Center gives religion current global context

In some families, the motto is “never discuss religion or politics.”

But at ASU’s Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, which opened its doors in January 2003, the rule is “discuss religion and politics.”

Unique among public universities in the United States, the center was founded to explore the complex roles of religion in contemporary global conflicts from the civil to the violent.

When ASU President Michael Crow suggested the creation of the center he said, Religious-based conflict exists in areas as diverse as foreign policy, international law, teaching and learning in our schools, science and technology research and application, news coverage and political ideology.”

“There is no shortage of issues to study,” commented Linell Cady, Franca Oreffice Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies and founding director of the center. “The relationship of religion and the state, the links between religion and violence, and the host of issues surrounding religion, science and technology…all of these have been of enormous interest to faculty and students.”

To begin the dialogue in 2003, the center hosted a conference on Islam in the modern world and a lecture by Bruce Feiler titled “Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths.”

Since then, the center has sponsored numerous lectures, conferences, colloquia and roundtables on issues that have included religion, gender and global politics, the Middle East, controversies of the teaching of evolution and intelligent design, and religion in U.S. presidential politics and foreign policy. The center hosts annually the Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Speaker Series on religion and conflict and the Annual Lecture in Religion, Conflict and Peace Studies.

Such public thinkers and writers as Azar Nafisi and Noah Feldman, leading journalists E.J. Dionne, Peter Bergen and John F. Burns, and policy experts Dennis Ross and Aaron David Miller, have all been featured in the center’s public events and meetings with faculty and students.

According to its mission statement, the center is “committed to a model of scholarship that is transdisciplinary, collaborative and problemfocused.”

Through a series of cross-disciplinary faculty seminars and seed grants sponsored by the center, faculty have found opportunities for new collaborations and support for projects on a broad range of issues concerning religion in the contemporary world.

The center’s approach has proven enormously productive, with grants from the Ford Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Metanexus Institute and the John Templeton Foundation.

The center also will be launching a new undergraduate certificate program in religion and conflict in the fall of 2008. The program involves professors from religious studies, history, political science, global studies, and international letters and cultures, and is open to students from any major in the university.

“There is every indication that religion will continue to play a major role in global conflict in the 21st century,” Cady says. “We are committed to developing research and educational opportunities that better prepare students, policy-makers, and the public for the challenges ahead.”

Judith Smith, msjps@asu.edu
480-965-4821
Media Relations