In 1968, sociologist Peter Berger prophesied that by “the 21st century, religious believers are likely to be found only in small sects, huddled together to resist a worldwide secular culture.” Sixty years later, few predictions have aged worse. Religion, and subsequent religious advocacy, is not retreating from public life—it is increasingly becoming an effective political strategy.
In India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is discriminately recasting citizenship to “protect” Bharatvarsha’s Hindu identity. Under the banner of eradicating anti-Christian rhetoric, Christian nationalism is filtering into court decisions and executive orders in the United States. And in Turkïye, the reconversion of the multi-faith museum, Hagia Sophia, into a mosque to restore the country’s “true” Islamic identity. To many scholars, this signals more serious threats: democratic backsliding, the erosion of pluralism, anti-immigrant legislation, and a growing tolerance for political violence.
Meanwhile, religious freedom has been in decline over the past few decades. In 2022, the Pew Research Center reported that 30% of countries have “high” or “very high” government restrictions on religion, and a staggering 94% engaged in harassment of religious groups—both peak-high levels since at least 2007. This trend points to what these religious ethnonationalists rarely admit: their project is not to protect religion but to control it.
Still, religion’s role in public life does not always take the form of top-down ideological control. In fact, some of the most active defenders of religious freedom today are faith-based advocacy groups. They do not seek to enshrine religion in the state but to protect it from the state. Such actors challenge the assumption that religion’s role in politics is inherently cynical, even as faith is increasingly used to shield authorities from accountability. Hence, in reality, religion’s greatest threat may be its self-appointed defenders and not its prevalence.
Religious advocacy refers to individuals or organizations, faith-based or secular, that seek to influence governments and international institutions on religion-related issues. While that work can include representing specific religious principles and groups, it often encapsulates more universal concerns like religious freedom and persecution, issues that frequently transcend national borders. In Washington, D.C., 79% of faith-based advocacy groups focused on international issues, including human rights, peace and democracy, and national security policy. As such, their work extends beyond matters of religion, impacting today’s geopolitical decisions.
This article examines the strategies, impact, and comparative influence of religious advocacy on global geopolitics. For this investigation, I conducted interviews with Kaylee Fisher, Global Operation Director at the International Religious Freedom Roundtable; Lindsay Rodriguez, Director of Development and Advocacy at Coptic Solidarity; and Dan Harre, Deputy Director at Save Armenia, to better understand the methods, goals, and impact of religious advocacy groups and coalitions.
The Evolution
Late 18th – Early 20th Century: Rise of Faith-based Civic Participation
Religious advocacy dates back to the late 18th century when networks of religious individuals in the U.S. and the U.K. sought societal changes based on their moral conscience. One of the earliest recognizable religious advocacy efforts is the Christian-led abolitionist movements in the British Empire. Founded in the 1780s, the Clapham Sect was a network of Christian evangelical families and individual social reformers who advocated for emancipation, slavery abolition, and reformations for the prison system in Britain. William Wilberforce, a member of parliament and the Sect’s figurehead, once reflected in his diary in 1787 that his mission from God was to speak out against the immoral and horrific slave trade.
After decades of lobbying, parliamentary speeches, petitions, and public awareness campaigns, the British Parliament, hugely influenced by actors like the Clapham Sect, passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807 and, eventually, the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. The Clapham Sect’s role in framing abolition as a moral and religious imperative transformed the trajectory of the broader anti-slavery movement globally. Nevertheless, by the early 20th century, religious advocacy had substantially evolved, increasingly operating as a political tool, with a diversification in the sector’s actors and agendas.
Early-Mid 20th Century: “Ethnoreligious” Advocates and Agenda Development
As international relations evolved in the first half of the 20th century, religious advocacy transitioned from a focus on direct moral imperatives, like the fight against slavery, to increased engagement with nuanced political matters like migration, refugee rights, civil rights, and state sovereignty. Founded in 1918 as the American Committee for the Independence of Armenia, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) was instrumental in advocating for American support for the newly founded First Republic of Armenia. Following the devastating consequences of the Armenian genocide on the ethnoreligious community and subsequent diasporic expansion, ANCA simultaneously expanded its mission to address refugee resettlement, American aid and support to Armenia, and genocide recognition.
Late 20th Century – Present: Globalization and Institutionalization of Religious Advocacy
Later in the century, religious advocacy expanded globally while state governments increasingly engaged with the activities of faith-based organizations and institutionalized mechanisms to support and regulate their efforts. Subsequent globalization following World War II inevitably impacted religious advocacy’s scope, allowing the cause to proliferate in historically intolerant regions. Notably, a few months after dictator Augusto Pinochet’s military coup in Chile in 1973, a coalition of Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox, and Pentecostal Churches, and Jewish communities established the Committee of Cooperation for Peace. In response to Pinochet’s brutal regime practices, the Committee provided legal assistance for those persecuted by the government, medical care, and support to the families of forced disappearance victims. In Malaysia, a historically conservative and patriarchal society, Sisters in Islam focused on promoting women’s rights as a Quranic principle since 1988, aligning with the beliefs of the country’s majority Muslim population. Despite contrasting reactions to religious advocacy, such as state repression in Chile’s context or relative coexistence in Malaysia’s, faith-based organizations flourished at the time, growing their scope and agenda.
In 1998, the U.S. Congress passed the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) and created the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), coining the first governmental action to address the growing impact of faith-based advocacy and their causes, which was eventually mimicked in more than 38 states. The IRFA and its succeeding adaptations required the government to monitor and respond to violations of religious rights across the globe. By mirroring the methods of secular lobbying groups, faith-based organizations began engaging more effectively with policymakers, international institutions, and governments, enabling them to play a more substantial role in shaping global policy and religious freedom issues. Eventually, religious advocacy would evolve from its philanthropic, conscience-driven advocacy into a professional, institutionalized force that permeates contemporary geopolitics.
Key Tactics and Strategies
Drawing from interviews with key figures in the religious advocacy sector, including Kaylee Fisher from the IRF Roundtable, Lindsay Rodriguez from CS, and Dan Harre from Save Armenia, the activities that faith-based organizations share common strategies including, but are not limited to, awareness initiatives, national and international advocacy campaigns, and coalition-building.
Awareness Initiatives
Religious advocates play a significant role in raising awareness around both pressing religious freedom and secular issues, locally and globally, using multiple platforms and outreach strategies. Harre, who emphasizes Save Armenia’s mission to rally “American-Christian support for Armenia,” recalls sending multiple American delegations to Armenia with notable U.S. figures, including former Ambassador and Kansas governor Sam Brownback and civil rights activist Dr. Alveda King, to “stand in solidarity with persecuted Armenian Christians.” While the exact content of the trip is largely unknown, this initiative’s impact unfailingly shows in Brownback’s subsequent criticism of the Biden administration’s complicity with and support for Azerbaijan and Turkey, warning of an imminent Turko-Azeri invasion of Armenia that “threatens” the landlocked, historically persecuted Christian population.
Rodriguez, on the other hand, emphasized professional and digital communications as cornerstones to CS’s activities, including weekly emails to donors, congressional offices, and government entities; an annual policy-oriented conference; and informational exchange with USCIRF’s staff. Recently, Rodriguez mentions, Coptic Solidarity has been in “constant communication” with USCIRF staff, at least multiple times a week, over the rising rates of abductions, forced marriages, and forced conversions of Coptic women in Egypt.
National and International Religious Advocacy Campaigns
Second, faith-based organizations utilize advocacy to influence policies on national, international, and transnational levels. Harre states that Save Armenia has been in contact with the Trump administration to support Armenia in its conflict with Azerbaijan and return Armenian prisoners from Baku. He identified National Security Advisor Mike Waltz’s statement on March 17th, demanding the release of all 23 Armenian hostages, to be partially the result of work like that of Save Armenia. Just a few months earlier, Fisher also highlights, the IRF Roundtable played a crucial role in reauthorizing IRFA in Congress before its expiration. Through a multi-faith letter and numerous communications with congressional offices, IRF contributed to the broader effort to renew bipartisan support for the bill despite the contentious political atmosphere of the time. She also recognizes IRF members’ role in helping write the language of the UN resolution on Child, Early, and Forced Marriage, which passed in the General Assembly Third Committee last November.
Coalition-Building
Lastly, religious advocates have often partnered with other organizations to maximize their audience and, subsequently, their impact. For instance, reflecting on Save Armenia’s niche issue in the American context (where the organization primarily operates), Harre mentions the organization’s coalition with American Christians and Jews as well as political conservatives as a driving force for Save Armenia’s work. By appealing to American Christians’ shared belief with Armenians and the Jewish community’s shared history of genocide, Harre argues that this alliance creates a new niche of an issue that is still approachable enough to a significant portion of American voters. IRF Roundtable has also supported inter-organizational efforts to address more complex objectives, such as the partnership between the Roundtable’s Prisoners of Conscience Working Group, Alliance Defending Freedom International, and Jubilee Campaign, to release a Nigerian prisoner charged with blasphemy. By coordinating legal counsel, outreach to the Nigerian government, and international awareness on the issue, Rhoda Jatau was fully acquitted after 19 months of imprisonment last December.
Assessing the Impact of Religious Advocacy
While this investigation drew on several mutual strategies faith-based organizations employ, the interviews yielded mixed responses on religious advocacy’s relative influence. Most notably, the interviewees highlighted the nature of the issues they address, the political systems’ receptivity, and the target audience as the decisive factors in their work’s impact. On one side, Harre notes that Save Armenia’s focus on a niche issue that is simultaneously appealing to many Americans’ identity— the protection of Christians worldwide and genocide recognition— gives such a distant issue a recognizable platform in Washington, D.C. This narrative can help, for instance, explain President Donald Trump’s repeated calls to “protect persecuted Christians,” specifically the ones abroad, as an American moral duty.
Fisher seems to concur, referring to the IRF Roundtable’s “inclusive,” multi-faith attitude that enhances the group’s overall impact not only on U.S. policy but on the international scene as well. In fact, the Roundtable’s managing entity, the IRF Secretariat, has replicated this model successfully in other countries like Lebanon, Sri Lanka, and Uzbekistan, marking transformative improvements in dialogue on religious freedom in those states. On the other side, Rodriguez notes that CS’s focal issue— Coptic Christian persecution— is incredibly specific and rarely visible on the global stage, hindering the movement’s overall efficiency. Even in academic literature, there appears to be no consensus on how issue salience affects an interest group’s impact on policymaking.
Similarly, the guests disagreed on the degree of impact political systems have on religious advocacy’s net influence. When speaking of the U.S.’s IRFA, Fisher stresses historical and, so far, sustained, bipartisan support for the bill and its cause, which can be easily confused as stability in American foreign policy when it comes to international religious liberties. Rodriguez, however, presents a more nuanced perspective, skeptical of so-called bipartisanship and the overall “interest groups” industry. When asked about her view of religious advocates’ overall impact on U.S. policymaking, Rodriguez recalls political party, economic, national security, and trade interests as frequent precursors to international religious freedom in American policy priorities. To make matters worse, when compared to the overall lobby industry and its reach on U.S. policymaking, Lindsay regards religious advocacy as a mere “drop in the bucket.”
Still, while religious advocates have substantially engaged with political systems to raise awareness and shape policy, they fall vulnerable to the risks of polarization, which may weaponize religion as a populist, divisive talking point.
When “Faith Gets Political” Goes Wrong: The Risk of Polarization
Alas, the twofold pact binding religious causes and political advocacy, shaping religious advocacy, can also fall vulnerable to polarization. In this context, polarization happens when political actors use religious identities or causes, such as religious freedom, to advance their own personal or national interests. For example, several critics view the U.S.’s IRFA as a tool to expand American soft power through “naming and shaming” and implementing a Judeo-Christocentric view of international human rights. In 2022, Human Rights Watch also denounced France’s double standard in treating IRF issues, accusing President Macron of being an eager condemner of China’s persecution of Muslim Uyghurs while ignoring Paris’s allies’ (such as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Myanmar) gross violations. Even on Kyiv’s frontline, Putin has repeatedly justified his invasion of Ukraine as a sacred mission to protect Orthodox Christians’ religious freedom.
When asked about whether this is an issue that religious advocates face today in their work, the interviewees pointed to several actors who may accomplish such polarization. For instance, Rodriguez mentions that US-Egypt security relations, along with Cairo’s lobbying efforts in the U.S. government, hinder advocacy efforts for Coptic rights in Egypt. This accusation of double-standard diplomacy has been repeatedly proven, most recently through former President Biden’s grant of military aid to Egypt in 2024 despite the State Department’s previous recommendation to suspend the named aid package in protest of Cairo-sanctioned human rights violations. Harre also discusses foreign influence on the U.S. Congress, namely that of the Azerbaijani government, which politicizes and distorts Save Armenia’s mission. By misleading American policymakers into thinking of Yerevan as an anti-Semitic, pro-Russian covert adversary to the U.S. and Israel, polarizing American legislators on all Armenian-related issues, even humanitarian ones. Baku’s strategy has polarized Armenian issues, as Harre notes, resulting in Democratic legislators being historically “more pro-Armenia” than Republican ones.
Beyond these responses, recent scholarship, championed by religion and anthropology professor Candace Lukasik, has also warned of religious advocacy’s unintentional collusion with actors that politicize the former’s cause for neo-imperial gains. In her latest book, Martyrs and Migrants: Coptic Christians and the Persecution Politics of U.S. Empire, Lukasik pictures the recent waves of persecution against Copts in the Middle East as having seized U.S. policymakers’ attention to “save” the persecuted church abroad. This consideration, however, depends on the idea of transforming Christian religious identity into a “blood kinship” dynamic, where all Christians around the world are somehow connected by blood. Thus, the bloodshed of Egyptian Christians is the responsibility of every Christian in the world, including Americans. This rationale, Lukasik presents, justifies a Crusader-like ideology that shapes American conservative tools to infiltrate into Muslim-controlled countries by disguising neo-imperialist ambitions as a moral cause to protect the “Persecuted Church.” She eventually calls out portions of the Coptic-American diaspora as victims of American conservatives’ pretentious religious freedom advocacy, where the former believes Washington wants to innocently protect the religious freedom of a minority group in the Middle East.
Eventually, in general, while religious advocacy is often driven by genuine efforts to protect civil liberties like religious freedom, it can inadvertently co-opt with distorting political interests, misrepresenting the advocacy’s original aims, and making it susceptible to polarization.
The Future
“The assumption that we live in a secularized world is false: The world today,” Berger had conceded three decades after his 1968 declaration, “is as furiously religious as it ever was, and in some places more so than ever.” While the notion of secular states may have been majorly prevalent at some point, rising alt-right movements, which heavily depend on religion for legitimization, attest to religion’s infiltration into politics as an inevitable endeavor. Ultimately, religious advocacy provides a channel for civil society to engage with their policymakers based on their religious identity or cause. As Fisher notes, after all, “most people who care about things are from a faith-based perspective.” Nevertheless, the unpredictability haunting every political sphere in the world requires such advocates to maintain a fluid, reactive approach to the ever-changing geopolitics, as Rodriguez and Harre affirm. Finally, as religious advocacy increasingly influences national and transnational policies, the virtue of such impact rests on the issues’ focus and the type of actors that adopt these causes.
Featured image source: The Atlantic