Interfaith Lecture Previews

Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and activism are often identified by famous speeches and writing, notably pieces like “I Have a Dream” and “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” King’s ability to empower social justice advocates through the written and spoken word is a staple of his legacy.

But Drew Dellinger commends King for extending his activism far beyond race relations. He remembers a less famous statement made by King in 1965 that he deems “ecological ethos.”

“At one point, King says, ‘One cannot be concerned (just) with civil rights. It’s very nice to drink milk at an unsegregated lunch counter — but not when there’s Strontium 90 in it,’ ” Dellinger said. “He was concerned about this nuclear testing that was pouring radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere. That’s an environmental statement.”

At 2 p.m. Thurs., Aug. 16, in the Hall of Philosophy, Dellinger will discuss King as an ecological and cosmological scholar during his lecture, “All Life is Interrelated: The Interconnected Vision of Martin Luther King Jr.” Dellinger, author of the award-winning book of poems, Love Letter to the Milky Way, is speaking as part of Week Eight’s interfaith theme, “Not to be Forgotten: A Remembrance on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”

Dellinger is the founder of Planetize the Movement, a progressive movement dedicated to encouraging the intersection of justice, ecology, cosmology and art. A well-known poet and scholar, Dellinger has studied the interrelated nature of the world. He said this interconnectedness is an ancient idea, but the idea is not a core belief in the modern Western world.

Instead, Dellinger said Western culture ascribes to a separation between humans and nature.

“Interconnectedness is a staple of spiritual, religious and mystical wisdom over the millennia,” he said, “ … but it’s one that we lost track of in Western culture and in the worldview of modernity. Indigenous traditions have always felt that all things are connected, and we have a deep kinship with all species of the planet. In Western culture, they began to develop this idea that humans were separate from the Earth and nature. That’s a bizarre turn in the thinking of human beings.”

By “separating” humans from the Earth, Dellinger said humans disregard their responsibility to care for other beings. This encourages abusive behavior in social, political and economic spheres.

“We still behave as if we can dump poisons and toxins and nuclear waste into this living, interrelated system of the Earth’s biosphere and think we’re somehow going to be insulated from that,” he said. “Our practices and our politics have yet to catch up with both the ancient understanding of interdependence, and our new scientific and spiritual ways of reconnecting to that age and sense of interconnectedness.”

Part of King’s activism was established around returning to roots of interconnectedness, Dellinger said, as a means to practice respect and tolerance. When Dellinger first began studying King, he said he immediately recognized that King’s purpose was much larger than racial equality.

“Because I was coming to King’s work with a background in ecology and cosmology, I was especially attuned to the ways in which King was talking about interconnectedness,” Dellinger said. “As I delved into these primary sources, looking at his speeches, writings and sermons, it really jumped out at me — he’s talking about interrelatedness and interconnectedness.”

The deeper Dellinger dove into King’s life and writing, the more he uncovered about his ecological and cosmological insights. Dellinger’s essay, “The Ecological King: A Vision for Our Times,” originally published by the Institute of Noetic Sciences, explores this aspect of King.

Now, after years of research, Dellinger said he sees King as a different type of activist and scholar. But this perspective on King, he said, is often overshadowed by King’s work as a civil rights movement leader.

“I think we had pigeonholed King as a social justice, civil rights and human rights thinker, and he certainly was one of the great examples of that, but he’s more than that,” Dellinger said. “He’s not just talking about social justice, civil rights and human rights. He’s talking about the interrelated structure of all reality. He’s talking about the survival of the planet.”

It’s been 50 years since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and Clara Ester still describes the experience as “almost unspeakable.”

Ester, now a retired deaconess of the United Methodist Church, was a college student and activist for the sanitation workers strike in 1968. She was outside the Lorraine Motel in Memphis when King was fatally shot.

“I witnessed him being lifted up and thrown back,” she said. “I cannot figure out how I managed to do it, but I took off and ran up a flight of stairs and stepped over his body and tried to get a pulse. I couldn’t.”

At 2 p.m. Wed., Aug. 15, in the Hall of Philosophy, Ester will reflect on the enduring impact of this experience through her lecture, “Spirituality, Advocacy and Activism: an MLK-Inspired Life,” presented in conversation with the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Chautauqua’s vice president of religion. Ester’s lecture is part of the Week Eight interfaith theme, “Not to be Forgotten: A Remembrance on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.” Ester will be lecturing instead of Ruby Nell Sales who, due to health issues, was unable to be at Chautauqua.

In the years following King’s death, Ester said she could not discuss her experience.

“Nobody pressured me for years,” she said. “Even when I speak of it today, it kind of tears me up on the inside because of who he was and what he was doing. For him to be taken away was so hard.”

Ester, one of the founders of People United to Advance the Dream, turned her pain into activism. After graduating from college in 1969, she joined the United Methodist Church Women’s national organization. She was stationed in Mobile, Alabama, where she worked through the Dumas Wesley Community Center in the distressed area of Crichton, which was predominantly African-American.

Ester fought for more programs that benefit African-American community members and helped transform the neighborhood. The DWCC continues to serve the Crichton community through resources like transitional housing and the After School Achievement Program. In 2017, 95 percent of the clientele were minority families in Crichton.

Through her work with the sanitation workers strike and the DWCC, Ester said she never forgot King’s mission.

“I have stayed engaged,” she said. “He’s gone, but his dream is still with us because that dream is still so alive. We still have to get on the battlefield and do the necessary things we need to do to make this a better world.”

Ester was born in Memphis in 1947, before the Brown v. Board of Education decision, and said it is undeniable that progress has transpired. She said racism is vocalized less in modern society — though that does not translate to complete equality.

“I come from a city where I know the Ku Klux Klan (members) are still alive, and I know they raise their children that way,” she said. “But now, we don’t hear or see from their actions like we used to.”

In terms of digression, Ester said she has seen an increased presence of hatred across political and social institutions.

“Now we are back at a point (where) we are not hesitant to say that we hate, and we are not hesitant to (commit) hate crimes,” she said. “That’s the kind of hate I thought would go away, but I guess it doesn’t go away until it dies.”

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 it was.

“My friend turned to me and said ‘You know, Alan Watts would say that it’s your mind that’s disgusting,’ ” Pulleyn said. “For whatever reason, I knew that was exactly right. Then I started reading Alan Watts, who was an early popularizer of Zen Buddhism, and I just went on from there to read everything I could get my hands on.”

Now, as head of Zen training at Rochester Zen Center, Pulleyn is able to share and teach Zen Buddhism every day — and next, he’ll bring his passion to Chautauqua.

At 2 p.m. Friday, August 10, in the Hall of Philosophy, in the Institution’s seventh installment of the Interfaith Friday Series, Pulleyn will represent Zen Buddhism. Pulleyn will engage in interfaith dialogue with the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Chautauqua’s vice president of religion.

Pulleyn describes Zen Buddhism as an accepting practice and said he believes Chautauquans of all faiths will benefit from learning about his religion.

“The wonderful thing about Zen Buddhism, and I think about almost all forms of Buddhism, is that they’re so tolerant of other paths,” he said. “You hear a lot of people saying all these different paths lead to the same mountaintop, metaphorically speaking. I think that’s a strong thread in Buddhism — this understanding that what’s important isn’t the particular path you take, but your sincerity and your determination and sticking to it.”

As a meditation teacher, Pulleyn admits it can be difficult to connect with the present. He said the practice of meditating is a “lifelong experience,” meaning Zen Buddhism is a constant journey of awareness.

“Most of us spend an awful lot of time sifting through thoughts in our heads,” he said. “That’s fine when there’s something you need to figure out, but most of the time that activity is just a separation between us and the reality of where we are … and Zen is just like any other practice — the more you do it, the better you get at it. Zen is really about living in a world of direct experience and noticing what needs to be done and responding with compassion.”

In addition to encouraging awareness, Pulleyn believes Zen meditation can strengthen believers of all religions and “fortify their faith.” At the Rochester Zen Center, he said being a Buddhist is not a requirement for members. Pulleyn said by welcoming everyone, the center fulfills a Buddhist ideal to pursue a unique path to happiness.

“At our center, we don’t say you need to be a Buddhist to be a member; you just need to have faith that this path is going to be helpful for you,” he said. “The Buddha was really strong on the idea that you need to try things for yourself and find what works. Find what’s conducive to happiness for the benefit of yourself and others.”

Pulleyn last came to Chautauqua in 2017 to share his practice through the Mystic Heart Meditation Program, which he said is another great opportunity to spread the positive intention of Zen.

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 freedom. Amid advocacy work and teaching, Mach also frequently comments on political and social events related to religious liberty.

At 2 p.m. Wednesday, August 8, in the Hall of Philosophy, Mach will deliver his lecture, “Masterpiece Cakeshop and Beyond: Discrimination and Religious Liberty in the Supreme Court.” His lecture is part of the Week Seven interfaith theme, “Let Them Eat Cake? Defining the Future of Religious Freedom in the U.S.”

Mach, who previously worked as a partner for D.C. law firm Jenner & Block, will discuss the controversial June 2018 Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. In an article written for the ACLU, Mach connected this case to Trump v. Hawaii, the Supreme Court case that upheld President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban.

“The wildly divergent results in those two high-profile cases — Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission and Trump v. Hawaii, the Muslim ban case — send troubling mixed messages, which threaten to undermine religious freedom, fairness and equality for all,” Mach wrote.

Mach criticized the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, which ruled that a Colorado baker was allowed to deny a same-sex couple service because of his religious beliefs. Mach said the case was based on “flimsy evidence” and that the baker’s argument amounted to “very little.”

However, he said the decision did not mark a significant change in redefining the First Amendment. Despite the court ruling in favor of the bakery, Mach believes the business actually lost the larger battle over “discrimination in public accommodations.”

“Fortunately, the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision rested on extremely narrow grounds, with the court focusing heavily on the supposed evidence of bias against the bakery owner’s Christian faith,” Mach wrote. “The bakery — with support from the Trump administration — had sought a much broader ruling, one that would have created a new, sweeping First Amendment right to discriminate in the marketplace.”

What Mach did find troubling in Masterpiece was the overarching message the verdict sent.

“Still, the court’s aggressive efforts to root out anti-Christian animus by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission were notable, especially in light of its decision today to ignore far more compelling and egregious religious hostility in the Muslim ban case,” he wrote.

Although the Colorado case was not overtly characterized by anti-religious hostility, Mach said, Trump v. Hawaii was clearly discriminatory.

“In contrast to Masterpiece Cakeshop, the evidence of anti-religious animus in the Muslim ban case is unambiguous and consistent,” he wrote.

While Mach views the two Supreme Court cases differently, he said both pose a threat to religious belief and tolerance in the United States.

“In Masterpiece Cakeshop, the Supreme Court relied on meager evidence of bias to hold that government disparagement of religion is ‘inappropriate for (an official) charged with the solemn responsibility of fair and neutral enforcement’ of the law,” Mach wrote. “If the thin record in Masterpiece supports a finding of impermissible hostility, then the mountain of unapologetic, cruel statements from the president in the Muslim ban case surely do, too.”

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.

Although American religious liberty was a prevalent aspect of the debate, law professor Steven Smith believes the case was largely a question of free speech.

“There are free speech defenses and freedom of expression defenses that, in my opinion, were even more substantial than the free exercise defenses in this case,” said Smith, the University of San Diego Warren Distinguished Professor of Law.

At 2 p.m. Tuesday, August 7, in the Hall of Philosophy, Smith will identify and analyze the role of free speech and expression in the case during his lecture, “The Cake Artist and the ‘Fixed Star in Our Constitutional Constellation.’ ” Smith’s lecture, which marks his first visit to the Institution, is part of the Week Seven interfaith theme, “Let Them Eat Cake? Defining the Future of Religious Freedom in the U.S.”

Smith has spent years in the field of law and academia and now serves as the co-executive director for both the Institute for Law and Religion and the Institute for Law and Philosophy. As a seasoned scholar of religious freedom, he said attitudes toward the topic have significantly shifted.

“I started teaching and writing on the subject in the late 1980s, and in those days, I think it would be fair to say that nearly everybody, regardless of their political leanings, thought religious freedom was one of our central constitutional rights and something to be celebrated,” he said. “But there’s been a huge change in the climate of opinion about religious freedom. It’s much more contested today than it used to be, which makes it an interesting area to work in.”

At Chautauqua, Smith will speak to the nationwide debate over religious liberty that was prevalent during the Masterpiece Cakeshop case. While he will primarily address the free speech arguments posed by the baker, Jack Phillips, Smith said both sides of the case should be acknowledged.

“I can’t help but try and talk about the counterargument,” he said. “It’s obviously the kind of issue people can argue on both sides, so I’ll try to present both sides.”

To further analyze the debate, Smith, who previously served as Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame Law School, will employ a historical reference to the 1943 Supreme Court case West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette.

This decision, Smith said, significantly helped define American free speech.

“This is a fairly famous case, one in which the Supreme Court ruled that Jehovah’s Witness school children couldn’t be expelled from school for refusing to salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance,” he said. “I think it is central to the freedom of expression defenses made by the baker in this case.”

Part of Smith’s lecture title references this case — “The Fixed Star in Our Constitutional Constellation” — which is pulled from former Justice Robert H. Jackson’s opinion. Jackson believed the constitution’s “fixed star” meant no citizen should ever feel forced to profess another’s beliefs.

Although Smith believes the debates over religious freedom present in these Supreme Court cases are fascinating, he also recognizes the implications behind such fierce disagreement.

“From one point of view, it’s quite worrisome because it looks as if a commitment that has been central to the American constitutional tradition, almost from the beginning, is now in battle,” he said.

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 the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Chittister has demonstrated a commitment to lead in the fight against inequality.

But despite her distinguished roles, Chittister believes in caring for each individual by recognizing their distinct struggles.

“To be human is to listen to the rest of the world with a tender heart, and learn to live life with our arms open and our souls seared with a sense of responsibility for everything that is,” Chittister said in a contributing article for the book, What Does it Mean to be Human?

At 2 p.m. Monday, July 30, in the Hall of Philosophy, Chittister will deliver her lecture, “The Spirituality of Relationship: A New Paradigm for Work,” as part of the Week Six interfaith theme, “A Spirituality of Work.” This week’s theme focuses on uncovering the spiritual meaning of daily work in a culture that often defines individuals by occupation.

Chittister, who has appeared on shows like “60 Minutes” and “Meet the Press” and has authored over 50 books, said she sees a social pattern emerging that disregards human compassion and connection.

“We train our young to get ahead, our middle-aged to consume and our elderly to be silent. … We have abandoned the concerns of the civilizations before us,” she wrote in her article. “We have forsaken the good, the true and the beautiful for the effective, the powerful and the opulent. We have abandoned enoughness for the sake of consumption.”

As founder of Benetvision, an online resource center for contemporary spirituality, Chittister has sought to encourage religious access for all genders, races and economic classes. Growing up in the United States, she said she was taught to appreciate and welcome diversity.

“The United States, I was told as I grew, was a land with an open heart, a land of mixed cultures but one soul,” she said in an article for the National Catholic Reporter. “A land made strong and creative by immigrants, it had become a melting pot of ideas. Thanks to all the citizens of the world who came here to escape poverty and oppression, war and destruction, a cross section of the world worked together here to turn its land and build its buildings and staff its business and shape its future.”

That future, Chittister said, now ignores its diverse roots and hardworking citizens.

“We ‘defend’ ourselves by threatening the globe and our own level of civilized humanness with it,” she said in her article for What Does it Mean to Be Human? “We have chosen technological progress and financial profits over the needs of human beings.”

Chittister, who most recently visited Chautauqua in 2016 for a discussion about women in leadership, said that to regain the nation’s humanity, individuals must learn value one another and recognize their own self-worth.

“I believe in the pursuit of the spiritual, in the presence to pain, and the sacredness of life,” she wrote in What Does it Mean to be Human? “Without these, life is useless and humanity a face.”

As assistant professor of religion at Trinity University and a 2018 Interfaith Leadership Institute keynote speaker, Simran Singh connects with America’s youth, both as an educator and observer.

His interactions, he said, give him hope for the future of America as a tolerant nation.

“I really take inspiration from the fact that young people today understand and confront discrimination in ways that I didn’t even see when I was their age,” Singh said. “That really gives me hope that as we move forward that we will have leaders coming up who can really address our deepest problems.”

Although Singh said he may not have recognized all discrimination at a young age, he now works every day as an award-winning activist and scholar to combat intolerance.

At 2 p.m. Friday, July 27, in the Hall of Philosophy, Singh will engage in interfaith dialogue with the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Chautauqua’s vice president of religion. Singh, the Henry R. Luce Fellow for Religion in International Affairs at New York University, will represent Sikhism during the Institution’s fifth Interfaith Friday.

As the senior religion fellow for the Sikh Coalition and author of Covering Sikhs, Singh is devoted to sharing his religion with the nation.

But this responsibility does not always equate to peaceful dialogue and informative discussion. In his personal life, Singh has suffered from injustice based on his religion and culture.

“I was in high school when 9/11 happened, and so in so many ways, that event shaped my life and my worldview,” he said. “One of those ways was realizing that so much discrimination comes from ignorance. So I felt like educating folks and creating awareness was a real meaningful way to make a difference and make this world better.”

By channeling negative experience into activism, Singh has garnered recognition for his work. He has received numerous accolades, most recently the Presidential Excellence Award for Teaching from Columbia University.

But for Singh, he is simply following his faith tradition. One of the principal duties of Sikhism is “Vand Chhakna,” which literally means “sharing one’s earnings with others.” This can also more broadly translate to charity and caring for all people.

“Sikhism teaches us that there is a long history of injustice in this world, and part of our responsibility as people of faith is to stand up for and speak out for those who are at the receiving end of that injustice,” Singh said.

Though America is far from a perfect and peaceful nation, Singh said he remains optimistic for the future.

“Part of my outlook as a Sikh is to notice the positives,” he said. “That’s how we’re wired in this tradition, and that’s what I think allows us to continue in these seemingly dark moments. There’s always light and there’s always divinity in everything.”

For Singh, coming to Chautauqua for the first time for Interfaith Friday was an extension of his daily mission to build positive and accepting community connections.

“I’m very supportive of interfaith efforts, and I think it’s the way our society needs to move,” he said. “Any opportunity I have to be a part of some sort of cross-cultural, cross-religious intersectional dialogue — I always find that to be a powerful experience.”

Every day, Sally Kohn’s career challenges her to listen to and respect different opinions. As a writer, progressive activist and CNN political commentator, Kohn’s work requires her to be constantly mindful, and in the public sphere, she has been stuck with a label: nice.

“People tell me I’m a nice person to the point where it’s part of my personal and professional identity, that I’m so nice and able to get along with anyone, even my most fierce opponents,” Kohn said in a TED Talk.

As Kohn considered her role as a “nice person,” she found herself reflecting on her personal character, and recalled bullying a classmate when she was only 10 years old. Though the experience was distant, Kohn became uncomfortable with her label and realized that no individual is inherently “nice.”

At 2 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy, Kohn will deliver her lecture “The Opposite of Hate” as part of the Week Five theme, “The Ethics of Dissent.” Kohn’s lecture is partially inspired by her most recent book The Opposite of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity.

Kohn, who previously served as a senior campaign strategist with the Center for Community Change, first embarked on a journey to study hatred in response to her memories as a 10 year old, and also experiences she had while working at Fox News as a commentator.

“Part of this was juxtaposition of my memory and my experience, which came more to the forefront when I started to experience hate for the first time in my life when I went to go work at Fox News,” she said. “Getting hate mail and getting attacked on social media brought me face-to-face with this dynamic in the world in not just an abstract and intellectual way.”

While Kohn was the victim of hateful attacks during her time at Fox News, she also acknowledged that she met many positive and accepting individuals in the workplace. She said this experience was shocking because she had clouded her thoughts with negative assumptions.

“When I went to go work at Fox, honestly I thought they would all be hateful monsters. I … expected they would be just hateful in every way — mean to me personally, nasty, homophobic, vitriol,” she said in an interview with Salon. “And I walked in and got to know people on air, off air, viewers … and realized that they were complicated people who were in many ways nice, caring, compassionate — we could find things we agreed on.”

This dynamic occurrence of both hatred and acceptance at Fox led Kohn to reject the notion that people are simply “good or bad.” Understanding this, she said, is the key to undermining hatred.

“Part of it is breaking down this idea that there are good people and bad people,” she said in her TED Talk. “There are people. And we can do good things, and we can do bad things. And the problem is, right now, we have too many excuses, even in small, petty ways that seemingly aren’t that bad, but add up to a culture and a climate that is cruel and allows greater inhumanities and injustices to fester.”

This human connection, Kohn said, is how she defines the opposite of hate. Through her book and work as an activist, she hopes to share this message and promote tolerance and self-reflection.

“What I think we have to understand is in spite of our differences and our disagreements, we share a common humanity,” she said in her TED Talk. “And recognizing that connection, promoting policies and institutional changes and structures that respect that connection and treat people equally is the opposite of hate.”

At Chautauqua, Kohn said she hopes to encourage her audience to fight complacency. While not everyone actively perpetuates hatred, staying silent allows it to grow.

“From my perspective, everyone needs to work on hate in all its forms,” she said. “ … we all need to spend a little less time pointing fingers and a little more time looking in the mirror.”

As a seasoned historian and W.E. Smith Professor of History at Miami University in Ohio, Steven Conn has studied the origin of American intellectual ideas. Current events and beliefs shock the public, but Conn understands that such ideas are often embedded in 19th and 20th century American history.

At 2 p.m. Tuesday, July 24, in the Hall of Philosophy, Conn will use his historical background to inform his lecture “Thinking about Thoreau,” which is part of the Week Five theme, “The Ethics of Dissent.”

“What I’m going to do is start with what I think of as the most important document in the history of American dissent, and that’s Henry David Thoreau’s essay called ‘Civil Disobedience,’” Conn said.

First published in 1849, “Civil Disobedience” outlines Thoreau’s qualms with the American government, a system he believed acted only in the interests of the majority. The essay criticizes social institutions, most notably slavery, and encourages individuals to follow moral conscience.

Amid modern protests and rallies, Thoreau’s writing has adopted new relevance, which Conn believes is true of many historical documents and events. As a historian, Conn believes it is important to inform the public of the clear connection between past and present.

“One of the projects that I started when I was at Ohio State University in the history department is an online magazine called Origins,” he said. “What we do there is we invite historians to put issues that are on the front page into a historical context so that people can have a deeper understanding of what’s going on in the world.”

Since its beginning in 2007, Origins has expanded to include a podcast called “History Talk,” and publishes book reviews. Most recently, the website published a piece about the 2017 neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, that outlined how “alt-right” groups appropriate symbols of classic Rome to legitimize their beliefs.

Conn, who is also a contributing writer for The Huffington Post, said he hopes these articles help educate readers about historical links that often go unnoticed.

“That’s one of the ways I am trying to bridge that gap between the academic world and the wider world of the interested public,” Conn said. “It’s a very Chautauqua kind of project.”

Conn said he is eager to be on the grounds to discuss dissent from a historical perspective. As one of three Miami faculty on the grounds during the 2018 season as part of a pilot Faculty Fellows Program, he will also lead post-10:45 a.m. lecture conversations at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday in the Hurlbut Church sanctuary. Though this is his first visit to the Institution, Conn has studied Chautauqua and its past through his work as a professor and historian.

“I actually lecture a little bit about Chautauqua in a course I teach on the 19th century, but I’ve never been,” he said. “I’m excited to finally go.”

The end of the tsarist rule and shift to Soviet control marked a dramatic change in Russian leadership and politics. Royal Russian families no longer held power, giving rise to independent communist rulers.

But despite inherent differences, neither style of government could escape the profound religious influence that shaped their reign.

At 2 p.m. Tuesday, July 17, in the Hall of Philosophy, Ori Z. Soltes will present his second interfaith lecture of the week, “The Drama of Revolutions: Spirituality and Rebirth in the Ashes.” Soltes, professor at Georgetown University and former director and curator of B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum, will guide Chautauquans through Russia’s transition into the Soviet Union and discuss the role of spirituality during this time.

Soltes will begin his lecture at the end of the tsarist regime, when Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra held power. The couple, Soltes said, befriended Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin, who left a lasting impression on the royal family.

“Nicholas and Alexandra were heavily influenced by Rasputin,” Soltes said. “Rasputin was essentially a religious reformer who, contrary to popular belief, really has this ambition to rebuild the church and community from which he came.”

After the revolution, Vladimir Lenin seized control as head of the Soviet Union, representing a movement that Soltes said was “supposed to be entirely anti-religion.”

Yet even Lenin does not completely abandon Russian spirituality.

“You’ve got in Lenin who, on the one hand, is trying to create a secular state. … But he is encouraging of, in general religious terms, different national, ethnic and religious groups to express themselves; so it’s a bit counterintuitive,” Soltes said. “He’s a secularist, and yet he’s not discouraging religious expression, provided it doesn’t get in the way of governance.”

Soltes will use images to help demonstrate the enduring Russian spirit, which will be made available to the audience through smart devices on the website chq.org/screen. His selections include pieces from the Peredvizhniki, meaning “The Wanderers,” a group of Russian artists who believed in the freedom of creative expression.

Soltes said the Peredvizhniki, among other artists, represented the desire for independence that also existed in the religious realm.

“Their argument was, the serfs were freed, how come art students aren’t freed?” Soltes said. “So they went out among the people and they painted the people and they painted the landscape.”

During the Cold War, the term “godless Russia” was used by some Americans who perceived the Soviet Union strictly as an atheist nation.

But Ori Z. Soltes, professor and lifelong scholar, would argue that Russian spirituality never died, even under communist rule.

“There’s no national entity more obsessively religious and spiritual than Russia, in spite of what one might suppose,” he said. “For 75 years, officially, there was no religion in Russia, but you can’t crush the spirituality even if you eliminate the official religion.”

At 2 p.m. Monday, July 16, in the Hall of Philosophy, Soltes will present his first of four lectures, “Icons and Identity: The Shaping of Mother Russia.” Soltes is a professor at Georgetown University, former director and curator of the B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum and has studied a variety of topics related to history, theology and politics. He has authored over 280 books, articles and essays that serve as testaments to his curiosity.

Soltes dove into Russian culture in the late 1980s when he traveled there as a teacher, during the very end of Soviet control. As the country transitioned from communism to its current state, Soltes became aware of the ongoing religious and artistic developments.

Such changes, he said, are vital to understanding the overall political evolution of Russia.

“When is it exactly that what we think of as Russia really takes shape as Russia?” he said. “Oddly enough, when Russia really crystallizes, it crystallizes by way of an affiliation between what I’d call a national identity and religious identity.”

The country’s two identities quickly fused, meaning that religious affiliation became a necessary part of Russian character.

“It’s almost as if you can’t think of yourself as Russian without also thinking of yourself as not only a Christian Russian, but of a particular sort of denomination,” he said.

Yet Soltes also recognizes the presence of Orthodox tradition, and he will present Russia’s different religious waves to Chautauquans. To assist him with the task of relaying this rich history, he will also discuss the meaning of the art and icons that shaped Russian culture. Artistic expression, he said, helps untangle the country’s complicated past.

“Part of my handling of it will be also to talk about the beginnings of Russian literature and poetry and the beginnings of Russian art,” he said.

Access to Soltes’ selected images will be made available to the audience through smart devices via the website chq.org/screen.

Soltes said he is eager to spend a week lecturing at the Institution, though he is a seasoned Chautauquan. He first came to the grounds as part of the Smithsonian at Chautauqua program, and found himself routinely returning to deliver lectures. In 2003, he served as one of four theologians-in-residence.

When Vasudha Narayanan was 15 years old, she began reading books about Indian history and religion, and she was immediately captivated by the material. What was equally as exciting was that the authors were from Germany and Australia and had come to know Indian culture through their research.

“I was very interested in things to do with world religions from the time I was 10 or 12 and didn’t know that was a branch of study,” she said. “Then I read these books, and I realized there was actually an area I could study. … There was this whole area that fascinated me.”

At 2 p.m. Friday, July 13, in the Hall of Philosophy, Narayanan will have the opportunity to discuss her passion for studying world religions, particularly Hinduism, during the Interfaith Friday Series. Narayanan will represent the Hindu faith while engaging in interfaith dialogue with the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Chautauqua’s vice president of religion.

“At any time, it is crucial to understand each other,” she said. “Today, it’s absolutely necessary. I think through the interfaith dialogue we discover ways in which other people live, and when I say other people, these are people next door.”

Narayanan, a distinguished professor at the University of Florida and past president of the American Academy of Religion, believes in breaking down barriers that divide the world’s religions. An ideal vehicle for this change, she said, is educational institutions.

As a student at Harvard, Narayanan said she took the opportunity to study a multitude of religions.

“That was the joy of being at Harvard, because I was in this place called the Center for the Study of World Religions,” she said. “I took courses on the New Testament, formative aspects of the Christian Church, Islamic architecture and Buddhism.”

As a lifelong learner and teacher, Narayanan said she is excited to engage in discussion at Chautauqua. However, she also recognizes that interfaith work can assume many forms.

“Interfaith dialogue can also be a dialogue of action,” she said. “By working with others in volunteer groups and by playing with others, we learn about each other. Interfaith dialogue can happen in many forums: at your workplace, at home or in the neighborhood.”

The goal of interfaith work, she said, is ultimately to celebrate religious differences and draw closer to those of other faith traditions.

“When you meet someone or when you know someone personally of a particular faith, your prejudices dissolve,” she said. “Then they are no longer the other — they are your neighbor.”

During her fifth visit to Chautauqua, Narayanan said she is excited to share her faith and ideas in an open-minded atmosphere.

“To say it’s an intellectual and aesthetic Disney World is to do it an injustice,” she said. “It’s so calm and peaceful, and it leads you so gently into thinking about so many different things which people are presenting from multiple perspectives.”

In 2016, the Chicago Cubs shocked the nation when they took home a World Series win — the first in over a century. On the surface, this achievement appeared frenzied and boisterous: fans cheering and crying, players morphing into a heap of sweaty celebration and the rest of the nation shocked into a state of disbelief.

But Diana Butler Bass believes there was much more than wild celebration transpiring that November evening.

“What was obvious when you go back and you read the interviews with the fans, players and the manager, is that a huge amount of that explosion of emotion was about gratitude,” she said. “Sports sometimes wind up being this arena of gratitude where we are communally expressing our sense of surprise, or wonder or awe about a gift that we’ve been given.”

At 2 p.m. Thursday, July 12, in the Hall of Philosophy, Bass will explore the relationship between play and gratitude during her lecture “In the Ballpark: The Arenas of Gratitude.” Bass, an author and independent scholar, recently published a book on gratitude called Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks. As a widely acclaimed writer with bylines in The New York Times and The Washington Post, Bass will share some insight from her recent book with Chautauquans.

“When Chautauqua approached me about lecturing during the week on play, I got very excited,” said Bass, who previously delivered an interfaith lecture in 2016. “Some people don’t understand that gratitude and playfulness are actually categories that are very closely related in certain ways.”

As someone who studies the relationship between religion and culture, Bass recognizes the ability of generational change to divide society and diminish play. In the current social climate, she said this divide exists, resulting in an abandonment of community.

“One of the places in our society where we are really falling down, is that we have lost our capacity for communal thanksgiving. That might be one of the most dangerous things that’s going on in our society right now,” she said. “If you lose the capacity to play with other people, … and you turn everything into a politicized ‘we win, you lose’ kind of game, then you actually lose a really important dimension of social capital.”

Instead of pitting people against one another through bipartisan politics and cultural differences, Bass advocates for “big picture” thought. Gratitude, she said, is not a zero- sum game.

“If you begin to conceptualize play as an arena of gratitude where people are using their skills and gifts to their fullest extent, you pay attention to the stories that are related to the games we play,” she said. “That’s what gratitude always does: it always asks us to pay attention to the longer story, then you can sit with somebody who’s rather different from yourself and cheer on the same team.”

Bass has spent the last three months of her career advocating for one team — one nationwide community capable of celebrating diversity. In her book, she discusses this unity as the key to future progress.

“I am convinced that there is a pathway here about setting a new table of thanksgiving in the United States,” she said. “Setting that new table of American thanks is going to be what gets us to the next place. It’s not theoretical, it’s not just a sweet idea, it’s transformative.”

In an age of instant communication and news updates, it can feel impossible to disconnect for five minutes — let alone an entire day. But in the Jewish faith, observing the Sabbath day of rest is a sacred tradition meant to strengthen one’s connection with God.

At 2 p.m. on Monday, July 9 in the Hall of Philosophy, Rabbi Samuel M. Stahl and Rabbi Zalman Vilenkin will deliver a joint lecture on the importance of the Sabbath as part of the Week Three interfaith theme, “The Spirituality of Play.” Stahl’s portion of the lecture is titled “Sabbath: A Foretaste of Utopia” and Vilenkin’s is titled “Sabbath: A Gift of Rest.”

The Sabbath, also called Shabbat, is a full 24 hours of rest where acts of labor are forbidden. Vilenkin said labor is defined as a creative process that has a “transformative action,” like lighting a match to ignite a fire.

“Restrictions are really to create a space in which you can experience the holiness of Shabbat, so there’s no distractions,” Vilenkin said.

Some Jewish denominations strictly forbid all labor, like Orthodox Judaism, which Vilenkin practices. Reform Judaism, which Stahl practices, is less precise in its observance.

“What I like about this format is that we are going to model, hopefully, how rabbis of different orientations to Jewish practice and belief can get together and talk,” he said.

Stahl first came to Chautauqua in 1998. He served as theologian-in-residence in 2003 and now spends his summers at the Institution. As Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Beth‑El in San Antonio, Texas, he now spends the winter months advocating for interfaith work.

His lecture will focus on recognizing the Sabbath as an example of pure serenity.

“The Sabbath is considered to be a foretaste, an introduction to the perfect age of the future when there will be peace, love and harmony among all peoples,” he said. “Wars will be over, and there will be no more bloodshed, no more strife. That’s what we call the Messianic Age.”

As a follower of Reform Judaism, Stahl said the Sabbath is a reflective time to focus on maintaining peace. In the modern world, this can be translated into social justice work.

“We place our big emphasis on social justice,” he said. “That’s the real important part of Reform Judaism. We emphasize that a great deal, and that’s why we say the Sabbath, in its essence, is to remind us of the future goal of the Messianic Age, when everything will be a time of social justice.”

Like Stahl, Vilenkin is a longtime Chautauquan. He serves as executive director and spiritual leader of Chabad Lubavitch of Chautauqua and in the off-season teaches Jewish philosophy and Kabbalah at the United Talmudical Seminary in Brooklyn.

Vilenkin will discuss finding meaning through both work and play by appreciating the spiritual nature of the Sabbath. During the work week, Vilenkin said, God conceals himself and gives believers the free will to make choices.

“The privilege of free will carries the responsibility of free will, which is to make the right choices,” he said. “And ultimately the right choice is to discover God within reality and the only way to do that is to work, to engage with the world and to bring that holiness and divinity into the world.”

By providing a full day of rest, God gifts the world with an opportunity to experience a divine connection.

“Shabbat is an elevated creation because God creates the world by revealing himself,” he said. “That’s why we don’t do any work on Shabbat, because there’s no need for it. The whole purpose of work is to discover God, but on Shabbat, God is already discovered.”

The rabbis hope the combination of lectures will enlighten Chautauquans about the meaning of the Jewish Sabbath for different denominations, as well as its overall purpose in uniting believers with God.

Rabbi Adam Chalom recalls a cartoon he once saw where an atheist missionary travels door to door passing out a blank piece of paper. The cartoon, Chalom said, makes the assumption that secularism essentially equates to nothing — no God, no Bible, no hymn music. Just a blank page.

But the lifelong adherent of Humanistic Judaism challenges that assumption.

“People have tremendous misconceptions about humanism or people who have a secular approach to life,” Chalom said. “They assume you can’t be a good person if you don’t believe in a god, or that you can’t have a sense of community unless you have a church. That’s just not true.”

At 2 p.m. on Friday, July 6 in the Hall of Philosophy, Chalom will represent the humanist philosophy during the Institution’s second Interfaith Friday. Chalom, the dean for North America of the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, will engage in interfaith dialogue with the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Chautauqua’s vice president of religion.

Chalom, a rabbi of Kol Hadash Humanistic Congregation in Chicago, describes Humanistic Judaism as a secular alternative to other branches of Judaism. He adopts the cultural and historical experiences of the Jewish people while embracing a human-centered philosophy focused on the “here and now.”

“Rather than get caught up in the theological debate of is there or isn’t there, a positive humanism focuses more on … what we can impact in the world based on what we do know as opposed to what we don’t know,” he said.

Though he has spent his life following and studying the humanist philosophy, Chalom advocates for interfaith dialogue, specifically a dialogue that includes secular approaches to life.

“In some ways it’s unconventional to have us included in an interfaith dialogue because we don’t fit into the traditional category of faith,” he said. “But part of what I’m going to talk about on Friday is the fact that we are actually part of the spectrum of approaching big questions. What happens after I die? How do I make meaning in this life? Those are questions that humanism answers, they just have different answers from conventional religious answers.”

As Chalom and Robinson converse, the rabbi is hopeful that he will challenge audience members to disagree with his philosophy.

“Real interfaith dialogue is not when we all agree on everything,” he said. “Dialogue is when you disagree and you have to find what can you agree on, where are there points that are worth debating and maybe even changing your perspective if you find something meaningful from the other side.”

Even after the conversation ends, Chalom said he hopes interfaith work continues to include secularism. He said there is a definite disconnect between the religious and secular that stems from uninformed presumptions.

“I would definitely like more religious people to have a more thorough and nuanced understanding of secular approaches to life,” Chalom said. “At the same time, I find that humanists could have a more subtle approach to religion. Often they paint religion in a fundamentalist perspective, when obviously there are shades of grey and varieties of religious approaches.”

Chalom previously visited Chautauqua in 2010 to offer a prayer at the Everett Jewish Life Center, and he said he is excited to return to the grounds to represent Humanistic Judaism.

“I was very pleased to get Gene Robinson’s call to be invited to be part of this series, because I’ve felt for a long time that humanism belongs on the panel of approaches to big questions,” he said.