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...
Ordained by Angels: The Life and Ministry of an AIDS ChaplainThe Reverend Canon Jerry Anderson was an openly gay Episcopal priest serving in Washington, DC when the AIDS crisis struck in the early 1980s. As his partner and countless friends died...
Beyond the Binary: Understanding Trans and Gender Nonconforming Identities There have been dramatic advances in LGBTQ+ equality over the past few decades, but not all LGBTQ+ people have experienced that progress to the same extent. Trans and...
Love and Resistance—Stonewall After 50 YearsThe 2019 World Pride celebration in New York City marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall riots, the demonstrations in Greenwich Village that paved the way for more recent advances in...
On the final day of the Wellspring installation at St. Bart’s, its creator, Sukey Bryan, discusses the origins of the water-focused work, her continued commitment to artistically exploring the natural world, and the role art can play in the...
St. Bart’s and the Rooftop of the Waldorf-Astoria: Leslie Day Before it closed for renovations in March 2017, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel boasted an impressive rooftop garden that provided food for the hotel’s daily culinary offerings...
May 26—The Global Effects of Climate Change: A Perspective from Honduras Marcia Biggs, Special Correspondent, PBS NewsHour In Honduras, warmer temperatures and reduced rainfall are already drastically altering the agricultural landscape...
Keep it Local: Addressing Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Climate JusticeClimate change does not impact all communities equally; often it has a particularly devastating effect on those communities already experiencing disproportionate...
Earth as Sanctuary: An Interfaith Approach to Creation CareThe world’s major religious traditions, each in their own way, view the earth as sacred, and faithful people of all creeds see their efforts to protect Creation as holy work. The...
Let All Who Are Thirsty Come: Water Access as Religious ImperativeWater is one of the basic necessities of life, yet, as agricultural development progresses and climate change continues to spiral out of control, fresh, clean water has become...
To kick off our Resurrecting Earth series, 13-year-old climate justice activist and organizer Alexandria Villaseñor and Peter DeMenocal, Dean of Science, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University and founding Director of the...
