“Great promise and peril” for religious freedom

Two observers comment following the International Religious Freedom Summit

US Vice President JD Vance speaks at the International Religious Freedom Summit on February 5.

The International Religious Freedom Summit took place in Washington, DC on February 4–5. The IRF Summit was founded by Sam Brownback, former US Senator and international religious freedom ambassador under the first Trump administration, after Trump left office. The 2025 event brought together nearly 1,800 advocates for religious liberty during the same week as the National Prayer Breakfast.

Today, I present two post–IRF Summit perspectives. First, Katrina Lantos Swett, summit co-chair along with Brownback, has kindly offered insightful comments. Dr. Lantos Swett is former chair of the US Commission on Religious Freedom and president of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice. Her father, Tom Lantos, was a US Congressman from California for 27 years and the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in Congress.

Katrina Lantos Swett

The 2025 IRF Summit was by all measures the most successful Summit to date. It brought together experts, activists, religious leaders, academics, survivors of persecution, policymakers, government leaders, and journalists all united in a noble goal—namely, ensuring religious freedom for everyone, everywhere, all the time.

The Summit met at a moment of both great promise and peril. On one hand, more countries and regions than ever before are recognizing the centrality of religious freedom to building stable, thriving, prosperous, inclusive, democratic and pluralistic societies. This is reflected in the number of countries that are building more robust policy structures to support freedom of religion, conscience and belief (FoRB). More nations now have special envoys dedicated to advancing FoRB. The International Panel of Parliamentarians supporting FoRB has grown to over 300 members representing over 90 nations. The Article 18 Alliance, composed of senior government representatives, is likewise growing by leaps and bounds and underscores the commitment to promote respect for religious freedom and to protect members of minority faith communities.

The good news is that international religious freedom is no longer an “orphan right.” It is rightly moving to the center of discourse about how we build a better world.

But the perils to religious freedom are also expanding. Anti-democratic governments are moving aggressively to crush religious communities and voices that oppose their ambition to comprehensively control the lives of their oppressed citizens. From China to North Korea, Nigeria to Vietnam, Nicaragua and Cuba to Russia and Iran, the threats are real and growing.

Against this complex backdrop, the Summit serves the vital function of bringing together the best minds and hearts of the IRF community to share knowledge and best practices, to build networks, and above all to show deep solidarity in defending one another’s rights. Indeed, one of the most inspiring aspects of the IRF Summit is witnessing Muslims advocating for Christians and vice versa, Buddhists supporting the cause of Hindus, Uyghurs speaking out against anti-Semitism, and Jewish voices advocating for the persecuted Bahais.

There is another sense in which the Summit met at a moment of promise and peril. Many in the IRF community have high hopes that the new Trump administration will prioritize IRF advocacy. Great strides were made under the leadership of IRF Ambassador Sam Brownback during the first Trump administration, and Vice President Vance's speech to the IRF Summit indicates that FoRB will have an important place at the table in Trump's presidency.

However, there is also great concern and anxiety that some of the early moves of the Trump administration are putting at risk many of the very groups doing incredibly important work defending religious freedom on the ground in difficult places around the world. At the top of the list are worries about the 90-day pause in almost all foreign assistance. Whether it is nuns providing vaccines to children in Africa or brave reporting from Xinxiang on the persecution of the Uyghur Muslims, these are quiet heroes, doing God’s work under difficult and dangerous conditions. Many of them will not be able to continue this work if the lifeline of government support is suspended for three months.

The IRF Summit is helping to put this fundamental human right in the center of policy discussions across the globe and is building a powerful coalition to defend the right of every one of us to live our lives with integrity in accordance with the dictates of our own conscience.

A participant’s perspective

The second perspective comes from an IRF Summit participant who shared these comments on condition of anonymity.

The IRF Summit seemed to focus disproportionately on advocacy to the US government. There seemed to be a strong sense that the Trump government will solve religious freedom problems around the world. Many American participants were vocal about their support of Trump. The room was full for Vice President Vance’s speech, but half the people left when the Prime Minister of Armenia spoke immediately following. There was a strong pro-Israel and pro-Ukraine focus.

The IRF Summit was originally focused on the work of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance (now the Article 18 Alliance), managed by the US State Department, with 38 member countries and 5 “friend” countries. This time, there was very little focus on this alliance or what it is doing. We heard from Armenia, the UK, and the Czech Republic. I expected there to be opportunities to meet with representatives from these countries but did not even see representatives from most of the countries.

This year’s summit was held at a very strategic time early in the second Trump administration. On February 3, the Monday before the summit, many participants engaged in “Hill Days” to lobby Congress to support advancing religious freedom. With Vice President Vance speaking at the summit and many of the participants going to the National Prayer Breakfast immediately after the summit, the message was heard loud and clear in Washington that religious freedom should be a top US foreign policy issue.

Another goal of the summit is networking for collaboration on advancing freedom of religion or belief (FoRB). This was very much achieved. I met with several people who are important to my work. I saw many side meetings. Sponsors had lounges where you could have more private meetings.

I was sitting at a table and made a negative comment about Trump’s tariffs. I was promptly told that they were “Trump supporters.” The impression I got was that if you are a Trump supporter, you do not question or criticize any of his policies. There were standing ovations for Vice President Vance. A few people did not participate in the standing ovations, nor did they applaud the Vice President. But they were few and far between.

There were a number of leaders of organizations that had lost funding when USAID funding was cut. Most of them were very negative about this policy shift, but the Americans thought that they would have their funding reinstated under new religious freedom funding. The non-Americans did not anticipate renewed funding and are concerned about rapid changes in policies coming from this administration. How can you hire staff and ramp up a project if it could be cut again?

I spoke with someone from Germany who commented that people always asked how Germany could have supported Hitler. She said, “Look around and you will see how someone like Hitler comes to power with broad support.”