THE VISION

  • We’re not aiming for surface-level unity or fake peace. We’re after something much harder—and more real: fierce honesty, mutual respect, and rivaltrust™ that holds strong even when convictions clash.

  • FRD envisions a world where people don’t hide their convictions, but bring them to the table—unapologetically. Where they challenge each other’s deepest values not to win, but to learn, sharpen, and build something rare: rivaltrust™—mutual trust between people who might never agree, but still treat each other with respect and moral seriousness.

THE PROBLEM:

It’s not just polarization. It’s the fear, disgust, and moral smugness that have taken over.

THE RESPONSE:

What if we stopped trying to "win" every argument—and started showing up as trustworthy rivals instead?

WHAT’S REALLY GOING WRONG:

  • When people can’t debate their deepest values without being shamed or shunned, they stop trusting—not just each other, but the whole system.

  • Let’s be honest: most of us believe our way of life is better than the alternatives. That’s not arrogance—it’s conviction. The problem comes when we act like anyone who disagrees must be stupid, dangerous, or beyond redemption.

  • We get so frustrated when others don’t see the light that we write them off entirely. And that contempt? It’s rotting the foundation of our society.

  • This isn’t just about culture wars or political or religious divides. It’s about whether we can hold strong beliefs and still hold space for those who challenge them.

  • When we give up on our rivals—when we label them as stupid, brainwashed, or immoral—trust erodes. Resentment grows. And eventually, our social fabric starts to unravel.

  • If we want to hold this thing together, we need to learn how to live in peaceful tension with people who believe we’re dead wrong—without turning them into enemies.

FRD’s APPROACH

FRD has developed an effective way to face, not evade, our deepest unreconcilable differences together with integrity and good will.

FRD’s trust-building conversation protocol allows for mutually persuasive contestation between critics, opponents or rivals that desire to live together in peaceful co-resistance.

Respecting the values alignment problem, universal consensus yields tyranny, individual relativism yields anarchy, but respectful contestation yields peaceful co-resistance.

OUR STORY

For more information about our past initiatives, events, films, publications, and software development, see FRD’s activities and events in our history document.

  • THE START

    In the year 2000, after a decade at the University of Chicago exploring historical forms of religious conflict, Charles Randall Paul, the founder and president of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy (FRD), concluded that we are mistaken to presume that our common humanity and mutual understanding are sufficient to sustain peacefulness in and between societies with conflicting uncompromising worldviews and value priorities. We needed better ways to peacefully sustain vigorous contestation over ideals by means of respectful mutual persuasion instead of coercion and violence.

  • ENGAGING, NOT AVOIDING CONFLICT

    Our simultaneous desires for co-resistance and collaboration yield at best a fruitful peaceful tension. Overturning the notion that compatibility yields trust and loyal commitment, social scientists have observed the practical fact that successful long-term marriages, partnerships, and societies sustain multitudes of unresolvable conflicts within them — not by avoiding conflict — but by engaging it respectfully from time to time in honorable contests of mutual persuasion between trustworthy opponents who are also admiring friends.

  • TRUSTWORTHY OPPONENTS

    Such is the backstory of FRD, a non-profit group of social entrepreneurs seeking pattern-breaking social change that will improve our lives by recognizing many value conflicts are unresolvable by any means. FRD aims to change the common manner of thinking and treating our inevitable religious critics and rivals. We emphasize how invigorating it is to have and to be a trustworthy opponent.

  • HONORABLE ENGAGEMENT

    We are promoting a new telos or purpose that is not tranquil world peace. It is a telos of honorable engagement between trustworthy rivals that expect conflicts over ultimate purpose, truth, and value always to remain in play, and thus aim optimally for continual peaceful contests. This process of continual contestation rarely alters religious convictions, but it converts feelings of suspicion and contempt to trust and respect—and that is the medicine that makes a rival an important part our lives.

  • GIVING PEACE A FIGHTING CHANCE

    In summary, FRD promotes intra and interreligious wrestling without suspicion or contempt. Trusting love that lasts always includes resistance and embrace. We discover our true religion or highest values when we display our attitudes and actions toward our critics and rivals. FRD facilitates this experience in a practical way that gives peacefulness a fighting chance.

Meet the Leadership Team & Senior Fellows