On Friendship

There’s an oft-invoked medieval proverb: “Blood is thicker than water.” We take it to mean that bonds of the family are stronger than any other — that, simply, family comes first. But some have argued that the “blood” in the phrase is not one of family, but one of covenant, of choosing. This places heightened importance on friendship and fellowship, and on the family of our own making. But what is the state of friendship amidst evolving technology that both connects us and isolates us? Amidst a pandemic and a new normal that has further stratified various circles of intimacy? How has friendship evolved over time and generations, and how can we tend to and nurture the ties that bind us?

Interfaith Lecture Theme

Holy Friendship: Source of Strength and Challenge

What role does friendship play in spiritual life? A holy friendship, grounded in spiritual connection, goes beyond affinity to challenge and encourage two souls in a lasting way. This week’s lecturers will reflect on the place of friendship in faith formation and practice, and we will hear from them about their holy friendships. This allows the opportunity for us to ask: Who influences and shapes our lives through covenant and chosen relationship?

Games: A Celebration of Our Most Human Pastimes

Games, in all their forms, share one common trait: Philosopher Bernard Suits once said that “playing a game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.” For thousands of years, gameplay has been a part of human history, evolving alongside us as a species. Now, in the 21st century, we recognize that games can be more than games. They can aid education, generate revenue streams, or serve as welcome distractions. They can be a source of world-building and bonding, a space of contained competition and practice with real-world applications. From sports to puzzles, brain teasers to board games, this week we explore our capacity for self-created delight and how we rise to the surmountable challenges of our own making.

Interfaith Lecture Theme

A Spirit of Play

We do not always think of religious life as the wellspring of playfulness. And yet, winning, losing, competition, and the joy of playing with others create a distinctive dimension of being human. There is a spiritual nature to many of the games we play, which are metaphors for life. Many of our religious traditions embrace or even revere the spiritual lessons of the trickster – one who plays games and causes trouble or mischief to explore life’s complexity. This week takes us into the spiritual, bonding, teaching, and socializing nature of play – and makes us smile.

Can the Center Hold? — A Question for Our Moment

We can think of “the center” as the middle in political and economic terms: furthest from the edges of society and a place of status quo, moderation and balance. We also use center in reference to a physical space where a community comes together — to worship, to heal, to support one another. And “center” can mean the center of one’s being, the place one seeks in quiet moments of reflection. The center is many things, but is it foundational to a functioning society, or a construct that too often holds us back from progress and change? Does losing the center give way to extremism? In this week we consider who and what defines the center of society and why — or if — the center should be preserved.

Interfaith Lecture Theme

Health and Faith: Considering the Center of Wellbeing in partnership with Interfaith America

How can we navigate the intersection of faith and health to claim a “center of wellbeing” for all people? Addressing topics including mental health, spiritual caregiving, health equity, and integrative medicine, this week’s speakers will explore the positive potential that our diverse religious identities and communities offer as we seek human thriving. Taken together, the week’s series will cast a vision for robust interfaith engagement throughout the health ecosystem.

The State of Believing

When we talk about the concept of “belief,” what do we mean? Some of our most deeply held beliefs aren’t just religious ones — they’re philosophical, political, intellectual, emotional. They can take the forms of faith and trust (or lack thereof) in institutions, or in each other. What we believe in private does shape our public identity, but long-held conventions have dictated that we leave our faith at the door of our public lives. How is this changing? What can science, religion, public opinion and politics teach us about the nature of what we believe, and why we believe it? In this week, we confront some of the hardest questions about ourselves, each other, and the world we must live in together.

Interfaith Lecture Theme

Religious Faith and Everything Else We Believe In

What leads an individual to have a religious or spiritual faith? Can it be taught; how is it caught? How is faith lost? This week’s Interfaith Lecture Series will consider research about how faith is acquired and understood, addressing different dimensions of belief across diverse traditions. Why do people believe what they believe, about God, creation, and one another? How does this develop and change across a lifetime? Join us as we consider the distinctive religious dimension of belief.

Infrastructure: Building and Maintaining the Physical, Social and Civic Underpinnings of Society

Somewhere along the way, infrastructure became boring — the awe and joy with which a child greets the weekly garbage truck and hours spent on felt playmats of city streets give way to the “unsexy” business of routine maintenance and iterative improvements, of taxes and policy. Yet nothing remains more critical to our public lives than the evolution and safety of these systems. A year and a half after the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, we offer a report card on progress toward shoring up, reinvigorating and reinventing the systems and structures that undergird American society, and perhaps rekindle our fascination in the built world around us. We’ll discuss the usual — the planes, trains and automobiles of our youthful fascinations, as well as roads, bridges, utilities and the like — but also ask whether our definition of “infrastructure” needs to be expanded. And what does the infrastructure of the future look like, and which places are leading the way (and how?)?

Interfaith Lecture Theme

Religious and Ethical Infrastructure

Infrastructure is more than bricks and mortar; it includes those organizations, networks, and social foundations that nurture a healthy and vital society. Religious actors and institution have contributed a great deal to the social and ethical infrastructure of our society, but the past 50 years have seen a significant shift in that relationship. Why have religious organizations stopped building social infrastructure? Have our religious institutions failed in this arena? In this week, we explore whether social, religious and civic institutions are able to regenerate in a way that meets the needs of our contemporary world. What remains in place to support ethical decision making, and our civic and cultural institutions, in the absence of a robust religious sector?

A Life of Literature

Of all art forms, literature enjoys a special sort of permanence and authority, creating canons for generation after generation to study and enjoy — and to interpret, adapt, and make their own. With new technologies, new genres, innovations in form and practice and, above all, evolving sensibilities and tastes, we look at how and why literature can take on new meaning for new readers. Who, and what, gives literature that meaning? In our history, how has literature provided a lens for our past and envisioned our future, or even shaped our future? Steeped in Chautauqua’s 150-year literary tradition, this week we explore the life of literature and how the literature of tomorrow is being shaped today.

Interfaith Lecture Theme

Literature and Meaning—Making

Literature nurtures human flourishing, as we make meaning in our contemporary world, both in the reading and interpretation of classical texts and in the development of modern literature. In this week we ask five thinkers to share their journeys through life based on the literary treasures that have both shaped and guided them. Can literature expand our moral imagination and nurture our spiritual vitality? What books have accompanied you through your life? Come prepared to share your own literary journeys.

The National Parks: How America’s ‘Best Idea’ is Meeting 21st-Century Challenges

In 1872, two years before the founding of Chautauqua, President Ulysses S. Grant signed into a law a bill creating America’s first-ever national park. Now, 150 years after the creation of Yellowstone National Park, more than 400 sites around the country that honor not just the land, but the stories of America’s myriad peoples, have been added to that illustrious roster. How has what novelist and environmentalist Wallace Stegner once described as America’s “best idea” adapted and grown? What can the parks offer in our present moment, and how did COVID-19 drive America back to the land? From addressing conservation issues to stewarding our cultural and natural histories, how are national parks — and, in turn, we as citizens — modeling how to meet the challenges of our times? Most importantly, how can the national parks rise to the call to make public lands truly accessible to all Americans?

Interfaith Lecture Theme

Nature as Sacred Space

Many experience our wild spaces, including the national parks, as sacred spaces, cathedrals of creation, and sources of divine inspiration. How and why we preserve, approach, and appreciate our natural spaces says everything about what we value. In this week we will broaden our vision to look at the ways that the myriad traditions of religious faith have built identities in and around holy spaces in nature – come with us as we explore together the significance of holy land and sacred space across traditions.

Freedom of Expression, Imagination, and the Resilience of Democracy

Experiments in democratic society are enduring challenge and criticism the world over; yet democracy persists. Despite glaring imperfections that manifest as social unrest, community distress, and political crisis, the democratic ideal remains a beacon of hope and an example of resilience. This week explores the hallmark of democracy — freedom of expression — to better understand and appreciate its role in preserving and advancing democracy. We will also explore imagination as one of the most powerful tools of expression. Interdisciplinary and intergenerational experiences in the arts, religion, education and recreation — Chautauqua’s signature method — will guide us in this weeklong celebration of diverse perspectives and aspirations for what may well be democracy’s most closely held values and privileges.

*Oct. 19 Update: The original theme for Week Eight, “Exploring the Transformative Power of Music with Renée Fleming,” has been postponed to 2024 (precise dates to be announced in June).

Interfaith Lecture Theme

Freedom of Religious Expression

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States begins with religious liberty; the freedom to practice one’s faith is essential to democratic practice and imagination. Likewise, the pluralism and social good that arise with religious freedom are dependent upon an environment of openness and inclusion – no one tradition being established or favored over any other. This week’s lecturers will address the state of religious liberty today, and the value of religious expression to the thriving of democratic society.

The Global South: Expanding the Scope of Geopolitical Understanding

A new geopolitical shorthand has emerged in recent years: The Global North and the Global South have replaced old constructs of East and West, third-world and first-world. And it is this Global South that we shift our attention to this week. In the Global South, African countries are seeing booms not just in population, but in science and economics. Latin American countries are pursuing more independent foreign policies. Traditional spheres of influence are shrinking, while others are developing in dynamic ways. At the same time, the South stands to be the first area impacted by food shortages and climate change — driving shifts of population, culture and politics across the rest of the globe. In this week, we examine how interconnected global interests truly are, and present a renewed focus on this often-overlooked geopolitical collective. What has it meant and does it mean going forward to have mis-regarded these entire parts of the world for so long — and it is too late to meaningfully shift this paradigm? And while we wrestle with these critical issues and questions, all through the week we will celebrate in a festival atmosphere the culture and history of the Global South through unique food and artistic offerings.

Interfaith Lecture Theme

Realizing Our One World: Strengthening Interconnection

Interconnection is the hallmark of religious and spiritual thinking. While the world is more connected technologically, it has simultaneously grown more disconnected in thought and actions in many ways. What does the future hold for those of us in both the Global North and the Global South as we reckon with shifting dynamics of power, migration, and economic interdependence? How can we redirect the dichotomies between these global geographical worlds to help to create a “one world” spirit and reality? Strategic religious and spiritual leaders will focus the conversation.