life balance among working mothers. Ashley McGuire, co-founder, altFem Magazine (moderator) Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director, Judicial Crisis Network Jamillah Karim, independent scholar (formerly Associate Professor of Religion, Spelman College) Melissa Langsam Braunstein, staff writer, Acculturated and contributing writer, Kveller

April 11, 2014 | The American experience of democracy is inextricably bound with the country's history of religious and cultural pluralism. Yet in recent years, deep divides rooted in politics and ideology have challenged the American ideal. How can people of different faith traditions, as well as those who claim no religious affiliation, work together to enrich civic life in America? Georgetown convened two panels of leading scholars, journalists, and authors to examine this question. During the first panel, scholars and journalists discussed how our diverse traditions—religious and secular—can help in realizing the common good. A second panel with writers of diverse backgrounds explored how questions with a religious dimension are taken up in literature and specifically in their own work. Following each session, panelists, students, and the wider community were invited to break into smaller groups and continue the conversation in Tents of Dialogue on the university's front lawn. The event was part of the Faith, Culture, and the Common Good conference at Georgetown April 9-11, 2014. The conference was part of the Courtyard of the Gentiles initiative, a structure for permanent dialogue, created by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Culture in 2010. Georgetown University, the Pontifical Council for Culture, and the Archdiocese of Washington cosponsored the conference.

October 15, 2013 | It is often said that racism is America's "original sin." In 2013, we mark 150 years since the Emancipation Proclamation and 50 years since the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King's momentous "I have a dream" speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Yet race remains salient in American public life. This was never more evident than in the impassioned reactions to the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida last spring and the acquittal of George Zimmerman. How is religion a force for racial reconciliation? How is religion involved in maintaining racial division? Does 11:00 on Sunday morning remain, as Dr. King lamented in a 1968 sermon at the Washington National Cathedral, "the most segregated hour in America?" As immigration and changing demographics have reshaped the religious landscape, how will Christians relate to their neighbors of other faiths? We will study important stories of shared history, theological similarities and differences, and aspirations for social justice that both Christians and Muslims share as communities of faith. Religious differences provide fertile ground for animosity and misunderstanding. Over the years, both Muslims and Christians have dealt with extremists who distort the character of true belief. Significant, intelligent dialogue and the development of authentic friendships across religious lines are key to deepening Christians' and Muslims' faith. Reverend Jim Wallis is a bestselling author, public theologian, and commentator on religion and public life, faith, and politics. Wallis is the president and founder of Sojourners, a progressive Christian grassroots movement that advocates spirituality and social change in America. He is editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine and a prolific author. His latest book is On God's Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn't Learned about Serving the Common Good (2013). Other publications include Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street — A Moral Compass for the New Economy (2010) and The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America (2008). Since 2010 Wallis has served as a research fellow and visiting professor in the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.

April 3, 2014 | Interfaith marriages are on the rise in the United States, with some sources estimating that they make up as much as 45 percent of marriages. Two experts on the subject—Erika Seamon, author of Interfaith Marriage in America: The Transformation of Religion and Christianity, and Susan Katz Miller, author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family discussed their research on interfaith marriages, the potential benefits and challenges of these unions, and their predictions on the future of interfaith cooperation. Several Georgetown students also shared their personal experiences of being in interfaith families or relationships.

April 19, 2012 | Chairman and CEO of the Special Olympics Timothy Shriver speaks on community and authenticity in response to a groundbreaking national survey of 18-24 year olds on faith, values, and the 2012 election. To learn more visit the Millennial Values Survey Release event page: http://bit.ly/Iozl6y What is distinctive about Millennials? How do their personal and public values differ from those of previous generations? How will they shape the 2012 election and America's future? The Berkley Center convened sixteen student leaders from around the country to discuss these questions. This event was cosponsored by the Division of Student Affairs and made possible by a grant from the Ford Foundation.

October 23, 2014 | Since the Arab Awakening, the question of women's rights has become, in the view of Western commentators, the litmus test for Muslim societies in the age of democracy and liberalism. The issue is often framed as the opposition between liberal advocates of secular democracy and religious opponents of women's full equality. A panel of scholars, including the Berkley Center's José Casanova and Jocelyne Cesari, will examine this binary opposition and reframe the debate around Islam and women's rights. Participants will provide a broader comparison across religious traditions and cultures through a discussion of religion, secularism, democracy, and gender equality in France, Iran, Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt, and the United States. This event is cosponsored by the Berkley Center and the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security.

September 27, 2005 | Jacques Berlinerblau's lecture distinguished different types of philo-Semitism, mindful that admiration for Jews may be based on motivations that run the gamut from sinister to pragmatic to altruistic. The subject of anti-Semitism is, quite possibly, one of the most thoroughly canvassed avenues of inquiry in the entire scholarly discipline of Jewish Studies. Philo-Semitism, by contrast, remains relatively unexplored and virtually untheorized. What does it mean, it was asked, to be a philo-Semite? Berlinerblau considered two major possibilities: should we regard such a person, using the terminology of Zygmunt Bauman, as an individual who sees Jews as radically unique and hence irrationally embraces the extreme of Judeophilia? Or, is genuine admiration for Jews and Judaism a possibility with redemptive significance in the post-Holocaust world?

April 25, 2013 | In the United States and many other countries, debates about homosexuality have been prominent in the public sphere for decades. In China they are new. What was once a taboo topic is now emerging in traditional and social media. And as in the United States, controversy has assumed a religious dimension centered on Christianity. Some members of a growing and increasingly vocal Evangelical community—including popular figures in the world of entertainment—have publicly condemned homosexuality as sinful. At the same time, China has seen an upsurge of gay and lesbian participation in religious and spiritual movements, including Christianity. Huang Ping, assistant professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Berkley Center post-doctoral fellow, discussed how these developments are transforming the cultural, social, and religious landscape in China in new and fascinating ways.

April 11, 2014 | The American experience of democracy is inextricably bound with the country's history of religious and cultural pluralism. Yet in recent years, deep divides rooted in politics and ideology have challenged the American ideal. How can people of different faith traditions, as well as those who claim no religious affiliation, work together to enrich civic life in America? Georgetown convened two panels of leading scholars, journalists, and authors to examine this question. During the first panel, scholars and journalists discussed how our diverse traditions—religious and secular—can help in realizing the common good. A second panel with writers of diverse backgrounds explored how questions with a religious dimension are taken up in literature and specifically in their own work. Following each session, panelists, students, and the wider community were invited to break into smaller groups and continue the conversation in Tents of Dialogue on the university's front lawn. The event was part of the Faith, Culture, and the Common Good conference at Georgetown April 9-11, 2014. The conference was part of the Courtyard of the Gentiles initiative, a structure for permanent dialogue, created by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Culture in 2010. Georgetown University, the Pontifical Council for Culture, and the Archdiocese of Washington cosponsored the conference.

February 10th, 2012 | The practice of religion has been observed in some form in all societies since the beginning of history. If it is the case that historically "where two or three are gathered" religion will be manifest in the communal life of the people, how integral is religion to the formation and stability of human personhood, culture, and society? As part of its standing seminar series on "Religion as Integral to Human Experience," the Religious Freedom Project explores this question on Friday, February 10, 2012 with noted sociologists Christian Smith, author of What is a Person?, and Phil Zuckerman, author of Society without God.

October 14, 2015 | Political insecurity, the departure of international forces, a decrease in funding for socio-economic programs, and the subsequent decline in social services provided by national and international NGOs in Afghanistan are projected to create a negative impact on the lives of the Afghan people—and children in particular—in coming years. A panel of contributors to Children of Afghanistan: The Path to Peace (edited by Jennifer Heath and Ashraf Zahedi), focused on Afghan children’s resilience. Panelists discussed the ways in which access to social services and educational programs, along with implementation of well-designed public policies, can significantly improve the lives of Afghan children and their participation in building a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan. Participants also explored the range of issues that impact children’s lives and take stock of what has been achieved for Afghan children during the last 14 years. They addressed the social, economic, political, and legal changes necessary for creating permanent change and opportunities for young people in Afghanistan.

April 18, 2007 | The Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and the Berkley Center symposium on "What it Means To Be a Muslim in America" featured a diverse panel, composed of John Esposito, Salman Ahmad, Imam Yahya Hendi, Sherman A. Jackson, Ingrid Mattson, and Hadia Mubarak. The panel discussed four distinct and potentially competing definitions of Muslim identity. The symposium also focused on respectful conversation regarding religion and faith and the possibilities for improving relations between the Muslim world and the West.

January 11, 2007 | Georgetown University celebrated World Migrants and Refugees Day by hosting the Honorable Ellen Sauerbrey, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration. Sauerbrey spoke on the needs and problems, as well as the positive potentialities, of migrant families.

February 15, 2013 | The last several years have seen renewed interest in the issue of diversity on college campuses, with issues of interreligious understanding and LGBTQ inclusion at the forefront. What divisions persist along lines of religious or sexual orientation, and how can we move beyond tolerance to understanding? Chris Stedman, author of Faitheist and Harvard LGBTQ activist, examined issues around respectfully engaging religious and sexual diversity. Stedman draws on his work organizing interfaith and 
secular communities, his academic study of religion, 
and his own experiences to argue for the necessity of 
bridging the chasm between atheists and the religious. Chris Geidner, senior political reporter at BuzzFeed, moderated the discussion, beginning with a dialogue with Stedman about his work and current LGBTQ faith and atheist issues. Geidner has been covering the LGBTQ community's advances in public life over the past decade. Joining Stedman and Geidner were be Shiva Subbaraman, director of Georgetown's LGBTQ Center, and student participants. Chris Stedman is an atheist working to 
foster positive and productive dialogue and
 collaborative action between faith communities and the nonreligious. He writes for Huffington Post Gay
 Voices, Huffington Post Religion, The Washington Post 
On Faith, Religion Dispatches, and Relevant. He received his B.A. in Religion from Augsburg College and an M.A. in Religion from Meadville 
Lombard Theological School at the University of 
Chicago, for which he was awarded the Billings Prize
 for Most Outstanding Scholastic Achievement. Chris Geidner is the senior political reporter at BuzzFeed. Prior to joining BuzzFeed in 2012, Geidner had been the senior political editor at Washington, DC's Metro Weekly. Over the course of his time covering the national LGBT political and legal scene, he has been awarded the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Magazine Article and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association's Sarah Pettit Memorial Award for Excellence in LGBT Media. Before moving to DC in 2009, Geidner had worked as an attorney in Ohio, at a private firm and for the State of Ohio. Sivagami (Shiva) Subbaraman is Director of the LGBTQ Resource Center at Georgetown University. She has worked extensively across differing communities and groups, and to weave LGBTQ into the larger tapestry of the Georgetown Community. Before coming to Georgetown University, she worked as Associate Director at the office of LGBT Equity and as Assistant Director at the Office of Human Relations programs at the University of Maryland. Additionally, she has taught at Macalester College, Drake University, and the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Her areas of research interests are US women of color literature, culture, and feminist theories. An active feminist, Subbaraman is on the board of several feminist community organizations. Additionally, she regularly gives talks at national conferences and is a member of The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, and the Modern Languages Association.

April 22, 2015 | Rapid modernization takes various forms in the different societies of Southeast Asia, not least in the nature and pace of changing gender roles. Religious institutions react differently to these changes, with some deliberately supporting equal rights for men and women, others calling modern “feminisms” into question. The topic generates fierce debate, often with religious overtones. This panel discussion aims to generate a frank conversation of contemporary tensions, opportunities, progress and setbacks involving gender relations, focusing on religion’s role in the matter. The Berkley Center’s Katherine Marshall will moderate a panel including Siti Syamsiyatun (Indonesia), Farina So (Cambodia), Eleanor Dionisio (Philippines), Juliane Schober, Nancy Smith-Hefner, and Bernie Adeney-Risakotta.

April 22, 2013 | In this seventh event in Georgetown's Faith & Culture series, novelist Alice McDermott discussed her body of work, its sources in her Catholic faith and in the modern literary tradition, and her forthcoming novel, Someone. The Berkley Center's Paul Elie lead the conversation. Alice McDermott is an award-winning author and the Richard A. Macksey Professor for Distinguished Teaching in the Humanities at John Hopkins University. Her novels include: A Bigamist's Daughter (1982), That Night (1987), At Weddings and Wakes (1992), Charming Billy (1998), Child of My Heart (2002), and After This (2006). Her seventh novel, Someone, will be published in September. Paul Elie is a senior fellow at the Berkley Center and the moderator of the university's Faith & Culture lecture series, sponsored by the Office of the President. He is the author of two books: The Life You Save May Be Your Own (2003), a group portrait of four American Catholic writers, and Reinventing Bach (2012), an account of the transformation of Bach's music in our time by great musicians working with new technology. Both books were National Book Critics Circle Award finalists.

September 21, 2012 | This panel is part of Contraception and Conscience: A Symposium on Religious Liberty, Women's Health, and the HHS Rule on Provision of Birth Control Coverage for Employees, a conference examining the legal, theological, health, equality, and ethical issues relating to the recent Rule promulgated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on "Coverage of Preventive Services Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." The symposium brought together legal, religious, and cultural scholars and practitioners for a day-long conversation about the increasingly contentious public debate surrounding the HHS Rule requiring employers to subsidize preventive health services for employees, the religious accommodations in the HHS rule, and the lawsuits filed by religious objectors challenging the rule. For more on this event, visit: http://bit.ly/TOpHCe For more on the Berkley Center, visit: http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu What is the nature of the HHS Rule and its religious accommodations? What is the status of the more than two dozen lawsuits challenging the HHS Rule? How are the courts likely to resolve the statutory and constitutional issues? How do claims of religious conscience apply to institutional employers, including for-profit employers? What are the relevant state interests—should the Rule be viewed as simply about enabling access to preventive health care, or also about ensuring equality in the workplace? How do these cases reflect broader trends in the development of the law of religious liberty? How should HHS frame its promised additional religious accommodation? Martin Lederman, Georgetown University Law Center Louise Melling, American Civil Liberties Union Melissa Rogers, Wake Forest University Divinity School, Center for Religion and Public Affairs Robert Vischer, University of St. Thomas School of Law Lori Windham, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty The conference was co-sponsored by the Georgetown University Law Center and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. It was made possible through a grant from the Ford Foundation.

September 24, 2014 | What are the most pressing issues at the intersection of faith and gender, and how can women of different faiths and views derive strength and meaning from their respective religions? A conference cosponsored by the the new web magazine altFem (from the founders of altMuslimah.com and altCatholicah.com), the Berkley Center’s project on Women, Religion, and the Family, and the World Faiths Development Dialogue explored these important questions. Panel discussions focused on: an examination and reframing of feminism to accommodate religious traditions; gender norms in religious dating and marriage; and achieving work-life balance among working mothers. Crystal Corman, program manager, World Faiths Development Dialogue (moderator) Susan Katz Miller, author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family Salma Abugidier, columnist, AltMuslimah and founding board member, Peaceful Families Project Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, senior editor, The Federalist

March 13 2007 | Dr. Elizabeth Bucar, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, discussed how two distinct cases of public hijabi practices can teach us about the productive power of the veil. Bucar explored the function of the veil in shifting Iranian political and ethical norms. Her presentation featured images from her fieldwork in Iran in 2004.

November 8, 2011 | One year out from the 2012 presidential election, Public Religion Research Institute released the findings of the 2011 American Values Survey, a major new public opinion survey that provides a window into what Americans think about the state of the economy, the GOP primary field, and the Obama presidency. This major new survey, along with PRRI's panel of experts, explored the consequences of the misgivings some key groups have toward Mitt Romney's Mormon faith, and examined the roots of unfavorable evaluations of the Obama presidency. The survey also provides new findings on attitudes about economic inequality and equal opportunity, values that animate the swell of public protests in the Occupy Wall Street movement and resonate with Americans generally, but do not strike a chord with the Tea Party movement. The American Values Survey, which is conducted by PRRI each fall, is a large, nationally representative public opinion survey of American attitudes on important issues at the intersection of religion, values, and politics.

April 8, 2010 | Jewish feminism has existed in many forms since the 19th century, but it took a particular turn during the late 1960s in response to the early stirrings of second wave American feminism. Its effects were more radical and far reaching within Judaism than any previous movement because it challenged fundamental assumptions about gender and Jewish law that were grounded in the western enlightenment. Riv-Ellen Prell examined the ways in which gendered boundaries have challenged efforts to create American Jewish practices since the late 19th century and why Jewish feminism(s) continues to complicate, rather than resolve, the challenge. She discussed the meaning of equality in a pluralist system in order to understand the cultural dynamics of boundaries. The discussion drew on both ethnographic studies of American Jewish women in egalitarian Jewish communities and Jewish feminist writing about equality. Riv-Ellen Prell, an anthropologist, is Professor of American Studies at the University of Minnesota where she is affiliated with the Center for Jewish Studies and the Department of Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies. Among her publications are Gender, Class and Jewishness: New Approaches to the Study of Identity (2011), Fighting to Become Americans: Jews, Gender, and the Anxiety of Assimilation (1999), and Prayer and Community: the Havurah in American Judaism (1989). Her edited volumes include Women Remaking American Judaism (2007) and Interpreting Women's Lives: Personal Narratives and Feminist Theory (1989). She is also working on a forthcoming book on Jewish youth, cultural citizenship, and the post-war period in the United States. Prell holds a BA from the University of Southern California and a MA and PhD from the University of Chicago.

November 11, 2015 | In their standout new book The Fellowship, Philip and Carol Zaleski tell the story of the lively group of English friends and writers whose members produced The Hobbit, Mere Christianity, The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and other great works at the intersection of literature and religious belief. The Zaleskis will share excerpts from the book and engage in a discussion with author and Berkley Center senior fellow Paul Elie, who arranged the book’s publication.

April 10, 2014 | The American experience of democracy is inextricably bound with the country's history of religious and cultural pluralism. Yet in recent years, deep divides rooted in politics and ideology have challenged the American ideal. How can people of different faith traditions, as well as those who claim no religious affiliation, work together to enrich civic life in America? Georgetown convened two panels of leading scholars, journalists, and authors to examine this question. During the first panel, scholars and journalists discussed how our diverse traditions—religious and secular—can help in realizing the common good. A second panel with writers of diverse backgrounds explored how questions with a religious dimension are taken up in literature and specifically in their own work. Following each session, panelists, students, and the wider community were invited to break into smaller groups and continue the conversation in Tents of Dialogue on the university's front lawn. The event was part of the Faith, Culture, and the Common Good conference at Georgetown April 9-11, 2014. The conference was part of the Courtyard of the Gentiles initiative, a structure for permanent dialogue, created by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Culture in 2010. Georgetown University, the Pontifical Council for Culture, and the Archdiocese of Washington cosponsored the conference. Panel: Alice McDermott, Author Robert Pinsky, Boston University Ayana Mathis, Author Alan Lightman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Paul Elie, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs (Moderator)

September 24, 2014 | What are the most pressing issues at the intersection of faith and gender, and how can women of different faiths and views derive strength and meaning from their respective religions? A conference cosponsored by the the new web magazine altFem (from the founders of altMuslimah.com and altCatholicah.com), the Berkley Center’s project on Women, Religion, and the Family, and the World Faiths Development Dialogue explored these important questions. Panel discussions focused on: an examination and reframing of feminism to accommodate religious traditions; gender norms in religious dating and marriage; and achieving work-life balance among working mothers. Asma Uddin & Ashley McGuire, co-founders, altFem Magazine Katherine Marshall, executive director, World Faiths Development Dialogue and senior fellow, Berkley Center Aisha Rahman, executive director, Karamah: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights (moderator) Neylan McBaine, founder, The Mormon Women Project and author of Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact Christy Vines, executive director, Center for Women, Faith & Leadership, Institute for Global Engagement Shahed Amanullah, CEO & co-founder of LaunchPosse Eve Tushnet, author of Gay and Catholic: Accepting My Sexuality, Finding Community, Living My Faith

October 22, 2013 | It is often said that racism is America's "original sin." In 2013, we mark 150 years since the Emancipation Proclamation and 50 years since the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King's momentous "I have a dream" speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Yet race remains salient in American public life. This was never more evident than in the impassioned reactions to the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida last spring and the acquittal of George Zimmerman. How is religion a force for racial reconciliation? How is religion involved in maintaining racial division? Does 11:00 on Sunday morning remain, as Dr. King lamented in a 1968 sermon at the Washington National Cathedral, "the most segregated hour in America?" As immigration and changing demographics have reshaped the religious landscape, how will Christians relate to their neighbors of other faiths? We will study important stories of shared history, theological similarities and differences, and aspirations for social justice that both Christians and Muslims share as communities of faith. Religious differences provide fertile ground for animosity and misunderstanding. Over the years, both Muslims and Christians have dealt with extremists who distort the character of true belief. Significant, intelligent dialogue and the development of authentic friendships across religious lines are key to deepening Christians' and Muslims' faith. Reverend Jim Wallis is a bestselling author, public theologian, and commentator on religion and public life, faith, and politics. Wallis is the president and founder of Sojourners, a progressive Christian grassroots movement that advocates spirituality and social change in America. He is editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine and a prolific author. His latest book is On God's Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn't Learned about Serving the Common Good (2013). Other publications include Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street — A Moral Compass for the New Economy (2010) and The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America (2008). Since 2010 Wallis has served as a research fellow and visiting professor in the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.