The international religious freedom (IRF) community is a big tent. There are various Christian organizations as well as other groups, ranging from Baha’is to atheists. There are conservatives, moderates and—believe it or not—some liberals like me. So I imagine there are mixed views on how to approach the new Trump Administration. For Christians at least, our scriptures provide us several models through which we can approach this issue and engage with each other. As the IRF Summit—an annual meeting in which the IRF community raises awareness of religious persecution and calls for official action—concludes, it would be worth considering how these models will facilitate IRF advocacy.
The international religious freedom community
The IRF community is a loose network of activists, policy experts and religious organizations that advocate for greater attention to IRF in US foreign policy. I engaged with them when I ran the Pew Research Center Global Restrictions on Religion project, a quantitative study of government and social religious persecution started by Brian Grim. After leaving DC, I have continued to research international religious freedom and engage with the IRF community from afar.
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