Trinity Forum Conversations

Beauty is often dismissed as a luxury—something secondary to the urgent work of repair. But what if beauty is not peripheral, but essential to healing what is broken? Trinity Forum Senior Fellow Makoto Fujimura and Haejin Shim Fujimura will be our guides on this question, discussing their new book, Beauty and Justice: Creating a Life of Abundance and Courage . Drawing on their work in the arts and...

How can we cultivate a faith that endures and flourishes? Author, Anglican priest, and Trinity Forum Senior Fellow Tish Harrison Warren shows us how lasting and beautiful things can take root and grow in our lives. By drawing on themes from her new book, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience , we will explore how habits rooted in the historic church—prayer, liturgy, Sabbath, and commu...

In a culture shaped by distraction, anxiety, and constant noise, how do we focus on what matters most? In this special episode, we're sharing a conversation from a recent Trinity Forum event featuring Ben Sasse—former U.S. Senator, university president, husband, and father. Following a terminal cancer diagnosis, Ben has embraced a new vocation: helping us think more clearly about the questions tha...

In March, we welcomed Malcolm Guite for an in-person event to celebrate his new book, Galahad and the Grail , which is the first in his Merlin’s Isle trilogy published through Rabbit Room Press.  While he was with us, Malcolm sat for this podcast interview in which he described his vision in creating this epic ballad, along with offering a deep exploration of what brought him to poetry in the firs...

We live in an unforgiving age. Even as we know that Jesus commanded forgiveness, extending it can seem impossible, impractical, self-harming, even unjust.  In these times of outrage and fear, what can help us become forgiving people? Author Amy Orr-Ewing joined us for a recent online conversation, where we explored these questions for a live audience: "The church needs to recapture the vision of f...

We are a culture well acquainted with anxiety. Recent years have shown it rising dramatically, particularly among Generation Z and Millennials, but affecting all of us. In the Sermon on the Mount, however, Jesus urges us not to be anxious. We wonder: is that actually possible today? Author Alan Fadling joined us for a recent online conversation, where we explored these questions for a live audienc...

In a culture shaped by speed, outrage, and constant distraction, many find it difficult to cultivate a resilient Christian faith. Is slowing down a key to renewing our love of God and neighbor, and sustaining a more durable, authentic faith in a restless age? And how, in practical terms, can we tune out the noise and hear the “still, small voice”? Drawing on the themes of his book Slow Theology ,...

What makes a good life? In the fragmented and harried age we inhabit, what habits of attention, reflection, and action orient us toward what is good, true, and beautiful?  The season of Lent is a good time for us to tackle such “big questions.” Drawing on his popular course at Yale, theologian and author Miroslav Volf joined us for an online conversation in 2024, where we explored these questions...

As we continue our journey through the season of Lent, we’re offering a series to help each of us prepare the way of the Lord. As we go deeper in our spiritual practices during these days, our guide today is the author and psychiatrist Dr. Curt Thompson.  In this conversation, Curt talks about the virtue, and discipline, of pursuing hope, even amid the darkness of a broken world: "While I am worki...

Welcome to the Trinity Forum Conversations podcast.  As we move through the season of Lent, we’re offering a series to help each of us prepare the way of the Lord. It’s a good time to take stock of our spiritual practices, and our guide today is the author and professor Alan Noble.  In his book , On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden & Gift of Living, Alan contends that simply deciding to engage w...

As we move into the season of Lent, we’re offering a series to help each of us prepare the way of the Lord. It’s a good time to take stock of our spiritual practices, and today’s guide is the author John Mark Comer.  In his book Practicing the Way, John Mark explores the practical realities of what it means to be an apprentice of Jesus: “It seems to me that the telos of the spiritual journey in th...

Many of us have been grieved by the polarization we see rending so many churches. What role has this played in America’s growing secularization and what our guest has called “the great dechurching”? And is that dechurching now actually in reverse? Fundamentally, what can we do to pursue the flourishing of both the church and the nation? In this episode, our guide is Ryan Burge , an ordained minist...

Charisma in leaders is a mysterious phenomenon. Maybe even baffling, if you’re the one left cold by a leader others see as charismatic.  How has this mysterious word charisma, coined by the Apostle Paul but now applied widely, shaped us? How can this concept help us to understand our world? Our guide in understanding it is the University of North Carolina historian Molly Worthen, who’s also one of...

As we celebrate the new year, there’s no better guide than the poet, Anglican priest, and scholar, Malcolm Guite. Through the years, Malcolm has written beautifully on how poetic language can help our imaginations apprehend truth that our reason cannot fully comprehend. In this episode he describes Merlin’s Isle: An Arthuriad , his forthcoming four-volume epic poem on the legends of King Arthur an...

Singing during Christmastime—and at all times—has deep formative power, shaping our minds and our spirits. In times of distraction and anxiety, how can we access this formation? And how can caroling at Christmas aid us in keeping Christ at the center of our hearts? Our guide is Keith Getty, an extraordinary hymn writer, musician, and catalyst for the modern hymn movement. In a special Christmastim...

This special episode is taken from the launch of the inaugural Michael J. Gerson Prize for Excellence in Writing on Faith and Public Life. Through this conversation, held at Washington National Cathedral in November 2025, you’ll learn a lot about Michael, and what his legacy means for us now.  What you’ll hear in this episode is a conversation moderated by Trinity Forum President Cherie Harder on...

Thanksgiving is much more than a holiday. The practice of gratitude is a biblical command, it’s a Christian virtue, and it’s even one of the best predictors of personal well-being.  But what does the practice of thanks-giving require? How can we cultivate a spirit and habit of thankfulness with the burdens we bear as individuals, and amidst the sorrows and injustices of a fallen world? Join us in...

This is a special episode in memory of Michael Gerson.  Michael J. Gerson was a White House speechwriter and senior policy adviser, a Washington Post columnist and one of America’s most influential and eloquent commentators. Michael was shaped by his deep Christian faith, and his writing drew from the Christian tradition to call America to greater justice. In particular, he’s remembered for linkin...

Does character matter? In the last century, our society shifted away from teaching character in schools in order to focus on different forms of learning. How has that change shaped the world we live in now? Should cultivating character be a focus of education, and can character even be effectively taught in a pluralistic society? Our guest on today’s podcast is Dr. William Inboden, provost of the...

In this episode, we explore the life and mind of whom historian Tom Holland calls “17th century Europe’s supreme polymath": Blaise Pascal.  Our guide is Graham Tomlin, a former bishop in the Church of England.  Drawing from his book, Blaise Pascal, the Man Who Made the Modern World, Graham brings us on a journey through Pascal’s life, his conversion to Christianity, and his famous argument for bel...

What does redemptive leadership mean? As Christians, we have a unique calling: not just to lead, but to serve. What does this look like in today’s culture, and how can we serve as leaders and foster an environment of abundant grace and joy wherever we are? Christianity Today’s Dr. Nicole Massie Martin helps us to understand how we can nail outdated models of leadership to the cross, and what it wi...

What does it mean to walk with God? The spiritual life is so often described as a walk, journey, or pilgrimage that it can be easy to dismiss the practice of walking as a mere metaphor. But in God Walk , author, pastor, and professor Mark Buchanan explores the way that the act of walking has profound implications for followers of the Way: “Hurry is the enemy of attentiveness. And so love as attent...

Our theme for this episode is “Untangling Our Knotted-Up Lives,” and our guest is the author and speaker Beth Moore.   Drawing from her bestselling memoir, Beth helps us work through a challenge we all may face at various times: maintaining resilience — and faithfulness to our vocations — in the face of hardship: “I’d come to a point where I thought, oh my goodness, I see this. I get what Jesus is...

Our Summer 2025 series, Beside Still Waters , focuses on the places where creativity brings life into a world fatigued by brokenness and division. From jazz to Jane Austen and in between, this season we’re focusing on the ways literature and the arts can refresh and challenge our inner lives—and connect us with the Creator of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Today’s episode concludes our sum...

Our Summer 2025 series, Beside Still Waters , focuses on the places where creativity brings life into a world fatigued by brokenness and division. From jazz to Jane Austen and in between, this season we’ll focus on the ways literature and the arts can refresh and challenge our inner lives—and connect us with the Creator of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Guided by theologian and musician Da...