Trinity Forum Conversations

Connecting Spiritual Formation and Public Life with Michael Wear In the midst of what is proving to be a frustrating, fractious, and even frightening election year, how can Christians best respond to the situation in front of us, and how can we offer a positive contribution to our common life? Drawing on the life and work of the late philosopher Dallas Willard, Michael Wear helps us explore what t...

Making as a Spiritual Practice with Makoto Fujimura If at the center of reality is a God whose love is a generative, creative force, how do humans made in God’s image begin to reflect this beauty and love in a world rent by brokenness and ugliness? As Mako argues on our latest podcast, it’s in the act of making that we are able to experience the depth of God’s being and grace, and to realize an in...

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. Buchanan reflects on the ways in which walking can be both...

What if we viewed reading as not just a personal hobby or a pleasurable indulgence but as a spiritual practice that deepens our faith? In her book, Reading for the Love of God , award-winning author and Trinity Forum Senior Fellow Jessica Hooten Wilson explores how Christian thinkers—including Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglass, and Dorothy Sayers—approached the act of reading. She a...

Pursuing Humility, with Richard Foster and Brenda Quinn In an age when self-promotion is often celebrated as a sign of leadership and strength, humility may seem a lost virtue. Or alternatively, a form of moral condolence for the less successful. In his recent work, Learning Humility , theologian Richard Foster argues that humility is actually strength, and that learning humility is more needed th...

Word Beneath the Words with Malcolm Guite We’re joined on our podcast by poet, priest and songwriter, Malcolm Guite. With grace and insight, Malcolm has written of the mystery, beauty and imaginative force of language and the ways in which our imaginations apprehend truth that our reason cannot fully comprehend: “Jesus says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all yo...

Music, Creativity & Justice with Ruth Naomi Floyd How should we think about work within, and live faithfully within a world that was called and created to be good and beautiful, and yet everywhere is marred by ugliness and injustice?  Jazz vocalist and composer Ruth Naomi Floyd joins our podcast to discuss the intersection of music, creativity, and justice, and to help us think deeply about ou...

Learning in Wartime with Lewis and Tolkien and Joe Laconte Trinity Forum Senior Fellow Joe Loconte joins our podcast to discuss the friendship and legacy of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. He highlights how their wartime experiences, and their subsequent refusal to become disillusioned and disenchanted in the aftermath of World War I allowed for some of the greatest works of literature in modern hi...

We are in an anxious age. By some estimates, a third of all Americans will struggle with anxiety in their lives, and nearly 20% currently suffer from an anxiety disorder. For those suffering the mental distortions of anxiety, life can be difficult, and hope elusive. And for many Christians who have tried and failed to stop their slide into fear and worry by simply “laying down their burdens,” they...

During Advent and Christmastide–and at all times–how can we understand and fully experience the formative power of music? And amid distraction and anxiety, how can we keep Christ at the center of our hearts as we sing? As Keith Getty explains, Christmas carols are not only about festivity, but also formation. For all of the delight they bring, they stand as musical masterpieces that teach deep tru...

The season of Advent calls us to remember the incarnation of Christ into our world while anticipating his future return. Yet what does Advent have to tell us about our present “now and not yet” moment? In her new book Advent: The Season of Hope , priest, author, and Trinity Forum Senior Fellow Tish Harrison Warren draws our attention towards the ways the church reflects and represents the incarnat...

In a society where so many feel unseen and unknown, how do we become the kind of people who deeply see and know those around us? The conflict and division in our society demonstrate the need for people committed to pursuing human connection, even across lines of difference. What can we do – as individuals and in community – that will help us really understand the people in our lives? David Brooks,...

We were made for relationship — to be seen, loved, known, and committed to others. And yet we increasingly find ourselves, in the words of sociologist Jonathan Haidt, “disoriented, unable to speak the same language or recognize the same truth. We are cut off from one another and from the past.” On our podcast Haidt and bestselling author Andy Crouch pair up to explore how the technology era has se...

The question “How do I know what’s true?” comes up with increasing frequency and urgency in our time of angry polarization, deliberately-stoked outrage, and earned distrust. There is money to be made and a growing market for the kind of misinformation that reinforces our views and confirms our preconceptions — as well as a large price to be paid: “We like to tell ourselves that we're consuming thi...

Healing a Divided Culture with Arthur Brooks In his book, Love Your Enemies best-selling author, thought leader, and professor Arthur Brooks blends cutting-edge behavioral research and ancient wisdom to offer a better way to bridge divides and mend relationships. In March of 2022, The Trinity Forum hosted an Evening Conversation with Brooks to help us explore just how to love those we disagree wit...

Justice, Mercy, and Overcoming Racial Division with Claude Alexander and Mac Pier A recent Gallup poll found that over 70% of Americans are both worried about and deeply dissatisfied with the racial tensions and divisions in the country. And yet when those numbers are broken down, you’ll find that around a third of white Americans consider a race to be a significant problem in the country, compare...

What is ideology? What are the consequences of an era when seemingly every human issue is viewed through an ideological lens? In October of 2021, the Trinity Forum and Comment magazine partnered for an evening conversation to explore precisely these questions. Cherie Harder and Anne Snyder moderated a conversation with philosopher Peter Kreeft and Rev. Eugene Rivers to unpack the nature and implic...

Decadence isn’t a word most of us use on a daily basis, and yet author and columnist Ross Douthat believes that it perfectly captures the state of a largely stagnant and sclerotic American culture. In his book, The Decadent Society , Douthat explores both the meaning of decadence and the trajectory that led us there. But in addition to diagnosing our state of cultural stagnation, he points with gr...

The Challenge of Christian Nationalism with Mark Noll and Vincent Bacote As the lines between faith, politics, and patriotism have become, in some quarters, increasingly blurred, it is increasingly important to understand the origin, ideas, and consequences of Christian Nationalism — what it means, why it matters, and how best to respond. “Responsible Christian patriots try to show how Christianit...

Rebuilding our Common life with Yuval Levin One of the greatest problems in our civic life is that our institutions are weak. And they're weak not merely because they are distrusted by outsiders, but because their leaders fail to take their institution-building responsibilities seriously. Rather than submitting to the responsibilities and constraints that any functioning institution imposes, those...

All the Lonely People with Ryan Streeter and Francie Broghammer Why is it, in the midst of relative peace and prosperity, we are increasingly alienated, lonely, and depressed? Even before we lived through a global pandemic, we were (and are) living through a deadly loneliness epidemic. In this conversation Ryan Streeter and Francie Broghammer join us to wrestle with tough questions such as how to...

The Burden of Living and the Goodness of God with Alan Noble We don’t often talk about the courage required to face ordinary life. Such common human challenges as sorrow, despair, anxiety, and mental illness may cause us to experience life more as a burden than a gift. For many, this struggle is a constant one. In his new book, On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden & Gift of Living , author and pr...

The Blessing of Imperfect Days with Kate Bowler It’s easy to be caught in the trap of perfectionism, especially when those around us seem to have it all together. But we can find ourselves alone and discouraged when things don’t go as we’ve planned, and the lives we actually have fail to resemble those we’d hoped to lead. In her recently released book The Lives We Actually Lead , New York Times be...

Being, Living, and Dying Well with Lydia Dugdale In the wake of the Black Plague of the middle ages, people cried out for help to die well. What developed over the ensuing centuries was a work called the Ars Moriendi, a book designed to help Christians die well. In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 we were joined by professor and physician Lydia Dugdale to discuss her book The Lost...

Cultivating a Life of Learning with Zena Hitz  How can we cultivate the habits and discipline required for a life of learning, especially in an age of distraction? And is such a life really worth it? Zena Hitz is a humanities scholar and author of Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life , and she joins our podcast to argue that few experiences are as formative and fulfilling...