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.
Computer scientist and St. Bart’s parishioner Clay Williams offers insights into how Artificial Intelligence (AI) works and the challenges it presents around consciousness, morality, and spirituality. Please post your questions in the comments section on Facebook or YouTube, or email the Reverend Peter Thompson at
February 2
Yale Divinity School and Institute of Sacred Music Professor Melanie Ross on the connection between liturgy and everyday life
February 9
Author and academic Isaac Sharp on the changing landscape of American evangelicalism
Watch or listen to The Forum from previous weeks below.
Karuna Mantena, Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, discusses Mahatma Gandhi's influence on the thinking of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the connection they both perceived between social change and...
Absalom Jones, America’s First Black Priest: What does it mean to tell his story? The Reverend Dr. Mark Bozzuti-Jones, Director of Spiritual Formation at Trinity Retreat Center in West Cornwall, Connecticut and a former member of the...
Dr. Rob Radtke, president of Episcopal Relief and Development and a St. Bart's parishioner, reflects on two years of responding to an historic pandemic.
Two Friends, Two Prophets: Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Luther King, Jr. We continue our look at The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s interfaith partnerships with Susannah Heschel, the Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor...
As we celebrate The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, The Right Reverend Marc Andrus, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California, offers an inside look at King's friendship with the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Bishop Andrus...
Art, faith, and science converge in the landscape paintings of 19th-century American artists. The Reverend Meredith Ward explores how artists sought to educate and morally elevate their audience with their artistic skill, until, at a certain...
Reflection, Renewal, and New Year's Resolutions Dr. Patricia Tidwell, PhD, LCSW, a psychotherapist and St. Bart's parishioner, returns to The Forum to talk about healthy ways of approaching a New Year.
For over a thousand years, the song that a pregnant Mary sings while visiting her relative Elizabeth has played a central role in Christian liturgy. Knox Sutterfield, Director of the Florilegium Chamber Choir on the Upper West Side and the...
An Advent Reflection on the Logos Hymn The Logos Hymn in the Gospel of John professes Jesus to be the Divine Word who created the world and in time came into it as the light shines in the darkness. Why did the Divine Word become incarnate and...
Sunday, December 5, 2021 Exploring Dimensions of Spirituality and Dementia The Reverend Lynn Casteel Harper, the Minister of Older Adults at The Riverside Church and author of On Vanishing: Mortality, Dementia, and What It Means to...
The Reverend Canon Stephanie Spellers, Canon to the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and Assisting Priest at St. Bart’s, who wrote Radical Welcome: Embracing God, the Other, and the Spirit of Transformation fifteen years ago, takes...
