Samantha Olson

John Kubler
English 115
04 September 2014
Madeleine Albright Summary
In her essay, Faith and Diplomacy, Madeleine Albright draws attention to the claim
that religion has a dominant presence in our world today. She suggests that the government
should take this into consideration when dealing with our nations diplomatic approach. Religion
plays a big role in most of the conflicts of the world. It is the one thing that separates people
more than anything else. In order to fix problems between nations, religion needs to be
considered in relation to the nations affairs abroad.
Albright asserts that even though peace and agreement in our country have come from
keeping religion and politics separate, the same tactic might not be the same when applying it to
encounters with nations outside of our own. She suggests that American diplomats will need
tothink more expansively about the role of religion in foreign policy (2). This shows that
our countrys diplomats should understand how immensely religion is able to affect a persons
behavior and emotion. They need to be familiar with how different religious principles lead to
conflicts and when other principles can help release tension.
The strong belief that American ambassadors should create good relationships with the
countries they are assigned to, is argued by Albright. She believes that, no American
ambassador should be assigned to a country where religious feelings are strong unless he or she

has a deep understanding of the faiths commonly practiced there (7). In stating that, Albright
exhorts that before trying to negotiate abroad, our representatives must first comprehend the
reasoning behind how other countries act.
The fact that religion has an infinite amount of ways to be interpreted by people is
another main point that Albright brings up throughout her essay. No matter if it is the same
religion or one completely different; each individual has their own unique way of looking at it.
The problem is that certain people will only accept their version of religion and believe that any
other point of view is incorrect. Albright uses a story from Bob Seiple to prove that, there are
people who are willing to die and killfor their faith (4), but also, there are those who,
forgavebecause [their] God forgave [them] (4). This exemplifies that, based on their
interpretation of religion; these people have very different views. There are people who justify
murder through their religious beliefs and there are people who have been attacked for their
religion but forgave the people who did awful things to them. Every person sees religion
differently.
One last point that Albright points out is that a person should be familiar with their own
faith but also have enough understanding to see another persons point of view. The Institute for
Global Engagement that Albright references believes that one should, know [his] faith at its
deepest and richest best, and enough about [his] neighbors faith to respect it (8). This explains
that a person does not have to agree with someone elses point of view, they just simply have to
understand and respect that there are differences in their beliefs. Overall, Albright claims that
religion plays an important role in the world today and ideally has the power to bring multiple
unique cultures and nations together.