Welcome to the Summit for Religious Freedom

SRF 2025 Recap

Attendees of the third annual Summit for Religious Freedom (SRF), heard a lot about storytelling – and rightly so.

Facts, data and history are important, but at this moment in our national life, they only take you so far. Personal stories pack a wallop and put a human face on an issue like church-state separation that can often seem to be legalistic and theoretical.

Several SRF speakers emphasized the power of stories. During a welcome address to attendees, Americans United President and CEO Rachel Laser gave a shoutout to AU supporters who are serving as plaintiffs in lawsuits or who have told their stories in other ways. She shared a proverb often attributed to the Hopi people: “Those who tell stories rule the world.”
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​In a powerful keynote address, historian and author Jemar Tisby shared stories 
​including information about Black leaders such as Charles H. Pearce, Frederick Douglass and Fannie Lou Hamer. These courageous leaders, he noted, fought not only for basic human dignity but also tangible rights, such as the ability to vote.
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Tisby noted that adherents of Christian Nationalism, which he called “the greatest threat to democracy and the witness of the church today,” also tell a story. It’s of a nation founded by and for white Christians. That story motivates many, but it has a serious fault: It’s not true.
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Black political witness, he noted, is “a different story, a different narrative” and while it was not often approved of throughout much of U.S. history, it remains a story worth telling. 
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April Ajoy kept the audience spellbound with her own story: a tale of her successful escape from Christian Nationalism.

Ajoy talked about growing up a pastor’s kid who, at a young age, was sent out to protest against legal abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. She remained trapped in the world of Christian Nationalism through college and into her 20s. But for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that her brother came out as gay, she began to do something dangerous in the world of Christian Nationalism: ask questions. When her fundamentalist faith fell, so did her far-right politics.
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​Ajoy urged attendees not to give up on friends and relatives ensnared in Christian Nationalism, telling the more than 700 SRF attendees in person and online, “We don’t need to tell them what to think; we need to tell them how to think. I want to leave you with some hope. I believe that if I can change, anyone can change.
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​“These aren’t normal times.”

With those words, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, summarized the thorny situation confronting our nation. Offering the final keynote address during the Summit for Religious Freedom (SRF), Weingarten succinctly laid out the threats facing public education under the Trump administration.

She began by outlining what’s at stake: Public education in America, she noted, has historically been a state issue. It remains that way, largely, but now the federal government provides one out of every seven dollars public school districts receive. The federal government also provides services to 26 million youngsters, many of whom live in poverty or face learning challenges, and, through the U.S. Department of Education, it enforces the nation’s civil rights laws.
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We announced the 2025 David Norr Youth Activist Award winner --Tatiana Chance! 

Tatiana is a reproductive justice advocate in South Dakota for whom the fight for abortion access and religious freedom are deeply intertwined. Tatiana led a multi-year project in collaboration with South Dakota Faith in Public Life to mobilize an interfaith voice for abortion access. She surveyed 1,412 congregations about their beliefs around abortion and religious freedom and built a database detailing groups’ positions on reproductive freedom. She helped organize a seminar about Christian Nationalism and has put on art exhibits that challenge religious-based abortion stigma. And she worked with religious leaders to secure signatures from 60 organizations on a letter in support of Amendment G, which would have enshrined abortion access in the South Dakota constitution.
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Learn more about Tatiana and the David Norr Youth Activist Award here

Are You Ready to SRF?
Join us in 2026!

The Summit for Religious Freedom or SRF (pronounced "surf") is the hub for our collective fight for religious freedom, church-state separation, and the issues that depend on them like LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, protecting public schools, strengthening our democracy and more. It’s a big tent — welcoming the diversity of our movement from longtime advocates to those just discovering the issue and its critical role in protecting our democracy, our equality, and our rights. We’re collaborating to defeat the biggest threats to these values including Christian Nationalists and other extremists, along with their political allies, who have launched a coordinated campaign to force us all to live by their narrow, religious beliefs.​

In 2025, in-person SRF registration sold out
​so plan to register early for 2026!
A strong separation of church and state is the shield that protects everyone's right to live as themselves and believe as they choose —  ensuring freedom without favor and equality without exception.

Protecting our Democracy, Equality & Rights from Attack


​Religious freedom, church-state separation and the equality they protect are under assault. Fueled by dark money, Christian Nationalists and other extremists — along with their lawmaker and judicial allies — are waging a coordinated crusade to force all of us to live by their narrow, religious beliefs. That is why the attack on church-state separation is also an attack on you and the other issues you hold dear — why it risks our very democracy. It is bigger than any one organization and so we must collaborate in order to preserve these rights, defend our issues and defeat this threat. This is why we are inviting you to join us at the Summit for Religious Freedom (SRF)
One of our democracy’s most sacred rights is religious freedom — the right to believe as you choose (religious or not) and to act on those beliefs so long as they don't harm others.
That right is guaranteed by the separation of church and state, a bedrock of our Constitution. In a nation with countless sincerely held beliefs, that separation ensures that everyone is treated equally under the law. It ensures respect for our right to make individual choices, while also protecting each of us from living under laws that favor some faiths over others, or religion over non-religion.

SRF tackles some of the most important issues of our time

SRF's program will address everything that church-state separation and inclusive religious freedom affects, and connect the dots on the wide array of issues impacted including:
​​Fighting Christian Nationalism & Other Extremists
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How Religious Freedom & Church-State Separation affects:
  • Abortion, Reproductive Rights & Justice
  • LGBTQ+ Rights
  • Racial Equality & Justice
  • Fighting Censorship
  • Faith Communities (esp. Religious Minorities)
  • the Non-Religious​

Ending Discrimination in the Name of Religion
  • Denial of Healthcare
  • Discrimination by Businesses
  • Discrimination by Employers
  • Discrimination in Social Services

​Opposing Religious Exemptions
  • Public Health
Strengthening Democracy
  • Court Reform
  • Voting Rights & Election Reform

Combating Government-Supported Religion
  • Taxpayer Funding of Religion
  • Houses of Worship, Elections & the IRS (including Johnson Amendment)
  • Religious Displays & Official Prayer

Protecting Public Schools
  • Private School Vouchers
  • School-Sponsored Prayer
  • Teaching Religion in Public Schools
  • Book bans, Censorship & Propaganda
  • Abuse of Parental Rights

Who Organizes SRF?

​Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) was founded more than 75 years ago by religious leaders and is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit educational and advocacy organization that brings together people of all religions and none to protect the right of everyone to believe as they choose — and stop anyone from using their beliefs to harm others. We fight in the courts, legislatures, and the public square for freedom without favor and equality without exception.

The foundational principle of separation of church and state safeguards our right to live as ourselves and believe as we choose. AU envisions a nation where our government does not promote any religion or spiritual belief, our laws do not allow anyone to use their religious beliefs to harm others, and where we come together as equals to build a stronger democracy.

SRF 2024 Recap

Something for Everyone

SRF is convened by Americans United for Separation of Church and State in collaboration with our partners and uniquely designed around "the 3 C's":

Collaborative

Organizations are invited to join as Partners to contribute to the program to receive benefits for themselves and their members.

Concurrent

Participants attend the annual Summit in person or virtually to promote radical inclusivity for all.

Continuous

The annual Summit is boosted year round by SRF365, a series of virtual webinars that respond to current events and continue community networking.
SRF is designed for organizational professionals as well as everyday member activists and grassroots supporters of the cause. We're a home for policy wizards, legal maestros, academic geniuses, kick-ass organizers and volunteer masterminds, as well as brilliant political, community, religious and non-religious leaders. It is a place for teaching and learning, organizing and advocacy, thought leadership and lessons learned, and bringing our community together for the fight of our lives.

See you in April.