Pasadena, CA, Oct. 16, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fuller Theological Seminary is pleased to announce that its Richard John Mouw Institute of Faith and Public Life has been awarded a $1.2 million grant from the Templeton Religion Trust.
This grant will fund the Templeton Pluralism Fellowship, awarded to 12 emerging leaders and scholars—six Christians and six Muslims—working at the intersection of religion, politics, and public life. These fellows will gather to research, explore, and discuss their deep religious and political differences as they develop their own Muslim and Christian resources for pluralism and democratic life.
The project leaders, Drs. Shadi Hamid and Matthew Kaemingk, intend to create a multi-faith learning environment in which pluralism will be studied and practiced by the fellows as they engage with one another. This endeavor will build on and extend the research, writing, and dialogues that Hamid and Kaemingk have pioneered in their own friendship and collaborations over three seasons of their podcast, “Zealots at the Gate,” and a new book they are co-authoring on how religion can be a force for good in strengthening democracy and pluralism in American public life.
Fuller President David Emmanuel Goatley praised the project. “We are so very grateful to the Templeton Religion Trust for its support, and I applaud the hard work that will be undertaken during this critical endeavor. Creating bridges of understanding between Christians and Muslims is vital, and will be incredibly valuable as we forge new paths toward the future.”
Shadi Hamid is a columnist for the Washington Post, writing for Prospect magazine, which named Hamid one of the world’s top 50 thinkers on culture, religion, and foreign policy. An expert on Islam in contemporary politics, Hamid is a leading voice on the need to rethink religion’s role in public life. In 2022, Fuller Seminary appointed Hamid to serve as a research faculty member in Islamic Studies, marking the first time in history an evangelical seminary appointed a confessing Muslim to such a position. He is the author and editor of five books, including Islamic Exceptionalism, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Lionel Gelber Prize for best book on foreign affairs. In 2019, Hamid was named one of the world’s top 50 thinkers by Prospect magazine.
Matthew Kaemingk, a public theologian and executive director of Fuller’s Mouw Institute of Faith and Public Life, is the author of Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear, which was named a best book of the year by Christianity Today in 2018. In 2020, a coalition of Christian think tanks and universities named him the “Emerging Public Intellectual of the Year.”
The pluralism project will begin in the Fall of 2025. Over the course of two years, the inaugural cohort of Templeton Pluralism Fellows will research and discuss how their respective faiths can inform the ongoing challenge of how to live and think productively amidst foundational divides. As the fellows engage one another’s sacred texts and traditions, they will increase their multifaith literacy and understanding of the sociopolitical importance of religious freedom and democratic virtues. More information on this new fellowship can be found at PluralismFellowship.org.
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