Faith Angle Europe convened leading European and US journalists together in the South of France for three days of engaging discussions on today’s most critical issues. This forum gathered for the second time at the Grand-Hotel du Cap-Ferrat with 9 European journalists and 7 US journalists to engage together with premier scholars on topics of anti-Semitism, populism, and anti-poverty efforts and religious pluralism.
For more information on this and other Faith Angle Forum activities, visit FaithAngle.org.
Topics:
Impact Investing and Sub-Saharan Africa
How might religion shape impact investing in historically-disadvantaged contexts and empower marginalized men and women? In settings where religious commitment is strong—like sub-Saharan Africa—how might faith affirm personal dignity, spark creativity and job-creation, and bolster societal rebuilding, even after tragedies such as genocide or civil war? Dr. Kim Tan, a biotech entrepreneur, social impact engineer, and founder of SpringHill Management, sits down with Rev. Zac Niringiye, a Ugandan bishop and activist whose long career has borne witness to the ties between deep Christian commitment and social transformation.
Rising National Populism–and Religion
Both Europe and the United States have recently witnessed an unmistakable rise in national populist authoritarianism: from UKIP’s catalyzing of Brexit, to Donald Trump’s election, to the increasing influence of strongmen in Hungary, Austria, Italy, and France. But beneath each of these political waves were silent revolutions in values through which incisive, sometimes religious, ideologies were siphoned into populist platforms. Dr. Matthew Goodwin of the University of Kent joins Ed Luce, US national editor for the Financial Times, for a conversation about the rise of national populism and the ways in which religion has contributed to it.
French Identity and Anti-Semitism
In an age replete with populist movements, why has the rise of anti-Semitism in France triggered alarm throughout the rest of the globe? In his most recent book, Hate: The Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism and France (And What it Means For Us), French journalist Marc Weitzmann analyzes how anti-Semitism in France is rooted in two populist movements: one, a matter of deep-rooted bias spread throughout the country’s post-colonial, religiously-diverse suburbs; the other, rooted in far-right ultraconservatism. Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic and an award-winning journalist who has covered Islamic terrorism, joins Weitzmann to discuss lessons from modern French history, from the French Revolution to the Holocaust, from the era of Charles de Gaulle to present-day religious conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism, that could be harbingers of things to come.