The Forum at Grace Cathedral
Dave Evans Forum: How to Live a Meaningful Life Grace Cathedral, San Francisco In a world grappling with major societal shifts and increasing isolation, it’s easy to feel like nothing we do matters. So many of us feel like something is missing, disconnected, and stuck. There must be more to life than simply surviving each day—but how do we uncover it? Bestselling author Dave Evans, with Bill Burnett, the “empowering” (Publishers Weekly) visionaries behind Stanford’s renowned Life Design Lab, have already inspired millions of readers to use design thinking principles to...
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Ana Raquel Minian Forum: In the Shadow of Liberty Grace Cathedral, San Francisco Many Americans have watched in horror as children are torn from their parents and American citizens have been killed under the current administration’s immigration policy. But as historian Ana Raquel Minian reveals in In the Shadow of Liberty: The Invisible History of Immigrant Detention, this is only the latest chapter in a saga tracing back to the 1800s—one in which immigrants to the United States have been held without recourse to their constitutional rights. Braiding together the vivid stories of four...
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Rebecca Solnit Forum: Notes on a World of Change Grace Cathedral, San Francisco As white nationalist and authoritarian movements push toward isolation and individualism, other currents continue to gather strength. Antiracism, feminism, expansive understandings of gender, environmental thinking, scientific discovery, and Indigenous and non-Western ways of knowing resonate across borders and generations, pointing toward a more relational and interconnected world. Few writers trace these converging currents with the clarity and moral imagination of Rebecca Solnit. A writer, historian, and...
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The San Francisco Symphony performed Mozart’s Requiem with guest conductor Manfred Honeck, in a special version that reimagines the piece in the context of an 18th-century funeral service. In collaboration with the Symphony, Dean Malcolm Clemens Young gives a preconcert talk before the performance.
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Adam Hochschild Forum: American Midnight Grace Cathedral, San Francisco Between World War I and the Roaring Twenties lies a largely forgotten chapter of American history—one whose tensions still echo a hundred years later. In these turbulent years, democracy was tested by war, pandemic, and violence driven by conflicts over race, immigration, and labor rights. In American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis, legendary historian Adam Hochschild brings this moment vividly to life, revealing both the repression that darkened the era and the...
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The Forum with Eugene Kirpichov Grace Cathedral, San Francisco Many believe today's economic model is failing. There is a science-based, hopeful alternative: a regenerative model that works like a living system, helping leaders, communities, and citizens navigate climate chaos, inequality, and ecological breakdown with clarity and purpose. Instead of reacting to crisis after crisis, a regenerative economy creates the conditions for systems to thrive, adapt, and evolve. Eugene Kirpichov left a rewarding and fulfilling career as a machine learning engineer at Google because he could no...
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The Forum with Randall Balmer Grace Cathedral, San Francisco The 1st Amendment to the US Constitution codified the principle that government should play no role in favoring or supporting any religion, while allowing free exercise of all religions (including unbelief). More than 200 years later, the results from this experiment are overwhelming: The separation of church and state has shielded the government from religious factionalism, and the United States boasts a diverse religious culture unmatched in the world. But changes have been taking place at an accelerating pace in recent years....
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The Forum with Maggi Dawn Grace Cathedral, San Francisco Author, professor, and priest Maggi Dawn has written two guides to the church year: Beginnings and Endings (and what happens in between): Daily Bible readings from Advent to Epiphany and Giving It Up: Daily Bible Readings from Ash Wednesday to Easter Day. Our everyday lives are full of small-scale beginnings and endings – births, deaths, marriages, careers, house moves and so on. How do the grand-scale beginnings and endings of Advent help to guide us as...
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The Forum with David Richo Grace Cathedral, San Francisco When you feel you have been wronged, the urge to retaliate can feel overwhelming and justified. In the groundbreaking work Sweeter Than Revenge: Overcoming Your Payback Mind, acclaimed author and psychotherapist David Richo explores the complex dynamics of retaliation, offering profound insights into why we seek revenge and practices to help us break free from this destructive cycle. Drawing from psychology, principles of emotional intelligence, Christian and Buddhist teachings, and years of therapeutic expertise,...
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#LifeAfterDeath #Resurrection #Grief #Requiem Discover what Jesus really teaches about life after death through a deeply personal story about loss and hope. In this moving All Souls Day sermon from Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, Dean Malcolm Clemens Young shares the story of his beloved dog Poppy's peaceful death and explores Jesus' profound answer to the Sadducees' question about resurrection. What You'll Discover: ✅ The story of Poppy's last walk and what it teaches about grief and loss ✅ Why the Sadducees tried to trap Jesus with their question about marriage and resurrection ✅ What...
info_outlineIn her book Jesus For Everyone, Not Just Christians renowned biblical scholar and author Amy-Jill Levine uses stories told by and about Jesus to address the issues dividing us today: economics, family values, the legacy of slavery, nationalism, healthcare, and politics.
Join Malcolm Clemens Young, Dean of Grace Cathedral, for a conversation with Dr. Levine about why Jesus’s historic and cultural influence makes him fascinating, provocative, and relevant for everyone, not only Christians.
Recorded on April 12, 2025.
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About the Guest Dr. Amy-Jill Levine is the Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, Hartford International University for Religion and Peace; University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies Emerita and Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies Emerita, Vanderbilt. Dr. Levine is the first Jew to teach at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute and the recipient of the 2023 Hubert Walter Award for Interfaith Cooperation awarded by the Archbishop of Canterbury. She is the author of many books, including The Misunderstood Jew and Short Stories by Jesus, and she is the co-editor of the Jewish Annotated New Testament.
About the Moderator The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young is the dean of Grace Cathedral. He is the author of The Spiritual Journal of Henry David Thoreau and The Invisible Hand in Wilderness: Economics, Ecology, and God, and is a regular contributor on religion to the Huffington Post and San Francisco Examiner.
About The Forum The Forum is a series of stimulating conversations about faith and ethics in relation to the important issues of our day. We invite inspiring and illustrious people to sit down for a real conversation with the Forum’s host and with you. Our guests range from artists, inventors and philosophers to pop culturists and elected officials, but the point of The Forum is singular: civil, sophisticated discourse that engages minds and hearts to think in new ways about the world. More about Grace Forum Online: gracecathedral.org/the-forum