Religious Freedom Annual Review 2020: Discussion with Sentors Sinema and Lee

Religious Freedom Annual Revew 2020, Religion and Religious Freedom in the COVID-19 Era: Finding Community and Hope. Second Session, 18 June, Question and Answer Session with Senators Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), with ICLRS Director Brett Scharffs Moderating (edited transcript)

 

 

 

 

Brett Scharffs:  I’d like to begin on a personal note. Can each of you tell us a little bit about how you’ve been personally affected by the Coronavirus crisis? Senator Lee, I know you spent some time in quarantine. What has this been like for you? (more…)

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Religious Freedom Annual Review 2020: Reports on the Sessions


Jane Wise, an Associate Director of the International Center of Law and Religion Studies, has provided summaries of the three sessions of the 2020 Religious Freedom Annual Review.

Opening Session 1, Wednesday 17 June 2020 

“I am a person of faith. I fundamentally view the world with a lens that accounts for mercy and love and compassion, and I view power in that lens as well,” said Dr. Alaa Murabit at the beginning of her address, and I started to love her.

Dr. Alaa Murabit, physician, new mother (“I’m not getting enough sleep” she smiled), Canadian, Muslim, UN High Level Commissioner, and one of seventeen eminent world figures appointed by the UN Secretary-General to advocate and mobilize action on the Sustainable Development Goals was the first speaker of three sessions for the 2020 Religious Freedom Annual Review. (more…)

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Racial Justice Requires Religious Freedom


This guest post by Brian J. Grim, Ph.D., President of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, is gratefully reprinted, with permission (Original here).  Brian is a leading expert on how faith and business build a better world.  

Shock, outrage and calls justice over the heartless murder of George Floyd under the knee of a white police officer continue to grow across America and the world. Communities of faith are at the forefront of the growing movement to address racial prejudice. It is cutting across party lines, as was seen when Republican Senator Mitt Romney joined a march this weekend organized by Christian churches in the Washington area, carrying signs that based their call for racial equality in the Bible.

Photo: Washington, DC, USA – June 5 2020: Street sign at the newly designated Black Lives Matter Plaza, with the steeple of St. John’s Episcopal Church in the background

And as Reuters reports, it is cutting across faith lines too. Conservative and mainstream religious leaders are joining with Black churches, progressive Catholics and Protestants, Jewish synagogues and other faith groups in calling for police reforms and efforts to dismantle racism. (more…)

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