January 8
The Bible Challenge 2012: A Parish-wide Effort
Join us as we explore different options for participating in The Bible Challenge 2012 and find out how you can read the entire Bible or portions of it and how technology can help you to participate in The Bible Challenge.  Fellow members of all ages at St. Thomas will share their experiences of reading the Bible and how it has impacted their lives in 2011.  Parishioners Allie Schreffler, Cynthia Cheston, Sally West, Tricia Horter, Emily Hunsicker, Steve Crane and Alan Smith will share their experience of reading the Bible in 2011.  Reading the entire Bible in 2011 was life-transforming for over 180 of our members and 90 persons from beyond St. Thomas Church.  Join us and hear why.

January 15
An Outrageous Romp through the Bible: Part I
The books of the Old Testament were written and gathered over the course of about 1,000 years.  They comprise a vast library.  For those participating in or considering joining The Bible Challenge and those interested in understanding the great sweep of the Bible’s story, Helen White, a highly respected lay leader who served for 14 years on the bishop’s staff for education and as director of the Diocesan Christian Education Resource Center, will offer an overview and a hands-on, quick look at the Old Testament.

January 22
An Outrageous Romp through the Bible: Part II
The books of the Old Testament were written and gathered over the course of about 1,000 years.  They comprise a vast library.  For those participating in or considering joining The Bible Challenge and those interested in understanding the great sweep of the Bible’s story, Helen White, a highly respected lay leader who served for 14 years on the bishop’s staff for education and as director of the Diocesan Christian Education Resource Center, will offer an overview and a hands-on, quick look at the Old Testament.

January 29
Do We worship One or Two Different Gods: Making Sense of the God of the Old and New Testament: Part I
One of the bigger obstacles to reading the Bible is how differently God is portrayed in the Old Testament compared to the New Testament. In the Old Testament, God appears blood-thirsty, vengeful, and a bit touchy about being disobeyed.  In the New Testament Jesus speaks of God’s love for the world and loving one’s enemies. Can these two views be reconciled?  What can we learn about God, the Bible, and ourselves by looking more closely at this issue?  Professor Pete Enns, author of Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament and other books will address us.

February 5
Do We worship One or Two Different Gods: Making Sense of the God of the Old and New Testament: Part II

February 12
All Parish Breakfast

February 19
Reading the Book of Genesis with Jewish Eyes: Part I
Rabbi Craig Axler, Associate Rabbi of Congregation Beth Or, will lead us through an exploration of the accounts of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel through Jewish sources – with an eye towards the messages of the midrash (exegesis) for our own human behavior.  These are cautionary tales intended to provide examples of basic ethical behavior and our relationship with God – what will we do with these messages?

February 26
Reading the Book of Genesis with Jewish Eyes: Part II
The two stories of devastation, told in the narrative of Noah and the Tower of Babel, are set as polar opposites describing two vices of communal living.  Join Rabbi Greg Marx, senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Or, to study the political and historical messages communicated in these brief Biblical stories.

March 4
Annual Meeting in the Sunday Forum – Led by the Wardens of St. Thomas Church

March 11
Imagery of the Adult Christ, Rembrandt and Beyond
Farquhar Professor of Art History at the University of Pennsylvania Larry Silver, a specialist of old master paintings and prints, will lecture and offer a visual presentation of the ministry and Passion of the adult Jesus.  This talk will consider the representations of Jesus in European art from the Renaissance to the modern era.  Beginning with the paradox of God made flesh, artists have striven to capture both elements of Christ’s nature with the visual conventions and cultural assumptions of their own periods.  Professor Silver will help us to examine a range of representations of the figure of Christ, acting and acted upon, over the centuries.  This will be a special treat for those who were able to see the recent “Rembrandt and the Faces of Jesus” exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

March 18
Reading the Gospel with Middle-Eastern Eyes
The Rev. Carol Anderson, former rector of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills, California and one of the most dynamic Episcopal preachers and speakers in the country, will help us to understand the culture, idioms and context of Jesus’ teaching, which makes the Bible come alive even more.

March 25
Holy Exegesis Batman!  The Gospel of Mark as Graphic Novel
Demons are in plentiful supply in the Gospel of Mark, and comics artist and writer Steve Ross wrestled with some of his own to bring the oldest of the gospels to life as a graphic novel.  Come hear how Steve developed his unique approach to retelling an ancient tale that still has the ability to shock, outrage and inspire, and of his effort to strip away two thousand years of familiarity to reveal the extraordinarily moving, and strange story at the heart of Mark.  Ross is an illustrator, comic artist and writer who lives and works in New York City.  His work has appeared in many magazines and periodicals including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. He is the creator of two popular graphic novels including: Marked, a re-imagining of the Gospel of Mark.

April 1
Palm Sunday – Hope and Resurrection for The Lost Boys Thanks to Education in South Sudan
Jennifer and Darryl Ernst worked with their local church in Richmond, Virginia to found the Hope and Resurrection Secondary School – a ten classroom, two-building structure in the village of Atiaba, South Sudan.  They will join us along with Lost Boy Maker Marial to share the good news about this amazing school, which opened in 2008 with 64 ninth grade students.  In December 2011, the school’s first class will graduate 19 students, including four girls.  In a region with an estimated 1.5 million school age children, Hope and Resurrection Secondary School is one of only 22 high schools (grades 9-12) in South Sudan.  Educating the girls and employing university educated trained teachers are priorities at the school.  Because of their incredible hunger for education, most students walk or ride bikes two to three hours to school.  These youth look to education as the tool to move themselves from poverty to self-sufficiency.  Hear their remarkable and inspiring story.

April 8
Easter Sunday – No Forum

April 15
Cinema Saviors and Pseudo-Christs
As Albert Schweitzer contended in his classic Quest of the Historical Jesus, we tend to turn Jesus into a mirror for our own images.  How, then, have filmmakers imagined the rabbi from Nazareth, the Son of man, the Logos of God through the mirror of the movies, from King of Kings (1927) to Zombie Jesus (2007), with stops along the way at films such as The Life of Brian, The Last Temptation of Christ, and Jesus of Montreal?  Professor Jon Pahl of the Lutheran Theological Seminary will address us.  He has engaged audiences from Ankara to Anaheim with pointed and poignant multimedia presentations that explore the topics of his research and writing, including his most recent book Empire of Sacrifice: the Religious Origins of American Violence (NYU Press).  

April 22
Lions and Lambs in Conflict: The Book of Revelation and the Roman Empire
Harry Attridge, the Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament and the Rev. Henry L. Slack Dean at Yale Divinity School, will explore the vivid imagery that the Book of Revelation offers as a response by the followers of Jesus to the political and social realities of imperial Rome in the first century.  This visionary work offers not a blueprint for events of our day but a prophetic proclamation of the truth of the Gospel in the face of oppressive power.  Dr. Attridge has written extensively on the New Testament and its environment.

April 29
God in Recovery: An Examination of the God of the Old Testament and the Relationship between Religion, Righteousness, Violence and God
Many who read the Hebrew Scriptures are troubled by stories of violence, where God instructs Moses, Joshua, David and others to destroy villages and cities and kill women and children.  Is this the will of God?  What are Christians and others to make of these terrifying texts?  Professors Walter Brueggemann, Carolyn Sharp and Pete Enns will address some of the Bible’s most challenging stories.

May 6  
The Parables of Jesus: Part I
The trouble with parables is that we have become too familiar with them.  We know (or think that we know) all the details of the parable of the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son.  Deirdre Good, professor of New Testament at the General Theological Seminary in New York, will introduce us to some of Jesus’ parables from the Gospel of Thomas that we have never heard before and compare them with some of the most famous parables that we know by heart.

May 13
The Parables of Jesus: Part II
Deirdre Good, professor of New Testament at the General Theological Seminary in New York, will continue her exploration of Jesus’ both well-known and little-know parables.


May 20
Sola Scriptura – Luther Said It, but I Don’t Get It
The Church from her beginning has always sought to be obedient to God in beliefs and in practice. Yet from the beginning, the great question of ultimate authority has always been there: Who defines what obedience is? Who gives it form and rules and principles? What is the base upon which decisions are to be made and our children formed in faith?  For five hundred years our Church has functioned under Luther’s principle of “Scripture only, and only Scripture,” but those words don’t seem now to mean exactly what Luther meant then.  Why?  What has happened?  Would Luther still say “Sola Scriptura” to us today?  If not, what would he be more likely to offer in answer to the question of ultimate authority and/or how would he nuance his answer?  Renowned author and conference leader Phyllis Tickle, founding editor of the Religion Department at Publishers Weekly, will lead us.  She is the author of some two dozen volumes in the field of religion, most recently The Great Emergence – How Christianity Is Changing and Why and the forthcoming Emergence Christianity – What It Is, Where It Came From, Why It Matters.

May 27
Pentecost and Memorial Day Weekend – No Forum

June 3
Confirmation with Bishop Ed Lee