Lily Reslink
Staff Writer
Diana Butler Bass, award-winning author, speaker and preacher, will mark the first lecture of the 2026 Interfaith Lecture Series with a topic she said was inspired directly by the title of Week One’s theme: “Women of Spirit.”
At 2 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy, Bass will deliver a lecture discussing how women’s voices have continuously resisted erasure. “It’s going to be about the unexpected ways in which even … when people try to excise women from history, it never ultimately works,” Bass said.
Bass said her lecture will draw from the 1979 essay compendium Women of Spirit that introduced her to unfamiliar historical figures and new ways to tell the story of Christianity through contributions and experiences of women. She said learning the theme’s title from Director of Religion Robert Wilson-Black resurfaced her memories of reading it in seminary and being “dazzled” by the insights of the second-wave Christian feminists who wrote it.
Bass said the topic opens up parallels between historical patterns and present observations.
“I’m going to talk about how even at a time in contemporary history — at this social and political moment — women’s rights and voices are being curbed.” She recognized the worry surrounding continued authority and power of women in our culture, but said tremendous losses are not without tremendous gains.
“I want to explore the fact that even when women have been silenced in the past, their voices always seem to return,” Bass said.
Wilson-Black, who selects all ILS speakers, called Bass a “great historian and commentator of our time.” He said every time he hears Bass speak, she presents an angle he’s never thought of.
Bass said speaking live to an engaged crowd adds exciting new elements to discussing spiritual thought.
“I love Chautauqua audiences because they always give me a chance to try out new ideas and be creative with material that I might not have already written down,” Bass said. “As a writer, that’s a real gift: to be able to be with an audience that is open to something that hasn’t already been published and who wants to hear what you’re thinking right now.”
This summer, Bass returns to the Institution, having previously delivered lectures in the ILS in 2016, 2018 and 2021.
“I grew up mostly in mainline Protestantism, and so Chautauqua was a place of dreams for speakers and teachers and poets and writers, and the first time I came, that was pretty intimidating.” Bass said that anxiety has since transformed to comfort. “Now I feel more like I’m returning to a community.”
Regardless of place, tone and medium, Bass said she believes in always using her own voice.
“To me, writing and teaching and preaching is never putting on a voice that isn’t really yours; it’s finding your most authentic voice in whatever platform you’re called to stand in.”
Bass has published 12 books and writes a high-ranking Substack series that reflects on contemporary religion and spirituality; it is currently ranked the fourth highest-read publication on the platform in the Faith & Spirituality category. The publication, titled “The Cottage,” is named after the small cabin built as a creative retreat in her backyard. Her latest book A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance will be available for signing at Chautauqua.
She will return to ILS at 2 p.m. Tuesday in the Hall of Philosophy for her first-ever joint conversation in public with the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, with a focus on their shared contemporary societal concerns relating to the vitality of the church.
