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, September 21, 2025
A Masterpiece Hiding in Plain Sight: The Triple Portal Entrance to St. Bart’s Church
Carole Bailey French, President of St. Bartholomew’s Conservancy, discusses the majestic Triple Portal entrance to St. Bart's and efforts currently underway to preserve it for future generations
Upcoming Speakers at The Forum
September 28 The Reverend Dr. Duncan Dormor, General Secretary, United Society Partners in the Gospel
October 5 The Reverend Ryan Kuratko, PhD, Chaplain to Canterbury Uptown, and the Reverend Megan Sanders, Chaplain to Canterbury Downtown, The Episcopal Diocese of New York
October 12 Dante Tipiani, Senior Navigator & Community Builder, CaringKind
October 19 The Reverend Frederick A. Davie, Senior Executive Vice President for Public Theology and Civic Engagement, Union Theological Seminary
Watch or listen to The Forum from previous weeks below.
Attorney Mary Rothwell Davis, who oversees the larger Diocese’s work on immigration and refugees, assesses the current federal approach to immigration and shares thoughts on what we, as people of faith, can do.
Beyond the Binary: Understanding Trans and Gender Nonconforming Identities There have been dramatic advances in LGBTQ+ equality over the past few decades, but not all LGBTQ+ people have experienced that progress to the same extent. Trans and...
Love and Resistance—Stonewall After 50 YearsThe 2019 World Pride celebration in New York City marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall riots, the demonstrations in Greenwich Village that paved the way for more recent advances in...
On the final day of the Wellspring installation at St. Bart’s, its creator, Sukey Bryan, discusses the origins of the water-focused work, her continued commitment to artistically exploring the natural world, and the role art can play in the...
St. Bart’s and the Rooftop of the Waldorf-Astoria: Leslie Day
Before it closed for renovations in March 2017, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel boasted an impressive rooftop garden that provided food for the hotel’s daily culinary offerings...
May 26—The Global Effects of Climate Change: A Perspective from Honduras Marcia Biggs, Special Correspondent, PBS NewsHour
In Honduras, warmer temperatures and reduced rainfall are already drastically altering the agricultural landscape...
Keep it Local: Addressing Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Climate JusticeClimate change does not impact all communities equally; often it has a particularly devastating effect on those communities already experiencing disproportionate...
Earth as Sanctuary: An Interfaith Approach to Creation CareThe world’s major religious traditions, each in their own way, view the earth as sacred, and faithful people of all creeds see their efforts to protect Creation as holy work. The...
Let All Who Are Thirsty Come: Water Access as Religious ImperativeWater is one of the basic necessities of life, yet, as agricultural development progresses and climate change continues to spiral out of control, fresh, clean water has become...
To kick off our Resurrecting Earth series, 13-year-old climate justice activist and organizer Alexandria Villaseñor and Peter DeMenocal, Dean of Science, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University and founding Director of the...
Artist Noah Buchanan shares with us the creative process that resulted in his Crucifixion painting, currently on display in the North Transept Chapel, and contemplates how art can help us better understand and appreciate the love Jesus...