Religion Institute Stresses Tolerance, Public Involvement

Bringing together numerous humanities and social sciences departments across the University, the newly founded Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life aims to examine the role of religion in politics and society, and to disseminate relevant knowledge to the public.

The institute opened late last month after the receipt of a major alumni donation, and is led by religion department chair Mark Taylor and School of International and Public Affairs professor Alfred Stepan, who is also director of the University’s Institute for Democracy, Tolerance, and Religion.

Now, after hosting a conference on Sufism in Senegal earlier this month, the institute is moving forward to “sustain multi-disciplinary analysis, reflection and response to historical and contemporary issues that are of great significance,” according to its online mission statement.

“There’s an old saying that religion is often most influential where it’s least obvious,” Taylor said, addressing the “resurgence of religion” and its “unanticipated” pervasiveness in the 21st century—trends that inspired the founding of the institute. In the coming months, IRCPL will hold seminars and develop media to address contemporary issues of intolerance, global conflict, and the junction of secularity and religion.

Taylor spoke of creating podcasts and possibly dabbling in radio and television programs. “We hope to develop programs that will draw the city and the world to Columbia, and to extend from Columbia out of the city,” he said.

The institute recently held an art exhibition at the Schoenberg Museum in Harlem, and its Web site—which Taylor wishes to expand—mentions the possibility of future connections with the Guggenheim Museum and Lincoln Center, among other New York City cultural establishments.

Co-director Stepan heads a second institute dealing with religion, but emphasized that, while the IRCPL would “be a permanent institute,” there would be only a
“relatively short period in which there are two institutes.”

A glance at the advisory committee of the IRCPL reveals its links to other bodies at Columbia. Ties have solidified with the Heyman Center for Humanities—partially thanks to Akeel Bilgrami, the center’s director—as well as with the departments of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and political science.

While Taylor is chair of Columbia’s religion department, he emphasized that “there is no formal connection” between the department and the institute. Yet the institute could attract more scholars with interdisciplinary focuses to the religion faculty.

As Ph.D. candidates, undergraduates, and distinguished academics collaborate to advance the institute’s goals, the religion department has also begun a process of reform.

Taylor, a longtime professor at Williams College, hopes to launch new courses that will accelerate that process.

Nicholas Dirks, Columbia’s vice president for arts and sciences, and Franz Boas, professor of anthropology and history, praised the inception of the institute in a press release.

“The new institute is engaging not just new levels of interdisciplinary commitment to the urgent questions of our day, but also connecting scholarship and learning to the world of actual political, religious and cultural conflict and misunderstanding,” Dirks said.

scott.levi@columbiaspectator.com