Marla Frederick, dean of the Harvard Divinity School, spoke at Rice University’s Fondren Library March 28 and was honored with the inaugural Senior Scholar Award by the Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance.
Frederick is the John Lord O’Brian Professor of Divinity, 18th dean and first woman to hold that position in the school’s 207-year history. She recently served as president of the American Academy of Religion, is the author or co-author of four books and is currently curating an encyclopedia of the histories of historically Black colleges and universities.
Elaine Howard Ecklund, director of Rice’s Boniuk Institute, presented Frederick with the award for her leadership, scholarship and service to the academy and to society around the issues of religious pluralism and religious tolerance.
“The institute will continue to distribute the Senior Scholar Award to a scholar whose work is both aligned with the mission of the institute, is an institution-builder and whose work has public reach and reception,” Ecklund said. “In particular, the award will recognize excellence and leadership and public scholarship on religious pluralism and tolerance and or work to combat religious conflict and discrimination.”
Translating scholarship on religion to the larger public is more important than ever, Frederick said in her talk. She mentioned how the Divinity School teaches every tradition from Christianity to Islam, Judaism to Buddhism, Hinduism to African traditional religions and Native American religions.
“We live in a multiracial and multireligious world,” Frederick said. “And our ability to hold these two things in honor together is what will determine the future of our democracy and the potential for democracy around the world.
“The ideal of democracy is that everyone gets a vote and everyone has a voice. The things we label today as culture wars, from the banning of books to the fierce debates over the border, are rooted in questions of representation, knowledge and power — whose presence matters, whose stories matter and who will have the power to make those decisions.
“There’s a way in which we as scholars of religion can take for granted the idea that everyone holds dear the values of pluralism and tolerance, but there are people who are not interested in and fiercely opposed to what we call a multicultural democracy. And these are often the bedrock ideals in the humanities and in the social sciences. We scholars of religion work to think about the makings of our diverse religious worlds — the sort of histories, the sacred texts, the communities and the power and the resources — the affinities that make for religious devotion and care. We are intimately invested in not only understanding religion but understanding its impact in our everyday lives.”
Learn more about the Boniuk Institute at Rice here.