Each week, guest speakers from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines join the Reverend Peter Thompson and other St. Bart's clergy for deep and insightful conversations about topics that matter to our lives as responsible citizens and people of faith. Speakers in recent years have included winners of the Tony Award, the Emmy Award, the MacArthur Fellowship, and the Pulitzer Prize, professors from prominent universities like Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia, and journalists from New York, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic.
Sunday, June 15, 2025 Black, Queer, & Untold
Acclaimed designer and artist Jon Key, author of Black, Queer, & Untold, brings to light the lives and legacies of Black and Queer creatives from the 1800s to the present.
Please post your questions in the comments section on Facebook or YouTube, or email the Reverend Zack Nyein at
Upcoming Speakers at The Forum
June 22 Jacqueline Goldsby, Professor of African-American Studies and English at Yale University, and Charles Cuykendall Carter, Assistant Curator at New York Public Library, on James Baldwin
June 29 The Reverend Mihee Kim-Kort, co-pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Annapolis, Maryland, on queerness and faith
Watch or listen to The Forum from previous weeks below.
The Reverend Canon Leyla King, a Palestinian American priest and the author of the forthcoming memoir Daughters of Palestine, provides a way in to the conversation about the current realities in the Holy Land through the lens of her...
The Reverend Keith Anderson, author of The Digital Cathedral: Networked Ministry in a Wireless World, talks with Professor J. Patrick Hornbeck II of Fordham University about the future of the Church beyond 2020.
Indigenous People, The Doctrine of Discovery, and the Episcopal Church: On the eve of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, The Episcopal Church’s Indigenous Missioner, The Reverend Dr. Bradley Hauff, examines the Church’s problematic...
David Clough, Professor of Theological Ethics at the University of Chester (UK) and the co-founder of https://www.becreaturekind.org/, outlines the responsibilities Christians have to protect and care for non-human animals.
Cole Arthur Riley, the creator of the Instagram account @blackliturgies, shares some of her beautiful prayers and speaks to the importance of amplifying Black voices in the liturgical life of the Church. https://www.instagram.com/blackliturgies/
After an initial overview of COVID-19 in June, Dr. Jamie Ferrara and Dr. Jim Marion return to discuss progress being made towards a vaccine. Dr. Ferrara and Dr. Marion suggest reviewing this article in Foreign Policy for background on the topic.
On Labor Day weekend, the Reverend John Wirenius, Deacon of St. Bart's and the Chair of the New York State Public Employment Relations Board, discusses the importance of securing labor rights as part of our effort to build a just society. Read a...
As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ratification of 19th amendment, Lee Ann Banaszak, Professor of Political Science and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the Pennsylvania State University, reflects on the past, present...
Lauren Smith, a PhD student in Religious Studies at Brown University, examines the close connections between the experience of reading great literature and the experience of conversion. Please email your questions for our speaker to the...
Robert P. Jones (CEO and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute) reflects on his new book, which outlines the long and unfortunate connection between white supremacy and Christianity in America.