Religion, Interfaith, and Public Policy - Frederick Davie

This episode features Reverend Frederick Davie, who among other roles, serves as the Senior Advisor on Racial Equity for Interfaith America. In this far ranging discussion, we talk about the role of interfaith dialogue in wider public discourse, the shifting understanding of religious freedom, and the relationship between governmental policy and the priorities of religious communities.

Show Notes:

• Interfaith America (https://www.interfaithamerica.org/)
• US Commission on International Religious Freedom (https://www.uscirf.gov/)

Transcript

Chip Gruen: 0:03

Welcome to ReligionWise, the podcast where we feature educators, researchers and other professionals discussing topics on religion and their relevance to the public conversation. My name is Chip Gruen. I'm the director of the Institute for Religious and Cultural Understanding at Muhlenberg College, and I will be the host for this podcast. In this season two of ReligionWise, we will continue to consider a broad variety of religious and cultural beliefs and practices, and try to understand their place in the contemporary conversation. If you like what you hear, I encourage you to explore the 12 episodes from season one that are available in your favorite podcast app. Also, we would love to hear from you with your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes. To reach us, please visit our website at religionandculture.com. There you will find our contact information and also have the opportunity to support this podcast and the work In today's conversation, I talk to Reverend Fred Davie, who is a senior advisor on racial equity at Interfaith America. He also serves as a senior strategic advisor to the president at Union Theological Seminary, and in June of 2020, was appointed to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. You may be familiar with Interfaith America. This is perhaps the premier interfaith organization in the United States, founded and led today by Eboo Patel, Interfaith America describes its work or mission is to inspire, equip, and connect leaders and of the Institute. institutions to unlock the potential of America's religious diversity. In my conversation today, with Reverend Davie, we talk a little bit about that, about the role of religion in public life, Reverend Davie, thank you very much for agreeing to appear on ReligionWise, it's great to meet you. about the influence of religion and religious diversity in policy and politics. As you'll hear my perspective on this is a little complicated, it seems to me that there are two conversations about religion or at least two conversations about religion in our world. One is the conversation that happens in the academy that considers religion to be a product of human culture, something that is a part of our world that deserves to be understood on its own terms. The other is this interfaith dialogue conversation that is rooted in religious identity and a recognition by religious individuals of the diversity of religious systems and in fact, a respect for that diversity. I think it's not hard to see how those two conversations though deeply connected to one another, start from very different places, and maybe end up with different implications. In fact, as you hear in our conversation today, I ask Reverend Davie about this about what is the role between the public and the private in a country in which we say that there is separation of church and state? What does that mean vis-à-vis public policy? How much should religious individuals and institutions have a stake or a voice in determining public policy? If religious voices are included in that conversation, which religious voices and who gets to decide? I think it was interesting to talk to Reverend Davie about this. In particular, given his role on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. In that group that consults and offers advice about issues of freedom abroad, we can see a site of contestation between the public and the private, the governmental, and those who sit outside of government. It's also interesting to think about that organization because religious freedom has taken on new meanings, and new associations, depending on where you sit within the political spectrum today. 20 or 30 years ago, the idea of religious freedom had to do with the free exercise of religion, on being able to practice and believe what you wanted in the community of your choice. Over the course of the last decade or so, some people have started to use religious freedom in a different way to think about, for example, the providing of benefits to employees around contraception and birth control as being if that's mandated as being an infringement on religious freedom, or if you are required to provide services whether you be an adoption agency or a wedding caterer, the mandate that one serves the public equally as a means towards non-discrimination is imagined also as an infringement of religious freedom. So we have the opportunity to talk a little bit about that and about those issues that are hot topics in the courts today and continue to be understood through the lens of legal precedent or not through a very different Supreme Court than we might have had a couple of decades ago. So it was very much my pleasure to sit down with Reverend Davie and talk about some of these issues. This is one of those conversations where he and I agree in principle on a lot of things, but maybe don't always understand the mechanisms through which desired goals should be achieved in exactly the same way. So it's always fruitful, to have a conversation like that. So I hope you enjoy it. And I want to thank Reverend Davie for sitting down with me, I think this was a very interesting and fruitful conversation.

Fred Davie: 6:08

Thank you, it's good to be on the show.

Chip Gruen: 6:11

So I want to start with just having you introduce yourself and your work a little bit to the audience. So you're an incredibly active in a number of different organizations, in a variety of different institutions. Can you talk a little bit about your professional life, the intersections, the interests, what holds your work together?

Fred Davie: 6:31

Sure. So I think, you know, simply put, what holds my work together is what I'll call faith and service. So on the one hand, it's been really important to me over the course of my life, to take seriously my faith and, and spirituality, and spiritual development. Because that has set me free in some ways, from a lot of kind of internal incumbrances that come with being sort of an African American, gay male, in the United States of America. So my faith and my spiritual development has helped me to deal with a number of oppressions, both internal and external, that come from being born into the world, in this skin, and with this, with this fundamental orientation to who I am. But then the service comes from having grown up in a little town in North Carolina, just at the end of segregation, legal segregation in America, and seeing my family, my community, my church, involved in social change, and there being little separation between being a faithful person and trying to better one's community and oneself. In fact, I grew up believing that if you weren't trying to make the community better, and to do something to improve your own lot in life, somehow you weren't being a faithful Christian, or a faithful believer. So you know, that has hopefully matured and, and seasoned over time, and has a little more texture and layers to it. But that's, that's even at 40 years into my professional career, since coming to New York, I still think those are the two guardrails parameters in which, in which I both try to live out my vocation, and simply live out my life.

Chip Gruen: 8:49

So I want to follow up on you know, you introduced your life stories talking about, you know, being born into a world that is just, you know, at the ends of legal segregation, but I want to go back and this is a oft quoted, but I think, really useful starting point here. Martin Luther King is often quoted as saying, "It's appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 o'clock on Sunday morning." Now, obviously, some things have changed in the last half century since that, that quote, and some things haven't. And I want to contextualize this a little bit, not only about race in the United States, but also about increasing diversity, religious diversity of all kinds that of course you interact with at Union Theological Seminary in New York City more generally. I mean, how would you think about that, that quotation now? What, I think it's still we can agree it's still true, but it's rings a little different, I think in 2022, than it did in the late 1960s.

Fred Davie: 9:53

Sure, I think that's right. First of all, churches are just one of obviously several areas into society where people interact. And if there's one thing I've seen through my work also at Interfaith America, where I serve as a Senior Advisor for Racial Equity, in addition to serving in a senior advisor role at Union Theological Seminary, it is that we can celebrate, highlight, uplift, promote, and expand the ways in which interfaith interaction takes place in America today. There was a recent article, I think it was in Religion News Service, about the ways in which the immigrant support infrastructure in the US, is richly interfaith, and has been for a long time. So, so places of worship become only one place where we interact. You know, as people of multiple phase, they still particularly Christian churches, still I think, are too segregated racially, socio-economically, and, and more could be done to increase, particularly in traditional churches, congregations where you do have a lot of diversity, but they're, they're in, you know, so the 2022 take on this is that there are these other sectors of society, where we interact all the time as diverse people of faith, and racially diverse folks, socio-economically diverse people, and we make it work. And, you know, Eboo Patel, at Interfaith, America, the founder and president, is often says that America is the world's first religiously diverse democracy. And I think that is indeed true. And we and we somehow, in this potluck, as we call it at Interfaith America, we somehow are able to make it work. Even with all the spasms of racial violence or religious based violence that we have, we somehow continue to make it work. Now, I think we can't take it for granted, though, as we've seen in recent years, it is this is a very fragile experiment still, that we have here. And we really do have to find people of goodwill who are interested in in a religiously diverse democracy, a religiously diverse country, racially diverse country, who see those things as assets and strengths, we really do have to band together across party lines, across faith lines, across socio-economic lines, across even gender identity and sexual orientation lines to say, if any of us are going to be able to, to come into our full humanity and flourish, then we need to make sure that this democracy continues to hold together to cohere. So that can happen not just for ourselves, but for others, and for those who are going to come after us.

Chip Gruen: 13:18

Yeah, so thinking about that contemporary context. I mean, when we think about segregation, whether it be forced or self segregation, that, you know, we tend to think about race, but it seems like, you know, and you mentioned this talking about coming, you know, crossing parties and ideologies, it seems like, politically that segregation is as as bad, you know, as it's ever been in my lifetime. And it seems like that's, that's related to the, to the religious segregation as well.

Fred Davie: 13:52

Unfortunately, I think that's right, I think there's been a conflating. And it's particularly acute on the right, but it's not, it's not just on the right, of faith and nationalism. So that people and party so that people feel like they're living out their faith, if they, for example, promote America, not as a religiously diverse nation, but as a Christian nation. And there are plenty of people who believe that to do anything other than that is to not be a faithful Christian, and that their understanding of Christian values should be represented in all legislation that's passed, decisions by the Supreme Court, etc. The challenge with that it gets us pretty close, close to a theocracy, and it collapses a faith tradition, with a nation state. And we all know how very, very, very, very, very careful we need to be there. I think that's also the and then the instrument for seeing that that, you know that there's this connection between an integration of the state with faith or nationalism with faith is a party. And so you can see candidates who are clearly not qualified to serve anywhere much less in places like the US Senate, that people just blindly endorse and support. Because supposedly, they are instruments of God that are going to help bring about this theocracy, that I think people think they want. I think those of us who know that creating a country with with those kinds of constraints and restrictions, is not good for any of us, if we want to create an opportunity for all people to flourish. So I think we have to call it out for what it is, beseech our siblings on you know, in on that path, to reconsider it, and to come to understand that their sense of Christianity can flourish in this society, along with my friend, my neighbor's Islam, and my, my co worker's Judaism, and my, you know, so the college roommate's Buddhism, that this is a, this is a real opportunity to give expression to the richness and the beauty of God's creative order. And that is what should motivate us. That's what we should be about, as opposed to trying to impose a particular our particular theologies and interpretation of sacred texts, onto other people - invite them to our side, perhaps, that's always a possibility. And you can do it really well in a open and free society. But no coercion, no forcing people to believe necessarily what we believe.

Chip Gruen: 17:09

So this is as contentious as I get, but I want to push on something a little bit. You know, obviously, you've talked about Interfaith America and your, your, your work there. And myself, I mean, full disclosure, I was trained at the University of Pennsylvania, which is not religiously affiliated, I don't have theological training at all, but study history, culture, sociology of religion. And so I've always had these questions about the interfaith model, that there are certain assumptions built into the interfaith model, you know, one being dialogue, you know, that it is a back and forth process. It seems like one of the implications of that is that there are certain types of religious tradition, where dialogue is accepted and welcomed. And there are certain types of religious traditions or communities where dialogue is anathema. You know, that dialogue...and so I wonder how, you know, being inside that interfaith community, you think about, you know, those people who are, I mean excluded, excluded by themselves, of course, but excluded from the conversation simply because of the worldview that they represent that is, you know, by definition, and sort of at the heart of their theological program, exclusive of other people.

Fred Davie: 18:36

Right. So clearly, again, in a religiously diverse democracy, you want people if they choose to hold those beliefs, to hold them. But I think where we can have some conversation is about how we ensure, again, that we all have a context where we can mutually embrace and adhere to the tenets of our faith without being oppressed, unnecessarily for doing that. Now, obviously, we all are going to have some regulations placed on how we exercise our faith. We're not going to be able to do animal sacrifices in the US. I mean, I don't think there's a locale or state that allows that to happen, much less human sacrifice, I mean, so let's start at the extremes. We're not going to be able to do that there's going to be some questions raised and some intervention on the part of the state. If our faith causes us to deny our children, certain medical treatments, there's just going to be, that's a responsibility of the state. So we're not going to live free and unfettered, but we should try to all work to create a space where we can exercise our faith as freely as possible, recognizing that there are always going to be some constraints on that, because there need to be. And that can include people saying that their, their, their faith just simply won't let them be in dialogue with other people, they can't sit in a prayer room with women, or, you know, they're not going to do a same sex wedding. Well, as a person of faith that that is your right, those things I think we can, we can all agree on. And if people if a faith tradition wants to step away from society and culture, it should do that. But again, recognizing that in the United States, there going to be some, there are going to be some interventions, just out of necessity of who we've become as a democracy, I think we all have to agree that those types of trade offs and they are, are worth it to be in order to exercise the vast majority if you will, or the bulk of our faith freely. And I think what what happens is too often, the desire and the lust for power, is confused with a commitment to following our faith that, at all costs, is confused with a commitment to being faithful. And then all of that gets distorted in the public square when we start passing legislation that would deny the humanity of other people in the democracy. And I think those are the kinds of things we have to guard against. So certainly, people can choose to segregate themselves if, if that's what their faith calls for. There'll be some, there'll be some conditions placed on that by the government because it should, but they should not seek to impose that type of exclusion on on the rest of

Chip Gruen: 22:14

So we've moved a little bit into another one of the poles that I wanted to ask you us. about. And that's questions of religious freedom. So we'll talk a little bit about your work on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom in a minute, but I want to stay domestic here for a minute. Because, you know, again, for the last until about 10 years ago, thinking about religious

Fred Davie: 22:33

Sure. freedom was thinking about social justice and human rights. And, you know, it was in very much a context, I would argue as a sort of a progressive, inclusive context. Whereas when we've seen this word used in the last 10 years, or this phrase used in the last 10 years, in Supreme Court cases in, you know, political stump speeches in, in just the dialogue of the public square, religious freedom has started to mean something else, or been used in a very, very different way, that is not inclusive and progressive, but instead is is very much limiting, and exclusive in a lot of cases. Can you talk a little bit about about that shift and about, you know, how that hinders, you know, dialogue going forward? You know, well this is a tussle between church and state. Right. And this is one that at least we can have in this country. So where does my personal or even collective faith expression, integrate, intersect with the equal rights, equity approach of a democracy? And I think that's at least how I see a part of that struggle. And we've seen how it's rolled itself out. Does a baker have to bake a cake for a gay wedding? Does a photographer have to take photos? Does a website designer? I think that's one of the cases before the court. Does a religiously based foster care agency have to place children with gay couples? And I think the struggle we're in and we should be in it is, if as a faith institution, you're receiving public dollars to deliver a service to the public, what are the parameters around your ability as a faith institution to exclude people you have deemed now not not worthy of or who are doing things that you believe are inconsistent with what it means to be faithful - and that's the challenge. If it was only private money, and these services were being done in a private way, then the state would have basically nothing to say about it as long if it's kids, as long as the kids are being cared for well.But it's public money, it's publicly regulated, it's businesses taking advantage of public services. And so then where does my individual collective faith end and the requirements of equality and what I'll call justice in a democratic society begin? And that's the tussle. There's no easy answer to that. And we'll go back and forth, I think for decades to come, what will sort of become a little more conservative about it all, because we have a court that's geared that way. But that won't last forever. And, you know, sometime before I leave this earth, perhaps we'll start to come back the other way. But, but we can do that, in this democracy. And we want to always be able to wrestle with these things, we all always want to be able to have the discussions, we always want to be able to tussle with it, without people being thrown in jail, or accused of blasphemy and sentenced to death, or, or having their houses of worship, or places of worship burned down and destroyed, or having their homes destroyed. So we want to be able to have these discussions, you know, that have the court swing a little bit this way and a little bit that way, without any of it being apocalyptic of the end of the world without any of it generating violence and hatred. And it's incumbent upon leaders, I think, to have that conversation. They're a group of out of the Bush library with support with support from the Carter Center. I think the Clinton Foundation, Clinton Presidential Center, as well as the Obama Foundation, this more perfect union approach to see if we can get Democrats and Republicans and maybe Independents to come together to talk about, you know, how do we shore up this democracy? How do we ensure the peaceful transition of power on the other side of elections? How do we promote civil dialogue, discussion and debate? And, you know, essentially, how do we keep this democracy running, so we can disagree, and sometimes vehemently, and the courts can cause us to scream to the high heavens. But it doesn't mean that we need to attack our institutions, we need to destroy them. It means that we need to use the democratic process to try to change them in ways we want to change them. But also to recognize, in this really wonderful polyglot this potluck of a nation of ours, we're gonna we can get a good deal of what we want, we're never gonna get all of what we want, but we're free enough to pursue it. So let's not let's not destroy this, let's let's just look for ways to make it better make it a more perfect union.

Chip Gruen: 28:24

Yeah, it's interesting that you, you sort of laid that out as thinking about places where there's public frameworks, public money, as opposed to private, right, so that that would have different implications for an adoption agency than for a baker. And, you know, just what that makes me think of is, you know, for for my adult life, at least, there has been this huge push to stretch government funds, by having public private partnerships everywhere. And you think about almost everything that we do..

Fred Davie: 28:59

Right.

Chip Gruen: 28:59

...is a public private partnership, whether that be healthcare, or education. I mean, they're the two big ones that I think of.

Fred Davie: 29:06

Right.

Chip Gruen: 29:06

Or even when you look at private institutions, private health care institutions, or private educational institutions, they're getting all kinds of public support public money. You know, and not to mention that the how the tax code is written, which could be an argument that that's public, so it just, I mean, you said there are no easy answers, but it just seems like we've sort of painted ourselves into this corner where that public-private concern is going to be really difficult one to get out of.

Fred Davie: 29:30

And I don't think we should get out of it. I don't think there's any way for people in this country that have the services they need, particularly those who live at the margins, who struggled the most even middle-class families, without this public-private engagement. I mean, it's just private institutions have delivered services on behalf of the government pretty much since the inception of the Republic. I think we should maintain this relationship between the public-private engagement, particularly, since it is so crucial to delivering needed services to people here in the country. We will have to continue to grapple with what it means to have public dollars coming through particularly religious based institutions, for the delivery of services, and what kind of restrictions or parameters religious institutions can place on what services they will deliver, and how they will deliver them and to whom they will deliver them. But I think the benefit far outweighs the challenges. Now I would tend to be pretty left of center on some of this stuff, as you might imagine. I do believe that religious based institutions who are using public money to deliver a service and to employ people should have to follow the guidelines, the human rights guidelines, the equal opportunity guidelines, etc, of a municipality or a state or government. I believe that should be one of those things that that we make happen. Courts don't necessarily agree with that. So we're going to have to continue to engage both in the public square and in the courts around around this issue, but I don't think we can, practically, and I don't think we should, as a matter of principle, remove public dollars from private or religious institutions and service delivery, I just think they're too crucial to the infrastructure. And it's, it's a it's too important a relationship, to try to dismantle.

Chip Gruen: 31:48

I don't want to get too overtly political here. But I remember the elder Bush's presidency, you know, the idea of the you know, he put his hands together and talk about the 1000 points of light, and talking about the ways in which private institutions in particular, faith institutions could support, you know, the work that is necessary for human flourishing, although he didn't say it in exactly that way. And at the time, I mean, I think, you know, at least I thought, okay, that that makes a lot of sense. But since that time, I think there have been a lot of people who think, well, you're letting the government off the hook for things that might, you know, we might consider necessary, you know, for the health and welfare of, you know of the citizens by, you know, by punting a little bit to faith institutions.

Fred Davie: 32:39

Right. Well, so a few thoughts on this. One is that not only did Bush one, the elder Bush start this and I, you know, I hear that story about the 1000 points of light, and I see and I remember the cartoon about the guy sitting at the bar saying, Did he he say, 1000 pints of light? So, but Bush one wasn't the only one who promoted this idea. Clinton did it in the welfare reform legislation in the 90s, with the charitable choice, stipulation there. Bush two advanced that, not only by expanding on charitable choice, but starting a faith based office at the White House. Truth of the matter, Andrew Cuomo had done this, during the Clinton administration, with his when he was HUD secretary, he had a faith based office and housing run by a guy by the name of Father, Joe Hacala, when he was housing secretary. And I know that because I supported some of their work when I was at the Ford Foundation. And then, of course, Obama, built on that with working with Joshua DuBois and those of us who are on the White House Council on faith based and neighborhood partnerships, to increase this involvement of faith and community based organizations and others working with government to deliver services. So government shouldn't be off the hook. Government has the primary responsibility to provide these basic services to meet the needs of its citizens. So just no question about that. But in this country, government is helped immensely by a whole infrastructure of service organizations, both the both religiously based and non-religiously based, but also the non-governmental organizations and institutions. And I think obviously government has to make sure that its partners in this effort, are doing a quality job at the delivery of these services. That's another reason why if the responsibility of government - if the government is going to partner with these organizations, then government needs to hold them accountable, and make sure they're delivering the services they should deliver. So I don't think, I don't think it's government abandoning its responsibility. It couldn't, you could even argue its government enhancing its ability to do its work well, but government has to do it. And as we all know, government agencies fall down sometimes or don't measure up to holding themselves accountable for one, but also for holding their partners accountable. And again, in this sort of rich and dynamic democracy that we have, we can call that out. And again, not risk persecution, or prosecution, for holding our both public and private institutions accountable. And that's what we have to do in this mix. But I do think that these institutions are important partners for government, they're not a substitute for government.

Chip Gruen: 35:52

So I want to shift gears here just a little bit, because you've talked a little bit about your your interactions with the federal government, this is part of part of what you do. This is part of your, your service. That you are, as I mentioned earlier, you're a member of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. And it seems to me that this is related to the work that you do at the intersection of race and religion in the you know, in the United States, but it's also different. It's also sort of a little bit of a different context there. Can you talk a little bit about that work and how you see them as similar? How you see that as similar or different from from the other work you do?

Fred Davie: 36:33

Sure. So the work of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom that we call USCIRF, is strictly focused internationally. And the organization is a government agency established in 1998, in the Clinton administration, to advise the White House, the Congress, and the State Department, on how US foreign policy can continue to significantly consider religious freedom, freedom of belief issues in the nations that we're, that we're engaging. And it is USCIRF's responsibility to monitor how the US government is doing that, through hearings, reports, visits to those countries, and then influencing those branches of government, State Department and public opinion about what we're seeing and what's going on. I think the I guess, if there is an intersection with the domestic work that I and others are engaged in, it is around marshaling our colleagues on the domestic side, to be supportive of changes in US foreign policy, that we believe need to be happen or need to be prioritized in order to promote freedom of religion or belief or no belief in US foreign policy around the world. Now, there are some people who will suggest that USCIRF was established so that it could serve as a sort of watchdog for the ability of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians to to proselytize in non-majority Christian countries. I don't believe that I don't, I don't buy that. Now certainly, that is one aspect of freedom of religion, or belief or no belief is to be able to to evangelize- to call people to your particular side or your particular faith. But I think what you've seen with USCIRF is that there's a lot of attention paid to Muslim minorities, and what we might call offshoots of mainstream Islam or other religious expressions. So the Ahmadiyya or the Ahmadis as they are called, the Yazidis, the Zoroastrians, the Bahais, and others who find themselves as minority faiths in many countries around the world are very much at the center of who USCIRF or the US Commission on International Religious Freedom is advocating for. The Uyghurs in China, the Rohingya in Burma. So, and we do a lot of engagement domestically in the sense that we have to talk to Congress and we talk to our fellow and people who are engaged in human rights work, other faith people on this side to say, you know, we need US foreign policy to look like this, if the US is going to help promote religious freedom, or freedom of belief or no belief around the world, so the intersection is generally with building support for US foreign policy that promotes freedom of religion or belief. But but little else domestically.

Chip Gruen: 40:21

Yeah, it's interesting as I, as I was looking at, you know, that organization, you know, online and thinking about it and thinking about the problems of religious freedom and toleration around the world, I kept coming back to Muslim minorities. And I'm sure that that will come as a surprise to people who don't follow, you know, global news, you know, very closely, but you look around the world. It's not Christian minorities that are sort of the hotspots for this kind of work, but it is, in fact, Muslim minorities.

Fred Davie: 40:52

Sure. I support two religious prisoners of conscience in Nigeria, as a commissioner on USCIRF. One of them is a Humanist. His name is Mubarak Bala. He was sentenced to death for blasphemy. That sentence has since been changed. You know, he converted from Islam to Humanism. And initially was put into a mental hospital and ultimately tried in Sharia court, convicted, that was later overturned, but it's because he chooses to have a minority religious expression in a majority Muslim country in the other case, Sharif-Aminu, Yahaya Sharif-Aminu. He is actually a Muslim, but he's a Tijaniyya Muslim, a Muslim minority within a majority Muslim country. And as a result of just a song that he was performing on YouTube, or one of the social media platforms, he was accused of blasphemy because he praised an Imam, and supposedly that praise was supposed to be reserved, theoretically reserved for the Prophet Muhammad. And, and so he was he was charged with blasphemy and sentenced - and his sentence has since been overturned. But he remains in jail as well. So yeah, here you have two people with minority expressions of religion, who weren't who one who still is Muslim, one who was Muslim in a majority Muslim country, and they are very much at the center of USCIRF's work.

Chip Gruen: 42:41

Yeah, I mean, just to sort of punctuate that. I mean, that's also, you know, you mentioned Myanmar, you know, and in the Uyghurs, too, that we have their minority Muslim populations and a couple of circumstances where there's a dominant, you know, religious cultural group, um, that is not Muslim. Right. So that there's, there's that aspect of the work as well, right?

Fred Davie: 43:02

Indeed. Indeed, yeah.

Chip Gruen: 43:05

So I think it's fair to say that listeners this podcast are interested in working towards a better understanding of the world around them, as well as developing empathy for others in their community. From your experience, what would you say to our audience to help them develop those skills and attitudes that you seek to encourage in your work? What are the you know, what are the habits of mind or the, you know, the the things that that, that people who don't do this professionally might be able to cultivate for themselves?

Fred Davie: 43:36

Right. I think the biggest thing Americans could do is keep an open mind about the world around them. If there's anything I experience, whether it's here in New York City, or upstate New York, where I go on weekends, or my little town I grew up in in Belmont, North Carolina, is people can we can be pretty parochial in our points of view, or we want our worldview, to be the worldview and get really threatened by anything that challenges that. Now, that's a little bit of an extreme, but I see it playing out in ways large and small. So I think if we can, if we can work really hard one, as individuals, collectively as families, to appreciate that this is a country for everybody who's here. And then two, celebrate and uphold our particular expressions of faith, politics, social engagement, but also recognize that not everybody is going to do it our way and make sure that there's space for other people to give expressions to how they understand and experience and live out these things, but also look for places to interact that if I, you know, as a, as a sort of left of center, progressive interact with the right of center evangelical, like I did with the Bush administration in the 90s. It doesn't diminish me. In fact, it may help to expand my horizons and understanding as it has. And I was very pleased that the there were people, for example, in the Bush administration, who were Evangelical Christians, who invited me, an out gay black Presbyterian minister who was married, to come to the Bush White House and give a keynote address at a Bush conference on on a big piece of work, we we'd done with them on prisoner reentry. So, if we can look for more of those opportunities, look for ways to expand our horizons, don't expect people to fit into our understanding of what it means, you know, to live and to be, but as long as people are living productive lives, trying to do productive things, try to understand sort of where they're coming from. And we don't necessarily have to agree, but to engage with them. You know, I, I was just thinking about sort of the small ways in which worlds get confined. I was getting shots to go to on a trip recently, well, first to Nigeria, and then to Botswana. And I did it at a small pharmacy, upstate New York, and then I bought some safari clothes at a Lands' End or one of those places, upstate and, and at the pharmacy, though, I said, Oh, I'm going to Africa. And she says, Well, you must not be American. And I said, Why would you say that? She says, Surely you're from you must be from over there. And I said, from about 400 years ago, you know? And she says, Well, why would you go over there? What are you going to eat? This is a pharmacist, she's educated, well, what are you going to eat? What? And it's, it's, it's and she's not the exception. It's more the rule, not a bad person, caring, but not very open horizons. So I would say to the everyday person, open your eyes, and it was a similar thing, you know, at Lands' End or wherever I was, you know, clearly you're going to be the guide for people over there, because you're going back home. That's why you that was the that was the conversation with the clerk. So I don't know. Open up, that's the that's the thing. Let's all of us open our horizons, let's all of us think, think seriously about this big world we live in, let's not live with assumptions or presumptions about people, but really try to engage and understand and appreciate and celebrate not only ourselves and those, and those we're familiar with, but other others as well. I think if we can do that, if we can work at it, if we can be committed to it as a worthy pursuit, as worthy as many other things that we do, we'll make a go of this, but I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful that whatever stuff we're going through now, and it is pretty serious, that that we have enough people of goodwill that are going to help us get us on the other side of it. And we're gonna keep this this real rich, democratic experiment here going for a long time to come.

Chip Gruen: 48:43

Yeah, I normally end with that question. But as you were talking and you beat me to the punch, I was gonna say you sound hopeful, right? You sound optimistic. And I think that, you know, I think a lot of people, you know, who are who are also paying attention to the world around us don't have that hope, feel pessimistic, feel beat down, feel like we've taken one step forward, and two steps back on a lot of these issues. And what would you say to them?

Fred Davie: 49:10

Well, on some we have, but but, you know, remember the step that we took forward, and just stay committed to believing that we can do that again. And it wasn't quite two steps backwards. I don't even think it was a step and a half, maybe a step but probably more like a half a step. And we'll bring this thing back the other way a little bit. No, I will say and I hate I don't want to introduce a new topic at the end of the conversation. But I think a step that we all are gonna have to make together and we don't talk a lot about it is around the environment because I don't think we don't get that right, none of the rest of it's gonna matter. But I would say let's, you know, we can all stay in this. You know, we'll get some of what we want. It, we'll never get all of what we want, but we just because we don't get all of what we want, is no reason to destroy these very valuable important institutions. Let's have a more perfect union, but recognizing that we have to work it continuously to make it more perfect - and we can do that. I'm confident that there that there are that there's a critical mass of people in this country who will never give up on that. And we're the better for it.

Chip Gruen: 50:23

All right, well, thank you, Reverend Davie, for sitting down today. This has been great. Really enjoyed your perspective on these issues.

Fred Davie: 50:31

Thank you for having me. I really, really appreciate the opportunity to have the conversation.

Chip Gruen: 50:38

This has been ReligionWise a podcast produced by the Institute for Religious and Cultural Understanding of Muhlenberg College. ReligionWise is produced and directed by Christine Flicker. For more information about additional programming, or to make an inquiry about a speaking engagement. Please visit our website at religionandculture.com. There you'll find our contact information, links to other programming and have the opportunity to support the work of the Institute. Please subscribe to ReligionWise wherever you get your podcasts. We look forward to seeing you next time.