Clayton calls on Chautauquans to find their radical voices

August 17, 2012·Comments closed

Philip Clayton, provost of Claremont Lincoln University and dean of Claremont School of Theology came to the Chautauqua Institution to convert Chautauquans into radicals.

“I’m going to encourage you to be radical, to find your own radical voice. Everything I say has the goal of helping you to find the form of radical optimism that you have to offer,” Clayton said Thursday in the Hall of Philosophy.

During Week Eight’s fourth Interfaith Lecture on the theme “Radicalism: Burden or Blessing?,” Clayton discussed the two main facets of modern day religious radicalism in a lecture titled “Suicide Bombers and Barefoot Prophets: The Faces of Radical Religion in the Early 21st Century.”

Interfaith Lecture Previews

Gordis: Religion based in absolutes distances from human experience

August 12, 2012·Comments closed

Rabbi David Gordis is a committed Jewish leader, but he said religion must leave the confines of the synagogue — as well as the church and the mosque.

Gordis, a professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York, and president emeritus of Hebrew College, considered himself a religious conservative for most of his life, taking comfort in the synagogue as a place of doctrinal culture and tradition. But during the past 20 years, he said he has transitioned to a more radical faith that fits modern science and culture.

Gordis will open this week’s Interfaith Lecture theme — “Radicalism: Burden or Blessing?” — by discussing different kinds of radicalism in the three Abrahamic religions. He will focus on and give examples from Judaism, and he will also explain his own radical faith.