Melissa Rogers

Melissa Rogers currently serves as visiting professor of religion and public policy at Wake Forest University Divinity School. She is the founder and director of Wake Forest’s Center for Religion and Public Affairs.

Rogers previously served as the executive director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in Washington, D.C. During her time at the helm of the Pew Forum, Rogers directed a variety of projects, including the production of a guide to the Internal Revenue Code restrictions on the political activity of 501(c)(3) organizations, entitled, Politics and the Pulpit; a survey report with the Pew Research Center For The People & The Press on the faith-based initiative; and a joint statement by leading constitutional scholars regarding the significance of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the 2002 Cleveland school voucher case.

Previous to her leadership at the Pew Forum, Rogers served as general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty based in Washington, D.C. While at the Baptist Joint Committee, she helped lead a diverse coalition of religious and civil liberties organizations urging greater legal protection for free exercise rights. This coalition was instrumental in bringing about the enactment of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 ("RLUIPA"), 42 U.S.C. 2000cc et seq.

Rogers has been recognized by National Journal as one of the church-state experts "politicians will call on when they get serious about addressing an important public policy issue." She has written widely about the relationship between religion and public affairs. She is currently co-authoring a case book on religion and law for Baylor University Press, and she has testified before the Judiciary Committee to the U.S. Senate on religion’s role in the public square.

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