Facilitating the Interreligious Spiritual Quest

I view the GTU as a collaborative space where scholars and seekers from across a broad spectrum of belief and spiritual expression can engage one another in exploring religious and spiritual practice in its various forms. The GTU is a studio for interreligious scholar-seekers to collaborate, connect, shape and reshape creative expressions of a life lived with commitment to meaning-making.  Through retreats, festivals, workshops, community courses, exhibitions and events, the wide variety of spiritual worldviews is brought into generative dialogue.

As a pluralistic, interreligious laboratory, the GTU is uniquely positioned to offer opportunities to explore spirituality and meaning both within and beyond institutional contexts, providing an opportunity to question, to try on ideas, and to make connections with history, tradition, and community. Rather than discouraging scrutiny of accepted ideas or established traditions, we believe challenging the status quo increases understanding.

With its rich resources in religious thought, the GTU offers a bridge between contemporary spiritual inquiry and established religious traditions. Explorers have the opportunity to examine concepts across time, geography, and cultural contexts, where they may uncover the patterns of transformation that infuse traditions and follow common threads that lead to understanding and meaning. Through engagement with multiple worldviews, scholar-seekers may also discover innovative ways of thinking about their own spiritual truth.

Our Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) and Center for the Arts and Religion (CARe) are not just hubs of interdisciplinary inquiry where religious thought is brought into creative conversation with “secular” fields. At the GTU we recognize that areas like the arts and the natural sciences are themselves pathways to deeper spiritual understanding, in ways that may fall outside the bounds of established religious tradition. Last month’s sacred world music festival, ResoNation, hosted by CARe in cooperation with several member schools and GTU centers, was a celebration not just of the diverse music stemming from numerous religious traditions, but a witness to the power of music itself as a pathway to the Divine. And through efforts like its renowned “Science and the Spiritual Quest” program, CTNS continues to explore ways in which science itself can be a spiritual experience.     

The GTU is also a platform from which students can apply the principles of spiritual thinking to the real world. We are offering several new programs that will provide a launch pad for those who seek a vocation in the key areas of wellness, sustainability, and meaning-making. For instance, the GTU is now the only institution offering a graduate degree in Yoga Studies, giving students a foundation to build a life around sharing this essential spiritual practice.

Wherever the spiritually curious find themselves on the quest for interreligious understanding, the invitation is open to consider GTU as a laboratory for authentic spiritual exploration and the chance to make positive change.

The entire global GTU community is invited to watch the live streaming video broadcast of the Inauguration of Rabbi Daniel Lehmann as the Eighth President of the Graduate Theological Union. The event will be streamed at 5:30 pm PST on Thursday, October 24, 2019, live from International House in Berkeley, CA. View the video here. Mark your calendar now!

Read President Lehmann’s earlier reflections on pluralism and interreligious innovation, professional opportunities through applied interreligious engagement, and the GTU's role as a global leader of interreligious learning.