Once You Were Strangers: Immigration, Pluralism, & Religious Difference

In partnership with the University of Minnesota Muslim Student Association, the Al-Madinah Cultural CenterThe Veritas Forum, and the Anselm House, the Center for Public Justice hosted a public conversation between Dr. Shadi Hamid, Senior Fellow for the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, and Dr. Matthew Kaemingk, Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, moderated by Stephanie Summers, CEO of the Center for Public Justice. Hamid and Kaemingk discussed the nature of inter-religious encounter, and explored the challenges and opportunities that arise, specifically, as Muslims immigrate to Western, liberal democratic societies. 

About the speakers

Stephanie Summers is the CEO of the Center for Public Justice, a Christian, independent, non-partisan civic education and public policy organization based in Washington D.C. She is a frequent speaker and moderator, and also contributed a chapter to the edited volume The Church’s Social Responsibility (Christian Library Press). Stephanie has written for publications including Comment and Q Ideas. She serves on several faith-based nonprofit advisory boards and earned her master’s degree in nonprofit management from Eastern University, where she holds an appointment to the board of fellows for the PhD in Organizational Leadership.

Dr. Shadi Hamid serves as the Senior Fellow for the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Lionel Gelber Prize for best book on foreign affairs, and co-editor of Rethinking Political Islam. His first book Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East was named a Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2014. Hamid was recently named one of the world’s top 50 thinkers of 2019 by Prospect magazine. An expert on Islam and politics, Hamid also served as director of research at the Brookings Doha Center until January 2014. He received his B.S. and M.A. from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and his Ph.D. in political science from Oxford University.

Rev. Dr. Matt Kaemingk is an assistant professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary and the associate dean of Fuller Texas in Houston. Matthew's research and teaching focuses on Islam and political ethics, workplace theology, and Reformed public theology.  As of 2018, Matthew also serves as a fellow for the Center for Public Justice in Washington DC.

Matthew’s new book Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear engages the burgeoning conflict over Muslim immigration in both Europe and the United States. Critical of both right-wing nationalism and left-wing multiculturalism, the book explores a uniquely Christian response to the debate and the explosive politics of deep difference.

Matthew earned his Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and holds doctoral degrees in Systematic Theology from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and in Christian Ethics from Fuller Theological Seminary. As a Fulbright Scholar in the Netherlands Matthew studied Reformed political theology and the European conflict over Islam.


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