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The secular human-rights groups are catching up. And on the situation in Darfur in western Sudan, I think they've been quite impressive. But because of the secularization paradigm, they were not just slow to pick up on religious persecution, but on other issues that touched on religion. That is now waning, but scholars and diplomats who got degrees in elite colleges absorbed almost by osmosis this worldview, which was that religion, especially traditional religion, wanes with modernization. That pervasive view blinded a lot of people to the importance of religion.

Another related factor is the view that religion is backward, it's benighted, it represents the past, it represents the Spanish Inquisition, and so forth. So, a lot of secular activists are uneasy dealing with religion and being too closely identified with Christianity or with the cause of Christian persecution. There is sometimes even a tendency to discount the significance of the persecution of Christians or to subsume it under other categories like ethnic rivalry.

But that has changed, in part because the results of the movement have been so tangible and because human-rights groups now see real allies in the religious community. Relationships have been forged, more trusting relationships.

What have the various Jewish activists brought into this unlikely coalition with conservative Christians?

Jewish leaders and Jewish groups have been absolutely central to the movement. Jews brought several things: First, a strategic realism about politics that has been lacking in the evangelical community. Born of centuries of persecution and the Holocaust, modern Jewish leaders are very smart, very tough, very strategic. And they are willing to build alliances wherever they can on particular issues.

This is still a challenge because there are those in the evangelical community who are uncomfortable moving into the grubby world of politics, who want to remain in the purist enclave of their evangelical churches and communities, and for whom working with certain people is too much of a compromise. Let's say California Senator Barbara Boxer might work on North Korean human rights or domestic trafficking of children to prostitution. There are some evangelical leaders who are really uncomfortable with being part of any coalition that might include someone so identified with what they see as the militant pro-choice position.

So I think Jews brought in that strategic sense—Michael Horowitz, David Saperstein, Stacy Burdette at the Anti-Defamation League, Abe Rosenthal at TheNew York Times, and so forth.

Another thing they brought was a legitimation of the concern about persecution. It was not difficult at all for Jews to say, Christians are persecuted; let's do something about it. They didn't feel like that was favoritism or particularism. If you advance human rights for one, you advance for all. The Jewish leaders would say, We know what it's like when persecution of a group is deemed inconvenient to American foreign policy.

So there was a natural identification that happened, almost immediately on the part of Jewish leaders, when the extent of the persecution of Christians began to be made manifest.

The Jewish commitment to human rights abroad was very important. That buoyed the evangelical leaders, who then felt greater confidence in entering these battles in a robust way.

Plus, the Jewish leaders had access to liberal Democrats who could join in coalitions on different issues. So Reform Rabbi David Saperstein could talk with Senator Paul Wellstone about the Smith Anti-Trafficking Bill. And similarly, Jewish leaders could talk with feminist leaders. And that's one of the roles that Michael Horowitz has played: He has been a bridge between the evangelical elite, with whom he has very good relations, and feminist leaders, Jewish leaders, and so forth.

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October 2004, Vol. 48, No. 10