LILY RESLINK
Staff Writer
As the former Australian prime minister and current CEO of Asia Society, The Honorable Dr. Kevin Rudd AC will deliver a lecture at 2 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy.
Director of Religion Robert Wilson-Black said Rudd will talk about faith, politics, statecraft and Asia. He also noted Rudd’s perspective on China and U.S.-China relations.
Rudd served as Australia’s 26th prime minister from 2007 to 2010 and from June to September 2013, holding office as the leader of the Labor Party. Rudd served as Australia’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2023 until he stepped into his current position.
In a fireside chat from the Asia Society between Rudd and Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer, Rudd said, “[Asia Society] is a great institution, gone from strength to strength over the last 70 years, and the mission statement for those 70 years, which we encapsulate today, is navigating shared futures when so many folks around the world want to divide on a continuing basis.”
Rudd said in the conversation that Asia Society is in the business of navigating a way forward amid this division.
As of 2026, Rudd is Global President and CEO of Asia Society, a nonprofit that educates the world on Asia with 16 centers internationally. Rudd is also founding president of the Asia Society Policy Institute.
On Feb. 13, 2008, at the Australian Parliament House, Rudd offered a formal apology on behalf of the nation to Australia’s Indigenous peoples. He particularly focused on the Stolen Generations, the indigenous children who were forcibly removed from their families and fostered or adopted by non-Indigenous families or raised in institutions, according to the Parliament of Australia collections.
Wilson-Black noted this event in explaining the selection of Rudd for the Interfaith Lecture Series.
“He gave the apology, but he also put billions of dollars behind it,” Wilson-Black said.
Rudd presented the 361-word apology as a motion to be voted on by the House. It included the line, “And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.”
The apology also said, “We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians,” he said in the apology. Later, he read, “A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.”
Wilson-Black said, “I met [Rudd] when we both attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.” He added that he was impressed with him there, and he is glad to host him at Chautauqua.
Wilson-Black said Rudd is a practicing Christian and therefore speaks as a person of faith.
According to a 2013 news analysis from ABC Australia, Rudd worked in China as a lay preacher in the 80s, staged press conferences outside his church and studied Greek to improve his understanding of the Book of Luke. Rudd has frequently spoken on matters of faith within the context of political leadership.
In a televised debate from September 2013 on the ABC Australian program, then-Prime Minister Rudd responded to a question from the audience: “Jesus said a man should leave his father and mother and be married… Kevin, if you call yourself a Christian, why don’t you believe the words of Jesus in the Bible?” Rudd responded by saying, “Well, mate, if I was going to have that view, the Bible also says that slavery is a natural condition.”
According to ABC Australia, “the younger, theologically ardent Kevin Rudd” wrote in his monthly essay about the treatment of asylum seekers through the lens of Christianity.
Rudd voiced his perspective on “the Government’s proposal to excise the Australian mainland from the entire Australian immigration zone and to rely almost exclusively on the so-called Pacific Solution,” saying it “should be the cause of great ethical concern to all the Christian churches.”
In this essay, Rudd wrote, “The biblical injunction to care for the stranger in our midst is clear.”
