Praying for the Persecuted Church: US Christian Activism in the Global Arena

American Evangelicals, the Changing Global Religious Environment, and Foreign Policy Activism

“…Horowitz was not Christian but Jewish; this, however, only strengthened his credibility, since he was presumably not speaking from self-interest. Both Christians and Jews were morally obligated to respond to persecution, Horowitz said, by challenging immigration and asylum policies within the United States and calling for changes in US foreign policy toward guilty governments (Bergman 1996;Waldman 2004;Castelli 2005).…”

The U.S. Coptic Diaspora and the Limit of Polarization

“…Coptic activists living in the United States acted as key supporters and advocates of IRFA, and allied themselves with Christian or conservative organizations that played a central role in spreading the theme of persecution, such as Christian Solidarity International, or the Center for Religious Freedom (CFR) of the Hudson Institute, or Freedom House. The book by CFR's expert Paul Marshall, Their Blood Cries Out (1997), quickly became a canonical book for Western Christian activists committed to international political action (Castelli, 2005, McAllister, 2008 Although Copts all agree on the need to advocate for religious freedom in Egypt, they hold different views on the extent to which the United States should intervene in Egyptian politics and on how the Coptic claims should be framed. According to Magdi Khalil from Coptic solidarity, Copts should define themselves as a minority that gets inspiration from the legal repertoire of minority rights in order to claim special protection (Mahmood, 2012).…”

Exploring the intricacies and dissonances of religious governance: The case of Quebec and the discourse of request

“…Beaman, 2012; Bender and Klassen, 2010; Brown, 2006; Jakobsen and Pelligrini, 2003) and/or by promoting “religious,” “freedom,” “pluralism,” or “diversity” (e.g. Bender and Klassen, 2010; Blommaert and Verscheuren, 1998; Castelli, 2005; Cozad, 2005; Mahmood and Danchin, 2014; Sullivan, 2005). Hurd (2012: 946) articulates research questions that capture this approach well:From this perspective, the question for international theorists is not, “how to bring religion back in?” Instead, it is what kind of work is accomplished in and through discourses of religion in particular circumstances?…”