 I was very much interested in how the disciplines should speak to each other. And this is, I think, the influence that Chicago had on me. Here, the Chicago had the Committee on Social Thought, which is a fascinating creature in the university, drawing some of the finest minds of the university, including Nobel Laureates, together, because they wanted to talk to each other across their disciplines across their schools, thinking that in so doing, they would fructify each other's imaginations and thought, they weren't an attempt, this was not a matter of imperialism on one discipline or another, but really, the intellectual ferment that should mark a great university was there in spades. I wanted to recreate that at Emory. Law, at that time, theology and law provided one instance of this, which came to hand with the presence of Frank Alexander, who had done this double degree at Harvard, and his interest in Hal Berman, and so in a way, it was opportunistic on my part to want to see that happen here at Emory. Initially, this all was made possible because we had an infusion of capital funds with the Woodruff gift, which, at that time, broke records in terms of its size, but also for Emory, almost doubled our endowment overnight. And since there were no restrictions on it, we were able to be able to do the innovative. I wanted to set them in motion to cross the disciplines, and indeed the professions, in a way that would enable these conversations to take place, and new thought to emerge. And law and religion has done this marvelously beyond anything that I could have expected or I think anyone on campus with a possible exception of Hal Berman, Frank Alexander, and John Whitty. They may have had this in mind, but my role as president was to plan a seed and provide some resources. And there's no way I knew how it would actually grow. Some things didn't grow as well, some things just bloomed beautifully, and this is one of them. But it was out of the commitment, and indeed the deep conviction that the university not only should be a collection of disciplines and professions, but it should be a scene of fertile intellectual conversation, and that we should not be afraid to look at the more intractable problems of life, either community or society, simply because our disciplines were not designed to encompass them. And I can say this over and over again. The idea is not to qualify or negatively impact the disciplines, but to broaden them. I've known Frank Alexander since he was really a senior in college, and it was quite taken with him and his interest, which intersected in many ways with mine, and namely in terms of the passion for religion, for commitment, for values, for a sense of meaning of life, along with his marvelous sense of discipline in terms of the law itself, its practice, its potential, and his determination to see that the law did good in society. Not just as a vehicle to be exploited for a grandestment, but actually as a promotion of the larger public good. That drew me to Frank very early on in his life, and the fact that he came to Emory and began working on this was, I think, an expression vehicle for those concerns which I shared. People may think that I had less commitment to the law school or less interest in it. I did have a vision of the law as handmaiden of a better social order of a good society. And observing the public good, the law is the repository not only of the rules and sanctions of life, but also of pointing to how we should live together in a way that is truly civil and redounds to the good of us all and allows room for freedom of expression, but also sets limits in terms of rapaciousness of human nature. Being a theologian, I am often want to quote the fact that the only Christian doctrine that is empirically verifiable is original sin, and law is a very important assistance in that. But that was the way of what Frank and I got together, and I admired his passion and his commitment to that larger social good which embodied both religion and law. How Berman came and brought a great historical perspective on this, showing, in a way, establishing the legitimacy within the legal order, within the faculties of the role of religion and law and was able to interpret it in a way that won enormous support across the university and across the nation and the world as he worked in Russia and other places. And then John Whitty came with his laser mind and historical grasp, a student and colleague of Hal as well, and with that kind of focused dedication as nurtured and brought into being the center in ways that could address major issues like the family and society and marriage and so forth, law and religion with application and reflection upon these things. So I see here a triumvirate of remarkable professors who complement one another in an amazing way. It's really quite fortuitous that we could have three people whose interests and capacities and commitments could so mesh and yet complement each other, bring strengths that added to the whole. The long-range purpose of any program that law and religion would mount is not only to illuminate and explicate the problem at hand, whether it's some social dimension of life that makes itself accessible, marriage and the whole issue of the gay role, the issue of children and society. There are a whole range of things that are now both controversial and important for our public discourse. These things can be illuminated, as I say, and reflected upon by scholars, but the idea of the illumination and the reflection, I think, is to educate the larger public in what the issues are so that it could be more informed decision-making and not just out of inherited opinion or even prejudice. I'm not one to think that all of our values are amenable to rational discussion. They don't dissolve under rational examination, but I do think that the role of the university is to, in many ways, not only analyze, but also in some instances to unmask the hidden assumptions and accepted wisdom of the past, not necessarily in a harsh, acidic light, but in one that helps us to better understand what actually is going on. I think out of that illumination, the role of the university is not then to become a political instrument, but it is to educate the public. That's what we do, and not simply accept the prevailing wisdom of the public. That doesn't mean that we're necessarily an elite that knows the best, but if we find things to be true and believe them to be true, then I think it's our responsibility to help educate others to that discovery. The role and importance of religion in the academy has been very important. It has emerged as a major concern, I think, as we see the extremists on all sides, both in the Middle East and around the world and in all religions, at the worst resort to violence in terms of the pursuit of their aims, and the intractability of many of the positions that some of the religions hold. I think, in a way, I can't at all say that this is an outgrowth of the academy's neglect of religion and religious issues. But 30 or 40 years ago, you couldn't get any department of political science in the country, if not the world, to include the importance of religion in a consideration of foreign policy. Today, looking back on that, that seems inexcusably naive and shortsighted. Part of what we're saying is that while there's an understandable, I don't want to say reluctance, but uneasiness with having religious convictions come in to a discussion of rational concerns, the reality of those who are motivated by religious conviction remains. And we have to deal with that. I think part of what's happened in the last few decades is we've learned that the conceit that we're dealing with rational man is one that needs to be discarded. How we deal with that imaginatively and creatively and successfully is something we continue to work with, but we can no longer dismiss the issue of religious motivation among the billions of people in the world. And I think this means that a place for law and religion is all the more prominent because of the importance of that dialogue, that discussion. And the inclusion of considerations that emerge out of the religious dimension of life that mean that one is co-opted by religion. It means that you take the empirical importance and influence of religion seriously. It cannot be dismissed. So in that sense, I would say that law and religion was prophetic. I mean, the fact that it was dealing with these issues long before they became generally acceptable or even considered important is a tribute to the leaders of this program. And I salute them for their visionary attempt to bring this off, which I think has just been beyond anything I could have imagined. We're going to need to see the issue of international law and the role of religion and religious extremism dealt with. And that might be something beyond the domestic scene and even the national scene that tends to preoccupy us now. How this would fit into an issue of international understanding, foreign policy. But after all, one of the things that I did early on in my presidency was appoint former President Jimmy Carter to the faculty and work with him in his Carter Center. And one of the main reasons was because he was committed to human rights, which at that time was still considered to be somewhat naive by the realists, the pragmatists of the foreign policy establishment. Now, of course, you have even the neo-conservatives beating their putative enemies over the head with their abuse of human rights. So this pendulum swings. When one looks into the modern world and the way in which the religions are now impacting one another, some of them driving their national foreign policy and so forth, you can see how the issue of law and religion plays in a more international setting. And I think that the role of understanding other religions is going to be more and more important, obviously. And I commend President Wagner and his new emphasis on campus in inter-religious dialogue, not in a kind of facile sense in which you just get people together and that serious discussion of the way in which the various faiths shape one's outlook on life and one's perspective, one's values. And finally, one's view of human nature and the destiny of humankind. I think the religions of Asia are kind of only now coming into their own Hinduism and Buddhism, in particular. Islam has become so prominent because of the Middle East and the issues we have now with terrorism and so forth. But I don't think we've even begun the plumb, the depths of how much this is going to be a preoccupation in the future. And I think it gives the center, the law and religion center an opportunity to be in the forefront of that discussion, how it will play out. I wouldn't want to make any kind of guess.