Podcast appearances and mentions of berkley center

How religious was the 80s creative scene? Very. At least according to Paul Elie, whose intriguing new cultural history, The Last Supper, charts the art, faith, sex and controversy of the 1980s. Elie argues that this was the age of what calls “crytpo-religious” art - a intensely creative decade in which religious imagery and motifs were often detached from conventional belief. Beginning in 1979 with with Dylan's “Christian” album Slow Train Coming and ending with Sinéad O'Connor's notorious SNL tearing up of a photo of the Pope, Elie presents the 80s as a "post-secular" era where religion remained culturally significant despite declining traditional belief. And he argues that artists as diverse as Leonard Cohen, Salman Rushdie, Andy Warhol, U2, Robert Mapplethorpe and Wim Wenders all translated their religious upbringings into books, movies, songs and artwork that shaped a momentously creative decade. Five Key Takeaways* "Crypto-religious" art uses religious imagery and themes from a perspective other than conventional belief, forcing audiences to question what the artist actually believes and examine their own faith.* The "post-secular" era began around 1979 when it became clear that progressive secularization wasn't happening—instead, religion remained a persistent cultural force requiring honest engagement rather than wishful dismissal.* America's religious transformation in the 1980s saw the country shift from predominantly Christian to multi-religious due to immigration, while also developing a strong secular contingent, creating unprecedented religious diversity.* Artists as "controverts" were divided against themselves, torn between progressive cultural experiences and traditional religious backgrounds, using art to work through these internal contradictions rather than simply choosing sides.* The Rushdie affair marked a turning point when violence entered religious-cultural debates, hardening previously permeable boundaries between belief and unbelief, leading to more polarized positions like the "New Atheism" movement.Paul Elie is the author of The Life You Save May Be Your Own (2003) and Reinventing Bach (2012), both National Book Critics Circle Award finalists. He is a senior fellow in Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker. He lives in Brooklyn.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

America's Founders believed religion and liberty could not only coexist but be mutually reinforcing. Today, some influential intellectuals on the right are flatly denying that idea of alignment and arguing for society to be reordered around their vision of Christian orthodoxy.In this episode, Berny Belvedere, The UnPopulist's senior editor, sits down with Jerome Copulsky, research fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs and, from 2016 to 2017, senior advisor at the U.S. Department of State's Office of Religion and Global Affairs. The two discuss Copulsky's book, American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order, paying special attention to its chapter on the the current right-wing revolt—from groups such as postliberal Catholics and national conservatives—against America's founding liberal ideals.We hope you enjoy. © The UnPopulist, 2025Follow us on Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theunpopulist.net

A heavy complexity is on the shoulders of the young of our species in these years —  humans growing up in this time. At the same time, from the digital revolution and AI to the ecology and society, they have wisdom and instincts in their bones that will be essential if we are all to flourish and not merely survive this century. In November 2024, the Georgetown University Collaborative on Global Children's Issues brought Krista together with esteemed children's and young adult writer Jason Reynolds and Georgetown student Kessley Janvier. The encounter between the three of them spans generations from the 20s to the 40s to the 60s and extended out to a room of people of all ages and walks of life. The wisdom that unfolded is as much about who we will be and how we will be as what we have before us to do, each in our own lives.Jason Reynolds is a New York Times bestselling author of over 20 books for children and young adults. From 2020–2022 he served as National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. Among many honors, he has received the Newbury, Printz, and Coretta Scott King awards and in 2024 was named a MacArthur Fellow. He is on faculty at Lesley University for the Writing for Young People MFA Program.Kessley Janvier is a senior at Georgetown University, majoring in history. She's former president of the Georgetown University NAACP.  She has organized around reparations, as part of Hoyas Advocating for Slavery Accountability, and she has also led efforts to promote climate justice, police accountability, and racial justice.Special thanks this week to Gillian Huebner, Ian Manzi, Rabbi Rachel Gartner and Derek Goldman. On Being Young in America was sponsored by the Culture of Encounter Project and was convened by the Collaborative on Global Children's Issues, the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, and the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University in collaboration with The On Being Project.Find an excellent transcript of this show, edited by humans, on our show page. Sign yourself and others up for The Pause to be on our mailing list for all things On Being and to receive Krista's monthly Saturday morning newsletter, including a heads-up on new episodes, special offerings, recommendations, and event invitations.

Pico Iyer, essayist and author of numerous books including  “The Half Known Life:In Search of Paradise ” and most recently  “Aflame: Learning from Silence,” reflects on the death of Pope Francis and highlights the extraordinary impact Pope Francis’s life had, despite Iyer’s non-Christian faith. Pope Francis’s humility, simplicity, and actions, Iyer says, which exemplified his teachings had and continue to have a great impacted over Iyer’s spiritual life.  Paul Elie, religion scholar with the Berkley Center at Georgetown University, and author of “The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex and Controversy in the 1980s”  shares his first hand impressions of meeting Pope Francis and particularly how humble and unpretentious the Pope was.  Elie says some of Pope Francis’s early experiences growing up in Argentina shaped his more progressive world views and reflects on the legacy that Pope Francis leaves behind on the world and on the Catholic Church.         Guests: Pico Iyer  Travel writer and author of Aflame: Learning from Silence, The Art of Stillness : Adventures in Going Nowhere, and, Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells, “The Half Known Life:In Search of Paradise ”   Paul Elie  Senior Fellow with the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, and author of “The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex and Controversy in the 1980s” May 27, 2025       

Frank Schaeffer In Conversation with Jerome Copulsky, exploring his work and the themes of his book, American Heretics: Religious Adversaries Of Liberal Order_____LINKShttps://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/people/jerome-copulskyhttps://www.lovechildrenplanet.com/events/it-has-to-be-read-american-heretics-by-jerome-e-copulsky_____I have had the pleasure of talking to some of the leading authors, artists, activists, and change-makers of our time on this podcast, and I want to personally thank you for subscribing, listening, and sharing 100-plus episodes over 100,000 times.Please subscribe to this Podcast, In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer, on your favorite platform, and to my Substack, It Has to Be Said. Thanks! Every subscription helps create, build, sustain and put voice to this movement for truth. Subscribe to It Has to Be Said. The Profitable CreativeHey, Creative! Are you ready to discuss profits, the money, the ways to make it...Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the show_____In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer is a production of the George Bailey Morality in Public Life Fellowship. It is hosted by Frank Schaeffer, author of Fall In Love, Have Children, Stay Put, Save the Planet, Be Happy. Learn more at https://www.lovechildrenplanet.comFollow Frank on Substack, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and YouTube. https://frankschaeffer.substack.comhttps://www.facebook.com/frank.schaeffer.16https://twitter.com/Frank_Schaefferhttps://www.instagram.com/frank_schaeffer_arthttps://www.threads.net/@frank_schaeffer_arthttps://www.tiktok.com/@frank_schaefferhttps://www.youtube.com/c/FrankSchaefferYouTube In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer Podcast

Have a comment? Send us a text! (We read all of them but can't reply). Email us: Will@faithfulpoliticspodcast.comIn this thought-provoking episode of Faithful Politics, hosts Will Wright and Pastor Josh Burtram welcome back Jerome Copulsky, a research fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. They delve into the themes of Copulsky's book, American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order, which examines religious critiques of America's political foundations from the Revolutionary era to the present. Copulsky unpacks how various religious thinkers have rejected liberal democracy and envisioned alternative political and theological systems, including theocracy and biblically centered governance. The discussion navigates the intersections of faith, politics, and pluralism, exploring the fragility of liberal democracy and the tensions between religious liberty and political authority. The episode challenges listeners to critically examine the evolving role of religion in America's political landscape.Buy American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300241303/american-heretics/Guest Bio:Jerome Copulsky is a research fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. He is the author of American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order, a groundbreaking exploration of the theological critiques of America's founding principles and their implications for liberal democracy. Copulsky's scholarship focuses on political theology, religious pluralism, and the historical intersections of religion and politics. Support the showPlease Help Support the showhttps://donorbox.org/faithful-politics-podcastTo learn more about the show, contact our hosts, or recommend future guests, click on the links below: Website: https://www.faithfulpoliticspodcast.com/ Faithful Host: Josh@faithfulpoliticspodcast.com Political Host: Will@faithfulpoliticspodcast.com Twitter: @FaithfulPolitik Instagram: faithful_politics Facebook: FaithfulPoliticsPodcast LinkedIn: faithfulpolitics Subscribe to our Substack: https://faithfulpolitics.substack.com/

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveThe Declaration of Independence affirms that all human beings are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Yet the Declaration is silent about who this Creator is. Is it the Jewish deity or the Christian God? Or is it the god of the philosophers — the blind watchmaker of the Enlightenment? The Constitution, on the other hand, doesn't mention the divine at all, except for the phrase, “Year of Our Lord.”Mainstream liberals and conservatives, whatever they may think of the silence regarding God in our founding documents, believe in the American experiment. But as Jerome E. Copulsky writes in his new book, American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order, throughout American history there have been those who do not, radical groups who opposed the American project, root and branch, for being liberal, as opposed to Christian. In his book, Copulsky, professor at Georgetown's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, writes about the Loyalist churchmen who opposed the American revolution, the proslavery theologians of the 19th century, the “Theonomist” theocrats of the 20th century, and the “Integralists” of our own time.Jerome joins Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic to discuss his book, but as often happens in Wisdom of Crowds, the conversation takes an unexpected turn. Early on, Shadi presses Jerome to specify exactly what a secular liberal Founding really means for religious practice in the public sphere. Then Shadi submits his own interpretation of the modern state as an inherently secularizing force.Damir brings the question of the secularity of the American project to bear upon current events. To what extent was the American liberal state ever “neutral”? Or is technocratic liberalism the default, unspoken “religion” of the American state? Or was it, until Donald Trump came along? And is Trump, by filling his cabinet with representatives from various American ideologies, violating liberal neutrality, or simply exposing it for the fiction that it always was?In our bonus content for paid subscribers, Jerome discusses the National Conservative movement, as exemplified by intellectuals like Patrick Deneen and Adrian Vermeule, and its influence on Vice President-elect J.D. Vance. In the second Trump term this movement will have unprecedented access to power and, Jerome argues, pose a serious challenge to — and even a “betrayal” of — the American system.Required Reading* American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order by Jerome E. Copulsky (Amazon)* The Declaration of Independence (National Archives). * The Constitution of the United States (National Archives).* Everson v. Board of Education (FindLaw).* George Washington's Letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island (National Archives). * We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition by John Courtney Murray, S.J. (Amazon).* Common Good Constitutionalism by Adrian Vermeule (Amazon).* Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future by Patrick Deneen (Amazon). This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

Jerome Copulsky, a research fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, talks with Word&Way President Brian Kaylor about his new book American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order. He also discusses colonial Anglicans, debates during the Confederacy, and Christian Nationalism. Note: Don't forget to subscribe to our award-winning e-newsletter A Public Witness that helps you make sense of faith, culture, and politics. And order a copy of Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism by Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood. If you buy it directly from Chalice Press, they are offering 33% off the cover price when you use the promo code "BApodcast."

Dr. Nathan S. French A school field trip to Washington, D.C. is a formative rite of passage shared by many U.S. school students across the nation. Often, these are framed as “field trips.” Students may visit the White House, the U.S. Capitol Building, the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, Declaration of Independence (housed in the National Archive), the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Jefferson Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, or the Smithsonian Museum – among others. For many students, this is the first time they will connect the histories of their textbooks to items, artifacts, and buildings that they can see and feel. For those arriving to Washington, D.C. by airplane or bus, the field trip might also seem like a road trip. Road trips, often involving movement across the U.S. from city-to-city and state-to-state are often framed as quintessential American experiences. Americans have taken road trips to follow their favorite bands, to move to universities and new jobs, to visit the hall of fame of their favorite professional or collegiate sport, or sites of family history. As Dr. Andrew Offenberger observes in our interview, road trips have helped American authors, like Kiowa poet N. Scott Momaday, make sense of their identities as Americans. What if, however, these field trips to Washington, D.C. and road trips across the country might amount to something else? What if we considered them to be pilgrimages? Would that change our understanding of them? For many Americans, the first word that comes to mind when they hear the word, “pilgrimage,” involves the pilgrims of Plymouth, a community of English Puritans who colonized territory in Massachusetts, at first through a treaty with the Wampanoag peoples, but eventually through their dispossession. For many American communities, the nature of pilgrimage remains a reminder of forced displacement, dispossession, and a loss of home and homeland. Pilgrimage, as a term, might also suggest a religious experience. There are multiple podcasts, blogs, and videos discussing the Camino de Santiago, a number of pilgrimage paths through northern Spain. Others might think of making a pilgrimage to the Christian, Jewish, or Muslim sacred spaces in Israel and Palestine often referred to as the “Holy Land” collectively – including the Temple Mount, the Dome of the Rock, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (among others). Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad, is a classic example of this experience. Some make pilgrimage to Salem, Massachusetts each October. Others even debate whether the Crusades were a holy war or pilgrimage. American experiences of pilgrimage have led to substantial transformations in our national history and to our constitutional rights. Pilgrimage, as a movement across state, national, or cultural boundaries, has often been used by Americans to help them make sense of who they are, where they came from, and what it means, to them, to be “an American.” The word, “pilgrimage,” traces its etymology from the French, pèlerinage and from the Latin, pelegrines, with a general meaning of going through the fields or across lands as a foreigner. As a category used by anthropologists and sociologists in the study of religion, “pilgrimage” is often used as a much broader term, studying anything ranging from visits to Japanese Shinto shrines, the Islamic pilgrimage of Hajj, “birthright” trips to Israel by American Jewish youth, and, yes, even trips to Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee – the home of Elvis Presley. Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957) defined pilgrimage as one of a number of rites of passage (i.e., a rite du passage) that involves pilgrims separating themselves from broader society, moving themselves into a place of transition, and then re-incorporating their transformed bodies and minds back into their home societies. That moment of transition, which van Gennep called “liminality,” was the moment when one would become something new – perhaps through initiation, ritual observation, or by pushing one's personal boundaries outside of one's ordinary experience. Clifford Geertz (1926-2006), a contemporary of Turner, argued that a pilgrimage helps us to provide a story within which we are able to orient ourselves in the world. Consider, for example, the role that a trip to Arlington National Cemetery or the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier plays in a visit by a high school class to Washington, D.C. If framed and studied as a pilgrimage, Geertz's theory would suggest that a visit to these sites can be formative to an American's understanding of national history and, perhaps just as importantly, the visit will reinforce for Americans the importance of national service and remembrance of those who died in service to the defense of the United States. When we return from those school field trips to Washington, D.C., then, we do so with a new sense of who we are and where we fit into our shared American history. Among the many examples that we could cite from American history, two pilgrimages in particular – those of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X – provide instructive examples. Held three years after the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the 1957 “Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom,” led by Dr. King brought together thousands in order to, as he described it, “call upon all who love justice and dignity and liberty, who love their country, and who love mankind …. [to] renew our strength, communicate our unity, and rededicate our efforts, firmly but peaceably, to the attainment of freedom.” Posters for the event promised that it would “arouse the conscience of the nation.” Drawing upon themes from the Christian New Testament, including those related to agape – a love of one's friends and enemies – King's speech at the “Prayer Pilgrimage” brought national attention to his civil rights movement and established an essential foundation for his return to Washington, D.C. and his “I Have a Dream Speech,” six years later. In April 1964, Malcolm X departed to observe the Muslim pilgrimage ritual of Hajj in the city of Mecca in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Hajj is an obligation upon all Muslims, across the globe, and involves rituals meant to remind them of their responsibilities to God, to their fellow Muslims, and of their relationship to Ibrahim and Ismail (i.e., Abraham and Ishamel) as found in the Qur'an. Before his trip, Malcolm X had expressed skepticism about building broader ties to American civil rights groups. His experience on Hajj, he wrote, was transformational. "The holy city of Mecca had been the first time I had ever stood before the creator of all and felt like a complete human being,” he wrote, “People were hugging, they were embracing, they were of all complexions …. The feeling hit me that there really wasn't what he called a color problem, a conflict between racial identities here." His experience on Hajj was transformative. The result? Upon return to the United States, Malcolm X pledged to work with anyone – regardless of faith and race – who would work to change civil rights in the United States. His experiences continue to resonate with Americans. These are but two stories that contribute to American pilgrimage experiences. Today, Americans go on pilgrimages to the Ganges in India, to Masada in Israel, to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, and to Bethlehem in Palestine, and to cities along the Trail of Tears and along the migration of the Latter-Day Saints church westward. Yet, they also go on pilgrimages and road trips to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, to the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown, to the national parks, and to sites of family and community importance. In these travels, they step outside of the ordinary and, in encountering the diversities of the U.S., sometimes experience the extraordinary changing themselves, and the country, in the process. * * * Questions for Class Discussion What is a “pilgrimage”? What is a road trip? Are they similar? Different? Why? Must a pilgrimage only be religious or spiritual? Why or why not? How has movement – from city to city, or place to place, or around the world – changed U.S. history and the self-understanding of Americans? What if those movements had never occurred? How would the U.S. be different? Have you been on a pilgrimage? Have members of your family? How has it changed your sense of self? How did it change that of your family members? If you were to design a pilgrimage, what would it be? Where would it take place? Would it involve special rituals or types of dress? Why? What would the purpose of your pilgrimage be? How do other communities understand their pilgrimages? Do other cultures have “road trips” like the United States? Additional Sources: Ohio History and Pilgrimage Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve, Ohio History Connection (link). National Geographic Society, “Intriguing Interactions [Hopewell],” Grades 9-12 (link) Documentary Podcasts & Films “In the Light of Reverence,” 2001 (link) An examination of Lakota, Hopi, and Wintu ties to and continued usages of their homelands and a question of how movement through land may be considered sacred by some and profane by others. Melvin Bragg, “Medieval Pilgrimage,” BBC: In our Time, February 2021 (link) Bruce Feiler: Sacred Journeys (Pilgrimage). PBS Films (link) along with educator resources (link). The American Pilgrimage Project. Berkley Center, Georgetown University (link). Arranged by StoryCorps, a collection of video and audio interviews with Americans of diverse backgrounds discussing their religious and spiritual identities and their intersections with American life. Dave Whitson, “The Camino Podcast,” (link) on Spotify (link), Apple (link) A collection of interviews with those of varying faiths and spiritualities discussing pilgrimage experiences. Popular Media & Websites “Dreamland: American Travelers to the Holy Land in the 19th Century,” Shapell (link) A curated digital museum gallery cataloguing American experiences of pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Israel, and Palestine. LaPier, Rosalyn R. “How Standing Rock Became a Site of Pilgrimage.” The Conversation, December 7, 2016 (link). Talamo, Lex. Pilgrimage for the Soul. South Dakota Magazine, May/June 2019. (link). Books Grades K-6 Murdoch, Catherine Gilbert. The Book of Boy. New York: Harper Collins, 2020 (link). Wolk, Lauren. Beyond the Bright Sea. New York: Puffin Books, 2018 (link). Grades 7-12 Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. New York: Penguin Books, 2003 (link). Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992 (link). Melville, Herman. Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land. New York: Library of America, n.d. (link). Murray, Pauli. Song in a Weary Throat: Memoir of an American Pilgrimage. New York: Liveright, 1987 (link). Reader, Ian. Pilgrimage: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015 (link). Twain, Mark. The Innocents Abroad. New York: Modern Library, 2003 (link). Scholarship Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Bloechl, Jeffrey, and André Brouillette, eds. Pilgrimage as Spiritual Practice: A Handbook for Teachers, Wayfarers, and Guides. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2022. Frey, Nancy Louise Louise. Pilgrim Stories: On and Off the Road to Santiago, Journeys Along an Ancient Way in Modern Spain. First Edition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Lévi-Strauss, Claude Patterson, Sara M., “Traveling Zions: Pilgrimage in Modern Mormonism,” in Pioneers in the Attic: Place and Memory along the Mormon Trail. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020 (link). Pazos, Antón. Redefining Pilgrimage: New Perspectives on Historical and Contemporary Pilgrimages. London: Routledge, 2014 (link). Reader, Ian. Pilgrimage: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015 (link). Van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. Translated by Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960 (link)

In today's episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, Mike Berkley shares his personal journey with acupuncture and herbal medicine in fertility treatment. He highlights the value of integrative medicine in fertility enhancement. Mike explains how acupuncture and herbal medicine improve fertility by increasing blood flow to the ovaries and testes, enhancing egg and sperm quality. He also discusses the importance of preparing for IVF and the timing of treatment.    Mike Berkley, LAc, FABORM, is a licensed and board-certified acupuncturist and a board-certified herbalist. He is a fertility specialist at The Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness in the Midtown East neighborhood of Manhattan, New York. Infertility can be a daunting journey for couples longing to start a family, which is a reality Mike faced with his wife. Luckily, she sought the guidance of an acupuncturist and herbalist who possessed some knowledge of reproductive issues. Despite initial disappointments, after undergoing acupuncture and herbal medicine treatments for seven months, the couple became pregnant and carried the child to term without any complications. Their once seemingly elusive dream had become a beautiful reality thanks to the remarkable effects of acupuncture and herbal medicine. This experience led Mike to obtain his degree in acupuncture from the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine's New York campus and his National Board Certification in herbal medicine. Equipped with the necessary license and fueled by an insatiable thirst for knowledge, Mike studied Western medical approaches and the ancient wisdom of Chinese medicine about infertility treatment. Through rigorous study and invaluable clinical experience, he developed unique acupuncture protocols and proprietary herbal formulas, tailoring them to each individual or couple seeking his assistance. Mike is also a member of several organizations, including the Acupuncture Society of New York and the American Infertility Association. He is writing a book on reproductive disorders and Chinese medicine and hosts his groundbreaking seminars nationwide. Mike has witnessed firsthand the life-changing potential these ancient practices hold for couples struggling with infertility. Together, he can help transform your dreams into reality and create a world where the joy of parenthood knows no bounds.   Website: www.berkleycenter.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikeberkley56/   For more information about Michelle, visitwww.michelleoravitz.com   Click here to find out how to get the first chapter of "The Way of Fertility" for free.    The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/   Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/         Transcript:   Chapters   00:00 Introduction and Personal Journey 00:30 Discovering Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine 05:16 The Limitations of Western Reproductive Medicine 06:33 The Value of Integrative Medicine in Fertility Treatment 08:59 How Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine Improve Fertility 20:16 Living in Accordance with Nature and the Impact on Fertility 26:11 The Mind-Body Connection and the Importance of Mental and Emotional Health 28:48 The Impact of Acupuncture on Blood Flow 32:35 The Heart and Uterus Connection 33:49 Contact Information     Michelle (00:00) Welcome to the podcast, Mike. Yeah, I'm actually really happy to have you. And mike berkley (00:02) I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.   Michelle (00:07) read about your story and I find it fascinating that you guys started out as patients, kind of like how I was. I was working in New York, really close to you, for doing architecture. So completely different life, completely different world. So I went in for my menstrual irregularities and then everything started getting resolved.   for the first time with acupuncture. And I know you guys were also moved by it with your own journey. So I'd love for you to share your story and how you got into this type of work.   Mike berkley (00:39) Sure, I'd be happy to. So, while I was in acupuncture school, my wife and I were trying to have a baby. And we couldn't. And I had, she had anti -sperm antibodies and I had, I don't remember, motility issues or morphology issues or something. And she went to a...   She didn't go to a reproductive endocrinologist. She went to a gynecologist and he wanted to do some IUIs. And then she met or heard about an acupuncturist and herbalist in New York. And she went to this one.   And the woman gave her herbs and acupuncture and gave me some   then two months later, I was I think I was working and going to school. I can't remember so long ago, but she called me. My wife called me and said that she was pregnant and I didn't know anything about medicine in any way, shape or form. And I said, how do you know?   And she said, well, I peed on the stick. And I said, well, that's all well and good, but I don't believe in that. You better go to the doctor and get a blood test. And she did. And now I have a 29 year old son. Yeah. So I got very inspired at that time to pursue knowledge in the realm of reproductive medicine.   Michelle (02:03) amazing.   Mike berkley (02:17) And so I spent many years studying Western reproductive medicine. I don't mean officially, I didn't go to medical school, but on my own, I studied a lot of Western reproductive medicine and a lot of acupuncture and a lot of herbs. And I've been treating fertility cases exclusively. Like I won't treat a neck or a back or a headache. I've been treating fertility cases exclusively for 27 years.   Michelle (02:29) Yeah. Amazing.   So that's awesome. I mean, I personally love working with fertility. I first started, it was more general, but I just love it. And the rewards are like insane. You know, when you get the positive pregnancy pictures sent to you and it's really incredible and people are shocked. Oftentimes, because they're like, there's no way. I mean, sometimes five years of nothing like Western medicine. And I think one of the common things is that people think that IVF is a guarantee. Do you find that?   Mike berkley (03:17) Of course, of course. I mean, it's, you know, our lives as acupuncturists and herbalists are very interesting, gratifying and ungratifying. I'll give you an example. This has happened to you. It's happened to any acupuncturist listening. Patient does four failed IUIs and three failed IVFs.   Michelle (03:18) Yeah.   Right. Right, or it helped me relax through the process.   Mike berkley (03:43) And then you work with the patient for three months and she does an IVF and she gets pregnant and has a baby. And then I've had patients more than one say, well, you know, it's possible that that what you did helped me. And I'm like, yeah, it's possible, you know.   Exactly, exactly. I love that one. You know, it helped me relax. So I think that I'm I think more and more individuals more more couples more women more men are becoming aware of the the efficacy and the value of You know complementary medicine or integrated medicine acupuncture herbs You know diet In the context of fertility enhancement   Michelle (04:16) Mm -hmm.   Mike berkley (04:34) And I often say to patients, I say, listen, you can go to the best reproductive endocrinologist in the world. I don't care who it is, but that person cannot improve your egg quality. They cannot improve your lining quality and they cannot rectify your husband's sperm DNA fragmentation. I can. So therefore,   Michelle (04:37) Mm -hmm.   Mm -hmm. Right.   Mike berkley (05:03) We should work as a team. And I'm saying this to the patient, but I'm also saying it to society. And I'm saying it to reproductive endocrinologist. The best type of medicine is integrative medicine. You can do something I can't. I can do something you can't. Let's do this. Let's try again.   Michelle (05:05) Right, 100%. Everybody has their blind spots, you know, and their strengths. I mean, we don't have the technology, we can't go in there and extract eggs. Right.   Mike berkley (05:32) That's right, but who cares? You know, a good car mechanic can fix an engine, but it doesn't mean he can make an engine. So it doesn't matter that we don't have the technology. It doesn't matter that we're not reproductive endocrinologists. What matters is, is that for an IVF to work, you need four things. You need a good egg, a good sperm.   Michelle (05:36) Right.   Mm -hmm. Right.   Mike berkley (06:00) And so the reproductive endocrinologist cannot offer a patient good eggs and good sperm and good line. In fact, there are patients that come to me and they say they have a five millimeter lining and the doctor will give them either transvaginal Viagra or something called Trentol and Neupogen. And these medications will thicken the lining and they still have implantation failure. Why? because a thick lining or within normal limits lining, a 10 millimeter lining doesn't convey that it's a good lining.   Michelle (06:31) Definitely. And of course I've asked this question a lot. I love asking questions that I can answer them too, but obviously every acupuncturist says it in a different way. So,   Mike berkley (06:38) So I think that as acupuncturists and herbalists, we have a lot to offer a patient suffering with infertility for sure.   Michelle (07:00) I'd love for you to talk about how acupuncture and herbals can help somebody who's trying to conceive.   Mike berkley (07:08) Sure. So I'm gonna kinda speak around a little bit, but it'll all make sense in the end. So blood is nothing other than a taxicab. Blood is nothing other than a messenger service. When we inhale, the oxygen gets into the blood and the body is oxygenated through blood flow.   When we eat food, our nutrient products get into the bloodstream and nutrients are disseminated through the blood. FSH and LH coming from the pituitary get to the ovaries via the blood. And so I'm gonna step back for a second and say what I say to patients.   You have a heart that's beating. It's disseminating blood throughout your body. But there are two things that are happening. Number one, that dissemination of blood is generalized. And number two, you're 40 years old. And your blood flow is not as good as it was when you were 20. And if you're not 40, you're 37 or you're 36. Same case. Your blood flow is not as good generally as it was when you were running around in the playground at nine years old. You exercise less, you do less in general, I'm speaking.   And so now to acupuncture, what acupuncture does is it improves and elevates hemodynamics, which means blood flow. And when a patient says, well, my heart is doing that, though that's true, with the utilization of acupuncture, you're improving hemodynamics to a specific area, which is the ovaries.   Michelle (08:57) Mm -hmm.   Mike berkley (08:58) Blood, therefore, is you're increasing the delivery of oxygen, electrolytes, nutrients, and hormones to the ovarian milieu. Not only that, but you know when a taxi cab takes a passenger to the airport and the passenger gets out, the taxi cab doesn't want to drive back to the city empty. They want to take a passenger back to the city.   It's a 45 minute trip from JFK to New York City to Manhattan. So they don't want to go back without a passenger. Well, blood is the same thing. So when you're increasing blood flow to the ovaries, you're delivering these essential products, but the blood is also picking up debris. What is debris? Debris are dead cells. Now, of course, during this conversation, both of us have lost a billion cells. They've died and they've regenerated. But what happens to the cells that die? Well, they get emitted through the sweating, exhalation, urination, defecation. This is how we get rid of toxins in the body. But again, because our digestive functions are not necessarily great, because our hemodynamics are not necessarily what they could be, by stimulating blood flow to the ovaries, you're delivering the good and helping to take back the bad which is the dead cells. So you're actually taking this garden that's not getting a lot of rain and it's not getting a lot of sunshine because the trees are like this over the garden. So when you're doing acupuncture herbs, you're cutting down the tops of these trees and you're going like this. So the garden is now getting all this sunshine and the rain is able to hit the flowers. And in a month, the flowers are joyous, beautiful, smiling, looking at everybody and winking at them and saying, hey, I'm a beautiful rose, look at me.   And so that's kind of, I think that the analogy or the metaphor is to how acupuncture improves egg quality. And the same is true with sperm quality. You're causing improved and increased hemodynamics to the testes and the same thing happens as with the ovaries. So it's the testes and the ovaries are really homologues. They both do the same thing. One creates eggs, one creates sperm and...   Michelle (11:09) Mm -hmm.   Mike berkley (11:23) …stimulating blood there, we're improving the quality of the contents. Now let's talk about herbal medicine. So herbal medicine is much more sophisticated, in my humble opinion, than acupuncture. Acupuncture is very sophisticated and very effective in all areas, whether you have pain or infertility. But the thing about herbal medicine is that you can construct an herbal formula that specifically deals...with the overall presentation of the patient, in my opinion, in a more powerful, efficacious manner. So for example, if you have a patient with polycystic ovarian syndrome who's five foot five and weighs 250 pounds and she's 40 years old, and then you have a PCOS patient who's five foot five and she's 29 years old and she's 110 pounds, they're both suffering with...   Michelle (11:56) you   Mike berkley (12:23) lack of proper menstruation, they're both suffering with infertility. So when you use herbal medicine on those patients, you're not just treating PCOS, treating this woman who's 250 pounds, this woman who's 120 pounds, this woman who's 40 years old, this woman who's 29 years old. So the herbs are very pinpoint accurate in what they do and how they work. And...   The beauty of herbal medicine is that one can create a very specific formula for this patient. So this patient is suffering with infertility, but she also has constipation and chronic headaches and...   Michelle (12:56) you   Mike berkley (13:05) She's got low back pain. So you can give her herbs to deal with all of that stuff. And so acupuncture is efficacious in the same manner. So really, what's the difference? So there's a couple of differences. As I said earlier, in the perspective of herbal medicine, you're taking it orally. It's internal medicine. It's having an effect on the organs, on the follicles.   Michelle (13:16) you   Mike berkley (13:34) the ovaries, on the testes, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm going to say something that's even more interesting. Let's say that you or I had a really bad headache. And we said to our partners, honey, I have a splitting headache. Could you please massage my shoulders and massage my head? It would really make me feel better. And our partners say, of course, of course. And they stand. I'm sitting in this chair and my wife comes.   Michelle (13:46) you   Mike berkley (14:03) me and starts to massage me and she's massaging my head and maybe in a half an hour I feel better. Let's retell that story. The same exact scenario except before my wife starts to work on me I take three Advil. Now what happens is instead of my headache dissipating in 30 minutes it dissipates in 15 minutes. Why?   Michelle (14:22) you   Mike berkley (14:32) because I'm being treated from the outside in, which is the massage, and I'm also being treated from the inside out, which is a three Advil. And so when you use these together, you're increasing the efficacy of the treatment. And so I think using acupuncture nerves together, they do similar things, but they also do different things, and they certainly potentiate each other's efficacy and power.   Michelle (15:00) Yeah, for it's very complimentary. Now, typically somebody comes to you and says, I'm starting IVF in a month. Sometimes I'm like, okay, I kind of wish you came here a couple of months before. So for people who are listening, if they want to prepare for IVF or really just prepare their body and their egg quality, how early...   should they come to you? Like how long does it take really for everything to take effect?   Mike berkley (15:30) So it's a great question. So again, I'm going to talk about sperm and egg. Again, the similarity is quite fascinating. It takes three months for a spermatogonia, an immature sperm, to reach a mature sperm. And it takes three months for a primordial follicle, which is...speck of dust to turn into a 20 millimeter follicle. It is the 20 millimeter follicle that the egg is retrieved from. So three months before a transfer is the, you know, is the gold standard. It's the best thing to do. But what I will say to patients, because I get this kind of situation all the time, is listen, you're having a cycle, you're having a transfer next month. That's okay. Let's start tomorrow.   Yeah, but you just told me it takes three months. No, no, no, no, I understand. But let's start tomorrow. I'm going to tell you why. If you do the transfer and it works, you've thrown out a couple of hundred dollars on some sessions. So what? I'm going to continue to treat you twice a week for 13 weeks to help prevent miscarriage. Why for 13 weeks? Because 90 % of miscarriages occur viable for the 12th week. In the event, in the most unfortunate event,   Michelle (16:29) you   Mike berkley (16:52) that the cycle fails. We've already started treating you now. So then in the subsequent cycle or the cycle subsequent to that, you'll have much better egg quality. You know, I don't know if you know Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett is one of the greatest investors in the history of America. And somebody said to him one time, Mr. Buffett, when is the best time to invest in the stock market? And he said, today.   And the point of the story is you can't really time the market. Invest if it's high, invest if it's low, dollar cost average. Invest 100 bucks every month for the rest of your life and you'll be okay. And so that's kind of like this. Invest in the treatment even though your transfer isn't a month. Doesn't work out? Okay, we've still improved follicular quality. Does work out? It's all good. I'm gonna continue to treat you twice a week for 13 weeks. You're gonna have a baby.   Michelle (17:47) Yeah. That's a good perspective for sure. yeah, I mean, what are some of the things that you see? Cause cause I feel like the way we're living right now is impacting our bodies in so many ways. And Chinese medicine, really the heart of it is living in accordance with nature, living in accordance with our own nature. And what happens is when we live outside of that and against our normal flow, that's when we start to get patterns and symptoms. So living in New York, I remember having a lot of really kind of like climbing an uphill battle because it is go, go, go. And so some of the things that I tell people who are not close to here, wanted to get coaching calls is even getting a grounding matter somehow finding ways to living in more flow. And what are some of the things that you see?   Mike berkley (18:43) So I think everything that you just said is true, real and valid. However, I'd like to say that unfortunately, and remember, this is to the listening audience. This is my opinion only. I do feel it's next to impossible to get to one's nature. I do think it's next to impossible to be really settled, really like, able to exhale. Why do I say this? I say this because the world is at war, because there is intense poverty, there's joblessness, there's crime, there's all kinds of negative things. Of course there's many beautiful things, but there's many negative things. And so how can people possibly exhale?   So it's very difficult to become kind of, you know, one with nature and one with yourself and this kind of thing. I do think, however, that even though it's difficult to achieve, that the achieving is not the goal. The trying is the goal. The journey is the goal. One will probably never reach the destination, but it's okay because through the journey one's psychic and mental and emotional and physical health can improve. So even though I don't see a path to ultimate improvement, I don't see a path to ultimate health, I do think that there is a mind -body connection for sure. It's completely unassailable. And I think that people, I don't really get involved with this kind of thing too much in my own practice. I'm very, very clinical, but that doesn't mean that I don't totally embrace what you're saying. I think people should do yoga. I think they should meditate. Listen, I'll tell you an example of exactly, I'll put a patient in the room and I'll come to take the patient out and she's laying on the table with the cell phone.   You know, this is terribly destructive to the patient and he or she doesn't understand that. And I'll say to them, listen, you have 30 minutes of your entire life that you cannot be bothered by anybody. You can just be free. You're in this room on this table with beautiful music and it's a lovely room and you're taken care of here.   Michelle (20:53) yeah.   Mike berkley (21:22) put the phone down, man, and B, and it's really hard because people need that constant stimulation. I need it. The first thing I do when I wake up is I check my phone at 6 .15 in the morning. You know, it's mental illness. It's mental illness. It's craziness. But I do think that trying to be at peace is very important, not only for fertility,   Michelle (21:26) Yeah.   It's an addiction for sure. Yeah.   Mike berkley (21:49) but for life, for happiness, for joy. And so, as I say, I don't have meditation classes here or yoga classes here, but I strongly recommend that patients do engage in those activities. And I also think people should go to the gym. I think people should work out three days a week.   Michelle (22:09) yeah.   Mike berkley (22:10) and work out pretty hard. I don't mean hard like a professional athlete, but you know, don't get on the treadmill for five minutes. Like work. You know, listen, we have this thing called liver -chi stagnation, right? It means that, you know, the chi is stuck and people are stuck. And as a result of being stuck, inflammation occurs and they're angry and they get headaches and they're bitter. Guess what happens to the stuck chi when you move, when you exercise, the chi becomes unstuck and the   Michelle (22:37) Right, yeah.   Mike berkley (22:39) Exercise makes you feel better psycho -emotionally and when you feel better psycho -emotionally, you'll be better off physically   Michelle (22:47) 100%. I remember, so when I was in New York in the craziness just over firm, you know, that's the only way you can really survive there. You have to like show that you're a good quality employee. And I remember I found Acupuncture and what I found that it gave me is this flow.   in my life where I was able to still withstand and have that pressure, but I felt more resilient. It like, it increased my ability to adapt more than anything else has. And that was one of the things that I was so amazed by. But then it really made me realize whole beings that have so many different aspects to ourselves and how one...   part, if we work on our own energetic frequency and chi, it impacts our life and it impacts our how we can think and how we feel.   Mike berkley (23:47) I agree with you. You know, another problem that I see quite frequently is, you know, there were two kinds of patients. There are patients that are very self -aware, and they exercise and they meditate and they do yoga and they eat properly.   And then there are patients that they may not be overweight, but they don't eat well. You know, they drink Coca -Cola and they eat French fries and listen, guess what? There's nothing wrong with drinking a Coca -Cola and having French fries, you know, once every two months, once a month. It's all good. Chinese medicine is about yin and yang. What does yin and yang mean? Balance. It's all good. But when you have French fries and burger and ice cream tonight, you smoke a joint tomorrow and you, you know, you don't go to the gym for three days. You know, this just...   Michelle (24:07) Mm -hmm.   Mike berkley (24:36) it's just going to have negative attributes. It's going to create negative outcomes, certainly physically. So I try to encourage patients to eat properly and I try to give them some type of helpful diet plan if I think they need it. But I think nutrition and diet are very important for health in general. And certainly in the world of infertility, many of the   Many of the causative factors can really be, I don't want to get too technical, but they can kind of originate with what's called free radicals, reactive oxidative species, and these things cause inflammation in the body. And if you have inflammation in the uterus or inflammation in the testes, inflammation in the testes kills sperm. Inflammation in the uterus is going to kill an embryo. So we need to be careful about what we're eating from the inflammatory point of view.   You know, the inflammation point.   Michelle (25:37) Right. Yeah. Gut health is everything. interesting how the spleen and stomach are center. That's their location. The direction is center because, and it really is, it's such a symbol of how important it is in creating blood. And actually speaking of blood flow that you were talking about before, did you ever see, there was something on Instagram, somebody took a sample of blood before and after acupuncture.   it was shocking. Like you could see it literally move everything that you learn in textbook about how it improves chi and flow. You could see the blood cells being a little bit more stuck together from the before. They're a little more stuck together and very slow moving. The after the blood cells not only are not stuck together, but they're more round.   Mike berkley (26:30) Interesting.   Michelle (26:30) They're more round and they're moving fast and flowing. They're not right next to each other. It's crazy. And that was mind boggling. And I actually, so I shared it on my Instagram. I'll forward you the link. And I shared it on my Instagram. And interestingly enough, I had a lot of acupunctures, because we all learn this in theory. That's the theory. We don't really often see this with our own eyes. So I think that a lot of   Mike berkley (26:45) Please.   Michelle (27:00) acupuncturists that saw this were like blown away. They're like, my God, this is exactly what it says in the textbook. And to actually see it with your own eyes is amazing.   Mike berkley (27:09) So I'm going to share a little story with you that's completely apropos of the story that you just told   I'm going to tell you a story that's a little bit different than what you told me, but it's the exact same outcome. So about 10 years ago or 12 years ago, there was a study done. First of all, let me talk about the uterine artery impedance index. The uterine artery impedance index is an index that determines the flow through of blood through the uterine artery.   Uterine artery at its end point has branches that come out and enervate the ovaries. So the ovaries are getting their blood through the uterine artery. And so the more patent and effective the uterine artery is, the more blood will get to the ovaries. And so there was this little study done.   where they did a transvaginal ultrasound with a color doppler. And for the listeners who don't understand that, you know, when you have an ultrasound and the doctor looks at the monitor, it's all black and white and gray. But with a color doppler, the monitor is color. You can see all color. It's not just gray. And so they did these transvaginal ultrasounds with a color doppler to determine the uterine artery impedance index. The higher the index,   the lower the amount of flow through of blood through the uterine artery. So they took a bunch of women, they did this and they wrote down the uterine artery impedance index numbers. and by the way, when they did the transvaginal ultrasound, you could either see no blood or just a little blood in the uterus, in the uterine lining. Then acupuncture was given to the patient and...   Michelle (28:37) Mm hmm. Mm hmm.   Mike berkley (29:00) 25 minutes after acupuncture was done, they repeated the transvaginal ultrasound with a color Doppler and two things happened. The uterine artery impedance index dropped like three or four points and you could actually see a red line right across the uterus. So you could actually perfectly well see evidence of enhanced blood flow into the uterine environment which   you know, really I'm talking about the ovarian environment, but you don't see it on the ovaries, you see it on the uterus. And it was fantastic. So it's exactly what you're saying, a little bit of a different study, but the same outcome.   Michelle (29:43) more specific to fertility. Yeah, that's amazing. Wow, incredible. So fascinating. I mean, it is really fascinating when we get to see with our own eyes, something that has been, you know, taught for thousands of years, and to actually see science and you know, I look also housing the mind   Mike berkley (29:45) Absolutely. Yeah. Pardon.   Michelle (30:04) that also reflect that in modern science, but the heart math and the heart -brain coherence that they're finding is pretty much proving the whole idea of the heart housing the mind.   Mike berkley (30:04) you   So I don't even, I don't know anything about this. This is all brand new news to me, but it sounds really fascinating. I love.   Michelle (30:22) Yeah.   It is. And this is why I love talking to acupuncturists. Cause you just told me something that I did not, I thought I heard about it, but I didn't hear it in that detail. And I'm learning so much talking you. So this is why I love coming together with fellow acupuncturists because I always, always learn something new.   Mike berkley (30:44) as do I from you, thank   Michelle (30:46) of course I could talk to you for   But I would love for you to   can people find you or find more about you?   Mike berkley (30:53) Yeah, thank you so course, I'm Mike Berkeley and my website is berkeleycenter .com, which is B -E -R -K -L -E -Ycenter .com. And I'm happy to speak to anybody, answer anybody's questions. There's no charge for that. And I'm a plain, simple, down to earth guy. And I'm just here to help people.   Michelle (30:55) Yeah.   Yeah. You got the New Yorker mentality that I miss that I'll be honest, the culture of New York, I really miss since I've moved. So it kind of brings me back home to like, you know, the accent and all that. So Mike, it was great meeting you. I really enjoyed our conversation and thank you so much for coming on today.   Mike berkley (31:35) Well, I want to say it was an absolute pleasure and an honor to meet you. I enjoyed our conversation so much and thank you so much again for having me as a guest. I'm grateful.

On this episode Philip was joined by one of the leading branding experts Allen Adamson. Allen is the co-founder of Metaforce, author of "Seeing The How" and Brand Expert-in-Residence at the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship at NYU Stern. They discussed the modern challenges companies are facing when it comes to branding, what great branding looks like, how universities and colleges can create successful brands and branding strategies and much more.

Katherine Marshall has worked for some four decades on international development, with a focus on issues facing the world's poorest countries. A senior fellow at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs and Visiting Professor in the School of Foreign Service, she is Executive Director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue.   Her long career with the World Bank (1971-2006) involved a wide range of leadership assignments. She was Country Director in the Bank's Africa region, first for the Sahel region, then Southern Africa and led the Bank's work on social policy and governance during the East Asia crisis years. In 2000 the World Bank's president appointed her to a newly created post of liaison with faith-based development charities, with the objective of clarifying shared objectives and building trust and coordination.   Katherine is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on various boards of non-profit organizations. She served as a core group member of the Council of 100, an initiative of the World Economic Forum to advance understanding between the Islamic World and the West. She is also a member of the Board and Leadership Council of the Joint Learning Initiative of Faith and Local Communities.   Social media handles of the University and WFDD: Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Her personal Facebook and Instagram.   Please let me/us know via our email innovationhub@cwsglobal.org what you think about this new series. We would love to hear from you. Please feel free to reach out to us. Send an email to maurice@jliflc.com, or contact us through our platform. We welcome your thoughts, questions, and proposals for collaboration. I'll personally ensure that your interest is directed to the right people at JLI, helping you connect with a network of individuals and organizations dedicated to creating a better world through faith-informed development.   Please like/follow our Walk Talk Listen podcast and follow mauricebloem on twitter and instagram.  Or check us out on our website 100mile.org.  We also encourage you to check out the special WTL series Enough for All about an organization called CWS. 

Last month's Synod on Synodality in Rome is perhaps one of the most important ecclesial gatherings to take place since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. But what exactly happened remains unclear.  On this episode, Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi is joined by two experts on Vatican affairs to help explain and contextualize the synod's work.  Paul Elie is a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Berkley Center and a regular contributor to Commonweal and the New Yorker, which sent him to Rome for a week to report on the synod.  Anna Rowlands, Professor of Catholic Social Thought at Durham University in the United Kingdom, helped draft the synod's working documents and served as an observer and expert theological advisor in the synod hall.  For further reading: Austen Ivereigh's report from Rome  Massimo Faggioli's analysis of the synod Commonweal's collection of recent articles on the synod

John Stonestreet sits down with Joel Rosenberg and Eric Patterson to discuss the war in Israel.  Joel Rosenberg is the host and executive producer of THE ROSENBERG REPORT, the only weekly, prime time news and commentary show about Israel on any American news channel. It launched on October 6, 2022 and airs at 9pm eastern Thursday nights on TBN, the world's most-watched Christian TV network. Joel and his wife, Lynn, are dual U.S.-Israeli citizens and live in Jerusalem. Eric Patterson, Ph.D. serves as President of the Religious Freedom Institute. Patterson is past dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University and a Research Fellow at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, where he previously served full-time. Patterson has provided briefings and seminars for multiple government agencies, including France's Ministry of Defense, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command, U.S. Naval War College, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, the U.S. military academies, and many others.    Additional Resources  The Rosenberg Report All Israel News All Arab News The Joshua Fund _______ Religious Freedom Institute A Basic Guide to the Just War Tradition by Eric Patterson _______ Breakpoint: The Atrocities of Hamas and the Reality of Evil Breakpoint: Moral Clarity and the Attack on Israel Breakpoint This Week: The Attack on Israel Breakpoint: Barbaric Norms: Hamas, Israel, and Just War Breakpoint: A Critical Error Breakpoint: The Hard Stats on Palestinian Viewpoints

Eric Patterson, Ph.D. is President of the Religious Freedom Institute and past dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University and a Research Fellow at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs. Patterson's interest in the intersection of religion, ethics, and foreign policy is informed by two stints at the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. He has significant government service, including over twenty years as an officer and commander in the Air National Guard and serving as a White House Fellow. Ray Bradley, is a father of four, Boston Red Sox fan, and lifelong waterman who has surfed almost every major break across the Hawaiian Islands, his areas of inquiry lie at the intersection of theology, narrative anthropology, and the sociocultural implications of religious practice on individual and collective flourishing in the context of postmodernity, mimetic theory and the emerging culture of self-invention.Website: religiousfreedominstitute.orgBook: A Basic Guide to the Just War Tradition, Christian Foundations and Practices

The guests in this episode became friends through a common commitment to activism and social justice. Dr. Cleve V. Tinsley IV and Rev. Dr. Matt Russell became best friends both by cultivating their common ground and exploring the very real differences between their perspectives and experiences. They share how their friendship has profoundly shaped their work, their personal growth, and their lives as Christian men. Their conversation, very real and full of laughter, feels like an experience of the holy, showing us how sanctified friendships are a work of the Spirit bringing us together, especially for such a time as this. It's well worth just taking the time to be fully immersed in this wonderful conversation.Find the poem from the podcast here.Quotations"Matt enables me to be creative because he's one of the few persons in the world who would understand my decisions and commitment to my integrity of conscience."- Dr. Cleve V. Tinsley IV We discuss:Matt and Cleve discuss how they met and became friends through their shared passion for social justice and activism. (5:27)The importance of building friendships across divides and the challenges of understanding different experiences and perspectives. (26:01)The speakers discuss how their friendship changed them and impacted their personal growth, creativity, and ability to thrive. (33:30)Exploring the challenges and importance of forming meaningful friendships between Christian men. (41:33)Exploring the concept of holiness and the need for the church to redefine it, emphasizing the importance of relational and shared resourcing. (49:18)About Dr. Cleve V. Tinsley IV is assistant professor of history and political science in the School of Arts and Sciences at Virginia Union University (VUU), where he has also been appointed the inaugural executive director of the Center for African-American History and Culture (CAAHC).Dr. Tinsley is quickly emerging as a noted interpreter of religion and Black freedom movements, recently commenting on the role of religion in light of recent uprisings for Black lives for the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University. He is the co-author of Embodiment and Black Religion: Rethinking the Body in African-American Religious Experience and is working on his first monograph, tentatively entitled Making Black Lives Matter: Religion and Race in the Struggle for African-American Identity.Rev. Dr. Matt Russell is an academic, activist, pastor, professor, and teacher. He is on staff at Chapelwood United Methodist Church in Houston and is co-founder and co-managing director of Project Curate, which works with religious, academic, and community organizations by curating and bringing together different voices and traditions to realize a radical vision of a more just and equitable world. He is also co-founder and executive director of Iconoclast Artists, a program that empowers young artists throughout the community. Show NotesDr. Cleve V. Tinsley IV is assistant professor of history and political science in the School of Arts and...

Today's second episode of Fighting Terror's new series will shed light on the concept of blasphemy in Islamic theology and its significance within the religion. Lucinda speaks with Professor Jocelyne Cesari who will offer insights into the concept of blasphemy and its historical roots and how some Islamist extremist groups use blasphemy to further their agendas and mobilise followers, as well as the implications for societal cohesion. Professor Jocelyne Cesari holds the Chair of Religion and Politics at the University of Birmingham (UK) and is a Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. She has written extensively on Islam in Europe, focusing on issues of integration, radicalisation, and religious freedom. 

In this episode Joeita is joined by Rabbi Julia Watts Belser. They discuss the ableism and misconceptions surrounding disabilities in religious communities. Julia, who is a rabbi and scholar, emphasizes the importance of loving and embracing oneself as a disabled person in a world that often devalues and stigmatizes disabilities. They also explore the need for religious communities to move away from treating disabled individuals as symbols of suffering or inspiration and instead recognize their complexity and full humanity. Julia examines biblical texts and traditions, highlighting the presence of disability and challenging the ableist narratives often associated with them. The conversation concludes with a call for disability justice and the dismantling of ableism in society.###Link to Rabbi Belser's Book: "Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole"https://amzn.to/3EQVU79###Episode HighlightsThe two discuss the new book "Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole.” (2:13)Rabbi Watts Belser explains the Bible and the imagery of disability. (5:03)Is there a way to do charitable work in a religious context without being paternalistic to people with disabilities?(6:42)Interpretations of certain religious texts that are central to our cultural beliefs? (9:34)Where do disabled and non-disabled people go from here? (19:01)Rabbi Watts Belser reads an excerpt from her book "Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole.” (21:28)###About Rabbi Julia Watts BelserJulia Watts Belser is a Professor of Jewish Studies in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, as well as core faculty in Georgetown's Disability Studies Program and a Senior Research Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. Her research centers on gender, sexuality, and disability in rabbinic literature, as well as queer feminist Jewish ethics and theology. She directs Disability and Climate Change: A Public Archive Project, an initiative that documents the wisdom and insights of disabled activists, artists, and first responders on the frontlines of the climate crisis.Her work brings ancient texts into conversation with disability studies, queer theory, feminist thought, and environmental ethics. She has held faculty fellowships at Harvard Divinity School and the Katz Center for Advanced Jewish Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Rabbinic Tales of Destruction: Gender, Sex, and Disability in the Ruins of Jerusalem (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Power, Ethics, and Ecology: Rabbinic Responses to Drought and Disaster (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Her most recent book is Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole (Beacon Press, 2023; published in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton).A rabbi and a longtime advocate for disability and gender justice, Belser writes queer feminist Jewish theology and brings disability arts and culture into conversation with Jewish tradition. She co-authored an international Health Handbook for Women with Disabilities (Hesperian Foundation, 2007), developed in collaboration with disability activists from 42 countries and translated into 14 languages, designed to help challenge the root causes of poverty, gender violence, and disability discrimination. She's an avid wheelchair hiker, a lover of wild places, and a passionate supporter of disability dance.Reference: https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014TWyHAAW/julia-watts-belser  

Next time on State of Belief: Katherine Marshall. For five decades, she has been a leader in peacemaking efforts, often in interfaith contexts. Katherine is a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, and is executive director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue. From 1971 to 2006, Katherine was a World Bank officer, and led the faith and ethics initiative there. With religion so impactful on the most urgent issues of the day, Katherine offers deep expertise on the challenges – and opportunities – we face.

ALLEN P. ADAMSON is a noted expert in all disciplines of branding. He has worked with a broad spectrum of consumer and B2B businesses in industries from packaged goods to hospitality, technology to healthcare. His previous books, including BrandSimple and, most recently, Shift Ahead, are used as textbooks in higher education business programs nationwide.After holding senior management positions at Ogilvy & Mather and DMB&B, Adamson joined Landor Associates, a full-spectrum brand consultancy, and eventually rose to chairman. Under his leadership, the company partnered with global brands including Accenture, GE, Johnson & Johnson, FedEx, HBO, Marriott, MetLife, P&G, Sony, and Verizon. Additionally, he guided non-profit organizations such as the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. For the past several years, he has been an adjunct professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, where he also serves as the brand expert-in-residence at the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship.A sought after industry commentator, Adamson has appeared on ABC News, NBC's Today, CNBC's Squawk Box and Closing Bell, and Fox Business Network, and is often quoted in publications including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Advertising Age, and Forbes. He is co-founder and managing partner of Metaforce, a disruptive marketing and brand consultancy that takes a multidisciplinary, channel-agnostic approach to driving growth. https://allenadamson.com/seeing-the-how-book/

Join us as we delve into the fascinating and complex world of religion in American diplomacy as your Faithful Host chats with former diplomat, Shaun Casey, who created the first state department agency to explore the role of religion in American foreign policy. Casey, a seasoned diplomat, has been at the forefront of bridging the gap between diplomacy and religion. He offers recommendations based on his unique experiences and shares some of the key lessons and best practices he's gleaned over the years. Casey is known not only for his professional prowess but also for maintaining a fine balance between his personal faith and his role as a diplomat. We delve into the nuances of his approach and explore some of the ethical dilemmas or challenges that arise when engaging with religious actors and partners then we discuss the groundbreaking office that Casey created and directed at the US Department of State. We explore its mission, its achievements, and its potential future trajectory. One of the most enlightening parts of our conversation revolves around Casey's definition of religion and its critical role in diplomacy. He sheds light on the importance of understanding religious contexts in international relations, using concrete examples of how misinterpretations have led to tragic consequences."Decoding Diplomacy" is your passport to understanding the intertwined worlds of religion and diplomacy, providing a fresh perspective on international relations. Join us as we unpack the intricate dynamics at play in our increasingly interconnected world.If you're interested in the book that was discussed on the episode, "Chasing the Devil at Foggy Bottom: The Future of Religion in American Diplomacy" please visit https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/8170/chasing-the-devil-at-foggy-bottom.aspxGuest Bio:Shaun Casey is a senior fellow with the Luce Project on Religion and Its Publics at the University of Virginia and a Pulaski Institution non-resident fellow. He served as director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and professor of the practice in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University from 2017 to 2021. He previously was U.S. special representative for religion and global affairs and director of the U.S. Department of State's Office of Religion and Global Affairs. He has also served as professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC, and held positions at the Center for American Progress and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Casey has written on the ethics of the war in Iraq, as well the role of religion in American presidential politics. He is the author of The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy vs. Nixon 1960 (2009) and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Political Theology (forthcoming, with Michael Kessler); he is writing a book on ethics and international politics tentatively titled Niebuhr's Children. Casey holds a B.A. from Abilene Christian University, MPA from Harvard Kennedy School, and M.Div. and Th.D. in religion and society from Harvard Divinity School.Support the showTo learn more about the show, contact our hosts, or recommend future guests, click on the links below: Website: https://www.faithfulpoliticspodcast.com/ Faithful Host: Josh@faithfulpoliticspodcast.com Political Host: Will@faithfulpoliticspodcast.com Twitter: @FaithfulPolitik Instagram: faithful_politics Facebook: FaithfulPoliticsPodcast LinkedIn: faithfulpolitics

One of the big challenges in higher education today is polarization in the classroom, which of course reflects the polarization of the country at large. Professors like Dr. Amy Uelmen are trying to figure out how to encourage their students to speak and listen to each other across divides on complex social issues where there are no easy answers. Amy is a professor at the Georgetown Law Center, where she's also a special assistant to the dean and the director of mission and ministry. Just in case that's not enough to keep her busy, Amy is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Berkley Center on Religion, Peace and World Affairs. Host Mike Jordan Laskey asked her about her work at the intersections of faith, morality and law, and also to see if they could tease out some tips that those of us who aren't in law school could use when trying to connect with people we disagree with on thorny issues. Amy is also a member of the Focolare Movement, a lay ecclesial movement and international organization founded in Italy by Chiara Lubich in 1943. Focolare is centered on Christ's prayer from the Gospel “that they all may be one,” so it's clear to see how Amy's faith life is leading directly to her research and work in the classroom. Learn more about Amy: https://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/amelia-j-uelmen/ Essay on dialogue after the January 6 riot: https://canopyforum.org/2021/01/13/whither-dialogue-after-the-capitol-riot/ Learn more about Focolare: https://www.focolare.org/en/ AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. www.jesuits.org/ www.beajesuit.org/ twitter.com/jesuitnews facebook.com/Jesuits instagram.com/wearethejesuits youtube.com/societyofjesus

Pope Francis, in a wide-ranging interview with the Associated Press, spoke at length about his health, his critics and the future of the papacy. Most notably, he called laws criminalizing homosexuality fundamentally unjust and said being homosexual is not a crime. Paul Elie of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs joined Geoff Bennett to discuss the pope's interview. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Ernst and Veronika talk to us about their process of composing Expedition Content, the augmented sound piece composed from 37 hours of recordings which document the encounter between members of the Harvard Peabody Expedition, particularly Michael Rockefeller of the Rockefeller family, and the Hubula people of West Papua, at the time Nederlands New Guinea. The piece reflects on visual anthropology, the lives of the Hubula and of Michael, and the ongoing history of colonialism and occupation in West Papua. “Expedition Content” premiered at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival and has been screened at Cinéma du Réel at the Centre Pompidou Paris, the Art of the Real, Lincoln Center New York, and Camden international Film Festival. Veronika Kusumaryati is a social anthropologist and artist working on the issues of Indigenous politics, conflict and violence, race/racism, and digital media. The geographic focus of her research is Indonesia, primarily West Papua, a self-identifying term referring to Indonesia's easternmost provinces of Papua and West Papua, where she has conducted extensive fieldwork since 2012. She holds a Ph.D. in anthropology with a secondary field in film and visual studies from Harvard University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Asian Studies Program at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University during the 2020-2021 academic year. Her writings have been published in journals, such as Comparative Studies in Society and History and Critical Asian Studies. She is an incoming assistant professor in anthropology and international studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison starting in the spring of 2023. www.veronikakusumaryati.wordpress.com Ernst Karel works with sound, including electroacoustic music, experimental nonfiction sound works for multichannel installation and performance, image-sound collaboration, and postproduction sound for nonfiction vilm, with an emphasis on observational cinema. Lately he works around the practice of actuality/location recording (or 'fields [plural] recording') and composing with those recordings, with recent projects also taking up archival location recordings. Sound projections have been presented at Sonic Acts, Amsterdam; Oboro, Montreal; EMPAC, Troy NY; Arsenal, Berlin; and the 2014 Whitney Biennial. Sound installations in collaboration with Helen Mirra have been exhibited at the Gardner Museum, Boston; Culturgest, Lisbon; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Audiorama, Stockholm; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge; and in the 2012 Sao Paulo Bienal. Audio-video collaborations include Expedition Content (2020, with Veronika Kusumaryati), Ah humanity! (2015, with Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel) and Single Stream (2014, with Toby Lee and Pawel Wojtasik). CDs of his often collaborative work, including with the electroacoustic duo EKG, have been released on and/OAR, Another Timbre, Cathnor, Gruenrekorder, Locust, Sedimental, and Sshpuma record labels, and a duo with Bhob Rainey is forthcoming on Erstwhile. From 2006 until 2017 he managed the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard University, doing postproduction sound for vilms including Sweetgrass, The Iron Ministry, Manakamana, and Leviathan. He has taught audio recording and composition through the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard (through 2021), the Center for Experimental Ethnography at Penn (2019), and the Department of Film & Media at UC Berkeley (2022). www.ek.klingt.org --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/sugar-nutmeg/support

Susan Hayward, associate director of the Religious Literacy and the Professions Initiative at Harvard Divinity School, leads the conversation on religious literacy in international affairs.   FASKIANOS: Welcome to the final session of the Fall 2022 CFR Academic Webinar Series. I'm Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. Today's discussion is on the record, and the video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org/Academic if you would like to share it with your classmates or colleagues. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We're delighted to have Susan Hayward with us to discuss religious literacy in international affairs. Reverend Hayward is the associate director for the Religious Literacy and Professions Initiative at Harvard Divinity School. From 2007 to 2021, she worked for the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), with focus on Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Columbia, and Iraq. And most recently serving as senior advisor for Religion and Inclusive Societies, and as a fellow in Religion and Public Life. During her tenure at USIP, Reverend Hayward also coordinated an initiative exploring the intersection of women, religion, conflict, and peacebuilding, partnership with the Berkley Center at Georgetown University and the World Faith Development Dialogue. And she coedited a book on the topic entitled Women, Religion and Peacebuilding: Illuminating the Unseen. Reverend Hayward has also taught at Georgetown and George Washington Universities and serves as a regular guest lecturer and trainer at the Foreign Service Institute. And she's also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. So, Susan, thank you very much for being with us today. Can you begin by explaining why religious literacy is so important for understanding international affairs? HAYWARD: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Irina. And thanks to the Council on Foreign Relations for inviting me to be a part of this webinar. And I really appreciate you and the invitation, and I appreciate all of you who have joined us today, taking time out of what I know is a busy time of year, as we hurdle towards final exams and cramming everything into these last weeks of the semester. So it's great to be with all of you. I am going to be—in answering that broad question that Irina offered, I'm going to be drawing on my work. As Irina said, I worked at the—I work now at Harvard Divinity School's Religion and Public Life Program. And what we seek to do here is to do here is to advance the public understanding of religion in service of a just world at peace. And we do that, in part, by working with professionals in governments and foreign policy, and in the humanitarian sector, as well as working with our students who are seeking to go into vocations in those professional spheres. And then my fourteen years with the Religion and Inclusive Societies Program at the U.S. Institute of Peace. So I'll say a little bit more about both of those as we go along, and those experiences, but I'm also happy to answer any questions about either of those programs when we turn to the Q&A. And I should say that I'm going to be focusing as well—given that a lot of you all who are joining us today are educators yourselves or are students—I'm going to be focusing in particular on how we teach religious literacy within international affairs. So I wanted to begin with the definition of religious literacy, because this is a term that is increasingly employed as part of a rallying cry that's based on a particular diagnosis. And the diagnosis is that there has been insufficient deep consideration of the multiple and complex dimensions of religion and culture that impact international affairs at all levels across the world. And that the result of that lack of a complex understanding of religion in this arena has been the—the hamstringing of the ability of the international system to operate in ways that are effective in bringing justice, peace, democracy, human rights, and development. So I'm going to circle back to that diagnosis in a bit. But first I want to jump to the prescription that's offered, which is to enhance religious literacy using various resources, trainings, courses, and ways that are relevant for foreign policymakers and those working across the international system, as well as those students who are in the schools of international affairs, or other schools and planning to go into this space, into this profession. So the definition that we use here at Harvard Divinity School—and this is one that has been adopted by the American Academy of Religion, which is the scholarly guild for religious studies—defines it in this way: Religious literacy is the—entails the ability to discern and analyze the fundamental intersections of religion and social, political, and cultural life through multiple lenses. So specifically, one who is religious literate will possess a basic understanding of different religious traditions, including sort of fundamental beliefs and practices and contemporary manifestation of different religious traditions, as well as how they arose out of and continue to be shaped by particular social, historical, and cultural contexts. And the ability to discern and explore the religious dimensions of political, social, and cultural expressions across time and space. So this gets broken down in two different ways—three, according to me. But that definition focuses on two in particular. One is often referred to as the confessional approach or the substantive approach. So that's looking at understanding different religious traditions and their manifestations in different places. That's understanding something fundamental about the difference between Theravada Buddhism and Vajrayana Buddhism, for example. Or how Islam is practiced, and dominantly practiced in Nigeria, versus in North America, for example. The second approach is the religious studies approach. Which is sometimes also called the functional approach. So that's the ability to be able to analyze the ways in which religions in complex ways are really intersecting with social, and political, and economic life, even if not explicitly so. But in implicit, embedded ways shaping different kinds of economic systems, social systems, and political systems, and being able to analyze and see that, and so ask particular questions and consider different kinds of policy solutions—diagnoses and solutions that can take that into account. And then finally, I add the religious engagement approach. That particularly comes out of my work when I was at USIP and working with foreign policymakers in the State Department and elsewhere. To some extent, overseas as well, those in the diplomatic sector. Which I understand is determining whether, when, and how to engage with specifically defined religious institutions, actors, and interests, including on issues related, for example, with religious freedom, in ways that are inclusive, just, strategic, and, importantly for the U.S. context, legal. So abiding by the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. Now, all three types of religious literacy defined here depend on three principles or ideas. So the first is that they understand religions as lived, as constituted by humans who are constantly interpreting and reinterpreting their religious traditions. This means that as a result they are internally diverse, sometimes very internally contradictory. They'll have different religious interpretations with respect to particular human rights issues, particular social issues, issues related to gender, and so on and so forth. That they change over time. That that sort of complex interpretive process that is going on within religious traditions also leads to kind of larger normative changes within religious traditions over history in different temporal contexts. And that they're culturally embedded. So as the question I was asking earlier, how is Islam, as it's understood and practiced in Nigeria, different from how it's understood and practiced in North America, for example. There are ways in which the particular religious interpretations and practices of a tradition are always going to be entangled with specific cultural contexts in ways that are near impossible to disentangle at times. And that means that they just manifest differently in different places. And this—these ideas of religion as lived pushes against an understanding of religions as being static or being monolithic. So that then leads us to ensure that there's never—that it's always going to be a problem to make sweeping claims about entire religious traditions because you'll always find somebody or some community within those religious traditions that don't believe or practice according to the claim that you just made about it. And that applies to situations of violent conflict and with respect to human rights, on global issues like climate and migration. This idea, the internal diversity in particular, is what is at play when you hear the phrase “Ambivalence of the Sacred” that was coined by Scott Appleby in his—in this very influential book by the same name. I'll throw in here a quote from Scott Appleby from that book, this idea that religions are always going to show up in ambivalent or contradictory ways across different places, but also sometimes in the very same contexts. So I think we can see that, for example, in the U.S. right now, and that there's no one, let's say, religious position with respect to reproductive rights, for example. There's a great deal of internal plurality and ambivalence that exists across religious traditions and interpretations within the Christian tradition and beyond about that specific issue. Moreover then, what religion is, what is considered religious, what is recognized as religious and what isn't, and how it manifests in different contexts depends on just a complex array of intersecting factors. I'm going to come back to—that's kind of meaty phrase just to throw out there, so I'm going to come back to that in a minute. So the second principle or idea of religious literacy that I want to highlight here is the idea of right-sizing religion. This is a phrase that Peter Mandaville used quite a bit when he was in the State Department's Religion and Global Affairs Office under the Obama administration and has written about. So I'll turn you to that article of his to understand more about it. But the central idea is that we don't want to over nor underemphasize religion's role in any given context. So just by way of a quick example, in looking at the Rohingya crisis or the ethnic cleansing of Rakhine State in Myanmar, one could not say it was all about religion, that it was about Buddhist nationalists who are anti-Muslim wanting to destroy a particular religious community. Nor could you say it had nothing to do with religion, because there were these religious dimensions that were at play in driving the violence towards the Rohingya and the larger communities' acceptance of that violence against the Rohingya community. But if you were to overemphasize the religious roles, the religious dimensions of that crisis, then your policy solutions—you might look at religious freedom tools and resources to be able to address the situation. And that would address the situation in part, but obviously there were other economic and political factors that were at play in leading to the Rohingya crisis. And including certain economic interests with oil pipelines that were being constructed across lands that the Rohingya were living on in Rakhine state, or the political conflict that was taking place between the military and the National League of Democracy, and so on. So addressing the crisis holistically and sustainably requires that we right-size the role that religion is playing in that particular crisis. And that goes across the board, in looking at conflicts and looking at the role of religion in climate, and addressing climate collapse, and so on and so forth. We need to always neither under nor overestimate the role that religion is playing in driving some of these issues and as a solution in addressing some of these issues. OK. So with that definition and principles of religious literacy in mind, I want to go back to the diagnosis that I gave at the—that I mentioned at the top, for which religious literacy is offered as a solution. The diagnosis, if you remember, was that there's been insufficient consideration given to the multiple and complex dimensions of religion and culture that impact international affairs. So I'm going to demonstrate what it means to apply the religious studies approach to religious literacy, or the functional approach to religious literacy, to help us understand why that might be. And remember, the religious studies approach is seeking to discern and explore the religious dimensions of political, social, and cultural expressions and understandings across time and place. So this approach, in trying to answer that question and consider that diagnosis, it would invite us to look historically at the development of the modern international legal and political systems in a particular time and place in Western Europe, during the European Enlightenment. As many of you may well know, this came about in the aftermath of the so-called confessional or religious wars. Those were largely understood to have pitted Protestants against Catholics, though it's more complicated in reality. But broadly, that's the story. And the modern state, on which the international system was built, sought to create a separation between religious and state authority. For the first time in European history, this separation between religious and state authority that became more rigid and enforced over time, in the belief that this was necessary in order to ensure peace and prosperity moving forward, to bring an end to these wars, and to ensure that the state would be better able to deal with the reality of increasing religious pluralism within Europe. So this was essentially the idea of secular political structures that was born in that time and place. And these secular political structures were considered to be areligious or neutral towards religion over time, again. In the process of legitimating this sort of revolutionary new model of the secular modern state, and in the process of creating this demarcated distinction that had not previously existed—at least, not a neat distinction of the secular or the political authority and the religious—the religious authority—there was an assertion as part of that ideologically legitimate and support that. There was an assertion of the secular as rational, ordered, and associated with all of the good stuff of modernity. Meanwhile, the religious was defined in counter-distinction as a threat to the secular. It was irrational, backwards, a threat to the emerging order. A not-subtle presumption in all of this is that the new modern state and the international system would serve as a bulwark against archaic, dangerous, religious, and other traditionally cultural, in particular, worldviews and practices in—it would be a bulwark against that, and a support for this neutral and considered universal international law and system—secular system. Now, I realize I'm making some, like, huge, broad historical sweeps here, given the short amount of time I have. But within that story I just told, there is a lot more complexity that one can dig into. But part of what I seek to do in offering religious literacy in international relations theory and practice to students, and to practitioners in this realm, is to help those operating in the system think through how that historically and contextually derived conception of religion and the co-constitutive conception of secularism continues to operate within and shape how we interpret and respond to global events within the system. And this occurs—I see this happening in two dominant ways. One is, first, in thinking about religion as a distinct sphere of life that can be disentangled entirely from the political, when in reality religion is deeply entangled with the political, and vice versa. And scholars like Talal Asad and Elizabeth Shakman Hurd have done really great work to show how even our understanding of the secular and secular norms and so on is shaped by Protestant Christian commitments and understandings. And saying within that, our understanding of what religion is—like, a focus on belief, for example, which has been codified in a lot of religious freedom law, as part of the international system—again, tends to emphasize Protestant Christian understandings of what religion is and how it functions. So that's the first reason for doing that. And then second, in understanding religion to be a threat to modernity, and sometimes seeing and responding to it as such rather than taking into account its complexity, its ambivalence, the ways in which it has been a powerful force for good, and bad, and everything in between, and in ways that sometimes let the secular off the hook for ways that it has driven forms of violence, colonialism, gender injustice, global inequalities, the climate crisis, and so on. So those are the consequences of when we don't have that religious literacy, of those potential pitfalls. And, on that second point, of the ways in which religion continues to be defined in ways that can overemphasize its negative aspect at time within the international system, I commend the work of William Cavanaugh in particular and his book, The Myth of Religious Violence to dig into that a little bit more. So what we're seeking to do, in bringing that kind of religious literacy to even thinking about the international system and its norms and how it operates, is to raise the consciousness of what Donna Haraway calls the situatedness of the international system, the embedded agendas and assumptions that inevitably operate within it. And it invites students to be skeptical of any claims to the systems neutrality about religion, how it's defined, and how it's responded to. So I recognize that that approach is very deconstructionist work. It's informed by, post-colonial critical theory, which reflects where religious studies has been for the last couple decades. But importantly, it doesn't, nor shouldn't ideally, lead students to what is sometimes referred to as analysis paralysis, when there's sort of groundedness within hypercritical approaches, only looking at the complexity to a degree that it's hard to understand how to move forward then to respond constructively to these concerns. Rather, the purpose is to ensure that they're more conscious of these underlying embedded norms or assumptions so that they can better operate within the system in just ways, not reproducing forms of Eurocentrism, Christo-centrism, or forms of cultural harm. So the hope is that it helps students to be able to better critique the ways in in which religion and secularism is being—are being discussed, analyzed, or engaged within international affairs, and then be able to enter into those kinds of analysis, policymaking, program development, and so on, in ways that can help disrupt problematic assumptions and ensure that the work of religious literacy or religious engagement is just. So I'm just going to offer one example of how this kind of critical thinking and critical—the way of thinking complexly about religion in this space can be fruitful. And it speaks back to one of the things Irina noted about my biography, the work I had done looking at women and religion and peacebuilding. So while I was at USIP, in that program, we spent several years looking specifically and critically at forms of theory and practice, and this subfield that had emerged of religious peacebuilding. And we were looking at it through the lens of gender justice, asking how religion was being defined in the theory or engaged in the peacebuilding practice and policy in ways that unintentionally reinforced gender injustice. And what we found is that there were assumptions operating about certain authorities—often those at the top of institutions, which tended to be older, well-educated men—representing entire traditions. Assumptions made about their social and political power as well. When in reality, we knew that those of different genders, and ages, and socioeconomic locations were doing their own work of peacebuilding within these religious landscapes, and had different experiences of violence, and so different prescriptions for how to build peace. So we began to ask questions, like whose peace is being built in this field of religious peacebuilding that was emerging? And the work that USIP had been doing in this space of religious peacebuilding? Whose stories were being left out in the dominant analyses or narratives in the media about religious dimensions of certain conflicts, and what are the consequences of that? So these kinds of questions are grounded in the recognition of, again, the internal diversity, the change over time of religious traditions. And they help ensure that analysis and policy actions aren't unintentionally reproducing forms of harm or structural violence. I'm almost done. So please do bring your questions so that we can engage in a discussion with each other. But I wanted to end by offering a couple examples of resources that I think might be helpful to both enhancing your own religious literacy but also as potential pedagogical tools in this work. So first is Religious Peacebuilding Action Guides that were produced by the U.S. Institute of Peace, in partnership with Salam Institute for Peace and Justice, and the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers. There's four guides. They're all available for free online. Once I close down my PowerPoint, I'm going to throw the links for all of these things I'm mentioning into the chat box so you can all see it. But one of the things—I'm just going to dive in a little bit to the analysis guide, because one of the things that I think is useful in helping, again, to help us think a little bit more complexly about religion, is that it takes you through this process of thinking about the different dimensions of religion as defined here—ideas, community, institutions, symbols and practices, and spirituality. So it's already moving beyond just an idea of religious institutions, for example. And it takes you through doing a conflict assessment, and asking the questions related to religion with respect to the drivers of the conflict and the geographic location and peacebuilding initiatives, to help you craft a peacebuilding—a religious peacebuilding initiative. I have used this framework as a means to help students think through the ambivalence of religion as it manifests in different places. So I have an example there of a question that I have sometimes used that has been fruitful in thinking about how these five different dimensions of religion have manifested in American history in ways that either have advanced forms of racialized violence and injustice or that have served as drivers of peace and justice. And there's lots of examples across all of those dimensions of the ways in which religion has shown up in ambivalent ways in that respect. There's also—USIP's team has produced a lot of amazing things. So I'll put some links to some of their other resources in there too, which includes they're doing religious landscape mappings of conflict-affected states. They have an online course on religious engagement in peacebuilding that's free to take. Another resource is from here, at Harvard Divinity School in the Religion in Public Life Program. And we provide a series of case studies that is for educators. It's primarily created educators in secondary schools and in community colleges, but I think could easily be adapted and used in other kinds of four-year universities or other kinds of professional settings, where you're doing trainings or workshops, or even just holding discussions on religious literacy. So there's a series of kind of short, concise, but dense, case studies that are looking at different religions as they intersect with a host of issues, including peace, climate, human rights, gender issues. And it says something about that case study here—the example that I have here is the conflict in Myanmar, pre-coup, the conflicts that were occurring between religious communities, and particularly between Buddhist communities and Muslim communities. And then there's a set of discussion questions there that really help to unearth some of those lessons about internal diversity and about the ways in which religious intersects with state policies and other kinds of power interests and agendas—political power interests and agendas. And then also, at our program, Religion and Public Life, we have a number of courses that are available online, one that's more on the substantive religious literacy side, looking at different religious traditions through their scriptures. Another course, it's on religion, conflict and peace, all of which are free and I'm going to throw them into the chat box in a moment. And we also have ongoing workshops for educators on religious literacy, a whole network with that. So you're welcome to join that network if you'd like. And then finally, we have a one-year master's of religion and public life program for people in professions—quote/unquote, “secular” professions—who want to come and think about—they're encountering religion in various ways in their work in public health, or in their work in journalism. And so they want to come here for a year and to think deeply about that, and bring something back into their profession. And then the final thing, and then I'm going to be done, and this one is short, is the Transatlantic Policy for Religion and Diplomacy, which brings together point people from—who work on religion across different foreign ministries in North America and Europe. And their website, religionanddiplomacy.org, has a lot of really great resources that—reports on various thematic issues, but also looking at religion in situ in a number of different geographic locations. They have these strategic notes, that's what I have the image of here, that talk about, at a particular time, what are some of the big stories related to religion and international affairs overseas. And they list a number of other religious literacy resources on their website as well. So I commend all of that to. And with that, let me stop share, throw some links into the chat box, and hear responses and questions from folks. FASKIANOS: Wonderful. Thank you for that. That was terrific. And we are going to send out—as a follow-up, we'll send out a link to this webinar, maybe a link to your presentation, as well as the resources that you drop into the chat. So if you don't get it here, you will have another bite at the apple, so to speak. (Gives queuing instructions.) So I'm going to go first to the written question from Meredith Coon, who's an undergraduate student at Lewis University: What would be a solution for India to have many different religions live in peace with each other, especially since most religions share a lot of the same core values of how people should live? And how can society prevent the weaponization of religion, while still allowing broad religious freedom? HAYWARD: All right. Thank you for the question, Meredith. And one thing just to note, by way of housekeeping, I'm not sure I can actually share the links with all of the participants. So we'll make sure that you get all of those links in that follow-up note, as Irina said. So, Meredith, I think a couple things. One, I just want to note that one of the assumptions within your question itself is that folks of different religious persuasions are constantly at conflict with one another. And of course, there is a reality of there is increasing religious tensions around the world, communal tensions of many different sorts, ethnic, and religious, and racial, and so on, across the world. And the threat to democracy and increasing authoritarianism has sometimes exacerbated those kinds of tensions. But there's also a lot of examples presently and historically of religiously incredibly diverse communities living in ways that are harmonious, that are just, and so on. So I think it is important—there's a lot of work that supports forms of interfaith dialogue and intra-faith dialogue. And I think that that work is—will always be important, to be able to recognize shared values and shared commitments, and in order to acknowledge and develop respect and appreciation for differences as well on different topics—again, both within religious traditions and across them. But I think that dialogue alone, frankly, is not enough. Because so often these tensions and these conflicts are rooted in structural violence and discrimination and concerns, economic issues, and political issues, and so on. And so I think part of that work, it's not just about building relationships kind of on a horizontal level, but also about ensuring that state policies and practice, economic policies and practices, and so on, are not operating in ways that disadvantage some groups over others, on a religious side, on a gender side, on a racial side, and so on. So it's about ensuring as well inclusive societies and a sense as well of inclusive political systems and inclusive economic systems. And doing that work in kind of integrated ways is going to be critical for ensuring that we're able to address some of these rising forms of violations of religious freedom. Thanks again for the question. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Next question from Clemente Abrokwaa. Clemente, do you want to ask your question? Associate teaching professor of African studies at Pennsylvania State University? I'm going to give you a moment, so we can hear some voices. Q: OK. Thank you very much. Yeah, my question is I'm wondering how peacebuilding, in terms of religious literacy, how would you look at—or, how does it look at those that are termed fundamentalists? How their actions and beliefs, especially their beliefs, those of us—there are those outside who perceive them as being destructive. So then to that person, is their beliefs are good. So they fight for, just like anyone will fight for, what, a freedom fighter or something, or a religious fighter in this case. So I'm just wondering how does religious literacy perceive that in terms of peacebuilding? HAYWARD: Right. Thank you for the question, Professor Abrokwaa. I really appreciate it. So a couple things. One, first of all, with respect to—just going back, again, to the ambivalence of the sacred—recognizing that that exists. That there are particular religious ideas, commitments, groups, practices that are used in order to fuel and legitimate forms of violence. And I use violence in a capacious understanding of it, that includes both direct forms of violence but also structural and cultural forms of violence, to use the framework of Johan Galtung. And so that needs to be addressed as part of the work to build peace, is recognizing religious and nonreligious practices and ideas that are driving those forms of violence. But when it comes to religious literacy to understand that, a couple ways in which the principles apply. One is, first, not assuming that their—that that is the only or exclusive religious interpretation. And I think sometimes well-meaning folks end up reifying this idea that that is the exclusive religious interpretation or understanding when they're—when they're offering sometimes purely nonreligious responses to it. And what I mean by this, for example, let's look at Iran right now. I read some analyses where it's saying that, the Iranian authorities and the Ayatollahs who comprise the Supreme Council and so on, that they—that they define what Islamic law is. And there's not a qualification of that. And in the meantime, the protesters are sort of defined as, like, secular, or they're not—the idea that they could be driven by certain—their own Islamic interpretations that are just as authoritative to them, and motivating them, and shaping them is critical. So being able to recognize the internal plurality and not unintentionally reify that particular interpretation of a religious tradition as exclusive or authoritative. Rather, it's one interpretation of a religious tradition with particular consequences that are harmful for peace. And there are multiple other interpretations of that religious tradition that are operating within that context. And then a second way that the religious literacy would apply would also look at the ways in which sometimes the diagnoses of extremist groups that are operating within a religious frame doesn't right-size the role of religion in that. It sometimes overemphasizes the religious commitments, and drives, and so on. And so, again, we need to right-size. There are religious motivations. And we need to take those seriously. And we need to develop solutions for addressing that. And there are economic interests. And there are political interests. So there's a whole host of factors that are motivating and inspiring and legitimating those groups. And being able to take into account that more holistic picture and ensure that your responses to it are going to be holistic. And then one final thing I want to say that's not with respect to religious literacy as much—or, maybe it is—but it's more just about my experience of work at USIP, is that—and it kind of goes back to the question that Meredith asked before you about religious harmony between multireligious relations and harmony, is that I sometimes finds that engaging with groups that are defining themselves and motivating themselves with a primary grounding in religion, that they're not going to participate generally in interfaith initiatives, and so on, right? And so that's where some of that intra-faith work can be particularly important. I saw this, for example, in Myanmar, when their—when previously the movement that was known as Ma Ba Tha, which was defined by some as a Buddhist nationalist anti-Muslim kind of Buddhist supremacist group. The folks who were most successful in being able to engage in a values-grounded conversation with members of the organization were other Buddhist monks, who were able to speak within the language of meaning and to draw attention to, like, different understandings of religious teachings or religious principles with respect to responding to minority groups, and so on. So I think that's in particular, with addressing those groups, that's where that intra-religious work or intra-communal work can be really critical, in addition to some of that cross-communal work. FASKIANOS: Thank you. So we've seen, obviously, the war in Ukraine and how Christian Orthodoxy is being—or, Greek Orthodoxy in Ukraine, and the division. Can you talk a little bit about that and how it's playing out with Russian identity? HAYWARD: Yeah, absolutely. There's been some really good analysis and work out there of the religious dimensions of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. So again, the sort of dominant story that you see, which reflects a reality, is that there are ways in which political and religious actors and interests are aligning on the Russian side in order to advance particular narratives and that legitimate the invasion of Ukraine that—that are about sort of fighting back against an understanding of the West as being counter to traditional and religious values. Those are some of the religious understandings. And then that concern gets linked then to the establishment of an independent or autocephalous Orthodox Church within the Ukraine context. And you see—in particular, what's pointed to often is the relationship between Patriarch Kirill in the Russian Orthodox Church, and Putin, and the ways in which they've sort of reinforced each other's narrative and offered support to it. And there's really great analysis out there and stories that have been done about that. And that needs to be taken into account in responding to the situation and, I would say, that some of the religious literacy principles would then ask us to think about other ways in which religion is showing up within that, that go beyond the institution too. So a lot of the news stories that I've seen, for example, have focused exclusively on—sometimes—exclusively on the clerics within the Orthodox Church and their positions, either in support of or in opposition to the war. But in reality, on the ground there's a lot more complexity that's taken place, and a lot more of the ways in which different individuals and communities on both the Russia and the Ukraine side are responding to the violence, to the displacements, and so on. It paints a more complex and, I think, fascinating story, frankly. And sort of illuminates ways forward in support of peacebuilding. For example, there's ways in which different kinds of ritual practices within Orthodoxy have served as a source of support and constancy to folks who are living in this situation of insecurity and displacement, in ways that have been helpful. There are, of course, other religious traditions that exist within both Ukraine and Russia that are operating and responding in different ways. Like, the Jewish community in Ukraine and the Catholic—the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine. So looking at those complexities both within Orthodoxy, but there's many different ways that Orthodox Christians are responding in both countries. There's not one story of Orthodox Christianity and the invasion of Ukraine. But also looking at some of the religious diversity within it. And that helps to ensure, like I said, one, that we're developing solutions that are also recognizing the ways in which religion at a very ground level is serving as a source of support, humanitarian relief, social, psychological support to people on the ground, as well as the ways in which it's sort of manifesting ambivalently and complexly in ways that are driving some of the violence as well. And it also helps to push back against any sort of a narrative that this is about a Russian religion—on the Russian side—this is about a religious war against a secular, non-religious West or Ukraine, right? That that goes back to what I was talking about with the historical sort of contingencies that are baked into this system a little bit. And in defining it in that way, Russia's religious and its motivations are religious, Ukraine's not religious, that's both not true—(laughs)—because there's many religious folks within the Ukraine and within the West generally, but also feeds—it feeds the very narrative that Putin and Kirill are giving of a secular West that is anti-religion, that is in opposition to Russian traditional values. FASKIANOS: It seems like there needs to be some training of journalists too to have religious literacy, in the same way that we're talking about media literacy. HAYWARD: Yeah. FASKIANOS: Probably should be introduced as well. (Laughs.) HAYWARD: Yeah, Irina, it's funny, we did—one of my students actually did a kind of mapping and analysis of stories about the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the religious dimensions of it. And she noted that there was—for example, it was—almost always it was male clerics who were being quoted. So there was very little that was coming from other gendered perspectives and experiences on the ground, lay folks and so on. And again, for that—for that very reason it's sort of—because we know so many policymakers and international analysis are depending on these kinds of media stories, I worry that it creates a blinder to potential opportunities for different kinds of ways of addressing needs and partners for addressing needs on the ground. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you. I'm going to go next to Liam Wall, an undergraduate student at Loyola Marymount University: With so much diversity within religions itself, how can we avoid the analysis paralysis you mentioned and take in as many unique perspectives as possible, without letting that stand in the way of progress? How does one know that they have enough religious literacy and can now become an effective practitioner? HAYWARD: Well, OK, the bad news is that you will never have enough religious literacy. (Laughs.) This is a process, not an end. There are scholars here at Harvard who have been studying one particular sect of a particular religious tradition for their entire adult lives, and they would still say that they are students of those traditions, because they're so complex. Because so many of these traditions are composed of a billion people or just—just 500 million people. But that means that there's going to be an incredible diversity to explore. And so that's the bad news. But the good news is, one, like, first take the burden off of your shoulders of having to be an expert on any one particular religious tradition, in order to be able to help to develop and enhance your own religious literacy, and those of others, and to operate in ways that reflect the principles of religious literacy, is the good news. As well as there are many different kinds of resources that you can turn to in order to understand, for example if you're going to be working in a particular geographic location, scholarship, people you can speak to in order to begin to understand at least some of the specific manifestations and practices, and some of the disputes and diversity that exists within that particular country or geographic location across religious traditions. But, secondly, I would say, it's almost more important than—like, the substance is important. But what's just as important, if not more important, is understanding what kinds of questions to be asking, and to be curious about these religious questions and their intersection with the political and social. So we sometimes say that religious literacy is about developing habits of mind in how we think about these religious questions, and what kinds of questions we ask about religion. So it's about developing that kind of a reflex to be able to kind of see what's underneath some of the analysis that you're seeing that might be relevant to religion or that might be advancing particularly problematic understandings of religion, or reinforcing binaries like the secular and the religious and so on. And that's just as—just as important. So the extent to which you're continuing to, like, hone those—that way of thinking, and those habits of mind, that will set you up well for then going into this space and being able to ask those particular questions with respect to whatever issues you're focusing on, or whatever geographic location you're looking at. FASKIANOS: Great. I'm going to go next to Mohamed Bilal, a postgraduate student at the Postgraduate Institute of Management in Sri Lanka. HAYWARD: Yay! FASKIANOS: Yes. How does sectarianism influence our literacy? In turn, if we are influenced by sectarianism, then would we be illiterate of the religion but literate of the sect? Thus, wouldn't such a religious literacy perpetuate sectarianism? HAYWARD: Thank you for the question, Mohamed. It's—I miss Sri Lanka. I have not been there in too long, and I look forward to going back at some point. So I would say sectarianism, in the sense of—so, there's both religious sects, right? There's the existence of different kinds of religious traditions, interpretive bodies, jurisprudential bodies in the case of Islam. And then broader, different schools or denominations. The term that's used depends on the different religious tradition. And that reflects internal diversity. Sectarianism, with the -ism on the end of it, gets back to the same kinds of questions that I think Professor Clemente was asking with respect to fundamentalism. That's about being sort of entrenched in an idea that your particular religious understanding and practice is the normative, authentic, and pure practice, and that all others are false in some ways. That is a devotional claim or—what I mean by a devotional claim, is that is a knowledge claim that is rooted within a particular religious commitment and understanding. And so religious literacy in this case would—again, it's the principles of internal diversity, recognizing that different sects and different bodies of thought and practice are going to exist within religious traditions, but then also ensuring that any claim to be normative or to be orthodox by any of these different interpretive bodies is always a claim that is rooted within that religious tradition that we sometimes say is authentic. It's authentic to those communities and what they believe. But it's not exclusive. It's not the only claim that exists within that religious tradition more broadly. And the concern is about—sects are fine. Different denominations, different interpretative bodies are fine and a good and sort of natural thing, given the breadth and the depth of these religious traditions. The problem is that -ism part of it, when it becomes a source of competition or even potentially violence between groups. And so that's what needs to be interrogated and understood. FASKIANOS: So another question from John Francis, who's the senior associate vice president for academic affairs at the University of Utah: If you were training new diplomats in other countries to be stationed in the United States, where a wide range of religious traditions thrive, how would you prepare them for dealing with such religious variation? HAYWARD: The same way I would—and thank you, again, for the question. The same way that I would with any other diplomats going to any other—the same way I do with foreign service officers at the Foreign Service Institute, who are going to work overseas. I would—I would invite them to think about their own assumptions and their own worldviews and their own understandings of what religion is, based on their own contexts that they grew up in. So how that shapes how they understand what religion is, in the ways I was speaking to before. So for example, in Protestant Christianity, we tend to emphasize belief as the sort of core principle of religious traditions. But other religious traditions might emphasize different forms of practice or community as sort of the central or principal factor. So recognizing your own situatedness and the ways in which you understand and respond to different religious traditions. I would invite those who are coming to work here to read up on the historical developments and reality of different religious communities and nonreligious communities in the U.S. and encourage them to look not just at some of the—what we call the world religions, or the major religions, but also at indigenous traditions and different practices within different immigrant communities. And I would have them look at the historical relationship between the state and different religious communities as well, including the Mormon tradition there in Utah, and how the experience of, for example, the Mormon community has shaped its own relationship with the state, with other religious communities on a whole host of issues as well. And then I would encourage—just as I was saying earlier—no diplomat going to the U.S. is going to become an expert on the religious context in the U.S., because it's incredibly complex, just like anywhere else in the world. But to be able to have sort of a basic understanding to be able to then continue to ask the kinds of questions that are going to help to understand how any political action is taken or response to any policy issues kind of inevitably bumps up against particular religious or cultural commitments and values. FASKIANOS: Great. I'm going to take the next question from Will Carpenter, director of private equity principal investments at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, and also taking a course at the Harvard Extension School. HAYWARD: Hey! FASKIANOS: I'm going to ask the second part of Will's question. How will the current polarized domestic debate regarding U.S. history, which is often colored by the extremes—as a force for good only versus tainted by a foundation of injustice—impact America's capacity to lead internationally? HAYWARD: Hmm, a lot. (Laughter.) Thank you for the question. I mean, I think the fact of polarization in the U.S. and the increasing difficulty that we're facing in being able to have really deep conversations and frank conversations about historical experiences and perceptions of different communities, not just religiously, not just racially even, but across different—urban-rural, across socioeconomic divides, across educational divides and, of course, across political divides, and so on. I think that—I think that absolutely hampers our ability to engage within the global stage effectively. One, just because of the image that it gives to the rest of the world. So how can we—how can we have an authentic moral voice when we ourselves are having such a hard time engaging with one other in ways that reflect those values and that are grounded within those values? But also because I think get concern—with respect to religion questions in particular—I get concern about the increasing polarization and partisanization of religion in foreign policy and issues of religious freedom, and so on. Which means that we're going to constantly have this sort of swinging back and forth then between Republican and Democratic administrations on how we understand and engage issues related to religion and foreign policy, different religious communities in particular, like Muslim communities worldwide, or on issues of religious freedom. So I think it's incredibly critical—always has been, but is particularly right now at this historical moment—for us to be in the U.S. doing this hard work of having these conversations, and hearing, and listening to one another, and centering and being open about our values and having these conversations on that level of values. To be able to politically here in the U.S., much less overseas, to be able to work in ways that are effective. Irina, you're muted. FASKIANOS: Thank you. (Laughs.) With that, we are at the end of our time. Thank you so much for this. This has been a really important hour of discussion. Again, we will send out the link to the webinar, as well as all the resources that you mentioned, Susan. Sorry we didn't have the chat open so that we could focus on what you were saying and all the questions and comments that came forward. So we appreciate it. And thank you so much, again, for your time, Susan Hayward. And I just want to remind everybody that this is the last webinar of the semester, but we will be announcing the Winter/Spring Academic Webinar lineup in our Academic bulletin. And if you're not already subscribed to that, you can email us at cfracademic@cfr.org. Just as a reminder, you can learn about CFR paid internships for students and fellowships for professors at CFR.org/careers. Follow @CFR_Academic on Twitter and visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues. Good luck with your exams. (Laughs.) Grading, taking them, et cetera. Wishing you all a happy Thanksgiving. And we look forward to seeing you again next semester. So, again, thank you to Susan Hayward. HAYWARD: Thank you, everybody. Take care.

Katherine Marshall, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, leads the center's work on religion and global development. She is also a professor of the practice of development, conflict, and religion in the Walsh School of Foreign Service, teaching diverse courses on the ethics of development work and mentoring students at many levels. She helped to create and now serves as the executive director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue, an NGO that works to enhance bridges between different sectors and institutions. In September 2022, she was appointed as a member of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Marshall has five decades of experience on a variety of development issues in Africa, Latin America, East Asia, and the Middle East, particularly those facing the world's poorest countries. She was a World Bank officer from 1971 to 2006, and she led the World Bank's faith and ethics initiative between 2000 and 2006. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/you-betterknow4/message

Katherine Marshall, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, leads the center's work on religion and global development. She is also a professor of the practice of development, conflict, and religion in the Walsh School of Foreign Service, teaching diverse courses on the ethics of development work and mentoring students at many levels. She helped to create and now serves as the executive director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue, an NGO that works to enhance bridges between different sectors and institutions. In September 2022, she was appointed as a member of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Marshall has five decades of experience on a variety of development issues in Africa, Latin America, East Asia, and the Middle East, particularly those facing the world's poorest countries. She was a World Bank officer from 1971 to 2006, and she led the World Bank's faith and ethics initiative between 2000 and 2006. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/you-betterknow4/message

As a special Independence Day installment of Trending in Education, we're reairing our conversation with Dr. Fathali Moghaddam from last September. We hope you enjoy! Dr. Fathali Moghaddam is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Georgetown University and a faculty fellow at the Berkley Center. His expertise includes culture and intergroup conflict, with a particular focus on the psychology of globalization, radicalization, human rights and duties, and terrorism. You can learn more about his work here. Fathali joins host Mike Palmer on this episode and begins by sharing how his work as an Iranian-born social psychologist was transformed by the revolution and hostage situation in Iran in 1979. He tells how he drove to Tehran from England and spent the ensuing years studying social psychology within the regime of Khomeini. There he learned of the contexts in which dictators can assume power and this has been a strand of his research ever since. We explore his belief that it is the role of educators to ensure we protect and nurture democracy by developing psychological citizens. In a wide-ranging conversation touching on the themes and seminal works of Dr. Moghaddam's career, we also hear what drove him to write his latest book about Shakespeare and the importance of extending beyond narrow specializations to adopt broader, more interdisciplinary mindsets. We conclude with notes on the current state of higher education and the psychology of bureaucracy. It's a profound and insightful conversation that you won't want to miss. Subscribe to Trending in Education wherever you get your podcasts. Visit us at TrendinginEd.com for more great shows like this!

In this episode, Atalia Omer, Professor of Religion, Conflict and Peace Studies, and one of the guest editors of the most recent issue of Peace Policy focused on the particular role of women in global peacebuilding efforts, talks with authors of all the pieces in this issue. Guests include Peace Policy co-editor, Ruth Carmi, current Ph.D. student in peace studies and sociology; Linda Quiquivix, a popular educator of Mayan roots who saves seeds, loves books, and makes art; Sarah Ihmoud, assistant professor of peace and conflict studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts; and Katherine Marshall, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. Read all articles in this issue at peacepolicy.nd.edu.

Jocelyne Cesari holds the Chair of Religion and Politics at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom; at Georgetown University she is a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. Since 2018, she has been the T. J. Dermot Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peacebuilding at Harvard Divinity School. In this interviewe, she discusses her recent release, We God's People: the Politics of Christianity, Islam and Hinduism in the World of Nations which is based on five years of work with a unique international research team that has produced new data to anticipate religious conflicts in Syria, Turkey, China, India, and Russia.

David Cortright, Professor Emeritus of the Practice at the Kroc Institute and Editor of the Kroc Institute's Peace Policy publication sits down to talk with authors from the latest issue. This issue features reflections drawn from the new book, Catholic Peacebuilding and Mining: Integral Peace, Development, and Ecology published by Routledge in January. Guests include one of the co-editors of the book and the Assistant Director of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network, Caesar Montevecchio; Father Rigobert Minani, S.J., head of research for the Peace, Human Rights, Democracy, and Good Governance Department at the Centre d'Etude Pour l'Action Sociale in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and team leader for the Ecclesial Network of the Congo Basin Forest; and Katherine Marshall, Senior Fellow at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, and Executive Director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue. You can read all articles from this issue at peacepolicy.nd.edu.

Religious symbols, rituals, identities, banners, signs, and sounds suffused the events surrounding the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The Uncivil Religion project traces the thread of religion that wound throughout that day through pieces of digital media. It does this in two ways. First, there is a collection of essays that analyze individual pieces of media from January 6 in order to explain the role religion played that day. Second, there is a series of galleries that contain pieces of media that represent the variety of ways religion "showed up" on January 6. The Uncivil Religion project is illustrative and not exhaustive. There is so much more to be found, said, and documented about the role of religion on January 6 and this week, Will and Josh speak with the two individuals who masterminded this entire project! Make sure you check out their work, you will not be disappointed: uncivilreligion.orgGuests Bio:Michael J. Altman is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama and Project Director of Uncivil Religion.Michael J. Altman received his Ph.D. in American Religious Cultures from Emory University. His areas of interest are American religious history, colonialism, theory and method in the study of religion, and Asian religions in American culture. Trained in the field of American religious cultures, he is interested in the ways religion is constructed through difference, conflict, and contact.Jerome Copulsky is a consulting scholar at the National Museum of American History's Center for the Understanding of Religion in American History and Project Director of Uncivil Religion.Jerome Copulsky, a scholar in residence at American University and a Berkley Center research fellow, specializes in modern Western religious thought, political theory, and church/state issues. He is currently working on a project on American civil religion and its discontents. From 2016 to 2017, he was the American Academy of Religion/Luce Fellow and senior advisor at the U.S. Department of State's Office of Religion and Global Affairs. He previously directed the Judaic Studies programs at Goucher College and Virginia Tech, and also taught at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and Indiana University. His scholarly work has been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, the Journal of Religion, Political Theology, and Perspectives on Political Science, with essays in Political Theology for a Plural Age (2013) and Judaism, Liberalism, and Political Theology (2013). Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/faithpolitics)

Have you ever thought about using acupuncture or herbal medicine to improve your fertility or treat your infertility? We talk with Dr. Mike Berkley, a New York State licensed acupuncturist and board-certified acupuncturist and practitioner of herbal medicine by the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. He is also a member of The American Board of Oriental Reproductive Medicine.In this episode, we cover:What are the principles of acupuncture? How does it work?How does acupuncture differ from Herbal Medicine or Traditional Chinese Medicine?Do they have to be used together?Can acupuncture and/or Chinese Medicine be used in conjunction with Western infertility medicine and IVF?Is there western research that supports the benefits of acupuncture and Herbal Medicine for the treatment of infertility or is western style research not relevant to the discussion of acupuncture and Eastern Medicine?Can acupuncture increase the blood flow to the uterus and ovaries? Can acupuncture and Herbal Medicine be used to treat PCOS? What results are seen?How does acupuncture and Herbal Medicine impact endometriosis?One of the most common reasons for female infertility is advanced maternal age. How can acupuncture and Herbal Medicine impact the diminution of ovarian reserves and egg quality?Can acupuncture reduce stress?Is acupuncture more effective than other stress reduction techniques such as exercise, yoga, meditation or prayer, massage?Many women, men, and couples will not have a firm diagnosis of why they are not getting pregnant. Is acupuncture and Herbal Medicine effective for unexplained infertility?Male infertility is the cause of approximately 1/3 of infertility. How successful is acupuncture or Herbal Medicine in the treatment of male infertility?Get more information at The Berkley Center at www.berkleycenter.com.This podcast is produced  by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire infertility patients and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:Weekly podcastsWeekly articles/blog postsResource pages on all aspects of family buildingPlease leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamilySupport the show (https://creatingafamily.org/donation/)

The PBS Frontline documentary “American Insurrection” investigates the violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers interviews the director Rick Rowley who collaborated on the project with correspondent A.C. Thompson of ProPublica and the Berkley Center for Investigative Journalism. Rowley discusses what he's learned from studying vigilante groups such as the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys and reflects on the historic link between America's foreign wars and the rise of homegrown militias. On Twitter: @frontlinepbs @ProPublica @ucbsoj @thompowers @PureNonfiction

The PBS Frontline documentary “American Insurrection” investigates the violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers interviews the director Rick Rowley who collaborated on the project with correspondent A.C. Thompson of ProPublica and the Berkley Center for Investigative Journalism. Rowley discusses what he's learned from studying vigilante groups such as the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys and reflects on the historic link between America's foreign wars and the rise of homegrown militias. On Twitter: @frontlinepbs @ProPublica @ucbsoj @thompowers @PureNonfiction

Katie checks in with marketing consultant (clients include IBM, Kodak, Pfizer, McCann Erickson, Time, and more) -- and her current professor at NYU Stern (director of the Stern Fashion and Luxury Lab, former executive director of the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Faculty of the Year, Stern/Citibank Teacher of the year)! -- Jeffrey Carr.

Frank Schaeffer In Conversation with Berkley Center Research Fellow Jerome Copulsky, exploring American civil religion and the significance of Francis Schaeffer._____LINKShttps://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/people/jerome-copulsky_____Jerome Copulsky, a scholar is residence at American University and a Berkley Center research fellow, specializes in modern Western religious thought, political theory, and church/state issues. He is currently working on a project on American civil religion and its discontents. From 2016 to 2017, he was the American Academy of Religion/Luce Fellow and senior advisor at the U.S. Department of State's Office of Religion and Global Affairs. He previously directed the Judaic Studies programs at Goucher College and Virginia Tech, and also taught at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and Indiana University. His scholarly work has been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, the Journal of Religion, Political Theology, and Perspectives on Political Science, with essays in Political Theology for a Plural Age (2013) and Judaism, Liberalism, and Political Theology (2013). His writing has also appeared the Atlantic, Christian Science Monitor, Washingtonian, Jerusalem Post, Jewish Review of Books, and Religion Dispatches. Copulsky earned a B.A from Wesleyan University, an M.F.A. from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago._____In Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer is a production of the George Bailey Morality in Public Life Fellowship. It is hosted by Frank Schaeffer, author of Fall In Love, Have Children, Stay Put, Save the Planet, Be Happy.Learn more at https://www.lovechildrenplanet.comFollow Frank on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.https://www.facebook.com/frank.schaeffer.16https://twitter.com/Frank_Schaefferhttps://www.youtube.com/c/FrankSchaefferYouTubeIn Conversation… with Frank Schaeffer PodcastApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-conversation-with-frank-schaeffer/id1570357787 _____Support the show

Dr. Fathali Moghaddam is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Georgetown University and a faculty fellow at the Berkley Center. His expertise includes culture and intergroup conflict, with a particular focus on the psychology of globalization, radicalization, human rights and duties, and terrorism. You can learn more about his work here. Fathali joins host Mike Palmer on this episode and begins by sharing how his work as an Iranian-born social psychologist was transformed by the revolution and hostage situation in Iran in 1979. He tells how he drove to Tehran from England and spent the ensuing years studying social psychology within the regime of Khomeini. There he learned of the contexts in which dictators can assume power and this has been a strand of his research ever since. We explore his belief that it is the role of educators to ensure we protect and nurture democracy by developing psychological citizens. In a wide-ranging conversation touching on the themes and seminal works of Dr. Moghaddam's career, we also hear what drove him to write his latest book about Shakespeare and the importance of extending beyond narrow specializations to adopt broader, more interdisciplinary mindsets. We conclude with notes on the current state of higher education and the psychology of bureaucracy. It's a profound and insightful conversation that you won't want to miss. Subscribe to Trending in Education wherever you get your podcasts. Visit us at TrendinginEd.com for more great shows like this!

Joe Biden is only the second Catholic out of forty-six Presidents. Paul Elie, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, considers whether that faith may shape Biden’s policies or his leadership. Elie points out that, though prominent Catholics in government, such as William Barr or Amy Coney Barrett, are associated with groups that oppose modern reforms in the Church, Biden aligns with Pope Francis’s “openness, his informality, his flexibility, his confidence that Catholicism is relevant and lack of anxiety about its place in any culture war.” After decades of sex-abuse scandals in the Church, Elie believes that many Catholic voters “are yearning for some good news,” and that Biden, though not in the Church hierarchy, “suggest[s] that there is some moral authority left in this tradition.”  

In BONUS Episode 287 of Beat Infertility, we interview Mike Berkley, who is board-certified in acupuncture, certified in Chinese herbology, and director of The Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness, about recurrent implantation failure and pregnancy loss. Infertility coach Heather Huhman helps warriors like you make scientifically-based, well-informed decisions about your next steps. To schedule your free 30-minute call, go to https://beatinfertility.co/hope.  

In BONUS Episode 280 of Beat Infertility, we interview Mike Berkley, who is board-certified in acupuncture, certified in Chinese herbology, and director of The Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness, about ways for patients with endometriosis to improve their chance of conception.  Infertility coach Heather Huhman helps warriors like you make scientifically-based, well-informed decisions about your next steps. To schedule your free 30-minute call, go to https://beatinfertility.co/hope.  

In BONUS Episode 280 of Beat Infertility, we interview Mike Berkley, who is board-certified in acupuncture, certified in Chinese herbology, and director of The Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness, about ways for patients with endometriosis to improve their chance of conception.  Infertility coach Heather Huhman helps warriors like you make scientifically-based, well-informed decisions about your next steps. To schedule your free 30-minute call, go to https://beatinfertility.co/hope.  

On September 9, our speakers Katherine Marshall, Kim R. Ford, Jerome Tennille, our moderator Stephen Moseley, and our partner UNA-NCA had a great discussion about how community solidarity has displayed itself in ways that we haven’t seen before to eradicate poverty in the age of pandemic. At a time when everyone around the world is grappling with unprecedented changes and challenges in their lives, one of the most fundamental values that continues to make positive changes in our lives is generosity. The inevitable quality of giving continues bringing individuals of all backgrounds regardless of their languages, ethnicities, races, faiths, opinions together across the globe. We have witnessed various shades of generosity as they are implemented as a means of standing together in unity. Whether that's through educating ourselves on social issues, raising awareness about humanitarian causes, supporting communities through monetary contributions or reaching out to a neighbor next door or across the continents, every act of goodwill has touched people’s lives. In this time of uncertainty, there's a fundamental truth that gives us hope - that together we can do extraordinary things. Together! In 2012, September 5th was designated the “International Day of Charity” by the UN General Assembly to commemorate the anniversary of the passing away of Mother Teresa, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitute a threat to peace." In this spirit, on September 9th, Rumi Forum and UNA-NCA would like to invite you to a virtual panel highlighting how individual and/or collective initiatives keep us connected. Speakers: Katherine Marshall, Executive Director, World Faiths Development Dialogue Katherine Marshall is a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, where she leads the center's work on religion and global development, and a professor of the practice of development, conflict, and religion in the Walsh School of Foreign Service. She helped to create and now serves as the executive director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue. Marshall, who worked at the World Bank from 1971 to 2006, has nearly five decades of experience on a wide range of development issues in Africa, Latin America, East Asia, and the Middle East, particularly those facing the world’s poorest countries. She led the World Bank’s faith and ethics initiative between 2000 and 2006. Marshall is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was previously a trustee of Princeton University. Marshall has a B.A. from Wellesley College, an M.A. from Princeton University, an MPA from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambodia. Jerome Tennille, Manager, Marriott International Jerome Tennille is the Manager of Social Impact & Volunteerism for Marriott International. Jerome is also an independent consultant and advisor in the subject matter of Sustainability and Social Impact. Prior to that Jerome held the position of Senior Manager of Impact Analysis and Assessment for Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), a national organization that offers help, hope, and healing to all those grieving the death of a loved one serving in America’s armed forces. Jerome also served on the board of directors of Peace Through Action USA for four years and also serves on the PsychArmor Institute Advisory Committee for the School of Volunteers & Nonprofits. Jerome holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in operations management and a Master of Sustainability Leadership (MSL) from Arizona State University. Jerome is designated as Certified in Volunteer Administration (CVA) and is also a veteran of the US Navy. Kim R. Ford, President and CEO, Martha's Table Kim R. Ford serves as President and CEO of Martha’s Table. Ford previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary and Acting Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education. Previously, Ford served as the Dean of Workforce Development and Lifelong Learning at the University of the District of Columbia Community College (UDC-CC). Prior to joining UDC-CC, Ford served in the Obama Administration’s Recovery Implementation Office. She directed working relationships between the Office of the Vice President and eight federal agencies on Recovery Act programs. Ford holds a Bachelor’s Degree in International Business from Vanderbilt University and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the University of Pennsylvania.

In this episode, Courtney Lane interviews "Mom Boss" - Brittany King. Brittany King is a passionate, self-proclaimed hope Dealer who has created a bold reputation for herself as a speaker and talent acquisition consultant due not only to her triumphant life journey but her commitment to helping people impact the world for good. Whether she is speaking from the stage or doing corporate consulting, Brittany's superpower lies in her ability to deliver actionable strategies on how to turn change into opportunity. Brittany has shared the stage as a speaker with the likes of Star Jones, Destiny's Child's Latavia Roberson, and BET's Miss Mykie, Brittany aims to spread the message that obstacles are meant to be overcome. Brittany is an AmeriCorps Alumna and recipient of the President's Volunteer Service Award, a full scholarship recipient to attend Clinton Global Initiative University and Clinton Global Initiative America, a speaker and scholarship recipient with the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders, and an alumna of the American Association of University Women's Young Voices Project. Brittany has been featured in Glamour Magazine and has been published on Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs' website. Brittany holds a B.A. in Psychology. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/proactivetalent/message

A webinar panel featuring Andrew J. Bacevich (Boston University), Archbishop Timothy Broglio (Archdiocese of the Military Services, USA), and Drew Christiansen, S.J. (Georgetown University), moderated by Joseph Capizzi (Catholic University of America). The event was initially broadcast on August 6, 2020, on the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. This event was dedicated to the late John P. Langan, S.J., noted professor, theologian and peace activist. This event was also cosponsored by America Media, The Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America, and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University.

"Conscience, Relativism and Truth: The Witness of Newman" Archbishop Anthony Fisher, OP (Sydney) Response: Thomas Farr (President of the Religious Freedom Institute, Washington, D.C.) These talks were given as part of the Thomistic Institute Conference "Newman the Prophet: A Saint for Our Times" which was part of the official program for the canonization weekend of John Henry Cardinal Newman and held at the Angelicum in Rome on October 12, 2019. Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP, He was born in Sydney on 10 March 1960. After graduating with first-class honours, Archbishop Fisher practised law at Clayton Utz in Sydney. He took leave from his legal job and backpacked around Europe to discern his vocation. Archbishop Fisher made his perpetual vows for the Dominicans on 18 February 1987, and was ordained a priest at Holy Name Parish, Wahroonga, on 14 September 1991.On 18 September 2014, Pope Francis appointed Bishop Anthony the ninth Archbishop of Sydney. His installation took place at St Mary’s Cathedral on Wednesday, 12 November 2014. In 2015, Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Fisher to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He was also appointed an honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of St Thomas Aquinas. He has continued as a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life. Thomas Farr, He serves as President of the Religious Freedom Institute, a non-profit that works to advance religious freedom for everyone, both as a source of individual human dignity and flourishing, and as a source of political stability, economic development, and international security. A leading authority on international religious freedom, Dr. Farr served for 28 years in the U.S. Army and the U.S. Foreign Service. In 1999 he became the first director of the State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom. He subsequently directed the Witherspoon Institute's International Religious Freedom (IRF) Task Force, was a member of the Chicago World Affairs Council’s Task Force on Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy, taught at the National Defense University, and served on the Secretary of State’s IRF working group. From 2008 – 2018 Dr. Farr was Associate Professor of the Practice of Religion and World Affairs at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He also directed the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown’s Berkley Center. A PhD in History from the University of North Carolina, Farr is a senior fellow at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. He serves as a consultant to the U.S. Catholic Bishops Committee on International Justice and Peace; on the boards of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, Christian Solidarity Worldwide-USA, and Saint John Paul the Great Catholic High School; and on the boards of advisors of the Alexander Hamilton Society, and the National Museum of American Religion. Farr teaches regularly at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute.

This week on the Faith Angle Podcast, we are joined by Asma Uddin and Daniel Harrell. Asma Uddin is currently an expert advisor on religious liberty to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Inclusive America Project Fellow at the Aspen Institute, and senior scholar at the Freedom Forum Institute. She is also a Berkley Center research fellow. In addition to her expertise in religious liberty, Uddin writes and speaks on gender and Islam, and she is the founding editor-in-chief of altmuslimah.com. Daniel Harrell is Editor-in-Chief of Christianity Today. Formerly, he served ten years as Senior Minister of Colonial Church, Edina, Minnesota, and for 23 years before that as preaching minister at Park Street Church, Boston, Massachusetts. He has taught at Gordon-Conwell, Fuller and Bethel seminaries, as well as at Boston University and Harvard University. He served for many years on the Community Ethics Committee of the Harvard University Hospitals and on the Advisory Council of Biologos. Guests: Asma Uddin Daniel Harrell Links: When Islam Is Not a Religion: Inside America's Fight for Religious Freedom, by Asma Uddin Inclusive America Project Introducing Christianity Today’s New Editor in Chief Steve Waldman Facebook post about National Religious Broadcasters incident Attorney General William Barr Remarks at the 2020 National Religious Broadcasters Convention

Transcript: https://westminster-institute.org/events/indonesias-muslim-counter-radicalization-movements/ Paul Marshall is Wilson Distinguished Professor of Religious Freedom at Baylor University and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Leimena Institute, Jakarta, Indonesia, and Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) in Jakarta. Mr. Marshall is the author and editor of more than twenty books on religion and politics, especially religious freedom, including Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians (2013, with Lela Gilbert and Nina Shea), Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide (2011, with Nina Shea), Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion (2009), Religious Freedom in the World (2007), Radical Islam’s Rules: The Worldwide Spread of Extreme Sharia Law (2005), The Rise of Hindu Extremism (2003), Islam at the Crossroads (2002), God and the Constitution (2002), The Talibanization of Nigeria (2002), Massacre at the Millennium (2001), Religious Freedom in the World (2000), Egypt’s Endangered Christians (1999), Just Politics (1998), Heaven Is Not My Home (1998), A Kind of Life Imposed on Man (1996), and the best-selling, award-winning survey of religious persecution worldwide Their Blood Cries Out (1997). He is the author of several hundred articles, and his writings have been translated into Russian, German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Danish, Albanian, Japanese, Malay, Korean, Arabic, Farsi, and Chinese. He is in frequent demand for lectures and media appearances, including interviews on ABC Evening News; CNN; PBS; Fox; the British, Australian, Canadian, South African, and Japanese Broadcasting Corporations; and Al Jazeera. His work has been published in, or is the subject of, articles in the New York Times, Wall St. Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Christian Science Monitor, First Things, New Republic, Weekly Standard, Reader’s Digest, and many other newspapers and magazines. Mr. Marshall is also a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Religion at Baylor University. He was also a part of the Christianity and Freedom Project headed by the Berkley Center’s Religious Freedom Project.