This week (September 20th ) on The Open Door, panelists Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes, and Valerie Niemeyer will discuss religious freedom. Our special guests are Andrew Kubick and Nathaniel Hurd, both of the Religious Freedom Institute.

Kubick is Deputy Director, National Center for Religious Freedom Education, and a Research Fellow in Bioethics and Medical Conscience. He has a Ph.D. in Bioethics from the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum. He has published in The Catholic Journal on Religious Freedom and Health Care, Dignitas, Ethics & Medics, National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Public Discourse, and St. John Paul II Journal of Bioethics. Nathaniel Hurd is Director of the North America Action Team and Senior Fellow for Public Policy for the Religious Freedom Institute. He holds a Masters of International Affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Hurd worked as Senior Policy Advisor for the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. In addition to advising Senators and Representatives, he directed hearings, monitored elections in Europe, and represented the United States with the United Nations and World Bank. He has spent time overseas with many survivors of violence who were forced to flee from their homes.

The questions for our visitors include the following. Feel free to suggest others!

1. What led to your interest in, and professional commitment to, religious freedom?
2. Why should governments have a special regard for religious freedom? Isn’t it sufficient to secure civil liberties?
3. Do you have a working definition of religion?
4. Do you recognize a right not to profess a religion?
5. Many see religion as a private affair and are willing to recognize it as such. Does religion, properly understood, have a public dimension? If so, what follows?
6. How is it that religion often becomes entangled with nationalism?
7. Should Christians advocate for the religious freedom of Muslims? Of Buddhists?
8. A noted liberal scholar, the late John Rawls, contends that treating one’s faith as the overarching good of one’s life is a form of fanaticism. Indeed, he identifies St. Ignatius Loyola as a fanatic. How would you respond to Rawls?
9. In today’s world, is the secular state a political safe haven for religious freedom?
10. What are the prospects for religious freedom in Pakistan, Nigeria, and China?