In the September-October 2021 issue of the Harvard Magazine, Nancy Walecki covered Harvard Divinity School's new Religion and Public program and its work to promote religious literacy in the professions.
HARVARD DIVINITY SCHOOL (HDS), long focused on preparing religious leaders and training religious scholars, this fall adds a third mission. It is launching its first new master’s degree program in more than 50 years, the master of religion and public life (MRPL). Coupled with a similarly named certificate program—the anchors of the of the Religion and Public Life initiative (RPL)—HDS has embarked upon a comprehensive program of training professionals for practice in other realms.
In an October 2020 statement, Dean David N. Hempton said RPL was established to provide “an umbrella for programs and scholarship across Harvard that explore the ways that religion is entwined with social, political, and economic dimensions of human experience and institutions.” Alongside the degree and certificate programs, the initiative hosts public events to promote religious understanding, such as its panel this past March on the religious dimensions of the protests in Myanmar (following the military’s overthrow of the democratically elected government). RPL also offers a professional-development program for secondary-school teachers interested in weaving the critical study of religion into their curricula. Faculty director Diane L. Moore says that above all, RPL aims to give “people the language to understand the power of religion in human experience.”
Read the full article at Harvard Magazine.