Rumi Forum’s Center for Faith, Identity, and Globalization was glad to hold its inaugural panel on October 28, 2024, “Rethinking Religion and Nationalism in the Global Landscape,” featuring Mark Juergensmeyer of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Paul Marshall of Baylor University, and Allison K. Ralph, Founder & Principal at Cohesion Strategy, moderated the panel.

Panelists

Mark Juergensmeyer is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Global Studies, Sociology and an affiliate of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was the founding director of the Global and International Studies Program and the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies. He is also a William F. Podlich Distinguished Fellow and Professor of Religious Studies at Claremont McKenna College. He is an expert on religious violence, conflict resolution, and South Asian religion and politics. He has published more than three hundred articles and thirty books, including When God Stops Fighting: How Religious Violence Ends (University of California Press, 2022), God at War: A Meditation on Religion and Warfare (Oxford, 2021), and Terror in the Mind of God (University of California Press, 4th Edition, 2017).

Paul Marshall is the Director of the South and Southeast Asia Action Team at Religious Freedom Institute, Wilson Professor of Religious Freedom at Baylor University, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, and Senior Fellow at the Leimena Institute, Jakarta. He is the author and editor of more than twenty books on religion and politics, especially religious freedom, including Persecuted (Thomas Nelson, 2013), Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide (Oxford University Press, 2011), Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion (Oxford University Press, 2009), Religious Freedom in the World (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008). He is the author of several hundred articles, and his writings have been translated into over twenty languages. He is in frequent demand for lectures and media appearances.

Moderator

Allison K. Ralph, Ph.D., is the Founder & Principal of Cohesion Strategy. A thought leader in religious pluralism and social cohesion, Allison brings 20 years of experience in strategy, research, and nonprofit and philanthropic leadership. She previously worked at The Aspen Institute Religion & Society Program, where she served as Assistant, Associate, and Interim Director of the program and Director of its Religion and Philanthropy Initiative. She also managed events at the El-Hibri Foundation and The Catholic University of America. She has spoken from the main stage at the International Religious Freedom Summit and the El-Hibri Foundation Peace Awards Ceremony. She has given talks at Upswell, the United Philanthropy Forum, and the American Academy of Religion.