Sunday Forums
- Are free and open to the public, no tickets required
- Take place in the nave
at 10 am, prior to the 11:15 am
service
Sunday Forum live webcast from Cathedral homepage (look for link on Sunday morning when Sunday Forum resumes in September)
Sunday Forum On-Demand:
- Sunday Forum takes a break for June and July and resumes in September, 2008.
- June 22, 2008
Benedictinism: A Spirituality for the 21st Century
Sister Joan Chittister
- June 15, 2008
What Politicians and Religious Leaders Need From Each
Other
with Lee H. Hamilton
- No Forum on June 8, 2008
- June 1, 2008
Witnessing in the Postmodern World
with Thomas Long
- May 25, 2008
Theology in Action: King, Bonhoeffer, and You
with Charles Marsh
- May 18, 2008
Race and Civic Life in America
with William Raspberry
- May 4, 2008
The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus
with the Rev. Professor Peter J. Gomes
- April 27, 2008
The Art of Listening
with Diane Rehm
- April 20, 2008
Identifying Our Common Values
with Walter Isaacson
- April 13, 2008
Empower Women, End Poverty
with Thoraya Ahmed Obaid
- April 6, 2008
Why Words Matter: Poetry and Faith
with Dana Gioia
- March 30, 2008
Faith and Civil Rights
with John Lewis
- No Forum on March 16 & 23, 2008:
Palm Sunday & Easter
- March 9, 2008
Exploring the Roots of Religious Intolerance
with James Carroll
- March 2, 2008
Singing from Faith
with Denyce Graves
- February 24, 2008
Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious
Right America
with Jim Wallis
- February 17, 2008
Everything Must Change: The Radical Meaning of the Kingdom of God for Today’s World
with Brian McLaren
- February 10, 2008
Faith and Bio-ethics
with Maria Finitzo and Cynthia B. Cohen
- February 3, 2008
Why Religion Matters and How to Talk about It
with Krista Tippett
- January 27, 2008
A New Century: A New Reformation
with Rick Warren
- January 20, 2008
Hunger and the Thirst for Righteousness
with Tony Hall
- January 13, 2008
Can Conservatism Be Heroic?
with Michael Gerson
- December 16, 2007
A World at Stake: Can Churches Be Peacemakers?
with Samuel Kobia
- December 9, 2007
Leadership for a Changing World
with William H. Willimon
- December 2, 2007
Faith in the White House: Billy Graham’s Legacy
with Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy
- November 25, 2007
A Divided America: Can Religion Bring Us Together?
with James A. Forbes, Jr.
- November 18, 2007
Faith and Environmentalism: A Natural Partnership
with Richard Cizik
- November 11, 2007
Can We Forgive Our Enemies?
with Archbishop Desmond Tutu
- November 4, 2007
What Makes a Saint?
with Robert Ellsberg
- October 28, 2007
Faith Amid Diversity—How Multiculturalism Is Shaping America
with Michel Martin
- October 21, 2007
Can Faith and Science be Reconciled?
with Francis Collins
- October 14, 2007
Ties That Bind: A Folk-Rocker and a Theologian Make Heavenly Music
with Emily Saliers and Don Saliers
- October 7, 2007
Religious America: What Do We Believe?
with Jon Meacham and Sally Quinn
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Sunday, November 25, 2007, 10–10:50 am
A Divided America: Can Religion Bring Us Together?
with James A. Forbes, Jr.
Synopsis
 Many years ago Forbes accepted a call to ministry even though he had
studied to become a medical doctor at Howard University. In retirement
he is now hoping to specialize in a new type of healing. He has founded
the Healing of the Nations Foundation. The foundation’s ministry was
inspired by a verse in Revelation: fand the leaves of the tree are for
the healing of the nations” (22:2).
“We are called upon to be the leaves of the tree,” Forbes asserts.
Healing takes place within each of us, through the immune system; Forbes
calls for us also to help to heal the body politic, and to heal others
around us.
 “What would be your diagnosis, Dr. Forbes, of where we are and what
we need to go forward?” asks Dean Lloyd. In leading up to his answer,
Forbes recounts a mysterious event that happened in New York shortly
after the attacks of September 11, 2001. One Sunday morning, a white
pigeon flew out of rubble that had been thought to contain no life.
Forbes viewed this incident as an answer to the prayer, “God bless
America, land that we love.”
Forbes speaks of the role of mammon—money—as the ruling power in
modern America. “Money is not a measure of all things,” Forbes says. “If
we could overcome the materialism, we would be well on the way” to
healing.
Forbes asks us to consider whether the purpose of religion is to use
God to attain what we desire, or to discern God’s will for ourselves and
others. “It’s possible to get stuck in…self-aggrandizing impact,”
he warns. Feeling protected by God is what he calls “first-semester
religion,” whereas God wants to go further, to send us out to help
others.
 “Whatever you receive, pass it on,” Forbes summarizes. He challenges
everyone to combat poverty, seek health care for all in the United
States, and to place less emphasis on “wedge issues.”
“What can be done to give poverty a voice in America?” asks Lloyd.
Forbes describes campaigns today as a “luxury item” that can be owned by
people with access to large amounts of money, and wonders aloud what a
“poverty lobby” would look like. He reiterates, “You can’t serve God and
mammon. We ought to do a campaign to see if we could get people to
conscientiously commit to serving God rather than mammon.”
About the Guest
The Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr. is senior minister
emeritus of The Riverside Church in New York City and president of the
Healing of the Nations Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated
to the spiritual revitalization of America. An internationally renowned
preacher and social activist, he was also host of “The Time Is Now“
national radio program on the Air America network.
See future programs on the main Sunday Forum page
(also listed in Cathedral worship service leaflets)
For more information, please contact Deryl Davis at (202) 537-6382 or e-mail ddavis@cathedral.org.
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