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The global landscape of religious freedom is marked by significant challenges, including a widespread decline in, increasing social hostilities toward religion, and escalating tensions between religious communities.  

Since 2007, the Pew Research Center’s measurements of government restrictions on religion have only gone up, and in 2021, the latest year for such measurements, they reached their highest point.  

Since October 7th, 2023, antisemitism and islamophobia went up 400, and 250 present accordingly. There is an urgent need to develop a strategy to reverse the current trend. 

LYNC developed an innovative, proven model for reversing these trends by fostering social cohesion and advancing religious freedom from the bottom up, which in turn triggers positive changes from the top down. The model has shown promising results in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, distinguishing them as possible beacons of progress amidst a global pattern of decline.

What 10 Years on the Ground has Taught Us

Throughout nearly a decade, LYNC has been at the forefront of nurturing religious freedom through what we call relational diplomacy. It all started with our first visit to Kazakhstan in 2013 as a part of the IRF Roundtable delegation, which was followed by a series of co-hosted in-country and international dialogues, multi-faith retreats, signing MOUs, and conducting educational certificate programs.  

Through this work, we have developed a model that focuses on three core areas in sequential order to achieve genuine progress in religious freedom and social cohesion:  

(a) building multi-faith relationships,
(b) enhancing cross-cultural religious literacy and
(c) encouraging collaboration among religious and government leaders in the context of post-communist countries. 

But it is not only that. In Central Asia, we consider a historical and cultural background, the current geopolitical situation, and modern security challenges to assess the situation with religious freedom and develop a solid and effective strategy to advance religious freedom and social cohesion.  

Our Blueprint for the Future

 

Our approach starts with building relationships, followed by education that challenges the post-Soviet mindset and culminates in elevating our trained alumni into leadership roles.  This approach fosters a genuine understanding and respect among diverse faith communities, laying the groundwork for effective collaboration and sustainable change. 

We engage local institutions and train local trainers who will continue the same training, engaging more and more stakeholders.  

Overall, all the above-mentioned steps help civil society grow and mature by adopting pluralistic virtues and establishing relationships based on the covenantal pluralism philosophy1.  Such grassroots movements lower social hostility toward religion and between religions, establishing meaningful communication between government and religious communities, majority and minorities, and help prevent radicalization.  

LYNC creates and fosters solid and proven strategies

Actively Promoting Religious Freedom and Social Cohesion

In 2021, LYNC co-organized two events — a certificate course Religion and Rule of Law (RROL) funded by Templeton Religion Trust, and a conference “Prospects for a New Central Asia: Religion’s Role in Forming a Stable and Democratic Society,” funded by Brigham Young University Center for Law and Religion Studies (BYU) as well as participated at the VII Congress of the Leaders of World and Traditional Religions organized and funded by the Kazakhstani government. All these LYNC activities aim to advance religious freedom and social cohesion by integrating Covenantal Pluralism[1] into the social fabric. [1] “Covenantal pluralism” as enabling cooperative, respectful, and constructive engagement across differences. More specifically, covenantal pluralism is the commitment to engage, respect and protect the other, without necessarily conceding equal veracity or moral equivalency to the beliefs and behaviors of others.

LYNC creates and fosters solid and proven strategies

Actively Promoting Religious Freedom and Social Cohesion

In 2022, LYNC, together with its regional and international partners, convened a first-of-its-kind Cross-Cultural Religious Literacy Training Program in Shymkent for the Kazakhstani government and law enforcement officials despite the pandemic, internal instability, and geopolitical challenges. The training, funded by Templeton Religion Trust, offered timely strategic support to the civil society and government of Kazakhstan, who has pledged its ongoing commitment to building religious freedom. Fifty-seven participants ranging from prosecutors, law enforcement officers, religious affairs officials, Muslim imams, Orthodox priests, and evangelical pastors acquired knowledge based on applicable case studies of American, England, Indonesian, and Vietnamese reforms and implementation best practices.

Since 2019, LYNC has consistently implemented the three core elements- multi-faith relationship building, religious literacy, and all-inclusive dialogue- of what TRT calls “covenantal pluralism”1. The success of this recent certificate program is neither a beginning nor an end but is a critical, positive milestone in collaboration. LYNC’s three-year program aims to create a bottom-up request for religious law reforms in Kazakhstan and this milestone marks the mid-point of the strategy. The achieved progress in building religious freedom is fragile and requires the recognition and support from the international community and the United States government to continue its momentum.

LYNC's Three Pillars of Action

Religious Freedom, Fostering Pluralistic Communities, and Safeguarding Hope in Ukraine

Religious Freedom
  • Creating a free, safe environment to worship with mutual consideration and respect  
  • Encouraging equal representation of religious minorities  
  • Top/down, bottom/up reciprocity among government, religious communities, and civil society  
Fostering Pluralistic, Multicultural Communities
  • Promoting equally represented religious literacy  
  • Hands-on/hands-off approach focusing on assisting local leaders to operate in their context  
Safeguarding Hope in Ukraine
  • “Hope Ukraine” Women’s Club for internally displaced Ukrainians in Bautzen, Germany  
  • Training for children’s trauma therapy healing in Central Ukraine
  • Mercy Houses for Ukraine’s elderly in need  

We serve using instruments of Covenantal Pluralism

Multi-Faith Relationship Building   

  • LYNC hosts multi-faith retreats, and imam-pastor-rabbi teams moderate  
  • Once qualified, imams, pastors, and rabbis complete Training for Trainers to learn how to host retreats in their own communities

Cross-Cultural Religious Literacy  

  • LYNC creates a CCRL curriculum to address a post-soviet mindset toward religion for the government and law enforcement officials in the post-communist countries. 
  • LYNC partners with diverse academic institutions in the US and Central Asia  

Religion in the Public Square  

  • Local FoRB roundtables initiated by civil society.  
  • Local multi-faith teams lead roundtables.  
relationship building works

Years of Engagement Yields Results

The U.S. State Departments’ 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom: Kazakhstan, highlights the cooperation between LYNC and Kazakhstan’s Committee of Religious Affairs (CRA).  Over the years, LYNC has actively engaged CRA delegates from the six Kazakh regions with invitations to training and one-on-one meetings. Slowly, LYNC demonstrated relationship-building and the advantages of building bridges, the tenets of Covenantal Pluralism in everyday language, and examples in local context.   Through incremental exposure, these delegates returned to their regions, spread the word, and created conversation at the higher central government level, including the Security Council. This report marked the first time LYNC’s efforts were named, and highlighted CRA’s successful engagement.  As a result of this work, on social media, the embassy engaged in outreach to urge respect for religious freedom, the report says. 

Join our strategic vision

In light of the growing geopolitical, economic, and religious tensions worldwide, LYNC needs the resources to meet with more critical governments and religious leaders to implement our successful model of religious reconciliation. In 2024, we will continue to meet with government and religious leaders in and beyond Central Asia and are already constructing programs in the United States for 2024. Moreover, the enduring consequences of the physical, emotional, and psychological hardships experienced by displaced Ukrainians in their struggle to survive the ongoing conflict caused by Russian aggression are evident. Your assistance is more vital than ever.
Our Numbers Are Growing

LYNC has hosted 62 events in Central Asia across four countries-

Kazakhstan
Uzbekistan
Kyrgyzstan

And helped over 10,000 Ukrainian IDPs and refugees since 2014.

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