The Project will explore
the ways in which the
Christian church has
also been a source of
civic innovation and
political progress. To
the extent that the
Christian church has
been a distinctive
incubator of political
innovation, the Project
explores the numerous
ways in which the
intensifying world-wide
persecution of the
Christian church poses
great dangers for global
political progress. The
Project therefore
explores two closely
related sets of
questions, one
historical and one
contemporary: 1) What
have been the major
civic contributions of
the Christian church in
history, and what have
been the main sources
(theological,
institutional,
sociological) powering
these contributions? The
Project will critically
examine a neglected yet
fundamental historical
question: What have been
the major and
distinctive
contributions of the
Christian church in
history to the origins
and development of
modern notions of a good
and just civitas—notions
now universally or
near-universally
considered positive
innovations and marks of
political
progress—including
religious freedom,
limited government, and
autonomous civil
society? 2) What
are the major civic
consequences of the
persecution of
Christians around the
world today, and what
are the main sources of
this growing phenomenon?
The Project will provide
an unprecedented
exploration of a
neglected yet grave
contemporary question:
What are the root causes
and political
consequences of the
global persecution of
the Christian church
today? What explains the
rising persecution of as
many as 100 million
Christians around the
world? While this
phenomenon has either
been ignored or treated
exclusively as a
humanitarian or
religious problem, the
proposed project will
ask: When societies
organize or permit the
persecution of Christian
churches, what
opportunities for
political innovation and
progress do they forego?
Timothy Samuel
Shah is
associate director of
the Religious Freedom
Project at the Berkley
Center for Religion,
Peace, and World Affairs
and
visiting assistant
professor of government
at Georgetown
University. His
publications include, Rethinking
Religion and World
Affairs
(co-edited with Alfred
Stepan and Monica Duffy
Toft) (Oxford University
Press, 2012); and (with
Monica Duffy Toft, and
Daniel Philpott) God’s
Century: Resurgent
Religion and Global
Politics (W.W.
Norton, 2011). His
articles on religion and
global politics have
appeared in Foreign
Affairs, Foreign
Policy, the Journal of
Democracy, the
Review of
Politics, and
elsewhere. And he is
editor of an Oxford
University Press series
Evangelical
Christianity and
Democracy in the
Global South.
and
visiting assistant
professor of government
at Georgetown
University. His
publications include, 
