You Tube Theology

An afternoon conversation on the role of faith communities in an increasingly secular world among leaders within the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, featuring: Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Dr. Robert P. George, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. This is the inaugural event of the Robert P. George Initiative on Faith, Ethics and Public Policy at Baylor University. A special thank you to our event co-sponsors: the American Enterprise Institute's Values & Capitalism Program and The Witherspoon Institute. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is an international religious leader, philosopher, award-winning author, and respected moral voice. He was awarded the 2016 Templeton Prize in recognition of his "exceptional contributions to affirming life's spiritual dimension." A frequent and sought-after contributor to radio, television, and the press both in Britain and around the world, Rabbi Sacks is the author of over 30 books, including the recent bestseller Not in God's Name: Confronting Religious Violence. Since stepping down as the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth a position he served for 22 years between 1991 and 2013 Rabbi Sacks has held a number of professorships at several academic institutions, including Yeshiva University and King's College London. He currently serves as the Ingeborg and Ira Rennert Global Distinguished Professor at New York University. Rabbi Sacks has been awarded 17 honorary doctorates, including a Doctor of Divinity conferred to mark his first 10 years in office as Chief Rabbi, by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey. Dr. Robert P. George is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is also the Herbert W. Vaughan Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute and has been a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. In August 2017, Baylor University launched the Robert P. George Initiative on Faith, Ethics, and Public Policy; and Professor George was appointed as a Distinguished Senior Fellow in the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion. He has served as chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and as a presidential appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He also has served on the President's Council on Bioethics and as the U.S. member of UNESCO's World Commission on the Ethics of Science and Technology. He was a Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Swarthmore College, he holds degrees in law and theology from Harvard and the degrees of D.Phil., B.C.L., and D.C.L. from Oxford University, in addition to 18 honorary degrees. He is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal and the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His most recent book is "Conscience and Its Enemies" (ISI Books). Shaykh Hamza Yusuf is president and senior faculty member of Zaytuna College, America's first accredited Muslim liberal arts college. He is an advisor to the Center for Islamic Studies at Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union. In addition, he serves as vice president for the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies (Abu Dhabi), which was founded and is currently presided over by Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah, one of the top jurists and masters of Islamic sciences in the world. He is the author of several books and scholarly articles and has translated major creedal Islamic texts into English. Books he has authored or translated include "Purification of the Heart," "The Content of Character," "The Creed of Imam al-Tahawi," "Caesarean Moon Births," "Prayer of the Oppressed," and "Agenda to Change our Condition." Recently, Hamza Yusuf was ranked as "the Western world's most influential Islamic scholar" by The Muslim 500, edited by John Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin. Along with his extensive training in the Western liberal arts, Yusuf has studied Arabic and the Islamic sciences for over 40 years with leading scholars of the Muslim world. For more information on Baylor University's work in our nation's capital, please visit: www.baylor.edu/washington.