Why do political leaders repress religious groups and how might their actions be related to instances of religious conflict within society?  Jason Klocek, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of California - Berkeley, examines this relationship and reports on findings that he and his co-author, Peter Henne (University of Vermont), discovered in a forthcoming article in the Journal of Conflict Resolution.  After talking about his wild experiences in...

Keep on reading: Jason Klocek on Religious Conflict and Repression

Does the religious composition of a nation and its leaders have an impact on whether a country will initiate a war?  Prof. Davis Brown, a research fellow at Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion and visiting assistant professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy, uses new data to show that the answer is yes.  The political science sub-field of international relations (IR) has long ignored religion as a factor explaining the occurrence of recent wars.  Prof. Brown reviews why this might be...

Keep on reading: Davis Brown on Religion, Initiating War, and Data

How connected to other people are religious traditionalists and evangelical Christians?  Contrary to the popular image that "holy rollers" are rather insular in their social dealings, Dr. Markus Schafer (Sociology, University of Toronto) shares the results of a number of studies he conducted on how linked in religious and non-religious folks are to their broader communities.  Interestingly, he finds that religious traditionalists are more broadly networked than many social scientists...

Keep on reading: Markus Schafer on Religion, Doing Good, Networks, & Triadic Closure

The American political landscape appears in chaos, and Christians are seemingly under assault in both the legislative arena and judicial system, or so says Hunter Baker, an associate professor of political science at Union University.  Based upon these reflections, he began wondering whether the United States was in need of a Christian Democratic party to defend religious liberty and promote other Judeo-Christian values in the polity.  To this end, Prof. Baker organized a symposium of scholars...

Keep on reading: Does America Need a Christian Democratic Party?

Can religious liberty serve as an antidote to religious violence extremism?  This was the question posed to a panel of four scholars at a symposium sponsored by the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs (Georgetown University).  Thomas Farr, the current director of the Religious Freedom Institute, moderates a lively discussion that includes Daniel Philpott (Notre Dame), William Inboden (UT-Austin), Allen Hertzke (Oklahoma), and Sahar Aziz ...

Keep on reading: Religious Liberty and Violent Religious Extremism

Are Christian students and faculty on private religious colleges contained in a bubble?  If so, what can they do to engage an increasingly pluralistic religious society?  Prof. Marion Larson, professor and chair of the English Department at Bethel University, answers these questions and presents a number of different strategies for engaging people of different faiths based upon her new book From Bubble to Bridge, co-authored with her Bethel colleague, Prof. Sara Shady.  We begin the...

Keep on reading: Marion Larson on Bubbles, Bridges, and Multifaith Engagement

Protestants have often accused the Roman Catholic Church of "adding on" a great many traditions, rituals, and theological components that were not part of early Christianity.  Prof. Jim Papandrea, an associate professor of Church history at the Garrett-Evangelical Seminary (Northwestern University), takes these ideas to task by showing that early Christianity and Catholicism are very much in sync with one another.   We begin our discussion by proving the role of "tradition" in early...

Keep on reading: Jim Papandrea on the Catholicism of Early Christianity

In a world where the non-affiliated are on the rise, religious journalism is still alive, well, and adapting to a changing media environment.  To discuss the world of "faith-driven stories," we are joined by Kelsey Dallas, a regular journalist for the Deseret News who has written over 600 news articles of varying length and depth about the world of faithful.  We begin the discussion with how a kid from a small town in Illinois makes it to the University of Iowa, on to graduate school at Yale...

Keep on reading: Kelsey Dallas on Religious Journalism

Can religious freedom promote economic growth in the long- and/or short-term?  This was the general question posed to a number of scholars on November 15, 2016 at a symposium entitled "Religious Freedom and the Common Good" hosted by the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs (Georgetown University).  Wow! That's a mouthful!  Brian Grim (Religious Freedom & Business Foundation) moderates a conversation with Ilan Alon (University of Agder),...

Keep on reading: Is Religious Freedom Good for Growth? A Panel Discussion

Gotham. The Big Apple. The City that Never Sleeps.  New York City. We have many images of New York City, but how many of us as thinking of that worldly city having a vibrant evangelical community in the 19th century?  Kyle Roberts, an assistant professor of history at Loyola University (Chicago), takes us on a journey back to Manhattan Island from on a journey dating to the end of the Revolutionary War and to the eve of the Civil War to show how evangelical Christianity was shaped by this...

Keep on reading: Kyle Roberts on Evangelical Gotham