The Forum at Grace Cathedral

Anne Lamott and Neal Allen Forum: Good Writing   Grace Cathedral, San Francisco    Join bestselling author Anne Lamott and writer and spiritual coach Neal Allen for an inspiring and entertaining conversation that will change the way you think about language. Drawing on their new book Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences, they offer powerful techniques for transforming worthy sentences i...

Forum with Bill Fontana: Resonance   Grace Cathedral, San Francisco     San Francisco artist Bill Fontana is internationally recognized for his pioneering experiments in sound. Since the late 1960s, he has consistently used sound as a sculptural medium to interact with and transform our perceptions of visual and architectural spaces. Applying his knowledge of composition, he draws out patterns of...

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 Bur...

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 chap...

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 genera...

The San Francisco Symphony perform ed 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.

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,...

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 regenerativ...

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...

The Forum with  Ma ggi 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  –  b...

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 he...

#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. W...

In a world where addictive technology is designed to buy and sell our attention, and our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity, it can seem impossible to escape. But in this inspiring field guide to dropping out of the attention economy, artist and critic Jenny Odell shows us how we can still win back our lives. Odell is an artist, writer, and educator whose work focuses on close obser...

Rebecca Lyman is the Samuel Garrett Professor of Church History emerita at The Church Divinity School of the Pacific, at the ecumenical and interfaith Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.  She is also an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of California. Rev. Lyman is an historian of ancient Christianity, focused particularly on the use and abuse of the category of "heresy" in antiquity...

Every year since 2012, we have offered a residency to artists to create work illuminating the cathedral's vision and annual theme and reimagining church as they do so.  Our 2025 Artist in Residence, for our Year of the Future, is composer, DJ, and curator Mason Bates. Mason Bates is imaginatively transforming the way classical music is created and experienced. He is the composer of the Grammy-winn...

At age twenty-one, the pain of losing her mother to cancer sent Laurel Mathewson—with a naturally skeptical and questioning outlook—on a years-long existential journey. Laurel began to read  The Interior Castle , Saint Teresa of Ávila's book about the "dwellings" within our souls that we move through to develop an ever-deepening relationship with God through prayer. In  An Intimate Good: A skeptic...

San Francisco is home to some of the nation's most important and forward-thinking arts institutions. What is their role in shaping a city in the process of revitalization?  How are they themselves being shaped by this fast-evolving landscape? Especially against a backdrop of shifting national values, with provocative questions being asked at the highest levels, which directly impact the role and a...

john powell Forum   Grace Cathedral, San Francisco    john a. powell (who spells his name in lowercase in the belief that we should be "part of the universe, not over it, as capitals signify") is an internationally respected expert in the areas of civil rights, racial identity, fair housing, poverty, and democracy. He is director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, where he holds...

The Rev. Dr. Paula Nesbitt was ordained a priest (1992) and then taught and directed an ethics institute at the University of Denver prior to serving as a visiting associate professor of sociology at U.C. Berkeley for 10 years. She also serves on the Steering Group of the Anglican Communion's Anglican Peace and Justice Network as well as the International Anglican Women's Network, and as a researc...

Join Malcolm Clemens Young for a conversation with Bonnie Tsui about her latest book,  On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters .     In  On Muscle , Tsui brings her signature blend of science, culture, immersive reporting, and personal narrative to examine not just what muscles are but what they mean to us. Cardiac, smooth, skeletal—these three different types of muscle in our bodies...

Jack Clark is the iconic varsity rugby coach at University of California. His team-building abilities are considered legendary within university circles and throughout the corporate sector. Since becoming head coach of the Golden Bears in 1984, Clark has led the rugby program to 30 national collegiate championships. Entering his 45th year overall and 43rd as head coach in 2025-26, he holds an all-...

Focus on Abortion: Americans Share Their Stories  is a book and a traveling exhibit by author and photographer Roslyn Banish. Join Malcolm Clemens Young, Dean of Grace Cathedral, for a conversation with Banish about what she has learned through the creation of this work, and giving voice to the often-missing and most important voices in the abortion conversation: the voices of those who have exper...

Dr. Russell M. Jeung, professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University and a leading sociologist of race, religion, and social movements, was named one of  TIME magazine's 100 most influential people of 2021,  in recognition of his work launching  Stop AAPI Hate. Stop AAPI Hate is a U.S.-based coalition dedicated to fighting racism and discrimination against Asian Americans an...

Gary Dorrien, the Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and Professor of Religion at Columbia University, is the author of 24 books and more than 300 articles that range across the fields of social ethics, philosophy, theology, political economics, social and political theory, religious history, cultural criticism, and intellectual history. Social critic Michael...

Crystal Williams – writer, poet, advocate, leader, and President of the Rhode Island School of Design – believes that education, art and design, and commitments to equity and justice are essential to transforming our society. For more than two decades, her work to elevate and amplify the multiplicity of human experience in higher education has galvanized the imagination about who we have been and...