Religion and Democratic Ideals: A Series of Public Online Conversations

Zainulabideen Jafri, MTS '26
Religion and Democratic Ideals, Fall 2024 series main image

Beginning September 24, 2024, Religion and Public Life hosted a four-part webinar series titled, "Religion and Democratic Ideals." Zainulabideen Jafri, MTS '26, sat down with Hussein Rashid, assistant dean for Religion and Public Life, to discuss the inspiration for and purpose of the series and RPL's approach to discussing democracy in the current moment.

Engage with the series by reading event coverage and listening to event recordings at the end of the article.

Zainulabideen Jafri: Can you describe the Religion and Democratic Ideals series in your own words?

Hussein Rashid:  We at RPL are invested in looking at just peacebuilding. For us, the question informing this series is not only about democracy; that’s a political question. Why we should be fighting to defend democracy is a political question. For us, the question is, “who does democracy serve, and how does it serve them?” In this series, we explore questions of democratic ideals, looking at four different avenues, out of hundreds, to talk about how we can build a just peace through democracy and democratic ideals.

ZJ: What will be the structure of the series, and what are some different topics that the sessions will touch upon?

HR: Per our mission, RPL is aiming to build societies that are inclusive and equitable. The panels will speak into that work. We’ll start with political futures, bringing in futurists and political mobilizers to talk about what we can work towards and how we do so more effectively. It will be about both practical action and the ideals that inform that action. 

Second, we’ll talk about religion and the media, and how the two interact to shape the nation. In actuality, the nation is a collection of stories that binds people together, and how the media tells those stories define the nation—whether that’s news media or entertainment media. They are some of our most powerful storytelling vehicles that we all have in common. Our questions in this session are, “How do we understand media as a way to define the nation? What goal should we aim for, and how do we work towards that goal?” 

In the third session, we move into conversations about reproductive justice and white nationalism. This was an important topic choice for us because we think questions of gender, race, and class are deeply intertwined. The current moment demands that we talk about reproductive healthcare as a nexus of these factors. But again, we want to think about what the future holds for us and how we can move our conversations beyond the present moment.

We’ll end the series looking at questions of indigeneity, rematriation, land, and healing. With this session, we’re acknowledging the deep historical indebtedness that we owe to indigenous and Black communities in this country. With this particular lens, we’re ending at the beginning, which includes questions around how we think about what we are taking, and how we learn to engage with the world in a more constructive and generative way. 

ZJ: How will the panel conversations be formatted to align with the themes you’ve outlined?

HR: The format is going to be a two- or three-person conversation moderated by myself. The panelists are amazing speakers: people who are all very thoughtful, having been in these respective spaces for a while with a lot of important insights to share. We’re really grateful that these panelists have chosen to spend time with us, helping us and our audience engage with each other and these important topics. There will be some shared questions because we are talking about a big vision. For example, what does just peacebuilding mean? What does the phrase “democratic ideals” mean? These general questions will be applied to their areas of expertise: what does this look like for political futures? What does this look like for media landscapes? 

ZJ: What inspired this series?

HR: RPL is very much committed to engaging with public life, and our first public is our students. Our students are coming to us and saying, “How do we process this particular election cycle?” However, we didn’t feel it appropriate to talk about the election cycle. We are not a political organization. We are a program that looks at questions of structural inequities, so our response has to be about the structures functioning in  our current political moment and creating structures of equitability. We’re trying to respond to what we feel our students are asking of us while making sure we’re true to who we are. For Religion and Public Life, the conversation is not American democracy it is democratic ideals. That’s the conversation. That’s our lead-in to just peacebuilding. 

ZJ: How does the series aim to present these various perspectives and through them work with these questions that are now necessary given the current political climate?

HR: I do hope that people realize that we are bringing, intentionally, very different perspectives on these issues. Our goal is not to harmonize these perspectives. We are trying to bring different perspectives to help educate people so they think about the world in new ways, beyond this particular electoral cycle. We encourage both ourselves and our audience members to think about generational change. To think  ten years out, fifty years out. That type of thinking comes from bringing in multiple perspectives and  having different people present their view of what just peace looks like. Just peacebuilding is not a top-down approach. It is a bottom-up approach. And for us, this approach means bringing experts together to help us think through what coalition building and collaborative work can look like. 

ZJ: Given the wide range of areas and questions that will be tackled within the panels, what might be one message that you aim to have your audience take away from this series?

HR: We would want our audience to know that they have the power to create the world that they want to see. They need to be thoughtful of the world they want to create and how they want to exercise their power to achieve that world. Just peacebuilding is not the work of a moment.  It’s not the work of a day. It’s not the work of a week. It is the work of months, years, decades, and generations. This work and vision is what the Religion and Democratic Ideals series is calling us towards.

View the event recordings and read the transcripts below.

Read  coverage of each "Religion and Democratic Ideals."

See also: