Allen Hertzke

Allen Hertzke retired in the spring of 2021 as the David Ross Boyd Professor and Faculty Fellow in Religious Freedom for the Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage. He also served as founding director of OU’s Religious Studies Program. An internationally recognized expert on religion and politics, he is a Distinguished Senior Fellow for the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, and former Associate Scholar of Georgetown University’s Religious Freedom Project. He is author of Freeing God’s Children: The Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights; Representing God in Washington, which has been issued in a Chinese language translation; Echoes of Discontent; and co-author of Religion and Politics in America, a comprehensive text now in its sixth edition. He is editor of The Future of Religious Freedom: Global Challenges (Oxford University Press, 2012), and Religious Freedom in America: Constitutional Roots and Contemporary Challenges (University of Oklahoma Press, 2015).

Most recently, he co-edited a two-volume project, Christianity and Freedom: Volume 1 Historical Perspectives and Christianity and Freedom: Volume 2 Contemporary Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2016). As Visiting Senior Fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in Washington DC, he directed the 2012 study, “Lobbying for the Faithful: Religious Advocacy Groups in Washington DC.” Between 2008 and 2010 he served as lead consultant for the John Templeton Foundation to develop strategic recommendations for advancing religious freedom around the globe. Dr. Hertzke is a winner of numerous teaching awards, including the statewide Medal of Excellence award for 2017 by the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence.  He has lectured at the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the National Press Club, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Harvard University, Princeton University, Georgetown University, Notre Dame University, University of Chicago, University of California-Berkeley, Brigham Young University, Wheaton  College, Calvin College, and before numerous audiences in China. He serves on the editorial boards of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion and The Review of Faith & International Affairs, for which he served as Guest Editor for a special edition (Fall 2012) on strategies of advocacy for global religious freedom. He is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.