Institute for Religious and Cultural Understanding

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The Institute for Religious and Cultural Understanding works to cultivate awareness of religious and cultural diversity locally, domestically, and internationally.

08/15/2026

Place, Values, and Public Life - Place is not only a backdrop to religious life but, as Thomas Tweed's work argues, a way of understanding religion itself. Our conversation with him considers how people make and inhabit places, the values that surface within community gatherings, and the loss of shared spaces in contemporary life. Tweed also discusses his recent history book, Religion in the Lands That Became America.

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07/15/2026

On Monsters and Medicine: What can spooky stories tell us about health and disease? - Listen to the latest episode of ReligionWise featuring a conversation with Dr. Lorenzo Servitje, Director of the Health, Medicine and Society program at Lehigh University, that considers the broader field of Medical Humanities, where it came from and why it is important. We then dig into his particular area of interest, monsters of the Victorian era, from Dracula to Mr. Hyde, asking what can they tell us about both historic and contemporary understandings of health, sickness, and treatment.

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06/15/2026

Strategic Religious Engagement at USAID - David Hunsicker spent two decades at USAID building the institutional capacity for what came to be called Strategic Religious Engagement. That work culminated in the 2023 policy Building Bridges in Development, a framework for partnering with religious communities and faith-based organizations around shared goals. In this conversation, Hunsicker traces the path from a Pennsylvania Dutch upbringing, through conversion to Islam and graduate study in Central Asia, to an unexpected pull into US government work after September 11. We discuss the policy work that followed, what was lost when USAID was closed in 2025, and the new Strategic Religious Engagement Hub at Georgetown's Berkley Center.

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05/15/2026

Reading America Together: Faith, Democracy, and the Nation's 250th - As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a national initiative called faith250 is bringing faith communities together to study the nation's founding documents. In the Lehigh Valley, a cluster of congregations led by four co-conveners is holding a series of gatherings that combine textual study and community building. The conversation with them considers the gap between the founding documents' aspirations and the nation's realities, the complicated relationship between religious faith and democratic governance, and the challenge of genuine inclusivity when diverse communities try to speak together about shared values.

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04/15/2026

Faith, Failure, and Humanitarian Work - Maurice Bloem has spent nearly four decades in development work, from leading the Church World Service's humanitarian efforts in Indonesia to representing CWS at the United Nations. He now leads the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities (JLI), a network that encourages collaboration with local religious communities in development initiatives. Our conversation covers his path from cultural anthropology in the Netherlands, to a decade of work in Indonesia, to his current global initiative. We also discuss what Bloem calls his "resume of failures" and why inner development matters as much as policy frameworks.

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2400 W Chew Street
Allentown, PA
18104

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