FACULTY LEADER
Michael Kessler
RELATED PUBLICATIONS
January 2008Undergraduate Learning and Interreligious Understanding: 2007 Survey
January 2003
Mystics: Presence and Aporia
Just Law and Religion
more publications >
RELATED EVENTS
October 21, 2009Human Rights and the Defamation of Religions
September 24, 2009
After September 11th: Change in the Academy?
April 7, 2009
The Making of a Catholic President
more events >
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Religion, Politics, and LawIn the United States and around the world, religious actors and institutions have increasingly gained political influence, drawing on their traditions to justify legal and political stances and actions. Center activities examine the shifting configuration of religion, politics, and law, and its ethical and policy implications. |
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RELATED PROJECTS
Religion and the 2008 ElectionIn collaboration with EJ Dionne and the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, the Center is sponsoring a series of events dedicated to the 2008 Election. In January 2008 Sojourners and the Berkley Center co-hosted an evening of discussion and debate on Jim Wallis’s latest book, The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post–Religious Right America. E.J. Dionne provided commentary. In April Dionne presented his book Souled Out: Faith and Politics after the Religious Right. In addition, Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), one of the candidates for the Republican nomination in 2008, discussed his views on faith and national and international affairs with Georgetown’s President John J. DeGioia. The Center also hosts a database, Faith 2008, which tracks religious rhetoric in the campaign.
Future of Political Theologies
The Berkley Center’s Future of Political Theologies project maps and analyzes historic and contemporary understandings of political engagement across Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The Berkley Center project engages political theologies not merely as a set of theoretical concepts, but as religious beliefs and principles that ground political action within contemporary geo-political struggles. The Project brings together leading thinkers and practitioners within each tradition – as well as secular counterparts – to examine the contested intersection between religious conviction and the political arena.
Global Nexus of Law and Religion
Religion and law are among the most powerful forces in the world – forces that intersect around some of the most complex and contested global issues. Religious freedom is a paramount value in many modern societies, yet that freedom must be carefully balanced with the legal and social obligations of citizenship in a diverse nation and world. Examples abound of tensions at this point of intersection: the recent Islamic veil controversy in France; debates over the role of prayer in schools in the United States; and religious challenges around the globe to the legal status of practices like proselytism, abortion, and homosexuality.
Beyond September 11
The Berkley Center helps lead Georgetown's collaboration with the National September 11 Memorial Museum, which is an outgrowth of our longstanding relationship with Project Rebirth, an upcoming feature film created by a Georgetown alumnus documenting the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site and the lives of ten individuals impacted by 9/11. Project Rebirth is poised in the coming year to gain international attention, both as a wide-release film, and also by providing video content for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. An inaugural 9/11 Anniversary symposium was held last September on Film and Understanding Our Common Bonds of Loss which explored the use of films like Project Rebirth and other media to help individuals and communities rebuild from catastrophic events and break down barriers to interreligious and intercultural understanding. Project Rebirth details may be found at their website: http://www.projectrebirth.org/ Georgetown University has been collaborating with the team creating Project Rebirth, an upcoming feature film documenting the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site and the lives of ten individuals impacted by 9/11. Project Rebirth is poised in the coming year to gain international attention, both as a wide-release film, and also by providing video content for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. In case you are not yet familiar with Project Rebirth, more details may be found at their website: http://www.projectrebirth.org/ Through this collaboration, Georgetown has also developed a relationship with the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. The National September 11 Memorial Museum staff has begun the process of exhibition development. One of their immense tasks is to accurately and objectively portray the many narratives about the social, political, cultural, and religious factors that led to the tragic events. At the end of March, the Berkley Center will host representatives from the Museum involved in the exhibition planning process, and we invite you to meet with them to discuss some of the most pressing issues, such as: The "why" behind the attacks. The cultural, political, and religious context for the "why?" How can the 9/11 Museum best tell this part of the story. The goal of these meetings is for Georgetown faculty to help guide the September 11 Memorial Museum in developing the most accurate, objective, and nuanced narratives for the public displays, which will likely serve as an educational forum--and a place of memorial reflection--for millions in the coming years.
