I was born in Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when religion became the architecture of public life. But it was precisely this fusion of faith and power that forced my family to flee. We were persecuted not for breaking laws but for belonging to a minority religious community, the Bahá’ís – a persecution that continues today. This experience taught me how religion can be used to exclude, to dehumanise, to dominate. But it also taught me that ignoring religion is not the answer.

More than 80% of the world’s population identifies with a religion. Yet in many parts of the world – especially in the west – religion is treated as a private matter, something best kept out of polite conversation, or at worst, a source of division and danger. We live in a paradox: a deeply religious world that increasingly doesn’t know how to talk about religion.

This silence isn’t neutral. It creates a kind of cultural illiteracy – especially at a time when religion continues to shape geopolitics, social movements and personal lives, from the rise of religious nationalism to faith-based responses to humanitarian crises. And in places like the United States, it’s becoming even more central to public discourse, often with high political stakes.

So how do we talk about religion in a world........

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