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.
Ethnomusicologist and St. Bart's parishioner Margaret Farrell reflects on how music can lift spirits in difficult times. Please post your questions in the comments section on Facebook or YouTube, or email the Reverend Peter Thompson at
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.
Watch or listen to The Forum from previous weeks below.
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...
Michael Duffy, who as President of the Great Oaks Foundation oversees five public charter schools, explores how an emphasis on tutoring could transform our approach to education.
Bart Ehrman, the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, chronicles the historical development of Christian ideas about the afterlife.
Fred Cerullo, Executive Director of the Grand Central Partnership and a Commissioner on the New York City Planning Commission discusses the future of New York City in the wake of COVID-19.
The Reverend Keith Anderson, author of The Digital Cathedral: Networked Ministry in a Wireless World, talks with Professor J. Patrick Hornbeck II of Fordham University about the future of the Church beyond 2020.
Indigenous People, The Doctrine of Discovery, and the Episcopal Church: On the eve of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, The Episcopal Church’s Indigenous Missioner, The Reverend Dr. Bradley Hauff, examines the Church’s problematic...
David Clough, Professor of Theological Ethics at the University of Chester (UK) and the co-founder of https://www.becreaturekind.org/, outlines the responsibilities Christians have to protect and care for non-human animals.
The clergy of St. Bart’s reflect on the parish’s response to COVID-19 and share plans for the coming year.
Cole Arthur Riley, the creator of the Instagram account @blackliturgies, shares some of her beautiful prayers and speaks to the importance of amplifying Black voices in the liturgical life of the Church. https://www.instagram.com/blackliturgies/
After an initial overview of COVID-19 in June, Dr. Jamie Ferrara and Dr. Jim Marion return to discuss progress being made towards a vaccine. Dr. Ferrara and Dr. Marion suggest reviewing this article in Foreign Policy for background on the topic.
On Labor Day weekend, the Reverend John Wirenius, Deacon of St. Bart's and the Chair of the New York State Public Employment Relations Board, discusses the importance of securing labor rights as part of our effort to build a just society. Read a...
