For Farr, the vacancy speaks volumes about the Administration’s commitment to religious freedom.
And he says the Administration’s seeming lack of interest is not lost on countries like China that routinely violate religious rights.
For instance, he said, the Chinese president is likely aware that “halfway through the Obama presidency, the administration has not even bothered to put into place the senior official responsible for promoting religious freedom in China and elsewhere.”
Farr urged an approach to China that combines “public statements and quiet policy steps.”
He recommended that the U.S. encourage President Hu to support a joint U.S.-China working group on religious freedom that would meet periodically in both countries.
He also recommended that the U.S. encourage China’s Institute on World Religions, a branch of the country’s Academy of Social Sciences, to “develop a program on the study of religious freedom.”
Such steps, Farr said, “can have real impact over time by helping the Chinese deepen their understanding of the value of religious freedom to China’s own interests — including social harmony, broader and more sustained economic growth, political stability, and undermining religious extremism.”
Farr has suggested previously that the Obama Administration’s outreach to Muslim nations — many of which are on the State Dept.’s list of egregious violators of religious freedom — has made it reluctant to pursue these issues.
But Farr believes that these issues are crucial to U.S. security and foreign policy concerns. That is the subject of his 2008 book "World of Faith and Freedom: Why International Religious Liberty is Vital to American National Security.”
Recently his Berkeley Center at Georgetown received a $2 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation to undertake a three-year international study a broad range of religious freedom issues, including the relationship of religion to questions of democracy, economic and social development, and peace.
Marianne is a journalist with a background in writing and Catholic theology. When not elaborating on the cinematic arts, she enjoys spending time with people, reading thick books and traveling anywhere and everywhere.