Knox Thames’ Ending Persecution: Charting the Path to Global Religious Freedom is the most significant contribution to the literature on American global religious freedom advocacy since Tom Farr’s 2008 tome World of Faith and Freedom. Thames, like Farr, is a practitioner, sharing his diplomatic experience and insights while engaging with relevant scholarship.
Since 2008, the international religious freedom (IRF) movement has adapted to changing global circumstances while expanding substantially. Thames himself has been a leading catalyst and strategist behind that expansion. When he left government in 2021, Thames was the longest-serving American civil servant focused on IRF. As a disclosure, I have collaborated with Thames throughout my career, and we were colleagues at the State Department during the George W. Bush administration.
Ending Persecution provides unique analysis and recommendations drawn from Thames’ extensive first-hand experience. We see Thames meeting with heads of state, foreign ministers, and senior clerics. We get the backstory on how he helped to create the Religious Freedom Roundtable of NGOs in Washington, the International Contact Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief (ICG-FoRB), the Inter-Parliamentary Panel on FoRB, the Ministerial on religious freedom (the largest event ever held at the State Department), and the 38-country International Religious Freedom and Belief Alliance. And we get a front-row seat to his intrepid advocacy at the UN to thwart the efforts of China, Pakistan, and others to thwart progress on human rights.
Thames “avoids the gossip of an insider’s account” (6), but he does give readers many poignant and sometimes amusing anecdotes. There’s a reassuring comment from President Obama about his personal commitment to pushing for religious freedom in India; an awkward and disappointing meeting with Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi; and Uzbek foreign minister Abdulaziz Kamilov proposing a vodka toast to religious freedom. Thames tells us “Growing up Baptist, I had never had vodka before. But I went bottoms-up for the cause” (127).
Ending Persecution is creatively structured and engagingly written. Every chapter draws the reader in with a diplomatic story that provides a narrative arc for Thames’ discussion. Over the course of the book, Thames describes four main typologies of persecution: authoritarian, illiberal democracy, extremism, and terrorism, illustrating each type with multiple real-world examples.
These examples amount to useful primers on persecution in a range of hot spots such as Burma, China, Egypt, India, Iraq, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Reflecting Thames’ legal and diplomatic training, these primers are much more nuanced and precise than typical accounts from advocacy organizations that tend be awash in emotive, anecdotal, partial, or exaggerated descriptions of persecution. But reflecting the fact that Thames is now free from government bureaucracy, his national profiles are much more candid, interesting, and readable than the State Department’s invaluable but unstimulating annual reports on religious freedom.
Furthermore, unlike State Department reports, Thames also examines the historical development and contemporary experience of religious freedom in the United States. Here again his take is nuanced. He highlights America’s hard-earned successes in fostering pluralism without lapsing into white-washed hagiography. He readily acknowledges America’s struggles to inhabit its founding ideals without lapsing into cynicism or self-flagellation. “Our complicated history,” he says, “actually positions the United States to convincingly speak about human rights. Our work is not done. Yet these difficult lessons learned can animate US efforts to combat persecution internationally” (23-24).
Internationally, the U.S. record on religious freedom is just as mixed. And Thames’ take is just as balanced. The United States has done far more than any other nation—financially, diplomatically, and rhetorically—to advance religious freedom globally. But we’ve also made any number of foreign policy decisions that have complicated or even undermined that effort. For instance, Thames tells the story of his multiple trips to Iraq where the U.S. toppled a dictator but sparked a sectarian civil war that devastated Iraq’s ancient religious minority communities. In Afghanistan the U.S. removed the Taliban for two decades but allowed a Taliban-esque approach to religion-state relations—including the death penalty for apostasy and blasphemy—to remain part of Afghan governance. Of particular concern for Thames is America’s habit of designating the worst persecutors as “Countries of Particular Concern” and then immediately undermining those designations by granting waivers that allow persecuting governments to avoid sanctions for their oppression. He longs for a “consequential diplomacy” that more effectively discourages persecution in the first place—what Thames terms a “human rights deterrence policy” (chapter 4).
Making the case that America can and should do better on religious freedom is an animating theme of the book. Because there’s a religious dimension to so many global challenges and because religious persecution is an affront to both American values and interests, the U.S. government should do more to advance religious liberty. But there’s a problem. America’s IRF tools are both underutilized and antiquated. America’s IRF architecture reflects the domestic and international politics of the 1990s. As Thames argues, “Current U.S. government structures to promote religious freedom are increasingly outdated and inadequate, created in a twentieth-century, Cold War framework” (324).
The book’s final chapter offers a range of thoughtful, practical recommendations for updating and strengthening America’s IRF promotion. He wants the United States to be more consistent. For example, don’t lambast Iranians while giving the equally repressive Saudis a pass on persecution. He argues for depolarizing America’s vexed debate over “religious freedom” and offers thoughtful reflections on how this right freedom of conscience relates to other human rights and to diplomatic engagement with religious communities across the full range of issues. He makes his case for more funding, more training, and more refugee resettlement for those fleeing persecution. Ending persecution is an audacious goal, Thames admits, but it’s worthy of our investment.
The most original of Thames’ proposals is a long overdue overhaul of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), where Thames previously served in a senior capacity. Though a separate entity from the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom, the two are constantly confused for one another. Rather than scrapping the Commission or simply preserving the status quo, Thames makes the case for recasting USCIRF as ACIRF—the American Council on International Religious Freedom. ACIRF could be a sort of National Endowment for Democracy-type body, with board members rather than commissioners, that would complement rather than compete with the State Department office by more nimbly supporting the excellent work of organizations advancing religious freedom abroad.
Overall, what may be the most significant contribution of Ending Persecution is simply Thames’ example of living out his Christian faith in both the halls of power and the huts of the powerless. He doesn’t explicitly dwell at length on the subject, but in a sense the entire book is testimony of what it can look like to serve as a Christian in American foreign policy. Reading the book, three themes stood out. The first is a critical patriotism. Thames is rightly proud of America and committed to advancing American leadership. But he’s also clear-eyed about America’s shortcomings and temptations. Second, he’s unwaveringly devoted to the universality of human rights. Therefore, he cautions against parochial approaches that advocate for just one faith group. Since leaving government, Thames founded an organization called Christians Against All Persecution. Third, a spirit of magnanimity pervades the book. Thames gives credit to scores of collaborators and is careful with his critiques, demonstrating the graciousness that has made him a successful coalition builder across the globe and across multiple administrations. His assessment of the IRF successes and failures of the Obama and Trump administrations is commendably even-handed.
Over the past quarter century, Knox Thames has been instrumental in shaping the U.S. government’s efforts in promoting religious freedom around the world. Ending Persecution is an enlightening, entertaining, and edifying account of how the U.S. has pursued that mission—and how it can do it better.
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