Interfaith Lectures
2 p.m. EDT Monday–Friday, Hall of Philosophy
The Interfaith Lecture Series is designed to present issues that impact the lived experience of everyday life from theological, religious, spiritual, ethical, and humanitarian perspectives.
Week One • June 21–28, 2025
Potluck Nation: Why We Need Each Other to Thrive
In partnership with Interfaith America
Pluralism is a great strength, and a unique hallmark of our life in the United States and our practices here at Chautauqua. What can we learn about thriving, well-being, and community from deep engagement across religious differences, including people of faith engaging with those of no faith at all? How can we nurture the value of pluralism in our society and in our daily lives? In a country that continues to be polarized along social, economic, ethnic, racial, and religious lines, how can we come together to ensure a life of dignity for all? This week, in partnership with Interfaith America, we will hear from academics, faith leaders and activists who will share how and why we are all better if we can learn to live and work together.
Week Two • June 28–July 5, 2025
Sin and Redemption: Practices and Possibilities for Reconciliation
In a world of cancel culture, where one perceived wrong act or utterance can lead to loss of employment or reputation, is there something we might learn from the religious concept of sin? How do we understand sin today? What do we make of sin on a personal and a corporate level? How can sinful behavior, or a sinful nature, be redeemed? This week we will dive deep on historical, theological and practical approaches to sin and redemption, and shine a light on the hope we can have for a future — reconciled to one another and to all that is holy.
Week Three • July 5–12, 2025
Contemplation: Meditation, Prayer and Silence
Noise inundates us wherever we turn. Commercials on TV and in between YouTube videos. Advertisements on Facebook and Instagram. Blasting music in restaurants and grocery stores. How do we cultivate silence in our lives given how loud our worlds are? What can we learn from the different wisdom traditions on contemplation and meditation? What do we do when we pray? How can we grow in our practices of meditation, prayer, or contemplation, and what is the role of silence in this growth? This week, we will hear from a range of perspectives from artists to scientists on why the contemplative life matters.
Week Four • July 12–19, 2025
Who Believes What, and Why That Matters – in association with Pew Research Center
Understanding social science research about religion enables people of faith, religious leaders, and the general public to have a more complete picture of continuity, change and diversity in religious life. Even as more people in many countries, including the United States, distance themselves from organized religion by embracing other forms of spirituality or identifying with no religion in particular, religion continues to be very important in the daily lives of billions of people around the world. In the U.S., who is still a believer and how do they engage with society and politics? Across the globe, how are different faith groups affected by broader societal changes? This week we will benefit from the nuanced research of the Pew Research Center’s religion team, while hearing from academics, practitioners and interpreters of data about what it all means.
Week Five • July 19–26, 2025
The Spirit of Capitalism: Prosperity and the Enduring Legacy of the Protestant Work Ethic
In the early twentieth century, German sociologist Max Weber wrote The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Its main argument is that the Protestant work ethic, associated with frugality, hard work and thrift, undergirded the rise of modern capitalism. How have modern-day evangelists reinterpreted this concept to create global churches that operate as for-profit corporations? How has this work ethic impacted minority religious traditions in the U.S. and across the globe? And how have different groups attempted to transcend this legacy? We will hear from economists, historians and theologians this week as they assess just how much the Protestant work ethic has unknowingly impacted us all in some way.
Week Six • July 26–August 2, 2025
Religion’s Role in Conflict and Extremism
Religion is often regarded as a major contributor to violence, from individual acts within the home to wars and conflicts abroad. What role does religion play in promoting conflict and extremism? How has religion been used to justify the demonization and even targeted killing of “the other?” On the other hand, religion is, in the United States, a category for protection from discrimination. Most faiths direct believers toward love, forgiveness and peace, away from the nurture and establishment of hate. This week, we will hear from a diverse set of perspectives to make sense of the way that religion contributes to and defends against hate in our society.
Week Seven • August 2–9, 2025
Whose Body, Whose Choice? Religion, Sexual Politics, and the Law
With the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, this week we will explore the many ways in which the thorny issues of gender and sex within religious communities intersect with the legal system. Who sets the agenda? How does it impact other communities, be they religious or not? And why is positive law an important mechanism for religious actors? This week, we will hear from legal experts, journalists, and activists on who gets to decide what choices we make when it comes to bodily autonomy.
Week Eight • August 9–16, 2025
Compassionate, Merciful: Describing the Nature of God
All but one chapter of the Qur’an opens with the phrase that describes the nature of God as the Most Compassionate and the Most Merciful. The Talmud refers to God as “The Merciful One,” and the Christian scriptures share the notion that “God is love.” But is that all that God is? How do we make sense of other descriptions of God, including instances of God’s jealousy, wrath, or judgment? At the same time, God is also ineffable, incapable of fully being understood or described in human language. Why does it matter how we describe God? And can the description of God allow us to better understand human nature? This week, we will hear from scholars and practitioners from different faith and spiritual traditions on how they describe the nature of God and what that means for our understanding of the world and perhaps even ourselves.
Week Nine • August 16–24, 2025
Past Informs Present: Traditioned Innovation in Spiritual Life
We are in a time of transformative change. Will traditional orthodox understandings see a revival as the promise of secularism faces the death knell? With disaffiliation increasing, how will institutions respond to the trend toward individualization and hybrid identities, such as Jewish-Buddhist? Who will nurture the vitality of our legacy, and how will we move into an uncharted future? Will people continue to organize themselves religiously, or have we begun a transition into privatization and commercialization of the spiritual life? This week we will consider the history, contemporary landscape, and the future-orientation of diverse expressions of religion and spirituality in the 21st century.