Religious Pluralism and the State: Healing American Polarization

About the Speakers

• Paul Edwards (Moderator): Director of the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University (BYU). He previously served as Deputy Chief of Staff and Policy/Communications Director for Utah Governor Gary Herbert, Editor and Publisher of the Deseret News, Provost of Southern Virginia University, and President of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He holds a J.D. and Ph.D. in Political Science from UC Berkeley.

• Andy Hanauer (One America Movement): President and CEO of the One America Movement, a national nonprofit founded by faith and community leaders to combat toxic polarization and social division. A frequent speaker at houses of worship, national conferences, and international forums, his work focuses on mobilizing faith communities to address shared challenges and build cross-cultural trust.

• John Wood Jr. (Omni American Society): National Ambassador for Braver Angels, advisory board member for the Omni American Society, and a writer and mediator focused on political and racial reconciliation. A former nominee for U.S. Congress and former Vice-Chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County, he writes and speaks nationally on civil discourse, moral philosophy, and bridge-building across ideological divides.

• Rebecca Russo (Interfaith America): Vice President of Higher Education Strategy at Interfaith America, where she oversees programs partnering with colleges and universities to advance interfaith cooperation and constructive dialogue across religious differences. She previously held leadership roles with Hillel International and Northwestern University's Fiedler Hillel, and holds degrees from Brown University and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.

• Elder Matthew Holland: General Authority Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, currently serving as Executive Director of the Church Communication Department. Before his full-time Church leadership service, he was a scholar of American political thought, an associate professor at BYU, and served as the President of Utah Valley University from 2009 to 2018. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Duke University.

The following transcript has been edited for clarity and concision

Paul Edwards

Defining your work at One America, I think, is less about bridge building per se, and more about how faith itself is the answer to toxic polarization. You talk about toxic polarization as more of a spiritual crisis. Why is faith the answer to these issues?

Andy Hanauer

You know, I think when I say it's a spiritual crisis, you start with the premise that we're not just talking about: what kind of society are we going to live in? We're talking about: what kind of people are we going to be? And, you know, I think we talk a lot about— in my world, anyway— about strategy and how are we going to create interventions to make the country less divided?

But I think before you start talking about strategies, the great news is that there's a choice that people of faith can make. And that choice is really simple. That choice is: I will choose not to violate my faith in order to be loyal to some other agenda or political party. Sorry for all of you legislators, politician, the friends that you're texting with who are saying things you know are wrong, but it's unpopular to tell them they're wrong.

Eighty years ago, there was a pastor in the south of France who started preaching during Nazi occupation. And he got up and he gave a sermon and he said, we will resist when our enemies demand that we act in ways that counter the teachings of the gospel, so we will not violate our faith, no matter how much we are ordered to.

We will resist without fear, we will resist without pride, and we will resist without hatred. And what he was saying was that, not only am I going to refuse to do the wrong thing, but I'm going to refuse to do the right thing with the wrong things in my heart. And that's a choice that no one can take from us.

Cable news can't take it. Our political friends can't take it from us. Politicians can't take it from us. And so I think that the good news is that we have that agency. The thing that speaks to your question, Paul, is that other than faith, I don't know what it is in our society that gives people the courage, the strength, or the language to make that choice.

Paul Edwards

John, you've argued that the work of bridging the partisan divide in America is actually downstream from the cultural divides that we seem to have. If that's the case, what's the role that religious pluralism plays in addressing the cultural divide that might be towards the root of this breakdown that we're experiencing?

John Wood Jr.

You know, it's worth, I think, looking backwards in history a little bit to recall the fact that as much as we rightfully valorize the Founding Fathers and the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the authors of the Constitution, the nation was no less founded by religious immigrants coming to the New World, not with the intention of necessarily founding a democracy per se, but with a desire to till the soil for the kingdom of God.

And that when we look at even the heritage of enslaved people in America, people like Harriet Tubman fighting their way towards freedom in the North, they did so with the same vision in mind that from the shackles of worldly bondage, they could pursue a freedom which would allow them to realize their greater dignity as children of God in this new world.

The reason I mentioned that is because we are, all of us, creatures of identity, and the divisions that exist between the American people today have much to do with the fact that our political identities as Republicans and Democrats have collapsed on top of our religious and our ethnic and our cultural identities in ways that make conflicts between us, on the level of politics, feel like zero sum conflicts between us on the level of our mutual humanity.

In other words, we define ourselves. We identify ourselves in opposition to one another. But if we are deeply rooted in the transcendent virtues of faith, then— whether we are Jewish, Protestant, Church of Latter-day Saints or otherwise— our great faith traditions put us in contact with a heritage of virtue, which reminds us that the greatest power of the human spirit is the ability that we have to love one another as ourselves.

And in so doing this, Belva Bruce alluded to make way the straight for the beloved community, which was Doctor King's civic expression of the idea of the greater kingdom of God expressing itself in democracy. And so Andy's point about our lacking the language to be able to apprehend a way forward in a manner that allows us to transcend our cultural differences, absent the inherited vocabulary of faith, is the right point, because absent that language, the deeper moral resources of the human soul are left unavailable to us. And that's what makes this conversation so necessary.

Paul Edwards

Rebecca, what's unique about this religious pluralism in the United States, and how might we build on that legacy this year and beyond?

Rebecca Russo

In my tradition it's customary to begin by thanking our hosts. So I'll just say, it's been such a pleasure being hosted by you on my visits to Utah. And I’m really grateful to be with all of you here tonight. So, thank you for convening this important conversation. Religious liberty, and religious pluralism are fundamental to what it means to be American.

So, we've all read the Constitution and the First Amendment. I think it's really significant that freedom of religious expression and freedom from the establishment of a singular religion are the only forms of diversity that are named explicitly in our Constitution. So we are a diverse nation in many ways, but this is the form of our nation's variety of identities and of ways of being in the world that has been enshrined from the very start of the United States, that we all ought to have the freedom to express our religious identities and our beliefs, and to bring those into the public square.

In 1790, Moses Seixas, who was the head of the Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, wrote a famous letter to George Washington welcoming him to Newport. And in the response to that letter, George Washington said that the United States “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance”. So, this is not going to be a place where religious bigotry is tolerated.

And then he goes on to say that the one thing that they need to do is to demean themselves as good citizens. And in this, he is expressing that religious liberty and religious pluralism are about both rights and responsibilities. We have the freedom to express who we are and what we believe, and to be our so authentic selves, and the responsibility to be good citizens, to be good neighbors to others, to protect those very same rights of others.

And that's what religious pluralism is about. I know often people hear the word religious pluralism and might have a little bit of an allergy to it. It sounds like we are watering down our faith. It sounds like we are kind of a melting pot, but we understand pluralism as more of a potluck than a melting pot. It's a place where each person can bring their own dish, their own uniqueness to the table.

It's not about changing who we are but being in respectful relationship with one another and also finding ways to work together across those differences. And I think the biggest challenge in 2026 is not that most Americans don't still believe in that, because most of us actually do. In a recent study— this was 2024— More in Common found that 81% of Americans believe that this should be a country where people of all faiths and no faiths can belong.

That's not 100%, but that's the vast majority of Americans. 81%. But then when people were asked, “Do you think that people of other faiths believe that?”, we started to see a bigger gap. So closer to 50% thought that evangelicals believe that, closer to 50% of non-Muslims thought that Muslims believe that. So, actually, most of us hold these values of religious liberty and pluralism dear. But we've grown suspicious of our neighbors. We've grown mistrusting of our neighbors. And so the work that we need to do in 2026 is to continue to tell the story of that legacy that has been part of who we are as Americans from the very beginning, and to create opportunities for people to come together again as neighbors, to get to know one another and to start to rebuild the trust, especially as our country becomes more and more diverse.

And there are so many powerful stories of that happening. I'll just share one quick one for now. In Omaha, Nebraska, there's a tri-faith initiative of Christians, Muslims, and Jews that work together. They share a physical space, and they work together on a variety of issues. And the Catholic Charities in Omaha has a food bank, and they have been working with the Islamic Center to make sure that the food bank is stocked with foods that meet the dietary needs of Muslims in the city, and that they're able to translate into the variety of languages that are spoken.

And the various communities also work together to work with local officials on the SNAP funding cliff this year. That's just one of many examples of the practical ways that we can come together across differences— not just to talk, not just to dialog, but really to make our communities better and to address issues like hunger that all of us can care about and that are basic values of promoting human dignity. And those are the kinds of things I think we need more of to rebuild that trust.

Paul Edwards

I love the image of the potluck. That's beautiful. Elder Holland, picking up on this idea of the legacy, you know we meet tonight in the spirit of the semi quincentennial, America 250. What insights might we draw from the founding and early America that can help frame the importance of, and discussion about, religious pluralism in our day?

Elder Matthew Holland

Great, thank you. First thing I'll say is, listen to my colleagues. I'm not sure how I got invited to be here, but I'll do my best and thank Paul and my colleague Marty and our friends at Church Communications who worked so hard doing so many things. I’m very grateful. And to all of you. I spent much of my life as a professor inviting students to engage in public service, and I even have a couple of students who are here today. And you're living the call that I've made so often. And God bless you for doing that.

Back in my professorial days, I was often asked, what's the best book ever written on America? And in the America 250 year, I now often get asked that again. And I say with some, there's a little irony here, that the best book written on America was written by a Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville. In 1830 he was given a grant. He was a scholar and was given a grant to come to America and study prison reform. And like a good academic, he came and studied whatever he wanted to study, and what he was fascinated with was American democracy. He loved it. He thought it was just the most ingenious thing and wondered why it was working here better than other places that were trying with it or experimenting.

And so, he engaged in this very profound exploration of that. And as he did so, he recognized that democracy has this great positive power to it from a kind of moral and political and human good kind of way, that it broke down the shackles of aristocracy in the past, and it opened up the ground for freedom in a whole new way, and something that he cherished and lauded as articulately as anybody.

But he also saw that there were real inherent challenges with democracy and that the democracy has kind of a leveling effect. And with that leveling effect would come these implications. I won't go through all of them, but two or three of the most significant is that it would undermine the kind of hierarchy of ideas. All communities need some morals, some values that hold them together to get them to do things so that government doesn't have to force them to do things, and they're not under control.

We just choose to do them because that's who we are as a people. And that's predicated on ideas that are tied to a kind of hierarchy of value. There’s a kind of individualism that kicks in with democracy. When everybody's equal, you kind of fall back on yourself and worry about yourself as one amongst equals, and you're pushing and striving.

That leads to a kind of a materialism. And all of these things have this deeply worrisome effect for democracy that Tocqueville thought was threatening. And for each of these, he thought the answer was religion. Now, not just a religion, but basically pluralism, a multiplicity of religions. Not one dominant religion, but a whole array of faith communities that would come together to remind communities of certain values and ideals of morals that would help them live together, that would help them overcome their individualism, help them overcome a sense that life is just about material gain.

It could be about something higher, more transcendent, more significant, that would connect you with other people with a sense of duty, he said. The strongest, best resource that any country has, in America certainly, is religion. And so, as a result, he said, America's first founders are not the men and women of 1776 and 1787. It's the early religious leaders.

It's John Winthrop of 1630. It's someone who comes here with a vision that this will not only be a place where they can practice their religion as they feel, and they will have certain proto-democratic practices like bicameral legislatures, etc., but they will strive to be a city on a hill, a model of Christian charity. And he said that has this profound impact that married a spirit of religion and a spirit of liberty together for the healthiest kind of democracy that allowed the good of democracy to flourish while minimizing the downside.

And he was saying this, not to other academics, but to statesmen, to people who would shape the world that we lived in. This is not an academic exercise for him. The most fundamental thing that legislators, governors, state leaders could be thinking about is how to make more vibrant this broader religious fabric in a pluralistic way, to help save and make healthy democracy.

Paul Edwards

Okay, so I'm going to pick up on that and ask, you know, we're using this word “pluralism”. How does that differ from toleration? I mean, there's one where we can just kind of tolerate it, but I'm hearing something a little different, for example, what you're talking about here about actually strengthening each religious community. I'm hearing a little bit different subject here than, you know, not a melting pot, not a, you know, everything gets poured together, but there's still some distinction and different.

Tell me, help me understand this idea of pluralism and why it isn't just mere toleration and why it isn't just another word for diversity, equity and inclusion.

Andy Hanauer

Well, I'll tell you some things I tolerate. I tolerate the fact that my wife is a neat freak because I love her and I cannot ever remember to put my dishes away. But it's okay. I tolerate that my son sings annoying songs over and over again because I love him. But I don't tolerate people. Like, the goal of being tolerated, to me, is a very low bar. It's not something we should be striving for.

I think that we have built up this idea of how do we manage to survive in a country full of people we don't agree with, or who we don't see the world the same way as? And I think that's the wrong framework, right? The question is, how does our faith call us to live in a world where we are always going to be surrounded by people who aren't like us, and what can we learn from them?

We do this thing at some of our events where we ask people— I'll do it right now, really quickly. Close your eyes, please, and in your head, say the following sentence: of all the 7 billion, 8 billion people on earth, I am myself the most correct about everything I believe.

So like there's a humility that we have to have, that we might be able to learn something from people who aren't like us. And so it's not that I'm going to tolerate them, it's that even if I have strong convictions that I think they're wrong about, really important things like theology or politics, I still have something I can learn from them.

I did that thing once with college students, and they looked up and sort of said, “And?”. So I appreciate that some of you laughed. That's good.

Paul Edwards

Other thoughts on this?

John Wood Jr.

Yeah. Well, you know, there is a— and I am completely with the spirit of what Andy has articulated— there's of course, always a case to be made for tolerance if the alternative is intolerance.

Yes, it's a low bar, but of course, let's be mindful of the history from which we come. There was, of course, a period of a long period of time in the European history that preceded our founding in this nation, where refraining from abject violence along denominational lines was itself— you know, the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia and so forth— a great leap forward in the civilizational history of Europe.

So the fact that we could have a republic on these shores, on this continent where we did not consider it grounds for violence to be of a different theological disposition, was a leap forward, was a victory in and of itself. And yet, to Andy's point, as I'm as I'm often want to do, refer back to the nonviolent movement and the teachings of Doctor King.

But, you know, Doctor King made a similar distinction with respect to the phenomenon of desegregation versus integration. Desegregation, Doctor King would say, is a practically necessary thing. It is a legal matter. The law should not discriminate amongst people on the basis of race, and the law should protect you from the persecution and discrimination that hard hearted individuals might seek upon you on the basis of race.

And yet, integration is something deeper and more profound. You see, a desegregated society, in King's words, is a society in which we stand elbow- to- elbow. But an integrated society is a society in which we exist heart- to- heart. And so, what is presupposed in this way of looking at things, is that when we see one another as made in the image of God, and we understand one another to be a reflection of God's being, we open up our own capacities to be able to identify with one another.

And so whatever differences may exist between us, there is the necessary premise and precondition for brother and sisterhood, for fellowship that can allow us to have a democratic community in American life in which we do not feel threatened by one another, but are able to build a society of flourishing together. And that's what we really want. And I would go as far as to say that that, I believe, is what the Spirit of God seeks to realize through us. And so that that is the deeper and richer promise pluralism.

Paul Edwards

Okay. Rebecca, did you want to chime in at all?

Rebecca Russo

Sure. I think you both said it so beautifully. And I'll add that, in addition to being curious about one another, learning from one another, there's an active piece of pluralism. I see toleration is very passive, right? We're not actively doing anything. We just tolerate that someone else exists over there. Pluralism calls us also to think about how we can make our communities stronger together.

So when I was living in New York City many years ago, I volunteered at a homeless shelter that was a collaboration between a synagogue and a church. And if you've ever spent time in New York City, you know real estate is at a premium there. There aren't a lot of physical spaces to house unhoused people.

And this homeless shelter was a beautiful way that these communities were able to say, we're not just going to exist down the block and tolerate each other, but actually to say, if we pool our physical spaces together and we pull our volunteer bases together, we can make sure that the unhoused people in this neighborhood have somewhere to go every single night, which would not have been possible had those communities not come together.

So that's how I see pluralism. It's more aspirational, it's active. And it's about what we can actually do with each other once we come to know one another?

Paul Edwards

Okay. Representative Ryan Wilcox has submitted a question here. Let me read it. It's very thoughtful and asks a really, I think, provocative question. He has a quote here from John Adams warning that “we have no government armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In light of that warning, how should people of faith engage a society marked by rapidly declining religious adherence and the rise of secular, humanist, and socialist ideologies that are often openly hostile to religious belief and practice? What does genuine religious pluralism require of both believers and nonbelievers in such an environment? Thank you, Ryan.

Elder Matthew Holland

Yeah, sure. I love the quote. I've thought about that a lot. It's absolutely true what John Adams says. And as we fast forward to the world that we're in, I think it's important that we retain the kernel of the truth and the context of the reality in which we live. Which is to say that it begins with us as individuals, as people of faith that we exercise our faith, that we develop our faith, that we share our faith in a way that's not retiring, not shy, and that we don't presume because there seems to be a drift of culture or the world in a certain direction, that that's now no longer fashionable enough or appropriate enough to be able to be part of the public conversation.

When people of faith lose that kind of courage and conviction, then we are really in trouble. And so, it starts with that individual exercise. In terms of people without faith coming to this, this is where I think our form of pluralism is going to look different than it's looked in our history’s past. It will be accorded to a mosaic of what our contemporary leanings are, whether it's towards secularism or towards religiosity, but building on that tradition to say, we've seen the power of religion in this in the past. We have this long tradition of our constitutional rights or First Amendment liberties that are enshrined to help educate our secular friends and progressive friends about the important history of that, I think, is upon us to make that argument, to help sensitize that, because there has to be some degree of accommodation and that has to be reciprocated.

We can't expect others who don't share that faith to somehow become people of faith. But as we respect and honor their roles, that we can forge a kind of consensus there together to provide that space that will allow religion to gain strength. And by the way, there is evidence that in the face of these other trends, that religion is back on an uptick, if you will.

We're seeing signs of that in our tradition. I think others are too. And often that's the case in these sociological moments that where there's a big swing in one direction, people start to see the limits of that and it starts to come back. So this is not a time to give up hope that religion can be a force for good and recognized as an antidote to the problem.

Paul Edwards

Okay. Anyone else want to take this? I think a little bit of what Representative Wilcox is wanting to probe here, if I might, is to say, what do nonbelievers, what do those who don't follow a path of faith, do they owe something in this conversation? And how do we engage that? I think a lot of us here come from traditions of faith, but we also live in, you know, urban areas and other places where there's large secular populations. Any thoughts on that?

John Wood Jr.

Elder Holland and I were talking a little bit about this earlier. I grew up in a household that was culturally Christian at best. I mean, we had the inherited ritual of saying grace at the dinner table and the Lord's Prayer at night. But, you know, it was a ritual that we held to in a tenuous way.

And I myself did not step foot into a church, not for the purposes of worship, anyway, until I was perhaps 20 years old or so. And so, I have a whole conversion story which I can, which I can tell. And when I was a young secularist, I had a vehemently sort of anti-organized religion, and particularly anti-Christian, disposition, because my understanding of religion and of Christianity was that it tended to be about mechanisms of social control with no respect for the character of human beings or the moral behavior of human beings.

And so, when I met the woman who I would go on to marry, she was from a traditional black Baptist background. And again, I was sort of still anti-Christian religion at the time. And in retrospect, I said some things that were sort of condescending to her when we were first getting to know each other. But I said to her something along the lines of, how can you believe in this book full of fairy tales and superstitions?

If God is real, he can't be about all of these commandments and restrictions and ordinances. He can't be xenophobic and misogynistic and racist and so forth. If God is real, he's got to be about enlightenment, higher vibrations, positive energy and love. And she responded to that by saying, that's right. “For though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, if I have not love, I have become as sounding brass or clanging cymbal.

If I have knowledge to understand all mysteries and faith to move mountains, if I have not love, the profits be nothing. If I give my body to be burned and my goods to feed the poor, if I have not love, I am nothing.”

And I listened to her say that, and I nodded my head, and I said to her, I said, that's beautiful. Did you write that?

[general laughter]

And she said, no fool, that's First Corinthians. But what that showed me was that there is moral, the content of virtue, exists within the Christian canon and within the larger body of religious teachings. And the reason that's important is because democratic society, pluralist society, can never require us to agree on much of anything, necessarily, in terms of either the particulars of policies or the cosmic origins of the universe as a precondition for us being in community with one another.

And yet what it does require is that we have an ethos and a culture of interaction with one another, where, once again, we are able to respect one another, we are able to value one another, we are able to acknowledge our mutual human dignity. And in the idea we are able to love one another as ourselves. We have to, therefore, be able to open a conversation with our secular brothers and sisters in a way that does not necessarily proselytize on the level of trying to believe, but makes the case for religion as an anchor for virtuous interaction between citizens. But you don't necessarily even have to be religious to learn from, or benefit by, or believe in.

As a matter of fact, to your point, Elder Holland, one of the great trends of our time is the fact that you have many people who used to be new atheists, used to be adamant followers, disciples of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and so forth, who may or may not believe in the metaphysical claims of religion, but have come to recognize it as a powerful force for virtue in community when properly understood.

Well, you don't necessarily have to have those metaphysical commitments in order to benefit from the inheritance of virtue that comes down through us, through our religious heritage. And if we can open up a civic conversation in America on those grounds, religion can indeed be a unifying force in our society, even if we still find ourselves in disagreement upon the particular claims of religious doctrine.

Paul Edwards

Rebecca, my guess is that this is a particular issue on campuses. I mean, it's a very, you know, campus is a place where secular humanism is obviously very strong. It's a strong ethos that we see there. Do you have any particular guidance on this, about talking across the religious-non-religious divide?

Rebecca Russo

Yeah, it's a great question. I've seen a really positive shift around this, especially in the last couple of years. Five years ago, if we were talking to someone, especially from a public institution of higher education, for the most part, they thought that the work that we were doing at Interfaith America to bring people together across lines of religious difference for the common good, was irrelevant to the mission of the institution as public higher education. And there was a very strong commitment to secularism as opposed to pluralism.

I think that's shifted in positive ways in the last couple of years, unfortunately because there's so much turmoil on campus related to issues of religion. But I'm sensing an openness to talking about religion and to understanding that there is nothing in our Constitution or American principles that prevents discussion of religion in public spaces, as long as we'renot promoting particular traditions.

So I'm really glad to be seeing that positive trend. And one of the things that we find really helpful in opening up conversations around this on college campuses is to start with a place of values. We will invite students, or if we're working, if I'm working with a group of university professionals, to reflect on the values that are most deeply important to them and what is the source of those values.

And that creates space for people to open up conversation that might be about secular humanism. It might be about values that come from their parents or their grandparents or their families. And it also creates space for people to talk about their deeply held beliefs and the values that come out of their religious tradition. So we've found conversations that open up space to talk about religion, but framed in a broad enough way that everyone, believer or nonbeliever, has a way in, is a great way to start those conversations across religious and secular lines of belief.

And I'll just say, I deeply believe that this work is everyone's work. One of my colleagues who's an Islamophobia scholar talks about how problematic it is that in our culture, the issues of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia have become relegated to Jewish issues and Muslim issues. And he's actually an agnostic himself, a former Christian. But he says it's actually the work of non-Jews and non-Muslims to address these forms of prejudice.

And I think the same way about religious pluralism. It is on all of us, whether we are religious or secular, to uphold the liberties that we all have to express our beliefs, religious or secular, in the public square. And we can't do this work without those folks.

Elder Matthew Holland

Can I just add one thing to Rebecca’s comment? I think that it brings a full circle to the kind of pluralism we're talking about tonight. I think those on the more secular side that would not be inclined to engage or might even be hostile, their fear is that this is about theocracy. This is about setting up some sort of sectarian dominance.

And so the more that the conversation that we're engaged in can really show this truly robust pluralism that's broad and inclusive but still meaningful in some way, I think that helps lower the temperature for what's at stake and allows for a greater likelihood that there will be common cause.

Paul Edwards

Okay, let's pick up a little bit, get a little more granular on other institutions. We've talked a bit about college campuses and education. State legislators often deal with a variety of public institutions. We've mentioned schools, but there are prisons, there are social services, public accommodations. In these practical settings, do you see ways to model healthy pluralism? Have you seen, you know, some ways in which this is happening better than other places? Let me ask it that way.

John Wood Jr.

Well, you know, I think that, within some of the examples that you listed and so, you know, anti-recidivism work and of course prison ministry, social work that sometimes comes alongside local religious bodies in a way that grounds the work of engaging the vulnerable in local communities through an infrastructure of community relationships that don't just reduce it to a bureaucratic intervention, but actually provide space for people to have relationships with those who can hold a space for the community, being involved in issues of poverty, in violence intervention, and getting people off of chemical dependency, for instance.

Religion at its best, organized religion at its best, is organized on behalf of the flourishing of the community. And whether it's through public private partnerships which allow elected officials or government agencies or programs in cases where it is possible, or just interactions between churches and synagogues and social cause organizations in civil society and in the private sector, if we can create cultural and social context in which the doctrines that may divide us do not provide barriers for our materially collaborating for the purposes of elevating the quality of life in the places where we live, in service to the people who live there, then we can create momentum behind organized religion as a source of revival. Not just of a spiritual kind, though that is necessary and vital, but also in a way that helps us with the pure and simple work of feeding the poor, if you will, and preventing young people from hurting one another in environments where institutional failures, such as is very much the case in so many of our inner city communities, is oftentimes more the norm than the exception, and where all sorts of historical and systematic circumstances, structural circumstances, have mitigated against the formation of healthy families in ways that have left too many young people vulnerable to some of the worst influences in our society.

And so, you know, if you look at some of the civil society networks of religious and charitable organizations that exist in America, you'll find many examples to learn from in terms of the sorts of partnerships that exist between faith based organizations and service minded organizations that could allow us to develop a whole new culture for the way we do things if we just took those lessons to heart.

Paul Edwards

Okay. Other thoughts? Okay. I have a good question here from Anand Soni from BAPS. Anand, what’s BAPS? I'm sorry, I don't know that.

Anand Soni [from audience]

[brief explanation of BAPS]

Paul Edwards

Okay. Thank you so much. I'm going to ask your second question, if that's okay. We're seeing a trend of political use of religion to drive further division. How does the identity of the nation deal with the tide of radical ideology and come back to a more centralized position? So, use of religion to divide: we've talked about some of the great opportunities here where religion and interfaith work and pluralism can make a positive difference; aAdmittedly, there are some instances where it's forcing some division. Give us your thoughts about that.

Andy Hanauer

I think people have attempted to co-opt religions since the beginning of time, right? I mean, it is always helpful if you are leading a movement or whatever it is that you're wanting to accomplish, if you are claiming that God is on your side. And I think that there's some warning signs that can go off for us when we start to get susceptible to that, like, does my religion happen to line up with every single one of my political views? That's probably a little too clean, right? I think that when you begin to conflate the two, where you cannot tell if you are in a church or a political rally, or a synagogue or a political rally, etc., I think that's a problem.

We have to resist this because it will ultimately harm religion much more than anything else. I also have a conversion story, and I also annoyed my now wife during that process. But I have relatives, right, who are not religious, who view religion with skepticism, and overwhelmingly the people in my life who view religion with skepticism do so because they see it as connected to a political perspective they don't agree with.

And while I disagree with their politics on many things, I'm much more interested in whether or not they can actually look at Christianity for what I believe it is, rather than view it through what MSNBC tells them it is. And so, I just think co-optation is a battle we have to fight within our own communities, our own traditions, to avoid as much as possible.

Rebecca Russo

I'll build on that and say two of the ways that we can do that are through building relationships and telling a different story. So, I'll share, looking back at history, because this isn't the first period in our history, like you've said, that religion has been co-opted and politicized.

In the mid-20th century, bigotry was rising, particularly against Jews, particularly against Catholics, against African Americans and other identity groups, and the National Council of Jews and Christians was founded around that time, and it was a group that was intentionally coming together to try to tell a different story of who we are as Americans, that we are not, we don't build on a legacy of exclusion, but we build on a legacy of inclusion. And they created this tri-initiative and sent triads of people around. A Jew, a Christian, and a Catholic would go around to different cities around the United States and tell a story of Judeo-Christian America, and would tell a different story that was more inclusive, and through that human-to-human contact or relationship building and storytelling, they were able to make a dent in that rising problem and to shift some of the narrative.

Of course, we are not any more Judeo-Christian America. We are much more diverse. We've always been more religiously diverse than that, but we continue to be more and more diverse. But we have the opportunity to build relationships and to tell a different story and to tell that story loudly and publicly about religion as a force for good in the world, about religion as a force for service, religion as a force for building partnerships across lines of faith that can make our communities better.

And hopefully, we can tell a better and stronger story than those that are telling a story of religion as one of division.

Paul Edwards

Okay. Hey, time has flown. We are at the top of the hour, so rapid fire here. One thing that a legislator might do in their district to strengthen religious pluralism in their district.

Andy Hanauer

I would say that right now, religious pluralism is pretty tied into the question of division and polarization. And so, I would say that anything that you can do to build a single relationship with a constituency group or community that is, is generally not voting for you would be a huge win for our country right now and would be really helpful.

John Wood Jr.

Be a convener. The elected officials in this room are in the interesting position of being people who, I would imagine, have the capacity to call the attention of the religious leaders in your community and to bring people from different denominations and different religious affiliations outright into shared spaces where you can talk about the project of building or rebuilding or reinforcing the unity of your communities in ways that religious leaders aren't always able to do for themselves because, believe it or not, there's a whole lot of politics in ministry. And, you know, sometimes when one pastor calls a meeting, the other pastors will say, okay, well, who else is going? If this person is going, I'm not or whatnot. But given the fact that you are all community leaders who exist outside of those contexts, you have some capacity to convene.

And convening is the first step towards being able to build that fabric of trust across some of these longer bridges that separate us. So I would say take that power seriously.

Rebecca Russo

Yeah, absolutely to convening people.

Think about an issue in your community, something concrete that you're trying to improve, that you're trying to make better, and invite faith leaders to the table. Invite faith-based social service organizations to the table. See what unlikely partnerships that you can help forge in your community.

Elder Matthew Holland

I’m an echo of this, in many respects, except to add that you do have to be intentional. These are not things that happen naturally, and to be intentional takes you out of a comfort zone. But the payoff is so incredible, and you should expect the unexpected, that you'll find not only kind of natural allies, but some unnatural allies.

And you may be poles apart in many ways, but if you'll just start talking with each other, you'll be surprised at what will come up that could come together. You know, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has had a couple of recent experiences with or really unexpected relationships with the NAACP or the LGBT community. And these are, you know, if you look at the kind of voting habits of the different groups, these are groups that are going to be poles apart. And yet there have been some areas that have come up in an unexpected way that have been helpful to both organizations or both sides, and struck some really remarkable friendships.

It hasn't solved all problems. Not everybody agrees about everything. Lots of really important differences still exist, but some really beautiful friendships have developed and some stereotypes have been shattered, and some really fine things have been done for the public good in the process.

Paul Edwards

Well, we're going to close this evening in prayer. Before we do, just a couple of thoughts. Hopefully you'll make a friend across some sort of difference here tonight. We've gathered an eclectic group of people. We have interfaith leaders from the Chicago community here, we have state legislators from across the country, Republicans and Democrats. Before you leave tonight, make sure you make a new friend or acquaintance here. It's a great opportunity to get together with some of our old friends and catch up and do a little gossiping, but a rich opportunity to reach across difference. Thank you for making the effort to be with us.

Elder Matthew Holland from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Rebecca Russo from Interfaith America, John Wood Jr. from the Omni American Society, and Andrew Hanauer from One America Movement. Let's give them a round of applause.

I have asked Ranganathan Hemmige, chair of religious practices for the Hindu community in the greater Chicago area, to close this meeting in prayer. Ranganathan.

Ranganathan Hemmige

Great hearts, great energy, amongst the panelists, giving them a very big hand.

[general applause]

I would like to share with you, from the bottom of my heart, a quotation. In 1893, Swami Vivekananda, a monk from India, was invited to speak at the World Parliament of Religions in 1893.

He spoke about tolerance. The world is a better place if there is tolerance. One’s faith is personal. But what we have to cultivate is how to accept someone next to you that practices different faiths, because today, we have to start thinking about community. And I have also thought about youngsters. I have two grandchildren, five years and ten years.

And I am watching what they are teaching in schools. To me, I don't feel that there is enough that we are doing in school, elementary schools, to teach them and accept other faiths, other practices. So, with that, let us pray to God to give us the strength. And I will quote it from one of our Vedic scripture, which is like the Bible and the Quran that we follow in Hinduism.

[chanting in another language]

Shanti, shanti, shanti. Peace, peace, peace. God, you are all brothers and sisters. God is everything. Brother. Father. Mother. So, we pray to him to bless us with positive energy and enthusiasm. To go and make the world a better place. So that all of us can live with happiness. And with that, I close my prayer. Thank you.

Paul Edwards

Thank you everyone.