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Interfaith Lecture Preview

‘Holy Envy’ author Barbara Brown Taylor to speak on spirituality

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Chautauqua Institution Director of Religion Maureen Rovegno described the community’s chance to welcome back the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor simply: as a gift.

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At 2 p.m. EDT Monday, Aug. 10, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform, the Interfaith Lecture Series will once again host Taylor for a presentation titled “Remember That You Are Stardust, and to Stardust You Shall Return.”

“Barbara has become beloved by the Chautauqua community over the many years that she has blessed us with her wisdom and inspiring spiritual voice,” Rovegno said. “Here at Chautauqua, Barbara is a spiritual treasure for us in every way, and we value her friendship as precious.”

Rovgeno’s description has some teeth. Taylor — an Episcopal priest, religions professor, and New York Times bestselling author — has been a staple in the Interfaith Lecture Series for years and has served as Chautauqua’s chaplain of the week five times. In 2016, the Institution awarded Taylor the President’s Medal — the highest recognition for what Rovegno describes as “exceptional service and inspiration to our community.” 

Taylor is a self-described “spiritual contrarian,” who boasts about saying “things you’re not supposed to say.” In her writing and upcoming lecture, Taylor said she will acknowledge and welcome the exploration of many religions. 

“My goal is to explore how a single religion may be too small all by itself to nourish spirituality that truly includes all of us — not just humans but all created beings — but in combination with other meaningful narratives, including the scientific creation narrative, we have a chance of glimpsing how deeply and truly related we really are,” Taylor said. 

Taylor is familiar with keeping an open mind in religion. In March 2019, Taylor released her latest book Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others. The book began as a “classroom memoir” about her time instructing a world religions course at Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia. As she wrote, the book began to explore how teaching challenged her own faith. 

Although keeping her own religion in mind while writing, Taylor believes the work can be enjoyed by someone of any religion, or no religion. Taylor explored this sentiment on her website. 

“I hope it is a book that readers of any or no religious identity can enjoy, but I had Christians in mind when I wrote it — because holy envy is a difficult concept for people who have been taught there is only one way to God,” Taylor wrote. “Writing with that teaching — and others like it — is what this book is about.”

Since 1993, Taylor has written 14 books, garnering two New York Times bestselling titles and the Georgia Writers Association 2006 award for Author of the Year. Taylor was named one of TIME’s Most Influential People in 2014, and Georgia Woman of the Year in 2015. 

Taylor has taught at Piedmont College, Columbia Theological Seminary, Candler School of Theology at Emory University, McAfee School of Theology at Emory University, and the Certificate in Theological Studies program at Arrendale State Prison for Women in Alto, Georgia. She holds a bachelor’s in religion from Emory University, a Master’s of Divinity from Yale, and nine honorary doctor of divinity degrees. 

This program is made possible by the Nilsen Family Fund for Religious Programming.

With more deaths come more religious reporting responsibilities, says Columbia University’s Ari L. Goldman in upcoming interfaith lecture

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Reporters on any beat are going to write about death in a COVID-19 world, Columbia Journalism School’s Ari Goldman said, and he teaches his students how to do just that. Goldman said in a Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma webinar that understanding how to handle the subject matter of dying, and religious practices tied to it, is more important than ever.

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“Today, everyone is an obituary writer,” Goldman told his students. “Whether you cover fashion or business or the arts, you’re going to have to write an obituary.”

Goldman’s lecture, “From Church Stories to Obituaries, Journalists Need Religious Literacy,” will air at 2 p.m. EDT Thursday, Aug. 6, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform as part of the Week Six Interfaith Lecture Series theme, “Lessons in the School House.” Audience members can submit questions through the www.questions.chq.org portal or on Twitter with #CHQ2020.

After 20 years of bylines in The New York Times, where he covered religious topics and obituaries along with New York City news beats, Goldman is the director of Religion, Journalism, and the Spiritual Life for Columbia University’s Scripps Howard Program. But he still writes for major news outlets including The New York Times, Salon, The New York Jewish Week, and the Forward.

He most recently wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post calling for everyone, self-described writers and non-writers alike, to keep a journal. He keeps a pen and a blue notebook by his bed.

“Sometimes, it is just ‘I took a shower’ or ‘S and I played Scrabble’ or ‘Tuna, again,’” Goldman wrote. “Other times, I note the markers of this strange journey. ‘Stopped walking in Riverside Park’ or ‘Trump says we’ll be out by Easter’ or ‘started wearing a mask outside’ or ‘played duets with J’ or ‘Fauci says November’ or simply ‘prayed.’”

Before COVID-19, he led study abroad trips where Columbia students have covered religion in India, Russia, Ukraine, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, the West Bank and most recently Israel in spring 2019. But last semester, his students covered religious responses to COVID-19 across Christianity, Sikhism, Islam, Judaism, Native American faith practices, and Vodou.

In the Dart seminar, which took place in April, Goldman said there is a distinction between obituaries and news stories steeped in COVID-19 deaths. Obituaries, while still requiring reporting, handle details with a layer of sensitivity.

“Obituaries are not about death,” he said in the seminar. “You’re writing about life. One little fact in it is that this person passed away. If it’s about death, then this is a news story.”

This program is made possible by the Elizabeth Elser Doolittle Endowment Fund for Adult Programming.

Linda K. Wertheimer to point to signs of hope in U.S. religious education

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In 2016, instances of racial and religious bigotry were on the rise across the United States.

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Fast-forward to 2020, and though our country is still polarized by hate, Linda K. Wertheimer said, she believes there are reasons for hope.

“There’s so much more discussion now about the need to deal with racism in the U.S.,” said Wertheimer, a veteran journalist, essayist and award-winning education writer. “But it’s important to remember that we’re still a country that has a lot of problems with racism, and that we’re also a country that has a lot of issues of religious bigotry — whether that’s prejudice against Jews, Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs.”

On the other hand, Wertheimer insists that we still “don’t have to lose hope.”

“We can fight religious bigotry through the power of education,” she said. “We have a chance in making a dent in it if we can teach the next generation not only about world religions and the basics of religious literacy, but also about stereotypes.”

Wertheimer mixes investigative reporting and personal experience in Faith Ed: Teaching about Religion in an Age of Intolerance, a book that takes a hard look at how U.S. public schools teach religion in class.

At 2 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Aug. 5, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform, Wertheimer will deliver a lecture titled “From Fear to Hope: Childhood Experiences with Anti-Semitism/How to Teach Respect,” as part of Week Six’s Interfaith Lecture Series theme, “Lessons in the School House.”

As part of her research for Faith Ed, Wertheimer, who is Jewish, decided to return to the K-12 school system she attended decades ago.

“I still clearly remember kids calling me slurs, and dealing with a lot of anti-Semitism throughout my childhood,” she said. “At the same time, when I went back, the same people weren’t going to be sitting in the school. And I was also going as a journalist, and it was a little strange to be reporting on my own history.”

One of Wertheimer’s old classmates had become a history teacher at the middle school, and in talking to them, she learned the class recently took a trip to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“I was blown away — that kind of thing didn’t happen at all when I was there,” she said. “We learned about the Holocaust in a few paragraphs in my textbook. It ended up overall being a good experience, because what I found was that everyone was much more worldly than when I was there, because of the Internet.”

Though she didn’t see evidence of any blatant bigotry while she was there, Wertheimer said that she did observe potential causes for concern during her trip back to the school system.

One such concern was the school’s Bible club, which Wertheimer said hadn’t existed when she went to school there.

“They were skirting that line between church and state, because the principal was reading scripture to that club,” she said. “He didn’t see a problem with that.”

This program is made possible by the Elizabeth Elser Doolittle Endowment Fund for Adult Programming.

Benjamin Marcus to speak on religious literacy education in public schools for Interfaith Lecture series

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The United States of America is often described as the great melting pot, home to many ethnicities, cultures and religions, the practices of which are a protected freedom within the U.S. Constitution.

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Though the coexistence of many different religions is a foundation of American society, religious prejudices and stereotypes often cause conflict, which many scholars attribute to a simple lack of understanding. 

Benjamin Marcus, a former Presidential Scholar at the Harvard Divinity School and a graduate of the University of Cambridge and Brown University is a firm believer in comprehensive religious literacy education. 

Marcus will present his lecture “Religious Literacy in Public Schools: Embracing Complexity and Tension” at 2 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Aug. 4, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform. The lecture is in keeping with the Interfaith Lecture Series Week Six theme “Lessons in the School House.”

In the last few years, the religious landscape of the United States has become increasingly complex,” Marcus said. “Unfortunately, that complexity has been accompanied by destructive tension between people of various religions and none, evidenced by an increase in religion-related hate crimes and an increase in active hate groups that target religious minorities.”

Religious literacy is the knowledge of and ability to understand religion, including religions with which one may be unfamiliar. 

A specialist with the Religious Freedom Center of the Freedom Forum Group, Marcus has helped to develop religious literacy programs for public schools, universities, businesses, U.S. government organizations and private foundations.

“In the last few years, the religious landscape of the United States has become increasingly complex,” Marcus said. “Unfortunately, that complexity has been accompanied by destructive tension between people of various religions and none, evidenced by an increase in religion-related hate crimes and an increase in active hate groups that target religious minorities.”

Marcus believes that increased religious literacy education in schools will create a better understanding of all religions and have a positive effect on the interactions between people of varying faiths. 

“The complexity of the landscape can lead to productive tension,” Marcus said. “By educating people about religion in academic and Constitutional ways in American public schools, such as nurturing religious literacy, we can equip young people with the knowledge, skills and civic dispositions to navigate complexity in productive ways.” 

Director of Religion Maureen Rovegno is looking forward to Marcus’ lecture, voicing her support for increased religious literacy education in public schools. 

“Religious literacy is a social and civic good that seeks a deeper understanding of religion’s role in private and public life to improve personal conduct, ethical leadership, and professional effectiveness,” Rovegno said. “Benjamin brings very special insights to our conversation this week, and we could not be more grateful.”

This program is made possible by the Elizabeth Elser Doolittle Endowment Fund for Adult Programming.

Judy Beals will kick off week 6 of the Interfaith Lecture Series with a discussion on religious literacy and education

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The enhancement of public understanding of religion and the roles it can play in society has long been a goal of the Harvard Divinity School.

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In an effort to further this mission, the Harvard Divinity School’s Religious Literacy Project was created, and Judy Beals appointed the associate director. 

An experienced human and civil rights attorney, former legislative aid in the United States Senate, a former state Assistant Attorney General and a nonprofit CEO, Beals has a wealth of experience and knowledge regarding both education and religion. She will share her thoughts in her lecture “Teaching Religion Through New Eyes” at 2 p.m. EDT Monday, Aug. 3, kicking off Week Six of the Interfaith Lecture Series on “Lessons in the School House.” Chautauquans can tune into the lecture via the CHQ Assembly Video Platform.

“I am very pleased that Judy Beals is keynoting our interfaith lecture conversation on the theme ‘Lessons in the School House,’ in our week focused on education,” said Director of Religion Maureen Rovegno. “As associate director of Harvard Divinity School’s Religious Literacy Project, which was created to continue its legacy of enhancing public understanding of religion in its worldwide expressions through education, Judy works to bring a more complex understanding of the roles all religions play in both history and contemporary affairs.”

Prior to her involvement with the RLP, Beals worked for over a decade with the Oxfam Organization, a non-profit group dedicated to ending the injustice of poverty. Serving first as Oxfam America’s campaign director, Beals transitioned to the private sector team, which involved collaboration with large corporations to further the Oxfam mission. 

In 2017, Beals took a sabbatical year to serve as a resident fellow at the Harvard Divinity School, where she audited Harvard courses while also working to create an approach for advancing religious literacy in secular organizations, particularly those that focus on international development such as Oxfam. 

It was during her fellowship at HDS that Beals was drawn to the idea of enhancing the public understanding of religion. She partnered with HDS’s Diane Moore to create the RLP, which seeks to intertwine the study and understanding of religion with the process of education, both in adolescence and adulthood. 

“The goal is to help to create an educated society of active participants in building a more just and peaceful world through understanding and appreciation of the multiplicity of the world’s religions, and the roles that they play in world affairs,” Rovegno said. 

Beals will discuss the goals of the RLP during her lecture, joining the themes of religious literacy with enhancement of education. 

This program is made possible by the H. Parker and Emma O. Sharp Lectureship Fund.

Michael Martin to stress importance of gratitude in Haudenosaunee traditions, creation during fifth Interfaith Friday presentation

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From the minute he wakes up, to the second he falls asleep, Michael Martin exists in a state of inexhaustible gratitude.

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“We have a lot to be thankful for,” Martin said in his 2013 TED Talk. “When we ground ourselves in that perspective, we can do amazing things. When you take the time to give those unexpected ‘Thank yous,’ that’s how you get remembered.”

Martin, an Onondaga of the Haudenosaunee people, or “people of the longhouse,” is practicing his native “Ganohę:nyoh,” or “Thanksgiving address.” The name “Haudenosaunee” refers to a confederation or alliance among six Native American nations more commonly known as the Iroquois Confederacy.

The word “Chautauqua” is an Iroquois word, one of the “last of the spoken language,” according to Maureen Rovegno, director of the Department of Religion. Rovegno said the connection proves Martin’s viewpoint is “extremely important to both the Chautauqua region,” and the Interfaith Friday series as a whole. 

“As we realize more and more the debt we owe to our Native people, we want to know more and more about what they value, because what they value, we want to value,” Rovegno said.

Martin, executive director of the Native American Community Services of Erie and Niagara Counties, will speak on Haudenosaunee traditions at 2 p.m. EDT Friday, July 31, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform for Week Five’s Interfaith Friday. 

They became the United States of America by learning that concept: We’re stronger together than we are separately,” Martin said. “(It’s) a very simple idea of being in a perspective of giving thanks. There’s an interconnectedness amongst us that we often don’t recognize.”

The main focus of the 2020 Interfaith Friday series, Rovegno said, is “uncovering stories of creation.” Most people, she said, already know the Christian creation narrative found within Genesis, so it was a “priority” to learn a Native American story, among others this season.

“We wanted to know what the Native people’s creation story is because creation stories tell us what we think life is all about, our purpose in life and it tells us something about our relationship to all of the created world — especially our relationship to nature,” Rovegno said. 

Martin, during his TED Talk, said his creation story is rooted in the teachings of a concept known as “seven generations.” 

“We’re taught that every action we take we have to be mindful seven generations up,” Martin said in the TED Talk. “Every action and decision we make has to ensure their well being. Just as we look back seven generations, we give thanks for those that came before us.”

Traditional leaders, such as the Haudenosaunee’s founder, the Peacemaker, won’t call this ideology a religion; they talk about it as a way of life, a way of thinking and a “perspective that’s supposed to guide us each and every day,” Martin said.

“It allows us to be in this perspective of gratitude, which humbles us and grounds us and puts us in that good frame of mind,” he said during his TED Talk.  

According to Martin, when the Peacemaker gave the Haudenosaunee people that “simple teaching,” it showed them “we’re stronger together when bonded with good minds than we could be separately,” an idea Martin said played a role in the founding of the United States. 

“They became the United States of America by learning that concept: We’re stronger together than we are separately,” he said. “(It’s) a very simple idea of being in a perspective of giving thanks. There’s an interconnectedness amongst us that we often don’t recognize.”

The bottom line: It is better to have expressed an excess of appreciation than to live with the regret of a “thanks” unsaid. 

“In everyday life, we don’t always take those opportunities to let people know their lives here on Earth have purpose and meaning,” Martin said in his TED Talk. “If nothing else to ourselves, for what they’ve given us.”

This program is made possible by The Ralph W. Loew Religious Lectureship Fund.

Author and activist Valarie Kaur to expand on ‘revolutionary love ethic’ in interfaith lecture

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Valarie Kaur has been here before.

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“Here” isn’t a place, it’s a feeling; the internal struggle of working to sustain both anger and love through years framed by Donald Trump’s presidency, a pandemic and racial violence. But Kaur has been advocating for marginalized people through tumultuous times since the George W. Bush administration, and Gene Robinson, Chautauqua Institution’s Vice President of Religion, said “she has a lot of the good fight left.”

“With recent dark times, especially since Trump came into office, she poses a question about the current darkness: Is this darkness in our country the darkness of the tomb or the darkness of the womb?” Robinson said. “Meaning, is something dying or is something being born from it? I know that gets her through.”

Kaur, civil rights activist, filmmaker, lawyer and founder of the Revolutionary Love Project, will deliver “See No Stranger: The Spiritual and Political Force of Revolutionary Love” at 2 p.m. EDT Thursday, July 30, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform as a part of the Week Five Interfaith Lecture Series theme, “The Feminine Spirit.”

The Revolutionary Love Project is a production of stories, tools, curricula, conferences, films and mass mobilizations that “equip and inspire people to practice the ethic of love.” The current focus of the project is geared toward reversing racism, nationalism, and hate against Muslim, Arab, South Asian American and Sikh communities.

“I was part of this generation of Sikh advocates who had this frame that if the nation only knew who we were, then it would be enough, then it would stop this tide of hate,” Kaur told the Observer. “But knowing is not enough. We have to be agents of revolutionary love.”

Robinson met Kaur through the Auburn Seminary Senior Fellows program, aimed to connect faith leaders who are committed to “catalyzing and advancing multifaith movements.” Robinson said she was a leader in the effort to allow Sikh citizens to participate in the military while still wearing “emblems of their religion,” such as turbans.

I’ve learned that there’s no such thing as monsters in this world,” she told the Observer. “Loving our opponents is not just a moral call — it’s pragmatic, it is strategic, it is how we learn to fight in ways that don’t just resist bad actors or remove bad actors from power, but actually change the systems, institutions, and cultures in which they operate.”

“She brings so much energy and spirit to everything she advocates for,” he said. “I think people think of the feminine spirit as something soft and gentle and kind and sweet, but she has a way of describing a love ethic that is tough, hard-hitting and powerful.”

Kaur’s 2020 memoir, See No Stranger, is an account of her efforts to learn and live that “revolutionary love ethic.” Her understanding of that ethic began with her family’s American story, specifically that of her paternal grandfather, Kehar Singh. Singh came to the United States in 1913, only to be immediately imprisoned due to the country’s immigration policies. A white immigration attorney, Henry Marshall, helped with Singh’s release and Kaur credits Marshall’s kindness as the reason for her being. 

“I’ve learned that there’s no such thing as monsters in this world,” she told the Observer. “Loving our opponents is not just a moral call — it’s pragmatic, it is strategic, it is how we learn to fight in ways that don’t just resist bad actors or remove bad actors from power, but actually change the systems, institutions, and cultures in which they operate.”

Part of loving oneself is allowing a feeling of anger when others harm you. The opposite of love is not anger, but indifference, Kaur told the Observer.

“Especially as a woman of color, I was always taught to be ashamed of my rage, to suppress it down inside of me,” Kaur told the Observer. “It took me a long journey, as you read, to understand that my rage carried information, that it showed me that my body and my life were worth protecting, that I had something worth fighting for.” 

Kaur told the Observer she has found hope through the activists who clogged airports to protest Trump’s 2017 Muslim ban, to those who particpated in the 2016 and 2020 Black Lives Matter marches across the globe. With every metaphor of rage and war, she said she returns to metaphors of labor and birth, of new beginnings and a belief that something better is always on the horizon. 

“How do we show up to the fire and still breathe and push and breathe and push?” Kaur told the Observer. “It’s true love.”

This program is made possible by the Waasdorp Fund for Religious Initiatives.

Former Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz to talk rediscovering Judaism in adulthood for Interfaith Lecture Series

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In the introduction to her book, Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality and a Deeper Connection to Life – In Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There), former White House speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz describes her decision to reexamine Judaism at 36, after largely abandoning the faith since her bat mitzvah.

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“I know I disappoint people when I give them honest answers to their questions about what prompted me to start learning about Judaism as an adult,” she wrote. “I know they’re expecting some kind of major life crisis, or the culmination of a long spiritual journey. But the truth is much less exciting: At the age of thirty-six, I broke up with a guy I had been dating, found myself with a lot of time on my hands that had previously been spent with him, and happened to hear about an Instruction to Judaism class at the Washington D.C., Jewish Community Center.”

What began as a way to pass the time and learn about her heritage became a life-changing experience as Hurwitz learned that Judaism was so much more than the lessons she had begrudgingly learned in Hebrew School.

“What I found in that class just blew me away,” Hurwitz said. “It turns out that Judaism had profound wisdom to offer about how to be a good person, how to live a meaningful life, and how to find deep spiritual connection.”

Hurwitz worked at the White House from 2009 to 2017, first as a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama and then as the head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama. She will be speaking at 2 p.m. EDT Wednesday, July 29, on CHQ Assembly.

Her talk, “God, Politics and Lessons from a Jewish Journey in the White House and Beyond” is part of Week Five’s Interfaith Lecture Series, “The Feminine Spirit.”

After her powerful re-introduction to Judaism, Hurwitz began to learn everything she could about the religion.

“I was so moved by the radical, countercultural approach of this ancient tradition — and amazed by how urgently relevant it felt,” she said. “So I took more classes, read hundreds of books, studied with rabbis, and decided to write an account of what I had found.”

In Here All Along, which came out last year, Hurwitz doesn’t claim religious or academic expertise. Instead, she set out to communicate her faith using the skills of a political speechwriter.

“(I approach Judaism) as a speechwriter trying to find its beating heart for myself and others — the places where we can live and feel Judaism’s wisdom in our lives, the parts of Judaism that feel like its deepest, most important truths,” she wrote. “I’m essentially trying to write the book I wish I’d had five years ago, when I first started learning about Judaism as an adult.”

Exploring her faith while working at the White House was an encouraging experience.

“The Obama White House embraced diversity in every form,” Hurwitz said. “My colleagues were incredibly supportive and very proud of me for engaging more deeply with Judaism.”

She recalls explaining to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough that she was planning to attend a silent Jewish meditation retreat over the holidays.

“I wondered if he would think that was a little weird,” Hurwitz said. “But he was thrilled. ‘Good for you!’ he said. ‘I’m so proud of you for doing that!’”

She hopes her talk can give Chautauquans of all faiths something to think about, particularly in terms of their understanding of the word “God.”

“I think Judaism has a great deal of ethical and spiritual wisdom that’s relevant for people of all faith backgrounds and none at all,” she said. “Jewish tradition has a wonderfully humble and non-dogmatic approach to the Divine; we realize that we’re talking about something far beyond what our tiny human minds can neatly define, so there’s tremendous diversity in Jewish conceptions of God.”

Hurtwitz’s faith has been a source of moral clarity for her in the last three and a half years, and she has continued to let it guide her through the uncertainty and conflict of the past few months.

“While Jewish law is complex and nuanced, it is unambiguous in its abhorrence of cruelty, corruption, malicious lying, and abuse of the vulnerable,” she said.

This program is made possible by the Jack and Elizabeth Gellman and Zaretsky Family Fund.

Mirabai Starr To Discuss Feminine-Centric Wisdom Across Spiritual Traditions and The Masculine and Feminine Qualities In All Genders

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Teenagers were more independent in some ways in the ‘70s, Mirabai Starr said, and this allowed her to move by herself to the Lama Foundation in New Mexico when she was 14. Founded in 1968, the spiritual community, educational facility, and retreat center is a place where all religions and spiritual traditions meet.

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“They call it a meeting of the ways, and there’s not one religion, one guru, one teacher or a tradition,” Starr said. “All are welcome and deeply entered into through practices and study.”

She cannot remember a time when she wasn’t drawn to spirituality.

“Since I was a small child, I was drawn to the mystery,” she said. “And I think that increased as I got older, in proportion to some significant life experiences, mostly in the arena of death.”

Starr said her brother died when she was 7, and her first boyfriend died when she was 14.

“I would say those two events really tilled the soil of my soul’s yearning for something beyond what could be seen and touched directly,” Starr said.

Named on the 2020 Watkins List of the “100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People of the World,” Starr is the author of Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce & Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystic and a certified bereavement counselor, helping mourners harness the transformational power of loss. She will talk at 2 p.m. EDT Tuesday, July 28, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform as the second part of the Interfaith Lecture Series Week Five Theme: “The Feminine Spirit.” Starr will discuss feminine-centric wisdom across multiple religions and teachings.

Starr said she has been a writer since she could pick up a pen, and she wrote her first poem, which was about autumn in New York, at the age of 8. Starr’s parents were supportive of her art and would read it to their friends.

“From an early age the message I got from my parents was, ‘You have an ability to say a lot with a few words,’” Starr said. “And I understood that that was some kind of gift that I could and should develop. I feel like I have both through my poetry and my prose writing.”

She wanted to be a fiction writer because that is what she loved to read. Starr’s first published work, however, was a creative nonfiction essay in the Sun Magazine in 1999. The Sun, she said, was “the perfect intersection for me because those are all my interests, literary, political and spiritual.”

Around her fourth book, Starr began to receive too many speaking and teaching invitations to be able to teach her classes at the University of New Mexico-Taos. She made little money at the university, so she decided to pursue the speaking engagements instead, transitioning from teaching at a public university to traveling and teaching mostly privileged people.

“A lot of the white women that I work with are desperately wanting to wake up, be relevant, be of service and dismantle their unconscious white privilege,” Starr said. “It was just a big shift from actually being with people who are struggling to lift themselves in their lives and educate themselves.”

Before the pandemic, Starr traveled once a week for engagements. 

“I felt like I was on this train that was hurtling through the universe at warp speed and I couldn’t get off, and I knew I wanted to and needed to but I didn’t know how,” Starr said. “The pandemic just brought me to a screeching halt. And sure enough, it was like the tree of my soul was watered by being still, being home.”

For around the past seven years, Starr has been dedicated to dismantling white privilege, which she said is prevalent in spiritual spaces in which she teaches, such as the yoga community and the American Buddhist community. Starr said helping these people understand their own unconscious part in systemic racism requires her to continuously look at herself.

“Just because I’m doing the same anti-racist work doesn’t mean that I do not also perpetuate the various structures that have oppressed people of color, especially Black people, but, yes, people of color,” Starr said. “I always begin by using myself as an example of a work in progress that’s continuously needing to do that rigorous self inquiry.”

Since the murder of George Floyd on May 25, she said more white people, including those in the spiritual community, have been talking about racism.

“I have felt really lonely in that work for a long time. I’ve made myself very vulnerable in communities of color, as I step up and constantly mess up and am corrected very publicly. I get to practice not having a fragile, white response to the feedback I get from people of color,” Starr said. “It would be so much easier not to do that work and stay in my comfortable, little, white, spiritual bubble, but I can’t and I won’t.”

In her lecture, Starr will be discussing feminine wisdom across many religions and spiritual traditions. She said much of the teachings of these traditions are written by and for men, and she aims to “reclaim a more feminine-centric way of understanding, and practicing these great, spiritual treasures.”

“When I say masculine and feminine, I’m speaking of the masculine and the feminine in people of all genders,” Starr said. “I’m not just bifurcating the sexes, you know, ‘Women are embodied and relational and men are disembodied and individualistic.’ It’s looking at those qualities in all of us.”

This program is made possible by the Rachel Alice Miller Memorial Fund.

Joan Chittister To Discuss Global Equality, What Equality Would Look Like And Why It Has Not Been Achieved Yet

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Joan Chittister, Benedictine Sister of Erie, Pennsylvania, said communication is the base of everything that humans do.

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“We don’t know one another, but by the time this conversation ends, we’ll know one another relatively well,” Chittister said. “And what’s more, we will have seeded one another’s brain with new ideas, with quick questions that will affect our own lives.”

Half of the human population are women, and Chittister said there has been a lack of women’s voices in society, which is “emblazoned in the mistakes that those societies have made.”

“We are working with half the human mind. The male mind. That’s the half we function on. It’s the mind through which we see life, say life, and create life,” Chittister said. “But as a result of that, we are ignoring half the resources of the human race, and the experiences that they bring to culture…to your family life, to the economy, to government.”

As well as being a Benedictine Sister, Chittister is an international lecturer and award-winning author of 60 books. She will talk at 2 p.m. EDT Monday, July 27, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform to launch the Week Five Interfaith Lecture Series theme, “The Feminine Spirit.” 

When Chittister was a freshman in high school, she became an editor of her school newspaper.

“I discovered, knew and loved the fact that I was writing. And I knew that internally, essentially, I was a writer — that was the only thing I wanted to do in life,” Chittister said. “When I entered the community … frankly, it had occurred to me that nuns don’t write books. I thought I was giving that up because somehow or other, this was a better thing for me to do than writing.”

Chittister said her role in the church was to communicate with 23 Benedictine communities of women across the country. She wrote a lot during this time to communicate with these various groups, and eventually people outside the order asked her to write articles, give speeches and participate in national seminars.

“I woke up one morning and discovered that everything I was doing, and every way I knew to address any of the issues going on, was to treat them as universal questions that were absolutely an essential part of how institutions would move in the future,” Chittister said.

Chittister said that face masks are a great metaphor for the role of individuals in society, and how “the way we breathe on other people affects their life, their children, their fertility, their future.” With the pandemic, she said a person’s effects on others can be seen in loss of revenue for businesses, such as restaurants opening with 25% of their normal occupancy.

“They know what they’re facing. Hospitals know what they’re facing. It’s time we grow up. The time is now,” Chittister said. “We’re at this crossover point where we have to build on values, not on the past.”

Chittister has been a part of the Global Peace Initiative for Women for around 30 years and has worked to bring women “out of the woodwork, to talk about their lives … especially women who found themselves in countries in conflict.” She said the needs of people in other countries are essential because the United States’ economy has not been fully independent since World War II.

“If (any other country’s) economy falls, trust me that our economy will suffer too,” Chittister said.

For her Chautauquan Lecture “A Woman’s Life: A Good Event/Bad Event World,” she will discuss topics such as equality and its impacts on the global community.

“I really am asking myself, ‘What would equality really look like? And then, ‘Why don’t we have what’s missing?’” Chittister said.

This program is made possible by the Presbyterian Association of Chautauqua Religious Lectureship Fund.

Lisa Sharon Harper, founder of Freedom Road, to dispute evangelical narratives, Shalom in Interfaith Friday

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Lisa Sharon Harper’s work didn’t shift during the Black Lives Matter movement — she said this is a moment she was made for.

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Harper

“The kind of work I do helped to create this moment,” Harper said. “What the movement did is it called out the truth in the face of a spiritual lie. We’ve been waiting for this.”

Harper, founder and president of Freedom Road, will speak on evangelicalism at 2 p.m. EDT Friday, July 24, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform for Week Four’s Interfaith Friday. 

The way that we imagine how we should live together in the world is deeply impacted by our faith and how we understand it,” she said. “The two go hand-in-hand, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.”

Since the 2016 presidential election, Harper said the nation has been in a state of devastating division. What people are learning from it, she said, is that “faith matters.” Faith shapes one’s worldview, which in turn, shapes their politics. 

“The way that we imagine how we should live together in the world is deeply impacted by our faith and how we understand it,” she said. “The two go hand-in-hand, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.”

Harper’s worldview is shaped by her evangelical understanding of the Gospel, a view she will expand on in her Interfaith Friday presentation. Her journey to finding her faith was a long one. It would challenge her relationships, her past, her sense of belonging; but the challenges would bring her to an “life-altering realization” — the “good news of the Gospel” was handed down to her by white people who bore no actual relationship to the scripture they were sharing. 

Finally, she said, she found her place in the narrative. 

“The text I so deeply believe in actually comes from a social location that is closer to my own than anyone who taught me about it — much closer to that of George Floyd than that of Calvin or Luther,” Harper said. 

Harper’s strengthened relationship with religion following her realization changed her life “permanently and for the better,” but several experiences have since disputed the “white evangelical narrative” — particularly in her understanding of Shalom, which she considers to be God’s vision of the world he created. 

“Shalom is exploring how God envisions we should be relating to one another,” she said. “It’s how we should be relating to the rest of the creation — the Earth, other animals. It’s how God envisions we should relate to money and how God envisions we should relate to God.” 

Shalom, to Harper, is grounded in the book of Genesis, her “founding narrative.” Harper believes Genesis was written by oppressed, enslaved people, and if that’s the context, she doubts the book’s sole purpose was to prove how long it took to make the world. In her eyes, the story is about power, not creation. 

“They are writing about how power should be yielded in this world, how we should be relating with each other, about ethics and about the core of Shalom,” Harper said. “That reoriented everything for me, which will be a key part of my talk.”  

To share her worldview worldwide, Harper founded Freedom Road, a consulting group, in 2017. Through training, coaching, forums and pilgrimages, Harper said Freedom Road’s mission is to “build a more just world.”

“We help people who are doing justice to do it more justly,” she said. “The major way we do that is by emphasizing the power of story and narrative. We really do believe narrative shapes everything. My story is only one example of that.”

Having to reevaluate and shift a worldview is “literally pain-filled,” Harper said, but creating change in the “right direction” is worth the discomfort it carries. 

“There is so much pain in the world because of our divisions, so if the work I have done to understand Shalom helps the church become Shalom-seekers, well, that’s a life well spent,” Harper said.  

This program is made possible by “The Lincoln Ethics Series,” funded by the David and Joan Lincoln Family Fund for Applied Ethics and the Thomas and Shirley Musgrave Woolaway Fund.

Noreen Herzfeld to examine the ‘morality of technology’ in Interfaith lecture

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As a theologian, Noreen Herzfeld knows that in the first century, people could see themselves in the image of God. But as a computer scientist, she has come to learn people in the 21st century see themselves in the image of another deity — the computer — a reality she has come to terms with through a growing list of sizable questions.

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Herzfeld

“These are big questions, and we have no easy answers, because we are dealing with things that are quite new,” Herzfeld said.  

Herzfeld, the Nicholas and Bernice Reuter Professor of Science and Religion at St. John’s University and the College of Saint Benedict, will deliver her lecture “Tool, Partner, or Surrogate: How Autonomous Should Our Technology Be?” at 2 p.m. EDT Thursday, July 23, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform with a lecture on the Week Four Interfaith Lecture Series theme, “Ethics in a Technologically Transforming World?”

It seemed to me that computers are at their most useful for us when they do things we can’t do: crank out the numbers,” Herzfeld said. “Why are we trying to replicate our own brains instead of working on something that compliments them?”

Herzfeld initially came to St. John’s University to teach her passion, computer science, but said she quickly became interested in investigating why people are trying to create “human-like artificial intelligence.”

“It seemed to me that computers are at their most useful for us when they do things we can’t do: crank out the numbers,” she said. “Why are we trying to replicate our own brains instead of working on something that compliments them?”

She didn’t have the background to “attack that question” as a computer scientist, she said, because it investigated human motivations rather than the technology itself. So, she began to study theology. 

“I thought, ‘Where have I seen this idea of one being created in the image of another?’” she said. “That’s in Genesis.”

In her lecture, Herzfeld plans to explore the history of technology within the realm of theology, diving into what it means to be a moral agent and if computers can ever accomplish that “level of morality.”

“At what point does technology outstrip morality?” she said. “Is there a problem with the fact that we make technological advancements very quickly and yet we are evolving very slowly? Will it eventually get away from us?” 

Some of the vast technological advancements are positive, according to Herzfeld. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, she said technology is “leading the way.” 

“Scientists, right now, are throwing everything they’ve got at this virus and that includes artificial intelligence and robotics,” she said. “We are using these machines to help us understand the virus, to see if we can repurpose existing drugs and using robots to bring things to people who are quarantined. These are wonderful uses.”

Some of the uses, however, aren’t so wonderful. As a professor, she had to transition her classroom on Zoom in the middle of the spring semester and said it was a challenge to transcend the barriers technology set between her and her students.

“We need to be thinking about what an authentic relationship looks like when we are not meeting physically, when we are not directly face-to-face and when face-to-face is mediated by technology,” she said.

Through her virtual lecture, Herzfeld hopes to shed light on how citizens can be more “deliberate” with their technology usage. Ultimately, she wants people to think about which technologies they are going to use, which technologies they are not going to use and more importantly: why? 

“With those we are going to use, maybe we can be more mindful about how we use them, how they might be having an under-the-radar effect on our relationships with other people, and how we think about ourselves and our place in the world,” Herzfeld said. 

This program is made possible by “The Lincoln Ethics Series,” funded by the David and Joan Lincoln Family Fund for Applied Ethics and  the Carnahan-Jackson Religious Lectureship.

Avett Brother bassist Bob Crawford joins Bishop Gene Robinson for a conversation on ‘Faith on Stage’

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The Avett Brothers’ 2012 song “Live and Die” begins with the lyrics, “All it’ll take is just one moment and / you can say goodbye to how we had it planned.”

The band’s upright bass player Bob Crawford is credited as a songwriter on “Live and Die,” off the Avett Brothers’ album The Carpenter, and Gene Robinson has a feeling he knows the exact moment that changed Crawford’s plans forever.

“His faith journey took on a real serious note,” said Robinson, Chautauqua Institution’s Vice President for Religion, when Crawford’s daughter, Hallie, experienced her first seizure. Doctors subsequently found a tumor in the 2-year-old’s brain.

“His whole life changed at that moment,” Robinson said. “(I’m curious about) how it changed his perception of God, his relationship with God, and what it’s like to be in the public eye and go through something like that when many people in the world are watching and listening.”

Robinson and Crawford will interview each other in a live Skype conversation at 2 p.m. EDT Wednesday, July 22, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform. It’s a departure from the Week Four Interfaith Lecture Series theme, but the program, titled “Faith on Stage,” has been long in the works. With the thrice Grammy-nominated band originally set to perform July 22, 2020, on the Amphitheater stage, Robinson and Vice President of Performing and Visual Arts Deborah Sunya Moore worked together to bring band members on the 2 p.m. platform as well, to be interviewed about their faith journeys for Crawford’s podcast, “The Road to Now.” With COVID-19 postponing the Avetts’ third Amp performance to Aug. 4, 2021, Robinson and Crawford moved forward with the 2020 program that they could.

“We’re going into it with a wonderful spirit,” Robinson said. “I’ll be interviewing him, he’ll be interviewing me, and even our own audiences will learn something new about each of us.”

“The Road to Now” podcast, co-hosted by Ben Sawyer, brings together “historians, politicians, journalists and artists to the table for conversations that illuminate the map that brought us to where we are today.” An offshoot called “RTN Theology” focuses on faith, art, religion, and theology. But one word sticks out for Robinson in the podcast’s name, a word he thinks relates back to those opening lines of “Live and Die” — “now.”

“The name of the podcast speaks to this, that the only moment you can be sure of is now,” Robinson said. “(Those lyrics are) what happened to him with that experience. You can say that about so many things, that change everything. It struck me as a life lesson that we have these plans and we pretend that they’re all going to happen until they don’t.”

Crawford took time off from the Avett Brothers’ 2011 tour to be with his family while his daughter underwent chemotherapy; while Robinson will ask for an update on Hallie in their conversation, in 2017, the Sun Sentinel reported she had been in remission since 2013.

“It’s my impression that we come closer to God and our relationship with God deepens almost completely when we are at our wits’ end,” Robinson said. “Being in an extreme situation, we are more able to apprehend God. I’m looking forward to asking Bob his perspective on that.”

Crawford has spoken with several media outlets about how his family’s experiences have deepened his faith, and impacted his work. The band’s 2017 album True Sadness is an indication, written as band members were dealing with death, divorce, and illness.

“My daughter lost the right side of her brain. She’s severely disabled. It’s never going to be OK. My wife and I are constantly working through it,” Crawford told the Sun Sentinel. “But she’s such a joy to be around, you know? So I think that true sadness is where we walk through life, feeling the sweetness of joy. We experience that while also suffering a little bit, feeling the pain and fragility of life.”

To put that pain and fragility into a song, Robinson said, while living in the public eye, is admirable.

“My own experience is that there’s the public Gene and the private Gene, and yet my public face is a face related to religion,” said Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the history of Christendom — his appointment to lead the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire was met with controversy and death threats, ultimately resulting in his being put under FBI protection in the days leading up to his consecration in 2003. “I think for any public person, you just have to preserve (yourself), and not lose track of who you actually are. And one of the things I admire about Bob in particular, and the Avett Brothers in general, is that they take that really personal stuff and put it into their music. It’s one thing to have someone in Nashville write a great song and then you record it; it’s another thing to not only write your own, but to have it come out of your own lives.”

In an interview with the Sioux City Journal, Crawford said he was “comfortable where life is, for all the tragedy and upheaval.”

“This life we live, I don’t know how you can handle it without God,” he said. “We’re all kind of over our heads.”

This program is made possible by “The Lincoln Ethics Series,” funded by the David and Joan Lincoln Family Fund for Applied Ethics & the Carnahan-Jackson Religious Lectureship. 

Jason Thacker to probe artificial intelligence’s imbalance with human safety and privacy in lecture

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“Should I Stay or Should I Go” is more than just a song by the Clash; it also neatly summarizes the debate about the United States starting and ending stay-at-home directives.

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For Jason Thacker, who writes and speaks on issues including human dignity, ethics, technology and artificial intelligence, the decision to stay home was easy. Dorie, Thacker’s wife, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma last fall and had just finished chemotherapy, so their family isolated at home well in advance of the U.S. government’s stay-at-home directives for her safety. But Thacker said that in addition to public health dilemmas, a larger debate due to COVID-19 was the use of tracking technology to protect human life while also giving up privacy.

“When humans try to be all-knowing — without the love and sacrifice God perfectly demonstrates — it leads to trouble,” Thacker wrote for The Gospel Coalition.

Thacker will deliver his lecture, “The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity,” on his book of the same name, at 2 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, July 21, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform as part of the Week Four Interfaith Lecture Series theme, “Ethics in a Technologically Transforming World?”

Thacker serves as Chair of Research in Technology Ethics at The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. He holds a Master of Divinity from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Ethics and Public Theology at the seminary.

“We are delighted to welcome Jason Thacker to this week’s important conversation on the question of ethics, in this world in which technology is changing almost every aspect of our lives, here and globally,” said Director of Religion Maureen Rovegno. “Jason will address the possibility of how and why technology could eventually call into question our very humanity, and he will do it through a religious-ethical lens and voice that will give depth and relevance to the conversation for so many of our audience participants.”

Thacker’s work has been featured at Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, Slate and Politico, in addition to his articles on the ERLC site. In the last few months, he has concentrated on how the COVID-19 pandemic is a new factor in his sphere of work.

“Even as COVID-19 brought some national unity, we are beginning to see the fraying of American society once again,” Thacker wrote in April. “Political, social, economic and religious issues have sorted us into tribes and tribes of tribes. It is difficult to keep up to date on the number of differing viewpoints and interest groups. But there is one concern that seems to bring the fraying parties and purported enemies together: the power and influence of technology on our lives.”

The value of personal data grows every year, and has become more valuable than the price of oil in the last few years.

In 2019, Thacker called for the ERLC to create a public statement of principles for artificial intelligence, which he contributed to later that year. Thacker said that overreaches in artificial intelligence technology, for the sake of short-term but serious public health or safety concerns, can create worse privacy and security issues in the future.

“AI is everywhere in our society and is often working behind the scenes,” Thacker wrote. “As Christians, we need to be prepared with a framework to navigate the difficult ethical and moral issues surrounding AI use and development. This framework doesn’t come from corporations or government because they are not the ultimate authority on dignity issues and the church doesn’t take its cues from culture.”

This program is made possible by “The Lincoln Ethics Series,” funded by the David and Joan Lincoln Family Fund for Applied Ethics & the Carnahan-Jackson Religious Lectureship.

Duquesne University professor Gerard Magill to speak on imagination’s role in ethics

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When a bride and groom stand at the altar to exchange vows, what justifies their commitment? Is it faith, or reason, or something else? Vernon F. Gallagher Chair for the Integration of Science, Theology, Philosophy, and Law at Duquesne University Gerard Magill argues that their commitment is a result of imagination.

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Magill

“Those young couples have the imagination to see themselves living together,” Magill said. “Reason helps explain it, faith helps support it, but the actual discernment of falling in love to the point of marriage is a function of imagination.”

Imagination doesn’t just lend itself to romantic decisions. Magill argues that imagination is a crucial, but often overlooked, aspect of ethics. Magill will explore this in a presentation called “Technology, Ethics, & Imagination” at 2 p.m. EDT Monday, July 20, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform. His presentation is part of the Week Four theme for the Interfaith Lecture Series, “Ethics in a Technologically Transforming World?” 

According to Magill, ethicists tend to consider two main pillars — faith and reason — in their ethical thinking. But, without imagination, Magill believes that dilemmas cannot be thoughtfully examined. To illustrate this, Magill pointed to the example of climate change. If people cannot fully picture the effects of climate change, they cannot fully make changes to combat it or find a solution. 

If you look at the pace of civilized societies over the past 500 years, things developed slowly and solidly, and we eventually ended up with the democratic societies that we have today. What took 400 to 500 years to develop, we are now capturing in five to ten years,” Magill said. “Technology is moving at such a pace across everything that we’re doing, that it is crucial to ask the question: ‘Should we do something, simply because we can do it?”

“If we are incapable of our imaginations telling us, ‘There’s a red light flashing here,’ if we don’t have the imagination to see the problem, then we will certainly not have the imagination to solve the problem,” Magill said. 

After establishing imagination’s role in ethics in his presentation, Magill will explore how these elements play a role in technology. 

“If you look at the pace of civilized societies over the past 500 years, things developed slowly and solidly, and we eventually ended up with the democratic societies that we have today. What took 400 to 500 years to develop, we are now capturing in five to ten years,” Magill said. “Technology is moving at such a pace across everything that we’re doing, that it is crucial to ask the question: ‘Should we do something, simply because we can do it?”

Magill’s professional experience is in medical ethics. At Duquesne University, he has researched a multitude of topics from human genomics to research ethics to patient safety. 

“What brought me to ethics in general was a sense of a call to advance value in people’s lives. I decided medical ethics because medicine fascinated me,” Magill said. “I’ve always been fascinated by the science and research of medicine.”

In his career, Magill has contributed to 10 books, either as author, co-author or editor. These books cover issues of medical ethics, and many with the added lens of religious morality. Like his decision to pursue life as an ethicist, Magill narrows down subjects that inspire him, and chooses to only write about the things that matter most to him.

“The most important thing is that you fall in love with the topic. I try to explain to students if you’re going to push your research into writing a book, you’ve got to be driven, you’ve got to fall in love with your topic,” Magill said. “A topic’s got to be not just important in health or something. It’s got to be driven by your inner charisma.”

This program is made possible by “The Lincoln Ethics Series” funded by the David and Joan Lincoln Family Fund for Applied Ethics & the Arthur and Helen Reycroft Memorial Religious Lectureship Fund.

Buddhist meditation teachers Wayman and Eryl Kubicka host Interfaith Friday

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Eryl and Wayman Kubicka

Their paths first crossed in the war-torn Vietnam province of Quang Ngai where they volunteered with the American Friends Service Committee at a rehabilitation center for injured civilians, but it was their shared faith that truly brought Eryl and Wayman Kubicka together. 

Wayman and Eryl Kubicka will bring their Buddhist perspective to Week Three’s Interfaith Friday at 2 p.m. EDT Friday, July 17, on the CHQ Assembly Virtual Porch.

Chautauqua Institution Director of Religion Maureen Rovegno is looking forward to the shift in spiritual discussions, as the previous two Interfaith Friday speakers spoke from the perspectives of religious naturalism and Evangelical Christianity.

“Because our Interfaith Friday conversations engage with a different religion or faith or spiritual tradition each week, focusing on the same questions throughout the season, it is important to include traditions that might not traditionally focus on the particular questions of the week — to shine a light on why a particular tradition might take a different perspective relevant to the issue of the week,” Rovegno said. “Stepping into Buddhist philosophy this week will be particularly interesting to our audience.”

Wayman Kubicka began his journey with Buddhism after he departed Vietnam; his years spent volunteering with the AFSC in an active war zone had left him with a severe case of PTSD that he treated with meditation under the guidance of Roshi Philip Kapleau, founder of the Rochester Zen Center. In 2001, Wayman moved to Batavia, New York, to assist in the creation and leadership of Rochester Zen Center’s country retreat location where he currently resides, teaching meditation and acting as the head of training. 

Born in England in 1941 during World War II, Eryl Kubicka looked to the practice of Zen Meditation as a solution to the uncertainty that came with growing up in a country at war. She became a practicing Buddhist and in 1963 graduated as a physical therapist, the role she filled when she joined the AFSC in 1969 in Quang Ngai, where she then married Wayman in 1970. 

For eight years after their marriage, Eryl and Wayman continued their work with the AFSC in efforts to rebuild communities following the end of the war. Upon their return to the United States, they began practicing Zen Meditation with the Rochester Zen Center, where Wayman was ordained as a Buddhist Priest in 2010. 

Since then, both Eryl and Wayman have been teachers of Buddhist meditation at Chautauqua’s Mystic Heart program, which is dedicated to supporting programs and education about spiritual practices outside the Abrahamic traditions.

This program is made possible by The Myra Baker Low and Katharine Low Hembree Family Fund.

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