Fifty years ago, John Pulleyn first found Zen Buddhism through a simple shelf mushroom. While hiking with friends in Vermont, Pulleyn spotted the fungi growing off the side of a tree and remarked how disgusting
As a young boy growing up in New Jersey, Frederick Gedicks believed he was a religious minority. Gedicks was raised a Mormon in a community with few Mormons — a childhood experience that sparked his
As director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, and as an adjunct law professor at the George Washington University Law School, Daniel Mach has spent much of his time studying religious
In the contested Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a Colorado baker argued that his right to religious freedom permitted him to refuse baking a wedding cake for a same-sex marriage.
When he was just 12 years old, Austrian violinist Fritz Kreisler won the coveted Premier Grand Prix de Rome gold medal. This award, an honor for any serious musician, was an early indicator of Kreisler’s
Douglas Laycock first began studying religious liberty as an academic during the Reagan Era, a time when religious freedom was a divisive and prominent issue. “I wandered into it as a young academic just as the
Organist Jared Jacobsen and the Chautauqua choir perform on Sunday, August 6, in the Amp. Scared Song service was themed "The Family of Abraham Prays in the Face of Fear and Anxiety". OLIVIA SUN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
For 18 years, Rabbi Asher Lopatin served as senior rabbi of Anshe Sholom Congregation, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Chicago. This position, he said, gave him the opportunity to deeply connect with Jewish tradition by
Rabbi Daniel Cohen came to understand the fragile nature of life when he lost his mother to a brain aneurysm when she was just 44 years old. This experience, though devastating, moved him to dedicate
As a young boy raised in a church parsonage, the Rev. John Scherer still remembers watching his grandfather, the pastor, tend to the spiritual needs of his congregation. “I remember seeing people come in upset
Organist and Coordinator of Worship and Sacred Music Jared Jacobsen directs the Chautauqua Choir during Sacred Song Service in the Amphitheater on Sunday July 1, 2018. HALDAN KIRSCH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER As a lifelong Bernstein fan, Jared
Although technology has increased productivity and sped up communication, author Maggie Jackson believes this advancement has replaced the desire to engage. “At the time we live in when we’re all so hurried, we expect instant
Joan Chittister, OSB, a Benedictine Sister of Erie, Pennsylvania, has spent the past 40 years advocating for worldwide peace and women’s rights. As co-chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women and former president of
Since March 2017, the United Kingdom has taken steps toward withdrawing from the European Union, a movement known as Brexit. Proponents of the change believed it would reinvent the economy and spark job growth, among
In 2015, American musician Ken Medema visited Chautauqua for the first time. Medema, who has been blind since birth, was guided through the grounds by Jared Jacobsen, the Institution’s organist and coordinator of worship and
In 1987, the Gin Blossoms first came together in Tempe, Arizona, to produce jangle pop music, a style of rock that rose to prominence in the 1980s. By 1989, the band was invited to perform