If differences in global religions are at root of differences in culture, and if culture involves not only our national life, but also, increasingly, our global relationships, how do we get to the point at which we go beyond “cheap relativism,” a dangerous form of tolerance, to improved understanding?
How can we begin to untangle the complications that diverse religions, openly or tacitly, make in our political lives?
Given most fair-minded officials’ openness to consider many sides of an issue, is it appropriate to ask if these complications could possibly contribute to effective government policy or inevitably be distractions?
I propose that these questions are particularly hard for Americans, who on the one hand have inherited the Enlightenment legacy of de jure separation of church and state, but many of whom inherit the Puritan ideal of a covenant community.
— Dr. Gail Streete
Speaker Biography: Dr. Gail Streete
Gail P. Streete is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at Rhodes College, Memphis, TN, which she joined in 1990 after holding positions at SUNY Buffalo, Upsala College, Drew University, Penn State University, Harvard Divinity School and the College of William and Mary.
She served as Chair of the Religious Studies Department from 2008-2011. She is the recipient of the Clarence Day Dean’s Award for Research and Creative Activity (1999); the Jameson M. Jones Award for Outstanding Faculty Service (2008); and the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award for Leadership (2011).
Her academic specialties include the study of the New Testament and the Early Christian world; the Greek and Roman classical world; women in world religions; and martyrdom and ascetic behavior.
She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters, and of four books, the latest of which, Redeemed Bodies: Women Martyrs in Early Christianity, was published by Westminster John Knox Press in 2009.
Ms. Streete received her Ph.D. from Drew University.
