In her recent article “Lifting Every Voice in Religious Freedom,” the Religious Freedom Center’s Sabrina Dent writes about the importance of including African American perspectives in discussions about religious freedom. She recounts some of the insights shared by speakers and panelists at the Center’s recent program for theological students and faculty, on the challenges, implications, opportunities, and threats to religious freedom.
Why do African American perspectives matter when discussing religious freedom?
The answers are as simple — and complex — as recognizing an important voice around issues involving religion and as complex as unpacking centuries of bigotry, racism, the legacy of slavery and what it means to be a citizen in the United States.
The Freedom Forum’s Religious Freedom Center explored those issues and others in January, in a program funded by the Henry Luce Foundation.
In the second such program, more than 30 students from eight theological institutions, and faculty members representing academic partners, heard speakers explore the challenges, implications, opportunities and threats to religious freedom through the lens of marginalized or silenced voices.
