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, June 1, 2025 The Renewal of the Church for the Healing of the World: Why the Story of Church Decline is Wrong
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 family’s experiences as Palestinian Christians.
June 15 Jon Key, author of Black, Queer & Untold, on art, sexuality, and race
June 22 Jacqueline Goldsby, Professor of African-American Studies and English at Yale University, and Charles Cuykendall Carter, Assistant Curator at New York Public Library, on James Baldwin
June 29 The Reverend Mihee Kim-Kort, co-pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Annapolis, Maryland, on queerness and faith
Watch or listen to The Forum from previous weeks below.
“Welcoming the Stranger” Dr. Larry Welborn, Professor of the New Testament at Fordham University, guided us on a lively survey through the Gospels and their teaching on hospitality and welcome to all people, providing his expert...
Celebrating Difference: Beyond the Melting Pot Our Minister for Children, Youth, and Family Formation, Lucy Breidenthal Bernardin, led us in conversation around matters of diversity and our common life as a parish. What does it mean to celebrate...
“Blue Christmas”—The clergy of St. Bart’s in the Great Hall discussed the shadow side of the cheerful season. As nostalgia reminds us of how things used to be, the clergy shared thoughts on how to guard and nourish our...
At today’s Forum, Dr. Patrick Hornbeck, a St. Bart’s member and Chair of the Theology department at Fordham University, built on and expanded from our most recent evening adult class, “The End of White Christian...
Today we welcomed J. Chester Johnson, author of Auden, the Psalms, and Me, and learned about his work with the great poet W. H. Auden, as well as his story of their committee's re-translation of the Psalms contained in the current Book of...
Parishioner Nick Stuart talked about one of his latest documentaries, Milwaukee 53206, which addresses the issue of mass incarceration in the United States. The film, shown at Congress last year, is now at the heart of a campaign designed to help...
In today’s Forum. Matthew Moretz introduced the spectacular sequence of sixteen capitals carved by the Piccirilli Brothers in our church and discussed these works of art in close-up detail, each their own dramatic sequence featuring vital...
Today we welcomed Dr. Sarah Ruden for a lively discussion on her recent scholarly work. Dr. Ruden is the author of The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible, and the translator of a new version of Augustine’s...
Today we welcomed Jonathan F. Cooper, Communications Manager for the National Association of Episcopal Schools (NAES), who explored the wide-ranging world of social media and shared his considerations for health and wellness in that shared space.