Discovery Adult Education

The Bible in American Literature and Film  

From superheroes to epic novels, themes from the Bible inform and influence many well-known works of American literature. Join us to explore the surprising ways scripture shows up in our favorite stories. 

March 2: Trinity parishioner Regina Jacobs on Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent and the Book of Genesis | Watch the recording

Regina Jacobs has been part of Trinity Church more than three decades, in diverse roles. She is currently the chairperson of the Parish Life, Community Engagement, subcommittee, formerly known as Community. She is also Secretary of the Congregational Council, creator of the Breaking Bread and Agape Meal ministries, as well as one of the many Women in Community. In addition, Regina is a lay liturgical minister, member of the Discovery planning team, and three-time retreat leader. Pre-pandemic, she completed 12 volunteer mission trips, has journeyed on 6 pilgrimages, contributed to the former Trinity News magazine, and served in other faith-affirming ministry roles.  Her career vocation as a marketing executive director is dedicated to developing marketing programs that support financial advisors in their efforts to promote their capabilities and drive their business-development goals. She takes a highly individualized, consultative approach to deliver tailored strategic marketing solutions. Regina considers herself to be an inquisitive seeker and is still discovering the joy of growing into who God created her to be.  

March 9: Writer and poet Christian Wiman, author of Zero at the Bone and My Bright Abyss, joins Summerlee Staten in a conversation about poetry and spirituality | Watch the recording

Christian Wiman is the acclaimed author of more than a dozen books of poetry and prose, including his memoir My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer. He has won multiple national awards for his work and has been called “the best devotional poet writing in English” (Poetry). 

March 23: The Rev. Judy Fentress Williams, Dodge Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Virginia Theological Seminary, on superheroes and the multiverse of the Bible | Watch the recording

Judy Fentress-Williams is in bi-vocational ministry in Alexandria, VA, as the Professor of Old Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary and the Senior Assistant to the Pastor for Teaching and Preaching at the Alfred Street Baptist Church. Dr. Fentress-Williams received her PhD in Hebrew Bible from Yale University in 1999. She earned her MDiv from Yale Divinity School and her AB in English from Princeton University with certificates in African-American Studies and American Studies. Prior to her appointment at Virginia Theological Seminary in 2002, she was a member of the faculty at Hartford Seminary as a Professor of Hebrew Bible. There she was also the director of the Black Ministries Program, a certificate program designed to meet the needs of African-American clergy and laity in the greater Hartford area. Today, the Rev. Dr. Fentress-Williams lives at the intersection of the church and the academy. In addition to teaching, she works with the Christian Life Institute, Ministers in Training programs and teaches Bible Study at Alfred Street Baptist Church. Dr. Fentress-Williams’s published work reflects her interest in a literary approach that highlights the multiple voices in Scripture. She recently published a commentary on the book of Ruth for the Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries and was a contributor and Old Testament Editor for the CEB Women’s Bible. Published articles include, “Location, Location, Location: Tamar in the Joseph Cycle” in Bakhtin and Genre, “Exodus” in the Africana Bible, “Esther” in the Fortress Old Testament Commentary and “The Writings” in the Fortress Companion to the Old Testament Introduction. Her book, Holy Imagination: A Literary Guide to the Bible, was published March 2021. She is a member of the Society for Biblical Literature and serves on the Advisory Board for Religious Life at Princeton University. Judy is married to Kevin Williams, MD, and they are the proud parents of Samantha and Jacob. 

A Conversation with Trinity’s Vicar

March 16: A conversation with the Rev. Michael A. Bird, with time set aside for Q&A. 

The Paradox of God 

God is at once immanent, as close as our own breath, and transcendent, beyond all boundaries and human understanding. How can this be? Join the Rev. Dr. Theodore Hiebert, Francis A. McGaw Professor of Old Testament at McCormick Theological Seminary,  as he discusses the paradox of God being both beyond the universe and within all created things. 

March 30, April 6: The Rev. Dr. Theodore Hiebert 

Theodore Hiebert writes about biblical perspectives on the environment, identity, and difference. His book The Yahwist’s Landscape: Nature and Religion in Early Israel challenges claims that the Bible privileges humans and separates them from nature, and it shows how biblical religion is grounded in the natural world. He has made contributions to such works as The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, The Oxford Companion to the Bible, Earth and Word: Classic Sermons on Saving the Planet, and Interpretation. Ted was the lead translator of the Book of Genesis and one of the editors for the recent Common English Bible (CEB) translation. His book The Beginning of Difference: Discovering Identity in God’s Diverse World challenges exclusivist cultural interpretations of the book of Genesis and reveals a text that embraces and celebrates ethnic identities and differences. It contains a reinterpretation of the story of Babel as positive account of the origin of the world’s cultures. God’s Big Plan, which he co-authored with Elizabeth Caldwell, is a children’s story of Babel based on this new interpretation. Ted is currently at work on a study of the book of Genesis as migration literature. Ted holds an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary, a PhD from Harvard University, and has been a research fellow at the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. He has taught at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo and lectured at the Near East School of Theology in Beirut. He is Francis A. McGaw Professor of Old Testament and Dean of the Faculty Emeritus at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. He currently lives in Hamden, CT. 

What Is the Nicene Creed? 

For centuries, the Nicene Creed has been central to the church’s confession of shared faith. Far from abstract or irrelevant, these words we say together in church each week carefully express our foundational beliefs: who God is and what God has done in Christ and through the Spirit. Learn the history of the creed, explore its meaning through the lens of the Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit —  and discover what this ancient declaration says to us today.  

April 27: Dr. Phillip Cary; professor of philosophy at Eastern University and author of The Nicene Creed: An Introduction dives into the history of the creed 

Phillip Cary has recently retired as Professor of Philosophy at Eastern University in Pennsylvania, where he was also Scholar-in-Residence at the Templeton Honors College. He continues to live in the Philadelphia with his wife, Nancy Hazle, who is a nurse-midwife. He likes to say that he thinks about the mysteries of life, while his wife puts her hands on them. His scholarly specialty is the thought of St. Augustine, about whom he has published a series of books with Oxford University Press. In less specialized work, he is author of Jonah (Brazos Press, 2008), a theological commentary that was a lot of fun to write, and most recently he published The Nicene Creed: An Introduction (Lexham Press, 2023), which was a joy to write.

He has also published video and audio lecture series with the Great Courses, including courses on Luther, on Augustine, on the History of Christian Theology and on Philosophy and Religion in the West.

May 4: Dr. Patrick Haley, post-doctorate fellow at Princeton Theological Seminary and Trinity Church, on God the Father 

Patrick Haley is a postdoctoral fellow with joint appointments on Trinity Church’s Faith Formation and Education team and at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he recently completed his PhD in Theology, Ethics, and Politics. His research reexamines the language Christians use in their daily lives, especially where terms and concepts have become muddled or contested. Patrick’s first book project, for example, challenges Christians to be more thoughtful when speaking of fellow human beings as bearing the “image of God,” since such language is often put to contradictory ends. He also writes and speaks on topics such as queer theology, virtue ethics, and political theology. Patrick currently serves as executive director for the Fellowship for Protestant Ethics, and he is a postulant for holy orders in the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey. 

May 11: Dr. Kathryn Tanner, Frederick Marquand Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School, on Jesus Christ the Son

Professor Kathryn Tanner joined the Yale Divinity School faculty in 2010 after teaching at the University of Chicago Divinity School for sixteen years and in Yale’s Department of Religious Studies for ten. Her research relates the history of Christian thought to contemporary issues of theological concern using social, cultural, and feminist theory. She is the author of God and Creation in Christian Theology: Tyranny or Empowerment? (Blackwell, 1988); The Politics of God: Christian Theologies and Social Justice (Fortress, 1992); Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology (Fortress, 1997); Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology (Fortress, 2001); Economy of Grace (Fortress, 2005); Christ the Key (Cambridge, 2010), Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism (Yale, 2019) and scores of scholarly articles and chapters in books that include The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology, which she edited with John Webster and Iain Torrance. She serves on the editorial boards of Modern Theology, International Journal of Systematic Theology, and Scottish Journal of Theology, and is a former coeditor of the Journal of Religion. Active in many professional societies, Professor Tanner is a past president of the American Theological Society, the oldest theological society in the United States. For eight years she was a member of the Theology Committee that advises The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops. In the academic year 2010–11, she had a Luce Fellowship to research financial markets and the critical perspectives that Christian theology can bring to bear on them. In 2015–16, she delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. 

May 18: Dr. Patrick Haley on the Holy Spirit 

Past Events

 The Practice of Christian Hope 

The Apostle Paul in his letters encouraged the early church to “abound in hope.” But in today’s fractious world bent on despair, how is that possible? For Christians, hope is not unfounded optimism, but deep faith rooted in our active participation in God’s healing work in the world. And with practice, we can cultivate it. 

February 9: Ruth Frey, Trinity’s director of community programs and public life, considers the meaning of hope and how we might practice it in our everyday lives. Watch the recording 

February 16 and 23: James K. A. Smith, professor of philosophy at Calvin University and author of How to Inhabit Time, on how we must reckon with our past to live faithfully in the present and have hope for the future 
Watch the February 16 recording | Watch the February 23 recording

James K. A. Smith is professor of philosophy at Calvin University where he holds the Gary & Henrietta Byker Chair. As a scholar, Smith has embraced the vocation of being a “translator” of philosophy for wider audiences. As a cultural critic and commentator, he explores the tensions of modern life, inviting readers and audiences to more intentional practices of faith and flourishing. He is the award-winning author of a number of influential books, including Desiring the Kingdom (2009), How (Not) To Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor (2014), You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (2016), On the Road with Saint Augustine (2019), The Nicene Option: An Incarnational Phenomenology (2021) and, most recently, How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now (2022). He is currently at work on a book about contemplative spirituality and contemporary art. Smith served as editor in chief of Comment magazine (2013–2018) and Image journal (2019–2024). His essays and criticism have appeared in Christian Century, Christianity Today, America, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, LitHub, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.  

 Our Liturgical Life: The Eucharist 

The holy Eucharist, or communion, is at the center of our worship services. But what does it mean? Come explore the theology of the Lord’s supper and learn the deep purpose behind the symbols, movements, and language of this essential rite. 

January 26: Dr. Scott MacDougall, associate professor of theology at Church Divinity School of the Pacific, discusses the theology of the Eucharist and helps us understand how preparing and gathering at the table forms our lives as Christians. Watch the recording

Scott MacDougall is associate professor of theology at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, where he has taught since 2015. Born and raised in central New York, he attended college in the greater New York City area, receiving his B.A. from Hofstra University. Following a career in the not-for-profit sector, MacDougall received his M.A. in theology from The General Theological Seminary of The Episcopal Church in 2007 and his Ph.D. in systematic theology from Fordham University in 2014. His research centers on two main trajectories: constructive theological work in ecclesiology, eschatology, and embodiment; and the nature and character of Anglican theology and the role of theology in the Anglican Communion. He is interested in the difference a well-formed and engaged theological imagination makes in how Christians live out their vocations, individually and corporately, and in how doing so contributes to the flourishing of self, church, and world. MacDougall’s first book, More Than Communion: Imagining an Eschatological Ecclesiology, was published in 2015. His most recent, The Shape of Anglican Theology: Faith Seeking Wisdom, was published by Brill in May 2022. MacDougall has served as co-editor in chief of the Anglican Theological Review and was the inaugural theologian to the House of Deputies of The Episcopal Church. 

February 2: Trinity’s Vicar, the Rev. Michael Bird, offers a hands-on instructive Eucharist, sharing the purpose behind and connections between each part of this rite. Watch the recording

 Jesus, MLK, and Nonviolent Resistance  

Examine how the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s deep Christian faith was inextricably connected to his steadfast commitment to justice and nonviolent resistance. 

January 19: Darren Yau, doctoral candidate in the Religion Department (Religion, Ethics, and Politics) and Program in Political Philosophy at Princeton University. Watch the recording

Darren Yau is a doctoral candidate in the Religion Department and Program in Political Philosophy at Princeton University and Laurence S. Rockefeller Graduate Prize Fellow at the University Center for Human Values. His research draws on Christian political thought to examine questions about justice and social reform, with particular interest in how theological commitments shape and are shaped by debates in political theory. Yau’s first book project uses Martin Luther King Jr.’s political theology of nonviolence to explore the grounds, limits, and objections to nonviolent action. His research has been supported by the Center for the Study of Culture, Society, and Religion, the Department of African American Studies, and the Effron Center for the Study of America at Princeton University. Yau is a member of several academic societies and serves as a board member of The Society of Christian Ethics. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA). 

The Love That Is God: An Invitation to Christian Faith

In the season of Advent waiting, author Dr. Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt explores the radical and subversive claim at the heart of Christianity: God is love. Far from abstract, Christian faith is experienced in our real-life relationships and expressed through communal love that leads us to care for one another in tangible, and unexpected, ways.

December 8, 15: Dr. Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt on his award-winning book, The Love That is God: An Invitation to Christian Faith. 

Watch the December 8 recording
Watch the December 15 recording

Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt is Professor of Theology at Loyola University Maryland and a deacon of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. He has a master’s degree from Yale Divinity School and a doctorate from the Graduate Program in Religion at Duke University. His research has focused on both medieval and modern theology, particularly questions of the interactions between theology and culture. He has published more than 50 journal articles and book chapters, as well as several books, most recently No Lasting City: Essay on Theology, Politics, and Culture (Word on Fire Academic, 2023) and Thinking Through Aquinas: Essays on God, Humanity, and Christ (Word on Fire Academic, 2024). His book The Love That is God: An Invitation to Christian Faith (Eerdmans, 2020) won the 2023 Michael Ramsey Prize in Theological Writing, awarded by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  

December 22: A community roundtable discussion on how love leads us to action.

How to Love Your Enemy: Peacemaking and Love Across Conflict

Jesus calls us to love our enemy. Yet we live in a divided world, and it is challenging to be in relationship with those who see things differently. Throughout this election season we will contemplate what it means to love and practice peacemaking in difficult times.

October 27: Award-winning journalist Amanda Ripley, author of High Conflict, on moving toward healthier — and fruitful — civil discourse. At 1pm, Ripley joins our Trinity Talks series to dig into ways we can help one another break out of destructive feuds.

Amanda Ripley is a New York Times bestselling author, Washington Post contributing columnist, and cofounder of Good Conflict, a media and training company that helps people reimagine conflict. She has written for Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Politico, The Guardian, and The Times of London. Ripley has spoken at the Pentagon, the U.S. Senate, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security, as well as dozens of conferences on leadership, communicating in conflict, disaster behavior, and education. 

November 10: The Rev. Phil Jackson, Rector of Trinity Church, on how to love your enemy in times of social and political discord. Watch the recording

The Rev. Phil Jackson was named the 19th Rector of Trinity Church in February 2022, serving as the spiritual leader of the parish and managing operations, parish programs, the clergy, staff, and all resources and facilities of the church. Father Phil joined Trinity in 2015 as Vicar and served as Priest-in-charge for two years. Ordained in 1994, he has served parishes in Paradise Valley, AZ, Houston, and Detroit, and was an attorney in Honolulu. Father Jackson holds a bachelor’s degree in history, cum laude, from Amherst College, where he sits on the Board of Trustees. He also holds a Juris Doctorate from Yale Law School and a Master of Divinity from The Church Divinity School of the Pacific. Father Phil sits on several boards including The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, The Anglican Communion Compass Rose Society, and the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center. A native Chicagoan, he is nevertheless proud to call New York home.

November 17: Distinguished preacher and author the Rev. Dr. Michael Battle on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the legacy of Archbishop Desmond Tutu in dismantling apartheid. Watch the recording

The Very Rev. Michael Battle, PhD, is the Extraordinary Professor at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice, the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, Theologian in Community at Trinity Church Boston, and formerly taught at General Theological Seminary in New York, where he was the Herbert Thompson Professor of Church and Society and Director of the Desmond Tutu Center. In 1993 he was ordained a priest by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Battle has published nine books, including Reconciliation: the Ubuntu Theology of Desmond Tutu, Ubuntu: I in You and You in Me, and his latest, Desmond Tutu: A Spiritual Biography of South Africa’s Confessor. Battle’s clergy experience, in addition to his academic work, makes him an internationally sought after speaker, teacher, writer and spiritual leader. In 2010, Battle was given one of the highest Anglican Church distinctions, “Six Preacher,” by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

November 24: The Rev. Dr. Mark Bozzuti-Jones, priest and director of spiritual formation at Trinity Retreat Center, leads a roundtable discussion on forgiveness. Watch the recording

The Rev. Dr. Mark Francisco Bozzuti-Jones is an Episcopal Jamaican priest at Trinity Church in New York City. He is the Priest and Director of Spiritual Formation at Trinity Retreat Center in West Cornwall, Connecticut. A former Jesuit priest, Father Mark has missionary experience in Belize, Brazil, and Guyana. He believes that prayer, silence, and rest deepen our connection to God and allow us to name pain, face the realities of our time, and claim the way of love. At the retreat center, he has focused on prayer, meditation, and rest. His intellectual interests include the impact of social issues on faith and spirituality, racism, and the plight of the poor. Father Mark has a passion for the cultures of Latin America and the Caribbean and loves flowers, Brazilian music, and reggae. He is an award-winning author whose recent books include God Created, Jesus the Word, The Gospel of Barack Hussein Obama According to Mark, and The Rastafari Book of Common Prayer. He is working on a book of poetry. He is an avid reader and speaker and has taught at elementary and university levels.

 Welcoming the Stranger: Asylum, Migration, and Jesus as Refugee

In the first session of our fall season, clergy and scholars explore migration, asylum, the concept of land, and what it means from a Christian perspective to “welcome the stranger.”

September 29: Jesus the Refugee author D. Glenn Butner, Jr., explores the holy family’s flight to Egypt through the lens of modern legal conventions impacting refugees across the globe. Watch the recording

Glenn Butner began serving as Associate Professor of Theology at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary (South Hamilton, MA) in July 2024. Before that he taught for eight years at Sterling College in Sterling, KS, where he also coordinated a multi-church refugee resettlement ministry. He writes in systematic theology and social ethics, including Jesus the Refugee: Ancient Injustice and Modern Solidarity and Work Out Your Salvation: A Theology of Markets and Moral Formation. He is married and has three children.

October 6: The Rev. David Ulloa Chavez, former Canon for Border Ministries at the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona, on supporting asylum seekers in our communities and The Episcopal Church’s response to the crisis. Watch the recording

The Rev. Canon David Ulloa Chavez currently serves the Rector of All Saints of the Desert Episcopal Church in Sun City, AZ.  Prior to his present call, Fr. David served for four years as the Canon for Border Ministries for the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona. He has also served a Vicar at Iglesia Episcopal Santa Maria and the Latinx community at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, both in the Phoenix metro area.   For six years, Fr. David served on the diocesan anti-racism committee and as instructor in theology for the diocesan Deacon Formation Academy.  His service to the wider Episcopal Church includes being a member of the Council of Advice for the Hispanic Latino Ministries; member of the General Convention’s, Mexico Covenant Committee; and board member of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing.  Fr. David is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary where he graduated with a M.Div. and Th.M. in Philosophical Theology.  He is the father to two sons, an avid reader, and jazz musician.  

October 13: The Rt. Rev. Andrew Asbil, Bishop of Toronto, on migration, asylum, and Indigenous Ministries in the Anglican Church of Canada. Watch the recording

Bishop Andrew Asbil is the Anglican Diocesan Bishop of the Diocese of Toronto. He is the chief pastor of the Diocese of Toronto, with pastoral oversight of 202 parishes and 650 clergy. Founded in 1839, the Diocese of Toronto is the most populous of the 30 dioceses in the Anglican Church of Canada. A passionate preacher, Andrew has shared vision for creation, diversity, discipleship and mission.

Bishop Asbil was elected Coadjutor Bishop on June 9, 2018, and was consecrated on Sept. 29, 2018. He automatically became the Diocesan Bishop on Jan. 1, 2019, and was installed on Jan. 13, 2019.

Born in 1961, Bishop Asbil was educated at the University of Waterloo and received his Master of Divinity degree from Huron College in 1988. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1989 and served a number of parishes in the Diocese of Niagara before coming to the Diocese of Toronto in 2001. In 2019, he was recognized with a Doctor of Divinity from Huron University College.

In Toronto, he served as Incumbent of Redeemer, Bloor St. and was appointed Canon of the Diocese of Toronto in 2009. He served as the Dean of Toronto and Rector of St. James Cathedral from January 2016 to September 2018. As Bishop, Andrew is a member of the Canadian National Church’s governing body; Council of General Synod, and the Canadian representative to the Episcopal Church’s governing body; Executive Council. He is the president of the Canadian Chapter of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Compass Rose Society.

Certified in alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and conflict management, Andrew is often asked to manage large groups who need a credible outside facilitator to get them to a place where they can effectively negotiate. 

Married to Mary with a combined family of five young adult children, Andrew is a family man. As a son, brother, in-law, cousin, dad – family is the stabilizing center of his fulsome day-to-day life. He is an avid swimmer, loves sports & cooking, and together with Mary, host fantastic parties.

October 20:The Rev. Jorge Ortiz on welcoming the stranger in church, our spiritual home. Watch the recording

The Rev. Jorge Ortiz is Priest and Associate Director for Community Engagement at Trinity Church. His passion for mission, reconciliation, and social justice has inspired his call to ordained ministry around the world. 

Fr. Jorge strives to find meaning and purpose in the role of Christian faith in public life and how it may empower people and their communities in terms of spiritual, human, and social transformation. 

Along with his MA in Human Rights Law and an MA in Higher Education, Rev. Ortiz has extensive work experience as a leader in faith-based programs designed to promote social mobility and equal opportunity. 

Fr. Ortiz feels privileged to currently dedicate part of his ministry here at Trinity to serving and welcoming asylum seeker families who make New York their home.