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...
Yale choral conducting professors Jeffrey Douma and Felicia Barber provide an overview of Benjamin Britten’s highly acclaimed War Requiem, written as a response to World War II. The Yale Camerata, Yale Glee Club, and Yale...
Dr. Patricia Tidwell, psychotherapist and St. Bart's parishioner, explores the ways in which psychotherapy can aid in the process of self-reflection.
Many Episcopalians are surprised to learn that their Church offers personal confession. The Rt. Rev. Andrew St. John, Bishop-in-Residence at St. Thomas Fifth Avenue, provides an overview of the rite as it is used within our own tradition.
Catherine Conybeare, Leslie Clark Professor in the Humanities at Bryn Mawr College, reviews the Confessions of St. Augustine of Hippo, exploring the importance of questions for Augustine's thought.
As we begin our Lenten series, “I’m the problem. It’s me: Reflections on Self-Reflection,” Kevin Christopher Robles of America Media reviews the many ways in which Taylor Swift has reinvented herself many times throughout...
The Reverend Dr. Timothy Peoples, Senior Pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, explores how worshipers’ perceptions of those who preach to them impacts the messages they hear.
What did it mean for early Christians to center their communal gatherings on "the breaking of the bread"? The Very Reverend Andrew McGowan, Dean and President of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, draws on recent archaeological and other evidence...
The Reverend Dr. Chloe Breyer, Executive Director of the Interfaith Center of New York, speaks about the work ICNY is doing, particularly relating to the migrant crisis.
With art historian and priest the Reverend Dr. Ayla Lepine, Associate Rector, St. James’s Piccadilly.
Rabbi Sarah Berman, Director of Adult Education at Central Synagogue and Dr. Daisy Khan, Executive Director of Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality & Equality speak about their faith traditions and what their traditions teach...
