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.
Sunday, January 25, 2026
The Wonder Church of My Research Laboratory (Great Hall)
Dr. James Ferrara, Ward-Coleman Chair in Cancer Medicine at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and longtime member of St. Bart’s, speaks about his vocation as a physician-scientist.
Upcoming Speakers at The Forum
February 1: Edward Button of the acclaimed British vocal group The King's Singers reflects on his career in music. February 8: Annual Meeting of the Parish February 15: Melanie Holcomb, Ph.D., Curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Nancy Thebaut, Ph.D., Associate Professor of the History of Art, University of Oxford February 22: Michael Zuch, LCSW, Clinical Social Worker and Ph.D. student at Rutgers University School of Social Work
Watch or listen to The Forum from previous weeks below.
Have you wondered why the lines for food have gotten so long? Patrick Bergquist, Interim Executive Director of Crossroads Community Services, discusses the increasing prevalence of food insecurity within our city.
As part of St. Bart’s Faith in Action initiatives, a new Migrant Welcome Committee has been formed to respond to the ongoing needs of our immigrant neighbors.
Attorney Jeffrey Grant, founder of White Collar Support Group, explains how expunging criminal records can benefit those who have already served their sentences and the society-at-large.
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.
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...
William Stell, Faculty Fellow at New York University and author of the upcoming book Born Again Queer, uncovers the hidden history of gay evangelicals and the opposition they faced within the evangelical movement.
Acclaimed designer and artist Jon Key, author of Black, Queer & Untold, brings to light the lives and legacies of Black and Queer creatives from the 1800s to the present.
The Reverend Canon Leyla King, a Palestinian American priest and the author of the forthcoming memoir Daughters of Palestine, provides a way in to the conversation about the current realities in the Holy Land through the lens of her...