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.
Minette Norman, author of the new book, The Boldly Inclusive Leader, explores how to foster inclusion in our workplaces, communities, and everyday lives.
Denise Mazzei, Associate Professor of Business Management, Culinary Institute of America will explore the nature and importance of hospitality. How might a professional perspective of hospitality enlighten the welcome we extend to others?
The Reverend Mark Fowler, Chief Executive Officer of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding will share tools to negotiate issues involving religion effectively and with respect in workplaces and schools.
Fordham University professor Larry Welborn, who has taught popular classes at St. Bart’s for several years, introduces his new class on the role that women played in the first few centuries of the Jesus movement, brought to light by a...
John Cassel, Treasurer and Board Vice Chair, reviews the remarkable story of the Seraj Library Project’s efforts to bring libraries and library programs to Palestinian communities in the Occupied Territories. The Seraj Libraries provide...
The Reverend Kevin Van Hook II, the Executive Director of Episcopal Charities of New York, discusses the ways in which our Diocese is caring for migrants and others in need.
Architectural historian Kathleen Skolnik, who teaches at Roosevelt University in Chicago, pays homage to the prominent twentieth century muralist Hildreth Meière and discusses the works she created for Rockefeller Center, Temple Emanu-el...
The Reverend Jarel Robinson-Brown, Curate of St. Botolph-without-Aldgate in London, talks about why our body and God's body matter to our spiritual life and journey into wholeness.