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.
The Forum is on hiatus for Independence Day weekend. In its place, join the clergy of St. Bart's for an in-person conversation about what it means to love our country in times like these. A virtual version of the conversation will be held on Zoom after the 11 am service. If you can't join us in person, please register for the Zoom call below.
Please post your questions in the comments section on Facebook or YouTube, or email the Reverend Peter Thompson at
Ethnomusicologist and St. Bart's parishioner Margaret Farrell reflects on how music can lift spirits in difficult times.
Watch or listen to The Forum from previous weeks below.
Adding to Your Theological Toolbox: Resources for Living with the Realities of Suffering and GriefThe Reverend Molly James, PhD offers guidance on how to cope with the painful episodes that we experience in our lives. James is a theologian...
David Blight, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale, reflects on Frederick Douglass’ landmark Fourth...
Playwright Matthew Lopez talks about his award-winning Broadway play The Inheritance and how the struggles of the AIDS crisis remain relevant today. Click the red filmstrip icon to view the Forum video
As we celebrate another Pride month, The Reverend Justin Crisp draws on queer voices and classic Christian theology to offer a new vision of the nature of sex itself. Crisp is Associate Rector and Theologian-in-Residence at St. Mark's Episcopal...
Who is my Neighbor during a Pandemic? A Medical PerspectivePart One: The Current Lockdown and How to Lift it SafelySt. Bart's doctors Jamie Ferrara, Jim Marion, and Peter Scardino discuss the current state of the COVID-19 crisis and what the next...
The Assumptions of Whiteness and the Challenge of DiscipleshipTo view the Forum video, click the red flimstrip iconAs protests continue across the country, Bryan Massingale, the James and Nancy Buckman Chair in Applied Christian Ethics at Fordham...
Christian Ethics for a Digital Society We spend more time on our smartphones, computers, and tablets than ever before, yet we do not always consider our use of technology from an ethical perspective. Kate Ott, Associate Professor of Christian...
The Forum: Leading with Empathy: Living Together Well During Shelter-in-PlaceJulie Ross, Executive Director of Parenting Horizons, discusses how parents, children, and others who share the same space can navigate the constraints of the COVID-19...
As the COVID-19 crisis continues, The Reverend Curtis Hart, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Religion and Health, draws on his years of experience as Director of Pastoral Care at New York Presbyterian hospital and as a lecturer at Weill Cornell...
Yale professor Teresa Berger, already a leading expert on virtual worship before COVID-19, talks with the Reverend Peter Thompson about how technology and circumstance are together changing the ways in which we gather and pray. Teresa's latest...
