RPL in the News: Engaging Religion or Domesticating Religion? An Interview with Atalia Omer

Judd Birdsall, editor of Religion & Diplomacy, interviewed Atalia Omer, T. J. Dermot Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peacebuilding, and Senior Fellow in Conflict and Peace, Program in Religion and Public Life. In the interview Omer expands on several themes she raised in her article,“Prophets versus Religiocrats,” published in the June 2020 issue of The Review of Faith & International Affairs. She begins with her contention that policymakers too often operate with a diminished understanding of “the ambivalence of the sacred.”

"At conferences dealing with religion and international affairs it’s common to hear references to “religious engagement,” “religious literacy,” and “building the capacity” of faith-based organizations as self-evidently positive things for governments to pursue. Atalia Omer isn’t so sure. Professor of Religion, Conflict, and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame in the United States, Omer argues that much of government engagement with religion rests on faulty understandings and leads to a sort of domestication of religion, negating is prophetic potential."

Read the full article on Religion and Diplomacy.