# RPL Annual Report 2024-25 Leadership Letters June 30, 2025 **Diane L. Moore** **Associate Dean 2020–25** Dear Friends of Religion and Public Life, ![Headshot of Dr. Diane Moore](/sites/g/files/omnuum8216/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/rsz_1dr_diane_moore_1.jpg?itok=tSCMYWiw) In the first five years of its existence, Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School has been both lauded and criticized for its work promoting the public understanding of religion in service of a just world at peace. The strength of the work of RPL lies in creating space for diversity of opinion, conversation, and transformative growth. Our goal has not been about absolute positions but about making a reasoned analysis through which others can articulate their own commitments. The people of RPL are a microcosm of these times in the world, the nation, and the University itself. As the founding Faculty Director and Associate Dean from 2020 to 2025, I remain profoundly grateful for the privilege of collaborating with colleagues and students within and beyond Harvard. We created and implemented this bridge-building program between the academy and a broad array of professional and civic realms. At the heart of our work of promoting critical religious literacy has been a belief in the power of the moral imagination to transcend binary thinking and to consider what is possible versus what is probable regarding human and planetary flourishing. This annual report represents these foundations and the collaborations that made this work possible. Many thanks to those represented in these pages and to all who have collaborated with us over the years. You have inspired us all. Diane L. Moore Associate Dean for Religion and Public Life 2020–25 June 2025 --- **David F. Holland** **Interim Director 2025** Dear Members of the RPL Community, ![David F. Holland](/sites/g/files/omnuum8216/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/rpl/files/david_f._holland.jpg?itok=tETLq9Xk) The end of an academic year brings both reflection and anticipation. It is a time to consider what has been and embrace what is to come. This year, this is especially true for Religion and Public Life. After decades of devoted service, Professor Diane L. Moore will retire from HDS. I am grateful for her work to establish RPL and direct it through its first five years. Her determination to make the academic study of religion both accessible and relevant to the world that lies beyond the classroom has left an enduring legacy for our community. She has been supported in this work by a diligent and talented team, some of whom will also be concluding their time at RPL this summer, including Assistant Dean Hussein Rashid, MTS ’98, PhD ’10, and Hilary Rantisi, Associate Director of the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative. We wish them all the very best. Even as we say goodbye, we also warmly welcome Professor Terrence Johnson, MDiv ’00—Charles G. Adams Professor of African American Religious Studies at Harvard Divinity School and Professor of African American Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences—as the incoming Director of Religion and Public Life. He will assume his role on July 1, 2025. Professor Johnson will draw on RPL’s historical strengths while charting a new vision for programming and pedagogy around his extensive areas of expertise, including political theory, racial justice, legal studies, theological ethics, and histories of democratic liberalism. He has a long track record of introducing public audiences to crucial conversations about the interplay of religious cultures with civic values of fairness and freedom. RPL has a bright new chapter ahead. Professor Johnson has exceptional gifts for facilitating serious engagement with differing viewpoints, careful consideration of complex histories, thoughtful inquiry into inequality, and creative exploration of paths to a more peaceful world. He will bring all this and more to the RPL community. We thank you for being part of that community—both for what you have done in the past and for the blessing of your involvement in the future. David F. Holland Interim Director for Religion and Public Life 2025 June 2025