Trinity Forum Conversations

Beauty from Darkness with Curt Thompson How do we seek, find and share hope and healing in hard times?   In this fourth episode of our Advent Series, psychiatrist and author Curt Thompson and Trinity Forum President Cherie Harder discuss healing, grace, and reintegration — both for our individual and spiritual lives, and our shared life together. Together they consider how being known and believin...

Time and Hope with James K.A. Smith In this third episode of our Advent Series, philosopher and author James K.A. Smith helps us consider what it means to be creatures that are bound and formed by time. Each of us is shaped by the stories that precede us:   “I think to be a creature who is living into the fullness of being human means grappling with, reckoning with, and sort of gratefully receivin...

Beauty and Wonder with Andrew Peterson In this second episode of our Advent Series, celebrated author and songwriter Andrew Peterson shares his insights about the importance of location and living responsibly and attentively in whatever specific place you inhabit. He discusses how deeper attentiveness to the beauty around us can awaken us to wisdom and wonder. This podcast is an edited version of...

This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from November 2021. You can access the full conversation with transcript here . Learn more about Diana Butler Bass . Diana’s Substack, The Cottage is available here . You can find Diana’s book Grateful and others here . Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin by Brian Gerrish Mary Jo Leddy Join the Trinity Forum Soci...

With Thanksgiving and the season of Advent approaching, The Trinity Forum is offering a new podcast series to help you think more deeply about ideas and practices related to gratitude, attention, anticipation, and what it means to behold beauty. We’ll talk with Diana Butler Bass about the meaning and practice of Gratitude Andrew Peterson will share his insights on how deeper attentiveness to the b...

Our series on Reading & The Common Good concludes with this episode on the importance of reading poetry. Trinity Forum President, Cherie Harder speaks with internationally acclaimed poet and writer, Dana Gioia, who is a former California Poet laureate and Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. As poetry often does, the conversation in this episode considers the personal as well as th...

Christians have been called a “people of the book,” yet how often do we spend time gathering together to read deeply? In a fast-paced technological world, taking time to read deeply and well, let alone alongside others, can feel like a daunting task. And while reading alone has extraordinary value (and, research shows, is intriguingly linked with spending more time with others), reading in communi...

Cherie Harder speaks with author and literature professor Karen Swallow Prior about her own history of reading as well as the challenges and possibilities for virtue formation that reading literature presents. Visit ttf.org/bookclub to get everything you need to start your own bookclub.

Reading for Regeneration In this episode, Jessica Hooten Wilson and Claude Atcho join Cherie Harder to discuss the countercultural practice of reading carefully and communally. This podcast is an edited version of an Online Conversation, which you can find with video and transcript, here . If you're interested in reading old books in community, we encourage you to check out our newly announced Boo...

Alan Jacobs joins Cherie Harder to discuss his book, Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Readers Guide to a More Tranquil Mind . This podcast is an edited version of the Online Conversation, which you can find with video and transcript, here . We encourage you to put the ideas discussed in this episode into practice by starting your own reading group. The Trinity Forum Bookclub Box has everything you...

Reading & The Common Good is our new podcast series with Jessica Hooten Wilson, Karen Swallow Prior, Alan Jacobs, Dana Gioia, Anika Prather, and Matthew Lee Anderson. Few things in life are as enriching and humanizing as reading deeply and well. Yet the pace and technology of modern life make it hard for many of us to give books the time and attention they demand. Join us this season as we hea...

Neurobiology and the Soul What is the connection between our mind and our soul? New discoveries in neuroscience reveal that love can literally change our minds — that our relationships and interactions with others help shape our brains – which in turn, shape our relationships and behaviors. The link between our habits and spiritual practices and the renewing of our mind may be far more direct than...

Science, Faith, and the Pursuit of Truth What does it mean to pursue truth — and how do we know what we know? Science and religion have often been assumed to offer either contradictory or unrelated forms of knowledge, with any intersection between them presumed to be a conflict. Such assumptions have grown more contentious in recent years in a world awash in misinformation and epistemic battles. H...

Understanding Transhumanism Rapid developments in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies can add confusion to the existential questions of who we are and why we are here. Through this conversation, Mouw and Picard explore the potential benefits and cautions of these technologies and thoughtfully examine the philosophical foundation of transhumanism.   This conversation is a part o...

Science and Faith in Conflict? We live in an era where science and faith are widely believed to be in conflict. A spreading materialism asserts, even assumes, that only empirical knowledge is reliable, and denigrates ways of understanding reality beyond the quantitative. Others believe that the realms of science and religion are entirely separate — each with interesting things to say, but nothing...

Discovery and Doxology This special podcast series is called Discovery and Doxology conversations on science and faith and is created in partnership with Templeton, Religion Trust , Biologos , and Church of the Advent .  The four conversations in this series features conversations between scientists, philosophers, and theologians helping us explore the relationship between science and faith. Scien...

In our final podcast episode of our special Lenten series, we're considering the meaning of the good news view through the lens of scripture, with an emphasis on Christ, passion and triumph.    Reading Scripture with New Eyes To help us explore the spiritual discipline of reading scripture, we’re returning to an evening conversation we hosted back in 2016 with Anglican Bishop, and New Testament sc...

We continue our Lenten podcast series by considering the spiritual practice of remembering with historian and author, Margaret Bendroth. Remembering is a Scriptural Imperative The promise of modernity was progress, and so our default orientation is often to the present and future and away from the past, which can be seen as either irrelevant or even benighted. But it is uncanny how often the Bible...

On this episode of our special Lenten podcast series we explore the spiritual practice of writing by listening to a conversation between authors, Tish Harrison Warren, Doug McKelvey and Jonathan Rogers. The Spiritual Practice of Writing  As these three authors explore the craft of writing, what becomes clear is that the creativity and spiritual insight that marks their work is predicated on the di...

Repentance and St. Augustine We continue our Lenten podcast series by considering the spiritual practice of repentance with author, philosophy professor, and Trinity Forum Senior Fellow, James K.A. Smith.  Few figures cast as long a shadow over church history as Saint Augustine of Hippo, regarded by many as second only to St. Paul in terms of his extraordinary contributions to theology and philoso...

Generosity with Marilyn McEntyre We continue our Lenten podcast series this week by looking at the spiritual practice of generosity with professor, author, and poet, Marilyn McEntyre. Generosity, or to use more ancient language, charity or almsgiving, was a practice Christians historically emphasized during Lent. And while providing material support to those in need is certainly a vital part of ch...

Silence and Solitude We continue our special Lenten podcast series with author and spiritual director, Ruth Haley Barton, and this brief introduction to the spiritual disciplines of silence and solitude. Ruth considers the unique gift these practices offer us, why they can be so challenging, and the way that these practices look different depending on your season of life.  Where We Encounter God "...

Formation and Habit with Tish Harrison Warren In our first Lenten podcast, we're turning to author and Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren to help us frame our thinking about how we're formed spiritually and what the goal of formation is. Tish helps make us conscious of the habits, practices, and liturgies that are present and forming us in our everyday lives. Practices are a Response to Love She...

For 2000 years, Lent has been a season of spiritual preparation in which you reflect on Christ's temptation suffering and death. Beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending with Easter, the 40 days of lent have historically been a time for Christians to draw closer to God through prayer, fasting, repentance, and self-denial. Of course, that's a hard sell in our time. Embracing spiritual disciplines has...

On Friday, May 1 The Trinity Forum hosted from Former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, and Poet Laureate of California, Dana Gioia. Dana shared his unique insights about beauty, poetry, and solitude. Dana encourages us to use this time of quarantine to begin afresh. Learn more about Dana Gioia .   Watch the full Online Conversation and read the transcript from May 2020.   Authors,...