Beyond Tolerance: Faith in the Public Square - Discussion of Religious Discrimination, Freedom and Liberty, Respect, Human Rights Protection, Challenges from Secular Institutions

This unique report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. This is a briefing on faith in the public square as a good in and of itself, as a public good, and as the fruit of religious freedom. Jewish communities have been part of the square of what is now the United States at least since the 1650s. This past Saturday, a man targeted and killed 11 of our Jewish brothers and sisters in the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Last night, on National Public Radio, the executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, David Shribman, remarked, "I sometimes say that this is the only community I've ever lived in in which the people who aren't Jews actually pronounce the Yiddish words correctly.'' Such fraternity reflects one of the most important exhortations in American history.

This compilation includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

Eric Treene is special counsel for religious discrimination at the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. He oversees the Civil Rights Division's religious discrimination enforcement, outreach, and policy efforts. Mr. Treene also coordinates outreach to religious communities and the department's outreach efforts to the Muslim, Arab, Sikh, and South Asian communities regarding post-9/11 discrimination and hate crimes. Before joining the Department of Justice in 2002, he was director of litigation at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where he represented Christians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Native Americans in a wide range of discrimination cases. Mr. Treene received his Bachelor of Arts in political science from Amherst College and his law degree from Harvard Law School. He was a law clerk to Judge John Walker, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Mr. Treene is the author of a number of articles and a contributor to two books on constitutional law and civil rights.

The Reverend Dr. Andrew Bennett is program director for Cardus Law. He is an ordained deacon in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the Eparchy, or diocese, of Toronto and eastern Canada. Father Deacon Andrew served as Canada's first Ambassador for Religious Freedom and head of the Office of Religious Freedom from 2013-2016. He simultaneously served as Canada's head of delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, a 31-country body which leads international efforts in Holocaust education, research, and remembrance. Father Deacon Andrew holds degrees in history from McGill and Dalhousie Universities. He received his Ph.D. in politics from the University of Edinburgh.

Dr. Sophie van Bijsterveld joins us from the Netherlands to reflect on the subject in a Western European context. She graduated in law from the University of Utrecht and received a doctorate in law from Tilburg University. Since September 2014, she has been professor of religion, law, and society at Radboud University. Dr. van Bijsterveld has lectured and published extensively in the fields of international human rights protection, religious liberty, constitutional law, and hybrid governance. Her books include "The Empty Throne: Democracy and the Rule of Law in Transition." Her latest book is "State and Religion: Reassessing a Mutual Relationship." Since 2007, she has been a senator in the Dutch upper house of Parliament for the Christian Democratic Party. From 2008 to 2015, Dr. von Bijsterveld was a member of the board of the scientific institute for the Christian Democratic Party. She was also a founding editor of the Dutch Journal of Religion, Law and Policy.