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, December 7, 2025
Holy Waiting: Encountering Life's Beginnings and Endings in Advent
St. Bart’s parishioner Vivian Roston reflects on her work as both an OBGYN and end-of-life doula during the Advent season of beginnings and endings.
Upcoming Speakers at The Forum
December 14 My Friends Call Me Mrs: A Chat With a Single Mrs. Claus in the Era of the Trad Wife
Parishioner Ann Votaw talks about claiming the role of Mrs. Claus as a single woman in New York. She invites us to consider how feminist imagination, humor, and Christian community can reshape traditional narratives in this cultural moment.
Watch or listen to The Forum from previous weeks below.
As she launches her new book, Church Tomorrow?, the Reverend Canon Stephanie Spellers speaks again to some of the “nones and dones” she interviewed. A limited number of books will be available for sale through St. Bart's Bookstore.
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.
Dr. Daisy Khan, Founder and Executive Director of Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality & Equality (WISE), discusses how Muslim women’s lives can be improved by connecting them to beliefs that affirm human dignity and gender...
In an age of information overload and political polarization, how do we discern what truly serves the common good? CUNY Law professor and St. Bart’s parishioner Ally Coll explores the promises and pitfalls of both evidence-based and...
Have you wondered why the lines for food have gotten so long? Patrick Bergquist, Interim Executive Director of Crossroads Community Services, discusses the increasing prevalence of food insecurity within our city.
Attorney Jeffrey Grant, founder of White Collar Support Group, explains how expunging criminal records can benefit those who have already served their sentences and the society-at-large.
The Reverend Peter Thompson fact checks quotations purported to derive from famous Christian figures, including St. Francis of Assisi, St. Teresa of Avila, Martin Luther, and John Wesley.
The Reverend Dr. Mihee Kim-Kort, co-pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Annapolis, Maryland and author of Outside the Lines: How Embracing Queerness will Transform Your Faith, reflects on how practices of reading and listening might open us up...