Religious Freedom and Persecution

New IAMS study group: “Religious freedom and persecution”

Nine IAMS members agreed to form an ongoing IAMS Study Group on the topic of “Religious freedom and persecution” during a lunchtime meeting on  Saturday 18 August 2012 at the  IAMS Conference in Toronto.

The rationale for the study group is that much of religious persecution occurs in various different relationships to Christian mission, evangelism, witness, conversion, etc. In addition a rather large proportion of studies pertaining to religious persecution are undertaken within the discipline of missiology.

The participants elected Prof. Dr. Christof Sauer (Director of the International Institute for Religious Freedom, Cape Town Bureau, South Africa) as the convenor and doctoral candidate Wolfgang Haede (Turkey) as co-convenor.

The participants agreed to the following steps:

  • The convenors establish an electronic forum for email exchange and document repository and will register the names of the initial participants.
  • The participants ask the IAMS-Executive to give their blessing to this new group and to advertise it through IAMS channels.
  • The participants will receive a document that will enable them to invite other interested parties.

Four more members joined the group after the initial meeting. IAMS members and any other interested parties are welcome to register.

This IAMS study group will participate in the interdisciplinary International Consultation on Religious Freedom Research, Istanbul, Turkey, 16-18 March 2013, of which a track will serve as the first regular study group meeting (link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nlhckm5p9tb9fax/I3IJUYpiDG). The intention of the consultation is to strengthen the network of religious freedom and persecution scholars/researchers and to thereby create synergy. Everybody may propose to present on relevant research. Organizers will select from these proposals and will frame the program according to the number of proposals. The intention is not for everybody to listen to a handful of famous researchers but rather for meaningful interaction and mutual interaction on a peer level.

Deadlines for submission of proposals of: 01 December 2012. Selection of papers and preliminary program: 15 December 2012.

Contact for study group and consultation: C. Sauer, IIRF, POBox 535, Edgemead 7407, South Africa, email: christof@iirf.eu, Tel. +27-21-558 77 44. //  W. Haede (co-convenor): whaede@swissmail.org

Further information for the Consultation and about the proposal of papers is available under the link “events” on this side.