Written by Don Byrd
Should religion play a role in our foreign policy? It should not be used to promote a particular religious view of course, or even to promote faith generally. At the same time, religion is a vital social, cultural, and ideological force in the world. Any attempt to broker peace, or promote international relations, would be well-served by a mindfulness of the religious worldviews and traditions shaping the stage.
Yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke powerfully at Rice University’ Baker Institute for Public Policy on just this topic. His thesis, he said, is simple: “The more we understand religion and the better able we are as a result to be able to engage religious actors, the more effective our diplomacy will be in advancing the interests and values of our people.”
Here is an excerpt from his speech, which you can read here (or watch here):
It’s up to us to recognize that we can’t lead a world that we don’t understand and that we can’t understand the world if we fail to comprehend and honor the central role that religion plays in the lives of billions of people. And that is why, in the State Department today, our experts are engaging with religious actors more broadly and more knowledgeably than ever before – seeking their help, their counsel, their support – as we strive to improve governance, curb corruption, stop genocide, safeguard human rights, reduce poverty, and save our planet from the most harmful consequences of climate change. And this unprecedented commitment of time and resources is paying off. It is helping to make our diplomacy more effective because it corresponds – not to some arcane foreign policy theory – but to the world as it is.
And in so doing, we are drawing on values that are at the heart of virtually every enduring religious and ethical tradition. Now, this is not to say that every religion is basically the same because – that it all means the same thing, because that’s not the case. Religions differ widely in their origins, their texts, their rites, their beliefs. But amid that diversity, there are common and often eloquent commitments to help the disadvantaged, to pursue peace, to follow the Golden Rule, and respect the fundamental dignity of every single human being. Over the decades, many of those concerns found an echo in such documents as the UN Charter, the UN Declaration on Human Rights. So today, when we act to uphold international standards of justice and law, we are at the same time heeding Abraham Lincoln’s admonition to “do right as God gives us to see the right” and John Kennedy’s observation in his inaugural, “Here on Earth, God’s work must truly be our own.”
Under Secretary Kerry’s leadership, the State Department has established an Office of Religion and Global Affairs, headed by Shaun Casey, and has expanded the Office of International Religious Freedom, led by Ambassador David Saperstein.
As Kerry remarked, the cause of peace and religious freedom will succeed only when religious minorities are as free as religious majorities, and the decision to follow a religious path at all is a completely free act of conscience. Having foreign policy leaders with a clear-headed commitment to that principle, and its importance in world affairs, is a step in the right direction.
Secretary Kerry’s speech was wide-ranging and touched on a number of specific international conflicts. Read the whole thing.
