Global Speaker Series
Religious Nationalism: A Threat to Democracy?
Join our Zoom program: Wednesday October 9 at 7:00 PM EST
Religion and national governments have a long history. One of the attractions to immigrants in the early years of America and eventually the United States was that religious freedom was a founding value. Despite some setbacks in the early colonial years, the US founding fathers enshrined this value in the first amendment and the establishment clause of the constitution.
We now see challenges to the separation of church and state in the statements of many American politicians. This phenomenon is not limited to the United States, however.
In other countries, such as Iran, government and religious doctrine are inextricably linked. Others, such as India and Turkey, have recently experienced a shift toward religious control of government policy.
What forces are driving this Religious Nationalism movement?
Do these shifts represent majority views in the respective countries or are powerful minorities pushing this agenda?
These and other questions will be addressed by our expert panel.
Panelists:
Sheila Suess Kennedy is Emerita Professor of Law and Public Policy at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. Until her retirement, she was a Faculty Fellow with both the Center for Religion and American Culture and the Tobias Center for Leadership Excellence, an adjunct professor of political science, and founder of the Center for Civic Literacy at IUPUI.
Kennedy has published numerous book chapters and articles in scholarly journals and law reviews, including Free Expression in America: A Documentary History (Greenwood Publishing), God and Country: America in Red and Blue (Baylor University Press) and Talking Politics: What You Need to Know Before You Open Your Mouth (Georgetown University Press).
In addition to her popular daily blog, Kennedy has been a columnist for the Indianapolis Star, Inequality.org, The Indiana Word, and the Indianapolis Business Journal.
Rev Beau Underwood is senior minister of Allisonville Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Indianapolis since January 2023.
In addition to congregational ministry, he has past experience working in social justice advocacy, hospital chaplaincy, and religious media.
He is a proud alum of Eureka College (BA) and the University of Chicago (M. Div & MPP). Currently, he is a doctoral candidate in public affairs at the University of Missouri - Columbia.
He is the coauthor of Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism, which is published by Chalice Press. His writing has appeared in The Christian Century, Sojourners, Word &Way, Religion Unplugged, Religion News Service, and Religion & Politics.
Moderator:
Donald E. (Don) Knebel earned a degree in electrical engineering from Purdue and a law degree from Harvard.
Don retired from Barnes & Thornburg LLP at the end of 2013 after 39 years as an intellectual property litigator.
Since 2011, he has been an Adjunct Professor and Senior Advisor at the Center for Intellectual Property Research at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, teaching antitrust law and patent litigation. He was recently recognized as the 2024 Adjunct Professor of the Year.
Knebel is deeply committed to community service and has served on numerous board and advisory committees throughout the city and state and has received several recognitions for his service.
Don has traveled extensively in Europe and Asia, seeking a better understanding of the world’s religions and cultures. Don is a frequent speaker on religious and political history, comparative religion, politics and the First Amendment.
In 2015, he was named “Interfaith Ambassador of the Year” by the Center for Interfaith Cooperation, an organization he helped found in 2012 to develop a better understanding among people of different religious beliefs.