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...
What can recent scientific thinking about space and time teach us about what we commonly call “the afterlife”? Popular writer, retreat leader, and Episcopal priest Barbara Cawthorne Crafton offers a timely meditation for the Second...
The Clergy of St. Bart’s reflect on what it means to say, “Alleluia! Christ is risen!” after a year of COVID-1
As we mark Palm Sunday, Yale faculty member Felicity Harley-McGowan looks at artistic depictions of Jesus’ crucifixion in early Christianity.
Author and scholar Diana Butler Bass discusses her new book Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way and Presence about the many dimensions of Jesus.
Duke professor Norman Wirzba examines the relationship between what we eat and what we believe. Norman Wirzba is Gilbert T. Rowe Distinguished Professor of Christian Theology and Senior Fellow at the Kenan Institute of Ethics at Duke...
Lauren R. Kerby, who has studied white evangelicals’ relationship with Washington, DC, sheds light on the capitol insurrection we witnessed in January. Dr. Kerby is a lecturer at Harvard Divinity School and the author of Saving History: How...
The Reverend Peter Thompson and Dr. Paolo Bordignon talk with Dr. David Hurd, one of the leading musicians in the Episcopal Church, about his career and compositional work. Dr. Hurd is Organist and Music Director at The Church of St. Mary the...
Renowned historian Stephanie Coontz (https://www.stephaniecoontz.com/) answers questions on how romantic partnerships and family structures continue to evolve. Stephanie Coontz is Professor of History and Family Studies at The Evergreen...
Two of America's leading choral conductors, Dr. Anton Armstrong and Dr. André Thomas, explore the African-American spiritual, a much-beloved art form that emerged from the pain and horror of slavery. Dr. Armstrong...
After a highly contentious 2020 election season, Perry Grossman, Senior Staff Attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union, speaks about the importance of voting rights and the continuing fight to secure them for all Americans.
