Faith Angle Michael Cromartie 2023 Forum

Peter Wehner is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the author of The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump. His other books include City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era, which he co-wrote with Michael J. Gerson, and Wealth and Justice: The Morality of Democratic Capitalism. He was formerly a speechwriter for George W. Bush and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and currently serves as a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum. Wehner is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, and his work also appears in publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and National Affairs.

Asma Uddin is a professor, author, and lawyer specializing in religious liberty. Her recent major publications include When Islam Is Not a Religion (2019); The Politics of Vulnerability (2021); and “Religious Liberty Interest Convergence” in the William & Mary Law Review (2022). She has forthcoming articles on the social psychology of religious liberty depolarization and, separately, on identity capitalism and how it affects religious groups as out-groups.

Uddin is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at the Catholic University of America, where she teaches Family Law; International Human Rights; Gender, Law, and Policy; and the religious liberty clinic. She has also taught the religious liberty clinic at Harvard Law School. After graduating from the University of Chicago Law School, Uddin served as Legal Counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. While there, she helped litigate religious liberty cases in both international and domestic tribunals, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

Uddin is also a Fellow with the Aspen Institute’s Religion & Society Program in Washington, D.C., where she created a data-based approach to reducing Muslim-Christian polarization in the U.S. Her work on depolarization has been supported by the Fetzer Institute, Pew Charitable Trusts, M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, and the Templeton Religion Trust.

Uddin served two terms as an expert advisor on religious liberty to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), was a term-member of the Council on Foreign Relations, has held fellowships at Harvard, Georgetown, and UCLA, and currently sits on the Board of Advisors for Notre Dame University’s Religious Liberty Initiative.

Uddin’s extensive public writings on religion, politics, and polarization have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, U.S News & World Report, Al Jazeera America, Flipboard, Refinery29, Teen Vogue, and numerous other outlets. In 2022, Deseret Magazine named Uddin a “new reformer”: one of 20 faith leaders who “are challenging the conservative movement to change.”

Eugene Scott is a national political reporter on the Washington Post’s breaking news team. He previously wrote about identity politics for The Fix as well as hosted “The Next Four Years” podcast. Prior to joining the Post, Scott was a Washington correspondent at CNN Politics. He has been a multi-media journalist for two decades across the country. His work has appeared in USA Today, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, NPR, MSNBC, and more. In that time, Scott has won multiple awards and fellowships for his work specifically related to covering politics, business, and education. He was previously a fellow at the Georgetown University Institute of Politics.

Will Saletan is a writer at The Bulwark. He was previously the chief political correspondent for Slate. He has written about politics, science, and technology, and he is the author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War. He is a graduate of Swarthmore College.

Michael Wear is the Founder, President and CEO of the Center for Christianity and Public Life, a nonpartisan, nonprofit institution based in the nation’s capital with the mission to contend for the credibility of Christian resources in public life, for the public good. For well over a decade, he has served as a trusted resource and advisor for a range of civic leaders on matters of faith and public life, including as a White House and presidential campaign staffer.

Michael previously led Public Square Strategies, a consulting firm he founded that helps religious organizations, political organizations, businesses and others effectively navigate the rapidly changing American religious and political landscape.

His recent book, The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life, was released in January 2024. Michael’s first book, Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned in the Obama White House About the Future of Faith in America, offers reflections, analysis and ideas about the role of faith in the Obama years and what it means for today. He has co-authored, or contributed to, several other books, including Compassion and Conviction: The AND Campaign’s Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement, with Justin Giboney and Chris Butler. He also writes for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Catapult Magazine, Christianity Today and other publications on faith, politics and culture.

Jon Ward is chief national correspondent for Yahoo News, author of “Camelot’s End: Kennedy v Carter and the Fight that Broke the Democratic Party” (Twelve Books, 2019), and host of “The Long Game” podcast. He has covered American politics and culture for two decades, as a city desk reporter in Washington D.C., as a White House correspondent who traveled aboard Air Force One to Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and as a national affairs correspondent who has traveled the country to write about two presidential campaigns and the ideas and people animating our times. He has been published in The Washington Post, The New Republic, Politico Magazine, Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, and The Washington Times.

Dr. Simran Jeet Singh is the Executive Director for the Aspen Institute’s Religion & Society Program and the author of the national bestseller The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life.

Molly Ball is TIME‘s National Political Correspondent. Previously, she covered US politics for The Atlantic and at Politico, and she worked for newspapers in Nevada and Cambodia. She is the author of Pelosi, a bestselling biography of the first woman Speaker of the House.

Miranda Kennedy is the Executive Producer of “Today Explained,” a daily news podcast and radio show with Vox. Previously, she was the planning and content supervisor at NPR’s Morning Edition and Up First. She was the launch supervisor of the Up First podcast in 2017 and continued to guide its direction, as well as to program Morning Edition. She has reported on religion from multiple countries, including in her 2011 book about India, based on the five years she lived there as a reporter.