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Dear Members of the IARF,
As we close the door on 2025, we look back at a year that marked the 125th anniversary of our founding. For a century and a quarter, the IARF has weathered global crises, changing names, and shifting borders. Today, we find ourselves in a period of recovery and renewal. We are mindful of our history, but we are focused on our future.
A Vision of Holistic Freedom
In the current political climate, freedom of religion is increasingly co-opted by voices who use it to exclude. This violates the spirit of human rights, which is about protecting and serving human beings - their holistic freedom and well-being. We stand for liberal religious freedom. For us, this means not only the freedom of religion and belief and its legal protection but freedom within religion - the liberty to question, to grow, and to dissent, as affirmed in our 2025 Vision and Identity Statement.
The IARF Network and Our New Digital Platform
It has always been the goal of IARF to build grassroots connections between individuals, not just institutions. We’ve done it through congresses, conferences, exchanges and study tours, but now we can transcend borders, distances and language barriers every day. We have rebuilt our website from scratch to ensure better privacy, accessibility, and focus. Alongside this, we are introducing a new mobile app designed to make communication and collaboration between our members and volunteers easier. Once you log in, you can install the app directly from your user sidebar to receive instant notifications and stay connected. This is a safe space where members from our 23 countries can meet, discuss, access our library and e-learning platform, and support one another. It is a vital part of our effort to build a true grassroots movement of people, not just a coalition of institutions. Join us here: https://register.iarf.net.
Action in 2026
We are translating this vision into concrete action through three pillars:
- Connection: We strive to become a true hub for our community, tightening collaboration with our member groups to facilitate a richer exchange of information and events. A key part of this is making the stories of our diverse traditions accessible to more people. We have already begun publishing a curated news digest on our front page to share these narratives. We intend to feature both the inspiring, spiritual stories of our members and the critical news regarding human rights and religious freedom struggles. We also look forward to our Study Tour to Japan in May 2026, which will be a chance to physically reconnect with our members in Asia.
- Education: Through the Free Religion Institute, we continue to offer unique resources. We invite you to explore the recordings of our past webinars in our digital library, and to join us for new programs, including three courses to be held between February and May, and more to come.
- Advocacy: We have an active working group dedicated to this area, and we hope to increase collaboration with our members to focus on areas where our voice can make a difference. As a religiously inspired but liberal organization, we see a distinct need to help build a coalition of people driven by these specific values. The IARF holds a rare and powerful tool: General Consultative Status at the UN, where we have been accredited since 1955. This is a responsibility we take seriously. As this November marks the 45th anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance (which the IARF helped achieve), we will strive to use our position to ensure the liberal religious voice is heard on the world stage.
A Call to Our Community
We are a historic organization, but today we operate with a lean, dedicated team. We cannot do this alone. If you share our vision of a world where religious freedom serves human dignity, we invite you to build this with us.
Whether you can volunteer your time to help manage our digital spaces, or offer a donation to help us grow our capacity, your support allows us to punch above our weight.
We are proud of our past, but we are building for tomorrow. Thank you for walking this path with us.
With warm regards,
Luke Liniewicz
Executive Secretary
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