What an outstanding season 2026 was for the Department of Religion, with moments of inspiration, enlightenment and even difficult conversations. The most common question I received during my first season as director of religion was, “How strong is the Religion pillar at Chautauqua these days?” My answer was often, “That all depends on your angle of vision and ultimately it depends on each of us.” It can be as strong as you experience it yourself, given there are enough opportunities for strengthening your faith and religious traditions that you could ever take advantage of in one season. Or it can be as weak as the difference between your own expectations for religion here and its reality in our world, given difficult changes in our national attention to religion (e.g., distrust in institutional religion, mainline Protestant attendance decline, politicization of religious belief, etc.). 

We take great joy in ensuring the strength of denominational houses, diverse programming and beautiful sacred music and worship each day. Statistically speaking, we have experienced an increase in the number of individuals attending interfaith lectures, many of our worship services and various religious practices across the broad array of our programming, as well as increasing satisfaction with programs. When I look at the daily calendar, it’s often filled 30% or more with some form of the Religion pillar, while denominational and affinity houses continue to provide excellence in housing and programs, as well as high satisfaction among those who participate. 

Our discussions about faith with actor Rainn Wilson, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, singer Amy Grant, journalist Elizabeth Dias, scholar Susannah Heschel, activist Bill McKibben, columnist E.J. Dionne, historian Randall Balmer and the Obama Foundation’s Michael Strautmanis (among 40 others!) were enlivening thanks to your many great questions. And who can forget Bishop Mariann Budde and theologian Diana Butler Bass walking us through their own very public disagreements and personal reconciliation, live and for the first time in public, or Father Greg Boyle bringing us to new understandings of life’s deep struggles and hope in his daily sermons? 

The Chautauquan Daily, via writer Lily Reslink, provided a helpful summary of my experience of the season here, but I’m more interested in your own experiences. So please drop me a line to let me know what you thought, and thanks to each of you who have already shared with me your interests, concerns and hopes for religion at Chautauqua. Whether religion at the Institution is for you more of a pillar, a foundation, a roof, a wall or some combination of these metaphors, we will continue to provide renewal, delight, care and energy around religion each season. 

For those who find religion to be irrelevant or problematic in their world, Chautauqua provides no mandatory religious practices but presents a more open faith stance and welcomes exploration whenever desired. We don’t water down all faiths to a “least common denominator” religion. Rather, we celebrate the highly specific ways in which various faiths reach for the divine or deep humanity of each of us. While my own childhood religion might have been skeptical of Buddhist meditation, Islam 101, Labyrinth walks, various Shabbat services and roving hymn-sings on banjos, here at Chautauqua you can taste and see for yourself. We invite all to the conversation about religion, whether or not institutional and formal religious practices interest you. 

Because religion can touch us in ways sometimes too deep to speak of, faith here at Chautauqua must be allowed to breathe, sometimes in silence and at other times through sacred music, singing hymns along with the outstanding Motet Choir and beautiful Massey Memorial Organ. What makes us distinctive is that we are simultaneously committed to variety, excellence, scholarly examination and faithful practice all within a community of renewal-seeking vacationers who like to dialogue and strengthen democracy. That is hard to find today throughout our world in such a concentrated format full of the arts and literature, and so we take great care and pride in it. 

What’s in store for 2027, you may wonder? We will bring you more of the top religion scholars, practitioners and writers, to be sure, as well as our nation’s finest preachers and rabbis who have already been announced, with more to come in the months ahead. Senior Pastor Eugene Sutton, Interim Sacred Music Director Sonya Subbayya Sutton, Administrator Carolyn Snider and I have greatly enjoyed your participation and feedback throughout the 2026 Season, and we look forward to continuing the deep conversations we had each week, whether at Chautauqua Dialogues, along the Brick Walk or at the Miller Edison Cottage porch. As I write, on the very last day of summer 2026, I am reminded of the compilation of our Interfaith Lecture Series speakers’ hopes for bringing more peace to our world, here. Professor Najeeba Syeed left us with this encouragement: “Embrace ‘awkward spaces’ as opportunities to learn from others without fear.”