Reverend Nathan C. Walker is executive director of the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute. As a religious liberty educator, he specializes in issues of religion in public life as it relates to civil and human rights.
Walker is the co-editor with Edwin J. Greenlee of Whose God Rules? Is the United States a Secular Nation or a Theolegal Democracy? (Palgrave Macmillan 2011) with foreword by Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Walker is currently co-editing with Michael D. Waggoner The Oxford Handbook on Religion and American Education, with the foreword by Martin E. Marty.
Walker partnered with Lyal S. Sunga in publishing a policy report for the International Development Law Organization titled, Promoting and Protecting the Universal Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief through Law: Current Dilemmas and Lessons Learned, which was presented at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.
Walker studied legal restrictions on religious expression while serving as a Resident Fellow at Harvard Divinity School. He is currently an advanced doctoral candidate in Law, Education, and Religion at Columbia University, where he received his Masters of Arts and Masters of Education degrees. In his dissertation, Unveiling Freedom: Bans on Religious Garb, Walker asks whether public school teachers should leave their religious clothing at the schoolhouse gate. This research was featured in the essay, A Legal Approach to Questions about Religious Diversity, published by Oxford University Press.
Walker received his Master of Divinity degree in religion and education from Union Theological Seminary, New York, NY. For fifteen years, Walker served urban congregations in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, the last seven as the Senior Minister and Executive Director of the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia.