Hollman Report

BJC hosts international visitors for dialogue

By K. Hollyn Hollman

September 2007

The request was quite ordinary. We received an e-mail asking for a speaker on the role of religion in the United States, the relationship between church and state and the BJC’s perspective on “faith-based initiatives.” I checked my calendar and replied “yes” without scrutinizing who had made the request.

The actual experience was far from ordinary. The request came from a contracting agency that works with the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) to design programs for foreign visitors. This particular group consisted of educational and religious leaders from Bangladesh, all of whom were associated with mosques or madrassas.

The IVLP falls under the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and, according to its Web site, operates “to increase mutual understanding through communication at the personal and professional levels” by hosting current or potential leaders from around the world, giving them an opportunity “to confer with their professional counterparts and to experience the U.S. firsthand.” The program reports that hundreds of current and former heads of state, cabinet-level ministers and other distinguished world leaders in government and the private sector have participated.

During their week in D.C., the group focused on learning about religion in American society and the relationship between church and state. While I had participated in IVLP programs before, I had never spoken to a group of religious leaders from a majority Muslim country, nor had I ever had to rely so much on interpreters. We met across a conference table with two State Department interpreters facilitating the presentation, which, by the end, had turned into a lively discussion.

At the outset, the interpreters asked that I speak slowly, stopping often so they could translate. I was beginning to see that this was going to be more challenging than the typical church-state introduction lesson. I broke it down to the simplest terms.

I am a Baptist — one of the numerous Christian denominations in America. While Christianity is the majority religion, religious freedom is a fundamental right of all according to American tradition and constitutional law.

I explained that I served a Baptist organization dedicated to promoting religious freedom for all. I explained how the separation of church and state guards that freedom. I outlined basic First Amendment principles, providing examples of their application, and carefully articulated the reasons Baptists support them. I spoke briefly of the voluntary nature of religion, the theological conviction that individuals should not be coerced in matters of faith, the historical contributions of Baptists to religious freedom in America and how our country’s experience has proven beneficial to religion and religious freedom.

The question and answer period was lively, perhaps more so because we were looking at each other but not able to understand until our translators did their job. They wanted to know about the differences between Christian denominations, which religious groups promoted “family values,” whether public schools could meet the religious needs of Muslim students and if there were enough houses of worship to provide religious education in the absence of religious education in public schools. They wanted me to know that religious minorities had full political rights in their country. They seemed to approve of much of what I said, particularly about the importance of religious freedom for individuals and faith communities, but they questioned whether our system would work in a majority Muslim country. They did not seem to share my concern with the corrupting influence of government on religion, and they explained their disagreement respectfully.

At one point, I asserted that political leaders who frame policies in religious terms (such as Christianity or Islam) risk reducing religion to just a source of worldly power that tends to harm religion and deny rights to dissenters. I casually asserted that we have all seen the use of bad religion in politics. It was then that all the visitors became visibly and audibly excited. The interpreter explained that they all wanted to know what bad examples I had seen of Islam. My face must have appeared incredulous as I made sure I understood the interpreter. He nodded, straight-faced, as if to say, “Yes, you have to tell them.” As I proceeded delicately, they listened and defended their religion as one that promotes peace.

At the end of our time together, the men took turns posing in their brightly colored religious garb beside me in my beige suit and took pictures of us standing in front of an American flag. At a time when a lead article by Mark Lilla titled “The Politics of God” in The New York Times magazine stresses the unique historical circumstances that led the United States to embrace separationist principles that serve church and state, it is encouraging to remember that one result is a government that promotes international dialogue on religion, politics and freedom. For that, and for the BJC’s commitment to promoting religious freedom, I am thankful.