Senior Pastor the Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton serves Communion to Director of Religion Robert Wilson-Black during an ecumenical Communion service Aug. 14 in the Hall of Philosophy.
LILY RESLINK
Staff Writer
Director of Religion Robert Wilson-Black could measure his first Summer Season in statistics: 35 speakers booked for the Interfaith Lecture Series and 9 booked for morning worship services, 22 visits to denominational houses, roughly 12 shabbat services, eight Chautauqua Dialogues lunches, eight LGBTQ+ and Friends meet and greet socials each Sunday evening at the Athenaeum Hotel, an untrackable number of porch hangouts, too many departmental programs to count and one first annual “champagne and hymns,” held on the porch of his home until October, the Lewis Miller Cottage. But who’s counting?
Wilson-Black reflected on the equal parts “variety and repetition” that he said kept him joyfully busy throughout his first season for an average of 15 hours a day.
He credited the experience to amazing colleagues, a great board, an outstanding executive team and the people he meets each day — whose names he said he types in his note app for weekly reflection on those with whom he spent time. This method, he said, was intended to give him an opportunity to pause and respect the people whose paths cross his, but it has simultaneously given him what he called “the coolest list of all time.”
He said he often uses evenings for administrative work, such as planning the next season, so he can spend his days among Chautauquans on the grounds. Although the days can be demanding, he said the “overwhelmingly positive outpouring of kindness” he and his team experience “makes it easier to work long, rich days across the nine weeks.”
Boiled down, he said his routine is, “I wake up in the morning and I go to everything I can.”
After a season in the role, Wilson-Black joked about how reality strayed from his initial expectations of his participation in Chautauqua’s pillar of Recreation. He named the golf course, the beach and the gym as three things he thought would play a much bigger part in his summer.
He also said he expected to get off Institution grounds more often. Instead, he said he left two times: “One was because E.J. Dionne invited me out to dinner, and the other was to get my glasses fixed.”
What makes his time management possible, he said, is not having a typical office job structure and having adult children who are more self-sufficient.
He said recreation primarily consists of lectures, programs and exercise in the form of “walking everywhere at the fastest
pace possible.”
His approach to the day is as follows: “I start by sleeping well, eating well, walking constantly and responding to emails, texts and phone calls almost instantaneously so they never pile up.”
Wilson-Black said part of his acclimation to his role in Chautauqua, “the ‘porchiest’ place in America,” is accepting every porch invite.
In addition to integrating into what already exists, Wilson-Black is responsible for deciding many of the guests who come to the Institution to speak to Chautauquans. Wilson-Black said booking the interfaith lecturers was a challenge of sifting through contacts he has made throughout his career to find professionals who align with each of the season’s nine themes.
Disty Lengel, Hall of Missions host, said around the Hall of Missions breakfast table each week, it is common for the speakers’ conversations to illuminate very few degrees of separation between them. While Wilson-Black prioritizes bringing quality speakers, Lengel’s job concerns whether they are equally quality people.
During Wilson-Black’s inaugural year, Lengel said, “He’s brought great people.”
Wilson-Black said the scheduling of next season’s speakers is already well underway: “For 2027, we have already secured nine chaplains (and) 20% of our ILS speakers, and it promises to be another
outstanding season.”
He expressed excitement for Week Three, themed “Trust,” because the Department of Religion will welcome back the first ILS speaker of the 2026 Summer Season, Diana Butler Bass, as the week’s chaplain and invite friends of Bass to join as ILS speakers.
“Chautauqua is the most distinctive place I have served because it’s a combination of my past experiences,” he explained.
Altogether, he said, Chautauqua is like “a university, a think-tank, a resort, a wellness center, a religious congregation and family reunion all while serving as a national treasure capable of shifting dialogue toward hope and solutions for improving our neighborhoods and country when we return home.”
Earlier this summer, Wilson-Black was asked to deliver a talk for the Hebrew Congregation of Chautauqua’s Shirley Lazarus Speaker Series. This, he said, served an important purpose “because it demanded of me to prepare my thoughts about Chautauqua and religion.”
The talk, titled “Why Religion, Why Chautauqua, Why Now?”, set the tone with a brief introduction of his religious journey.
Born Baptist and “practically raised” by his neighborhood Methodist Church, Wilson-Black said he fell for a Jewish girl in high school and went to Israel, converted to Disciples of Christ in college and discovered their close connection to the United Church of Christ. He married a Presbyterian minister at a wedding with a “leading Catholic thinker” as his best man, received mentorship from Black church leaders and a Lutheran Ph.D. adviser and became vice president at the Unitarian Universalist seminary. He also raised his children in Quaker schools, visited a Unity and Christian Science church, learned how to improve his Muslim call to prayer on the Athenaeum porch in 2012, practiced meditation in India on the Ganges river and now has adult children who chose the Episcopal Church — which he noted as the same denomination as Senior Pastor
Eugene Sutton.
Calling himself a “religious mutt,” Wilson-Black said he sees his life as preparation for being the director of Religion at Chautauqua, which he previously called a “utopia
in training.”
“At Chautauqua, you receive immediate and nearly simultaneous feedback, which makes it easier to maneuver and correct mid-season and also to celebrate small victories along the way,” he said. In this season, Wilson-Black said he has learned lessons that he will take with him into the next.
“Words and precision matter, grace and patience matter, kindness and openness matter (and) celebration and joy matter,” he said.
Wilson-Black said strengthening the pillar of Religion at Chautauqua “requires balance between the study of religion, practice of religion, integration of religion across the Institution’s other three pillars and expansion of the freedom of all here to practice or not as they please within the confines of respect
and integrity.”
His ongoing priorities at Chautauqua center on maintaining excellent programming, caring for the various communities within the greater Chautauqua community and seeking “innovative approaches” to increased attendance and funding for
the department.
Wilson-Black shared a note of the “team effort” that he said made the season possible: “Senior Pastor Eugene Sutton, Sonya Sutton, Carolyn Snider, Alicen Roberts, Owen Reyda, Mary Lee Talbot, Lily Reslink, Disty and Tom as Hall of Missions hosts, amazing denominational house leaders, the Motet Choir, Mystic Heart, Senior Associates Sam Stahl, George Wirth, Maureen Rovegno and new associate Rachel Stuart and too many others to name.”
