freedom are sending ripples across our communities. This week on State

of Belief, Interfaith Alliance’s weekly radio show and podcast, Rev.

Welton Gaddy takes a look at three different conflicts facing religious

communities. We’ll hear about Texas Freedom Network’s fight to keep

Christian education out of public schools. We’ll check in with our

friend Suhag Shukla at the Hindu American Foundation on the latest

debate about adding a Hindu monument to the Ten Commandments monument at

the Arkansas State House. And Catherine Orsborne, director of the

Shoulder to Shoulder campaign, will tell us about how anti-Muslim

bigotry stops us from helping those refugees most in need.

Across the country the Religious Right and their allies in Congress,

state legislatures and local school boards, have waged a quiet campaign

to bring religious teachings into public schools and to funnel public

money to private schools. As they say, everything’s bigger in Texas,

including the Religious Right’s agenda. Dan Quinn, communications director at the Texas Freedom Network,

will join Welton this week to fill us in on the most recent struggles

around religion in school and what the implications are for the rest of

the country.

We all know that anti-Muslim bigotry takes a serious toll on our

country. We see it in our political debates, in protests against mosques

and community centers, and in policing and national security. But have

you ever thought about how it changes our debate about refugees and

immigration? This week Catherine Orsborn of Shoulder to Shoulder

will discuss how anti-Muslim bigotry has stopped the U.S. and countries

across Europe from adequately addressing the refugee crisis in Syria,

Sudan and across the Middle East.

When we debate religious freedom in America, we usually debate the

statues and laws that govern religious practice in our nation. But,

increasingly often these days, we’re talking a lot about statues. The

Arkansas State Legislature has just mandated a memorial to the Ten

Commandments on the capitol grounds. So a group of Hindus petitioned the

state to add a Hindu statue to the display, a request that has garnered

surprisingly broad interfaith support. Tune in to hear from Suhag Shukla, co-founder and executive director of the Hindu-America Foundation, talk about why the work to make these public displays of religion more inclusive is so important.