Meet Our Senior Fellows

Brian D. Birch is Director of the Center for the Study of Ethics and Religious Studies Program at Utah Valley University. His areas of specialization include religious diversity, ethics education, and the dynamics of religion in civil society. He has served on the Board of Trustees and the Executive Committee for the Parliament of the World’s Religions. He is the founding editor of the journal Teaching Ethics and his published work includes contributions to the Encyclopedia of Religion and War, Philosophical Investigations, and Dialogue. His book projects include titles ranging from What is Postmodernism? to Perspectives on Mormon Theology. His current project is entitled Radical Pluralism: Essays in Ethical and Religious Diversity.

Founder, Wasatia Movement  - Palestine

Director, Wasatia Graduate Academic Institute

Dr. Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi is a Jerusalemite scholar and peace activist. He holds a doctorate from the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC (1981) and another from the University of Texas at Austin, Texas (1984). He is the author of numerous books and academic articles. In 2007, he established the Wasatia moderate Islamic movement and the Wasatia Academic Institute. In 2012, he coauthored the book Holocaust: Human Agony to teach the Holocaust to Palestinians. In March 2014, he was forced to resign from his posts as Rector of Libraries and founding director of the American Studies Institute at Al-Quds University (2002-2014) for taking his students on an educational trip to the Nazi death concentration camp in Auschwitz to teach them empathy, compassion, and tolerance. He received death threats, and his car was torched.  In 2014, Tufts University bestowed upon him the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award for his ongoing work to build peace, encourage dialogue, and find alternatives to extremism. In 2015-2017, Dajani joined the Washington Institute for

Near East Policy as a Weston Fellow. In March 2023, the Austrian Parliament awarded him the

Simon Wiesenthal Prize for his commitment to combating antisemitism. Dajani Daoudi also received from Queens College, New York City University the Excellence in Leadership Award.

Despite the odds, threats, and challenges, Dajani persists in his message of peace and reconciliation.

Dr. Gus diZerega is a retired political scientist, Ph.D. Berkeley, now working as an independent scholar. For as many years he has been deeply involved in NeoPagan spirituality. He is a Third Degree Gardnerian Elder in Wicca, and worked six years with a Brazilian/African Diasporic/Buddhist healing center in Berkeley, California. He describes those years were as challenging as writing a dissertation, (though he never had to write anything).  He has since conducted healing circles and given workshops on basic energy healing in California, Illinois, Michigan, and Washington, and has been involved in interfaith work, including giving a plenary talk at the 2023 Parliament of World Religions. 

diZerega has written extensively on spirituality, liberalism, democratic theory, and environmental theory. His books of interest to this group are God is Dead, Long Live the Gods: The case for Polytheism (2020), Faultlines: The Sixties, the Culture War and the Return of the Divine Feminine (2013), Beyond the Burning Times: A Pagan and Christian in Dialogue, with co-author Philip Johnson (2007), Pagans and Christians: The Personal Spiritual Experience (2001).

DiZerega has published in a wide variety of Pagan and spiritual journals, both print and online, including Green Egg; Pomegranate; Wiccan Rede; Pagan Currents; Witches and Pagans; The Interfaith Observer; Sacred Cosmos; Patheos, and many chapters in anthologies.

DiZerega’s social scientific work has been published in The Review of Politics; The Western Political Quarterly; Cosmos + Taxis; The Independent Review; Studies in Emergent Order; Critical Review; Social Theory and Practice; Environmental Ethics; PEGS (Political Economy and the Good Society); Ideazione; Elites; Telos; The Trumpeter, Journal of Ecosophy; Wirtschafts-Politische Blatter; and many chapters in books. He also authored a book of his own on democracy: Persuasion, Power and Polity: A Theory of Democratic Self-Organization (2000).

Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Director, Deepest Beliefs Lab

Director, Center for the Science of Moral Understanding

Dr. Gray is a Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he directs the Deepest Beliefs Lab and the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding. He received his BSc from the University of Waterloo, and his PhD is Social Psychology from Harvard University. His research investigates how best to bridge political divides, and the causes and consequences of people’s deepest beliefs, including morality and religion.

Dr. Gray has published over 120 peer-reviewed articles in top journals including Science and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and has received millions of dollars in grant funding from organizations including the National Science Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, and Stand Together. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Economist, Scientific American, and Wired.

He is the author of the books The Mind Club: Who Thinks, What Feels and Why it Matters (Viking), and the forthcoming Outraged: Why we Fight about Morality and Politics (Pantheon), which explores the power of our harm-based mind to both divide and unite us. He is also a Field Builder in the New Pluralists, which seeks to build a moral pluralistic America.

Dr. James D. Holt is Associate Professor of Religious Education at the University of Chester. In this role he explores the representation and teaching of religion and worldviews in schools. He has been involved in the teaching of religion and worldviews for the past thirty years. James has lectured widely on issues of religion, interfaith, and the representation of minority religions. James is the Chair of Examiners for Religious Studies with one of the major awarding organizations in England. Prior to his role at Chester, James was a secondary school Religious Education teacher for 13 years. 

He holds BA, MA, and a PhD from the University of Liverpool, an MEd from the University of Birmingham, and a PGCE (Secondary Education) from Manchester Metropolitan University. His PhD constructed a theology of religions and its implications for interfaith engagement.

He is the author of Beyond the Big Six Religions: Expanding the Boundaries in the Teaching of Religion and Worldviews (University of Chester Press, 2019), Religious Education in the Secondary School: An Introduction to Teaching, Learning and the World Religions (Routledge, 2015, 2022), Towards a Latter-day Saint Theology of Religions (2020) and is currently writing a series of six books for Bloomsbury introducing each of the six largest world religions. Understanding Sikhism and Understanding Buddhism were published in 2023, with Understanding Hinduism published in 2024.

He is Chair of the Board of Trustees of Freedom Declared Foundation, a charity devoted to the promotion of the freedom of religion and belief.

James has been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since his teens, served a mission for the Church in Scotland and has served as a Bishop, on a Stake Presidency, on the National Communication Council for the UK, and on the Curriculum Writing Committee of the Church.

James is married to Ruth, they have four children and one grandchild.

Professor of Theology & Culture and Dean of Integration & Cultural Engagement, Multnomah University and Seminary

Founder and Director, The Institute for Cultural Engagement: New Wine, New Wineskins

Dr. Metzger (Ph.D.) is Professor of Christian Theology & Theology of Culture at Multnomah Biblical Seminary, William Jessup University. He is also the Founder and Director of The Institute for Cultural Engagement: New Wine, New Wineskins and Editor of New Wine’s journal Cultural Encounters: A Journal for the Theology of Culture. Integrating theology and spirituality with cultural sensitivity stands at the center of Dr. Metzger’s ministry vision. Dr. Metzger is the author of More Than Things: A Personalist Ethics for a Throwaway Culture (IVP Academic, 2023); Setting the Spiritual Clock: Sacred Time Breaking Through the Secular Eclipse (Cascade, 2020); Beatitudes, Not Platitudes: Jesus’ Invitation to the Good Life (Cascade, 2018); Evangelical Zen: A Christian’s Spiritual Travels With a Buddhist Friend (Patheos, 2015; second edition forthcoming with Cascade in 2024); Connecting Christ: How to Discuss Jesus in a World of Diverse Paths (Thomas Nelson, May 2012); New Wine Tastings: Theological Essays of Cultural Engagement (Cascade, 2011); The Gospel of John: When Love Comes to Town (InterVarsity Press, 2010); Exploring Ecclesiology: An Evangelical and Ecumenical Introduction (co-authored with Brad Harper; Brazos, 2009); Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church (Eerdmans, 2007); and The Word of Christ and the World of Culture: Sacred and Secular through the Theology of Karl Barth (Eerdmans, 2003). He is co-editor of A World for All?: Global Civil Society in Political Theory and Trinitarian Theology (co-edited with William F. Storrar and Peter J. Casarella; Eerdmans, 2011); and editor of Trinitarian Soundings in Systematic Theology (T&T Clark International, 2005). Dr. Metzger is a member of the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, New Jersey, and served as Senior Mission Scholar in Residence, Spring 2018 at the Overseas Ministries Study Center, New Haven, Connecticut. Dr. Metzger blogs frequently at Uncommon God, Common Good (Patheos). One of his current writing projects focuses on critical and constructive analysis of the category of “world religions” (contracted with IVP Academic).

Mohamed Mosaad Abdelaziz Mohamed, Ph.D., is a professor of Islamic Studies and Sociology of Religion at Northern Arizona University. Before his current career, Mohamed was an orthopedist, a psychiatrist and a neurologist, and he worked as a freelance writer, a translator, editor, editor-in-chief, multimedia programs designer, the editor of Microsoft magazine in Arabic, a producer of three T.V. talk shows, and a director of the global marketing department in a leading software company, among other odd jobs. Mohamed is a co-founder of the Middle East Abrahamic Forum, a founder of the Egyptian Interfaith Association, the Northern Arizona Muslim Jewish Alliance, and served in the past on the boards of the United Religions Initiative, and the Abrahamic Forum of the International Council of Christians and Jews. Mohamed believes that a profound, and honest interfaith dialogue is essential to the individual’s religious and spiritual journey. He also believes that human friendship can transcend, but also include unresolved religious, ideological and political conflicts. Mohamed is (happily) married and has three children.

Dr. Parviz Morewedge (Ph.D. UCLA) is a Senior Scholar in Residence at the State University of New York at Old Westbury and advisor to several central Asian missions to the United Nations. A scholar of medieval Islamic and European philosophy, he has taught at various universities for over 42 years including Cornell, Columbia, Fordham, NYU, UCLA, and Rutgers. He has organized intercultural scholarly seminars and conferences all over the globe (Malaysia, UK, Uzbekistan, Canada, Iran, People’s Republic of China, Italy, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and elsewhere). He has authored or edited fifteen books and more than fifty articles and reviews for university presses including Oxford, Cambridge, NYU, Fordham, and SUNY. He was employed for six years in the computer industry, working as a senior research engineer and designer for General Motors and Litton Industries. At present, he is the director of Global Scholarly Publications, a subsidiary of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy specializing in editing and publishing a bi-lingual series of philosophical and religious classics.

Dr. Terry C. Muck is a scholar of religion (with research interests in Theravada Buddhism), a comparative missiologist, and a theological educator, having taught at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary (1990-2000) and Asbury Theological Seminary (2000-2012).

He is author/editor of Why Study Religion? (2016), Handbook of Religion (2014, with Harold Netland and Gerald McDermott), Christianity Encountering World Religions (2009 with Frances Adeney),  How to Study Religion (2005), Christians Talk about Buddhist Meditation, Buddhists Talk about Christian Prayer (2003 with Rita Gross), Buddhists Talk about Jesus, Christians Talk about the Buddha (2000 with Rita Gross), Theology and Ministry in Global Perspective (1996, with Don Pittman and Ruben Habito), The Mysterious Beyond (1993), Those Other Religions in your Neighborhood (1992), and Alien Gods on American Turf (1990).

He is general editor of the 43-volume NIV Application Commentary (1990-2020), the Faith in Action Study Bible (2005), and the 20-volume Leadership Library (1985-1988), and edited Christianity Today Magazine (1995-2000), Leadership Journal (1990-1995), Missiology (2004-2009), and Buddhist Christian Studies (1995-2005, with Rita Gross).

He was executive director of the Louisville Institute (2012-2015), dean of the E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism (2008-2012), and senior vice president of Christianity Today Incorporated (1993-2000).

He earned degrees at Northwestern University (PhD 1977), Bethel Theological Seminary (MDiv 1972), National College of Education (MBA 1987), and Bethel College (BA 1969).

Professor emeritus of Islamic studies and Arabic, Brigham Young University

Daniel C. Peterson (Ph.D., UCLA, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, 1990) is professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic at Brigham Young University. He is the director and editor-in-chief of the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative, which publishes dual-language editions of classical texts. He is also a former director of BYU’s Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts, which produced a searchable database of the Dead Sea Scrolls and digitized images of many ancient manuscripts. Peterson is the author of the recent Muhammad: Prophet of God, published by Eerdmans in 2007. He has been married to his wife Deborah for more than thirty-five years, and they have three sons.

Department Chair, Department of Psychological Sciences

Bethel University

Dr. Sabates is associate professor of psychology at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota. She previously taught at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Florida, and she has worked professionally at Cornerstone Family Counseling Center (Fairfax, Virginia), Minirth-Meier and Byrd Clinic (Arlington, Virginia) and Reston Psychological Center and Lab School of Washington (Fairfax, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.). She earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Her research interests are broadly related to social perception and inter-group relations. For example, her research has focused on the possible connections between hyper-masculinity bias and endorsement of negative social attitudes, factors related to some Christians' anti-Muslim attitudes, the relationship between self-perception and degree of religious affiliation, and differing moral preferences of college majors. She is also interested in how Christian perspectives are related to undergraduate psychology curriculum and how Christian views of the human condition relate to social psychology research, about which she has published a textbook, Social Psychology in Christian Perspective. Additionally, Dr. Sabates is committed to collaborating with and mentoring students as they pursue their own research interests.

Founder, Ibn Rushd Institute for Peace.

Dr. Omer Salem is a Senior Fellow of the Foundation of Religious Diplomacy, New York City, and is founder of the Ibn Rushd Institute for Dialog based in Egypt and the USA, an interreligious research association. Salem promotes the importance of using Islamic moral values as the basis for conflict resolution. Salem has been invited to various Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and international conferences, where he has spoken before audiences that included members of the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C. and members of the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem and Yeshivat Otniel. Salem is an honorary member of the Worldwide Association of al-Azhar Graduates. He holds a Ph.D. from the multi-university GTF and Al Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. Master’s Degree from the Yale University Divinity School, a Bachelor of Science Degree in Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and is graduate of Stanford University’s School of Business Executive MBA program. He is the author of Seek the Peace of Jerusalem: The Role of Religious Leaders in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, The Missing Peace: The Role of Religion in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, and The Struggle for the Holy Land: The Qeust for Harmony between the Bible and the Qur’an.

Gerald T. Snow (J.D, Harvard Law School, 1972; LL.M., New York University, Tax, 1976) is an attorney and chair of the Tax, Trusts, and Estate Planning Section at the Salt Lake City, Utah, law firm Ray Quinney & Nebeker. A fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), Mr. Snow is a frequent consultant and speaker and was selected by his peers for inclusion in the list of The Best Lawyers in America in Trusts and Estates. The Martindale-Hubbell law directory gives him the highest rating awarded to attorneys for professional competence and ethics. He is married to Julie P. Snow and has four adopted children.

Executive Director, Interfaith Encounter Association

Dr. Yehuda Stolov is the executive director of the Interfaith Encounter Association, an organization that works since 2001 to build peaceful inter-communal relations in the Holy Land by fostering mutual respect and trust between people and communities through active interfaith dialogue. Dr. Stolov has lectured on the role of religious dialogue in peacebuilding throughout the world, including Jordan, India, Indonesia, Turkey, South Korea, North America and Europe. He also published many papers on related issues. In 2006, he was awarded the Immortal Chaplains Foundation Prize for Humanity, which honors those who “risked all to protect others of a different faith or ethnic origin”; and in 2015 he was awarded the IIE Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East. Among other activities, Dr. Stolov was a member of the steering committee for the United Nations Decade of Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation for Peace. He holds a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. in Physics and a Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is married and father of three children, living in Jerusalem. Read the IEA annual report.

Rajan Zed (MBA, University of Nevada-Reno; MS, mass communications, San Jose State University) is a Senior Fellow to the Foundation and its Religious Advisor on Hinduism and related matters. He is president of the Universal Society of Hinduism and the director of interfaith relations of Nevada Clergy Association. His substantial work in interreligious dialogue has been based on building trust between religions by having high quality dialogue among individuals at the grassroots level. He has taken up religious rights issues nationally and internationally, including America, Europe, and India. He offered the groundbreaking first Hindu opening prayer in United States Senate and various State Senates and Assemblies/Houses of Representatives. He was invited by president of European Parliament as a Hindu leader for promotion of interfaith dialogue. Rajan Zed is one of the panelists for “On Faith”, an interactive conversation on religion produced jointly by Newsweek and the Washington Post. Active in promoting humanitarian cooperation, he has been bestowed the “World Interfaith Leader Award” and the “Nevada Religious Unity Award.” Zed has been on Editorial Board of Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett newspaper.