March 29 2024

Secretary of State John Kerry speaking at the podium during a speech to the Baker Institue of Public Policy at Rice University

"The more we understand religion and the better able we are as a result to be able to engage religious actors, the more effective our diplomacy will be in advancing the interests and values of our people," said Secretary of State John Kerry to an audience at Rice University's Baker Institue for Public Policy last Tuesday evening, April 26.

Interviewed by Kristian Petersen

In this conversation with Kristian Petersen, Winnifred Fallers Sullivan discusses how the role of chaplains in the United States developed alongside understandings of the First Amendment. Chaplaincy, she argues, provides a legal solution to the fragile problem posed by the free exercise and establishment clauses in the Constitution.

Sullivan is the author of A Ministry of Presence: Chaplaincy, Spiritual Care, and the Law (University of Chicago Press, 2014) which won the American Academy of Religion's Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the analytical-descriptive studies category.

by Melissa M. Wilcox, Whitman College

The Olympics are airing as I write this, and there’s one ad I particularly detest. It features a slick, fifty-something, white man standing next to an opulent backyard pool overlooking a walled yard backed by palm trees. Over the course of the ad, this apparently successful businessman walks through an equally opulent and pristine house complete with very brief cameos (blink and you miss them) of two young, white girls and an attractive, predictably younger-appearing, white woman. The ad concludes with the man changing with lightning speed from expensive leisure clothing to an equally expensive business suit, walking out of his front door, removing the electric charger from his Cadillac, and stepping inside the car.

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