Updated May 15, 2012  

Issue Agendas

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Global Advocacy Issue Agendas
Driving the Global Issue Agenda
Domestic Issue Agendas

In describing their work, religious advocacy groups cite about 300 policy concerns. These include some inherently religious issues, such as the promotion of religious freedom around the world. But religious advocacy groups also bring their religious viewpoints and moral principles to bear on many other issues, ranging from taxation and national security to abortion, same-sex marriage, poverty and economic inequality.

Despite historical roots in domestic issues such as Prohibition (see Evolution, Growth and Turnover ), religious advocacy groups today are, on the whole, almost as involved in international work as they are in domestic matters. Indeed, nearly two-thirds of the groups studied (63%) engage in both realms.

The breadth of their agendas reflects the groups’ widely differing theological and political perspectives. No single religious, political or ideological position monopolizes religious advocacy in Washington. On the contrary, religious groups can be found on both sides of many issues, and at times, even groups with a shared religious background come down on opposite sides of a policy debate. For example, two Jewish groups – J Street and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee – frequently are at loggerheads over U.S. policy toward Israel.

At the same time, groups from different faith traditions sometimes come together on the same side of an issue. For example, evangelical Protestant groups including Prison Fellowship and the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, joined with a mainline Protestant group, the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Church & Society, in supporting the Prison Rape Elimination Act in 2003, even though these groups often find themselves on opposite sides of other issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage.

In classifying the groups’ issue agendas, this study generally tries to reflect the language employed by the groups themselves. For example, if a group says it promotes religious freedom, it is included in the religious freedom category, even though another group engaged in similar activities might describe itself as working on international human rights and be listed accordingly. Thus, readers should note that the issue categories are not mutually exclusive. Many groups work on multiple issues, and the issues themselves often overlap.

Global Advocacy Issue Agendas 

About eight-in-ten of the religious advocacy groups studied are involved in at least one international policy issue (16% work only on international issues, and 63% work on both international and domestic issues). More than half of the 216 groups (54%) say they tackle international human rights in some fashion, and nearly half (47%) address international poverty and economic issues. Almost as many groups (43%) address issues of peace and democracy, including peace-building and demilitarization. About one-in-five groups (21%) deal with religious freedom in particular countries or worldwide.

Religious advocacy groups are involved in promoting policy initiatives that affect every region of the world, most notably the Middle East-North Africa. Four-in-ten of the 216 groups in the study address issues in the Middle East-North Africa region, such the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But one-in-six groups address concerns in the Asia-Pacific region, such as human rights in China, and a similar percentage are involved with issues in sub-Saharan Africa, such as poverty and HIV-AIDS.

One common mission among denominational groups that engage in global advocacy is protecting or defending fellow believers, both domestically (e.g., Sikhs lobbying against what they consider unjust screening policies at airports) and internationally (e.g., the Baptist World Alliance promoting religious freedom for, among others, Baptists living as minorities in foreign countries).

The large international membership of some denominations – such as the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which says it has about 1 million members in the U.S. and 16 million worldwide – means that the advocacy groups related to these denominations (e.g., Adventist Development and Relief Agency International) reflect both the humanitarian impulses of the church and the needs of its believers abroad. Similarly, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh and Baha’i groups are closely linked to their counterparts around the world. For example, the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam, USA, is directly linked to the international Ahmadiyya Muslim community, and American Ahmadiyya leaders advocate for their counterparts in Pakistan, Indonesia and elsewhere in testimony before Congress, reports to the State Department and media awareness campaigns.

A more recent development in global religious advocacy is a tendency to move beyond issues that relate to the treatment of fellow believers (or other human rights-related concerns) and to take positions on social and cultural issues in foreign countries. As the United Nations and other international bodies have taken on issues such as abortion, genetic engineering, the role of women, gay rights and the definition of the family, religious traditionalists in recent years have moved into international arenas that, in some cases, other U.S. religious groups entered much earlier. For example, the anti-abortion group Human Life International now operates in nearly 100 countries, and conservative groups such as Concerned Women for America routinely lobby at the United Nations. Mainline Protestant denominations, on the other hand, have been engaged in international issues since the end of World War II, from backing the formation of the United Nations to opposing the Vietnam War and the Reagan administration’s policies in Central America.

Driving the Global Issue Agenda 

Easier communications and travel have created connections between American religious groups and constituencies around the world. Because they have more opportunities to meet and engage with fellow believers or people of different faiths around the world, advocates are more likely to be motivated and find it easier to advocate internationally. Americans meet visiting foreign religious leaders in their places of worship; they communicate via email with counterparts around the world; and more than a million believers a year travel on mission trips to work on humanitarian projects, often side-by-side with fellow believers in developing nations.¹⁷ 

Migration also has increased global advocacy, for the simple reason that immigrants to the U.S. often stay connected with their home countries and bring international concerns to U.S. policymakers. The Hindu American Foundation, American Islamic Congress and Dalit Freedom Network are examples of advocacy groups that represent the concerns of immigrants.

Global religious advocacy has had a wide-reaching impact on American foreign policy in the past two decades. During the Cold War and its aftermath, a number of Christian organizations documented the harassment, arrest or killing of fellow believers in Soviet states; provided succor to victims; and lobbied governments to get prisoners released. In the 1990s, these groups found allies across the religious and ideological spectrum who could unite around the idea of promoting religious freedom through American foreign policy. Thus, evangelical Protestant groups joined with advocates representing Catholics, Episcopalians, Jews, Baha’is, Buddhists and Sikhs in successfully lobbying for the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, and they have joined with new groups, such as the American Islamic Congress, to press for its robust implementation.¹⁸ 

Galvanized by the success of the campaign for international religious freedom legislation, religious alliances also backed legislation on human trafficking (the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 and Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003, 2005, 2008), peace in Sudan (Sudan Peace Act, 2002) and human rights in North Korea(North Korean Human Rights Act, passed in 2004 and reauthorized in 2008). Together, these laws have erected a sizable legal architecture for promoting human rights in American foreign policy(North Korean Human Rights Act, passed in 2004 and reauthorized in 2008). Together, these laws have erected a sizable legal architecture for promoting human rights in American foreign policy.¹⁹ 

Domestic Issue Agendas 

The growth of global advocacy does not appear to have come at the expense of advocacy on domestic issues, however. More than eight-in-ten religious advocacy groups (84%) either work solely on domestic issues (21%) or are involved in both domestic and foreign issues (63%).

Of the 216 groups studied, about half (52%) address domestic church-state issues, such as debates over public displays of religion, hate-crime laws and school vouchers. A similar portion (49%) works on civil rights and liberties, such as gay rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights and the rights of religious and ethnic minorities.

About four in-ten groups in the study (42%) work on bioethics and life issues, which include abortion, capital punishment, stem cell research and end-of-life issues. Roughly as many (39%) address family and marriage issues, including the definition of marriage, domestic violence and fatherhood initiatives. About one-in-six groups (16%) work on other domestic issues, a catch-all category that includes corporate accountability/responsibility, limited government/private enterprise, elections/campaign finance, capitalism, volunteerism and veterans’ issues.

Footnotes: 

17 For more information, see Robert Wuthnow, Boundless Faith: The Global Outreach of American Churches, University of California Press, 2009. (return to text) 

18 For more information, see Q&A with Allen Hertzke, “Ten Years of Promoting Religious Freedom Through U.S. Foreign Policy,” Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, Oct. 16, 2008, http://pewforum.org/Government/Ten-Years-of-Promoting-Religious-Freedom-Through-US-Foreign-Policy.aspx. (return to text) 

19 For more information, see Allen D. Hertzke, Freeing God’s Children: The Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights, Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. (return to text)