Trinity Forum Conversations

We are subjected to the temptations of confusion, cynicism, and nihilism like never before. So many pressures, including new ones, seemingly by the day, push us in these directions. What formative things can we do to help ourselves and our society be a part of a hopeful story instead? Two of our Trinity Forum Senior Fellows, psychiatrist Curt Thompson and columnist David French, come from different disciplines, but in this episode, they provide complementary insights into the hopeful practices of thought and action we're all looking for. This episode was recorded live at the 2025 gathering of the Trinity Forum Senior Fellows in Washington, DC. The moderator is Trinity Forum President Cherie Harder.Go deeper into the topics discussed with these Trinity Forum Readings:The Federalist Papers (with an introduction by David French)The Purchase of a Soul by Victor HugoPolitics, Morality, & Civility by Václav HavelOn Friendship by Marcus Tullius Cicero

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 community—can anchor us in a stormy age.This episode is drawn from an Online Conversation in 2026. You can view the transcript and other resources here.Go deeper into the issues discussed in this episode with these Trinity Forum Readings:Pilgrim of Tinker Creek; Annie Dillard (Introduction by Tish Harrison Warren)Confessions; Saint AugustineWrestling With God; Simone WeilRevelations of Divine Love; Julian of NorwichRevelation; Flannery O'Connor

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 first place. Since the book’s release, Galahad and the Grail has topped bestselling charts and received numerous accolades, demonstrating that its ancient stories find renewal in our modern era. You can watch the video of the full conversation on our Youtube Channel hereRecommended Trinity Forum Readings: God’s Grandeur: The Poems of Gerard Manley HopkinsFour Quartets, by T.S. Eliot with an introduction by Makoto FujimuraThe Pardoner’s Tale, by Geoffrey Chaucer

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 audience:"Maybe Peace, and its friends like Hope and Joy, maybe that's a better engine, maybe that's a better source of energy and motivation than my anxiety ever has been. And if my anxiety is fuel, then it's fuel that burns dirty."This episode is from a conversation from February 2026. You can view the transcript and other resources here.Recommended Trinity Forum Readings: Confessions; AugustineBrave New World; Aldous HuxleyThe Long Loneliness; Dorothy DayWrestling With God; Simone Weil

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 for a live audience."What is the treasure for which you would be willing to sell everything that you have? And if you know what the treasure is, are you willing ... to risk everything to have that treasure?"Miroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and founding director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture in New Haven, Connecticut. He has written or edited more than two dozen books, including the New York Times bestseller Life Worth Living, A Public Faith, Public Faith in Action, and Exclusion and Embrace (winner of the Grawemeyer Award in Religion and selected as among the 100 best religious books of the twentieth century by Christianity Today). Educated in his native Croatia, the United States, and Germany, Volf regularly lectures around the world.Related Trinity Forum Readings:Man's Search for Meaning; Viktor FranklOn Happiness; Thomas Aquinas Brave New World; Aldous HuxleyHow Much Land Does a Man Need? Leo TolstoyWrestling with God; Simone Weil

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 with the world each day constitutes a declaration of the goodness of God:“Now, there may come times when you are required by your suffering to radically depend upon others to carry you out of bed. My advice is to embrace those moments, knowing that you’ll carry your neighbor in return when the time comes.”This episode is drawn from an Online Conversation recorded in 2023. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

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 minister, best-selling author and professor of practice at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University. His book The Vanishing Church draws upon his scholarship as a data scientist, and his experience as a pastor, to explore how the church has been harmed by, and can offer healing from, the excesses of political combat and division:"[Attending church] is just good for your soul. It's just good for you as a person to be part of a community like that ... I think it's actually going to be good for democracy for you to realize what it's like to go ... get in the real world and realize it's actually a cool place to hang out, and there's value in that."This episode is drawn from an online conversation recorded in 2026. Please subscribe to this podcast - it helps people find us.And we hope you’ll consider becoming a member of our community, the Trinity Forum Society. Join us in exploring timeless Christian wisdom together, so you gain clarity and courage for your own life, and help cultivate a renewed culture of hope. You can do this at our website, ttf.org.

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 and the Knights of the Round Table, which will be published over several years by Rabbit Room Press. He has described his purpose: making a poem that restores the spiritual elements that have been shorn away from these legends and renews their deepest meaning for our time:"You don’t have to invent yourself because somebody else who loves you has already done it. You from the beginning, the real heart of who you are, deeper and more beautiful than you could ever know, has simmered in the Divine mind since before the beginning of time. And now he’s speaking to you."With this work, Malcolm brings into the 21st century the epic tradition that includes Lewis, Tolkien, Milton and many others. This podcast is an edited version of an Evening Conversation recorded in 2025. You can find the full video on our website, ttf.org. While there, please consider becoming a Trinity Forum Society member too. Join us in exploring timeless Christian wisdom together, so you gain clarity and courage for your own life, and help cultivate a renewed culture of hope.We hope you enjoy the conversation.

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 “Conscience, Courage and Craft: The Duty of the Writer in an Age of Confusion.” The all-star panelists are Peter Wehner, David Brooks, Christine Emba, Russell Moore, and Karen Swallow Prior. You’ll also hear videos provided in Michael’s memory by two of his friends – President Bush, and Bono.“Our responsibility [as writers] is to … remind our readers and our audiences of the good, the true, the beautiful, the virtuous … to show that those things can be lovely, actually, to redefine those words in ways that don't make them smell of just old books and past lectures that we've moved past, but something that can be alive in this moment.” —Christine EmbaLater that evening, Matthew Loftus was named as the inaugural winner of the award. You can find writings by Matthew, and by Michael Gerson, at TTF.org. You can also find the full YouTube video of the evening there. While you’re there, why not consider becoming a member of the Trinity Forum? Join us in exploring timeless Christian wisdom together, so you gain clarity and courage for your own life, and help cultivate a renewed culture of hope - including through next year’s Michael Gerson Prize.

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 linking that tradition to the global health efforts he championed, including the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. To mark the three years since Michael passed away due to cancer on November 17, 2022, we’re presenting this edited version of his comments at a Trinity Forum evening conversation held in 2016. Hearing him again reminds us of Michael’s extraordinary mind, as well as his heart. “You can never be too careful when you travel. You can go in search of disease and poverty and stumble upon holy ground, and you can find resilience, courage, and faithfulness that will inspire you and challenge you for the rest of your life.”You can find the full video of the conversation on our Trinity Forum website, ttf.org. You can become a member there too. Join us in exploring timeless Christian wisdom together, so you gain clarity and courage for your own life, and help cultivate a renewed culture of hope.

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 belief in God known as “the Wager.”Together, we’ll explore the ways in which Pascal himself can still be a guide for us today. "What else does [man's] craving and helplessness proclaim—but that there was once in man a true happiness of which all that remains is the empty print and trace. This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there, the help that he cannot find in those that are. Though none can help. Because this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object. In other words, by God himself."This conversation was recorded in August 2025. You can find the original video and transcript here.Thank you for joining us in exploring timeless wisdom together, to help you gain clarity and courage for your own life, and to help nurture a culture of renewed hope.

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 attentiveness is listening and caring and noticing, cherishing, savoring, being awestruck, these things that we feel in a relationship. I am deeply loved by this person because they notice me. I think that that’s how God’s built it. And we can’t get that if we’re moving too fast, if we’re in a hurry.”This episode is drawn from an online conversation held in 2023. It’ll give you a sense of what the Trinity Forum is about: a community of people renewing our culture by applying wisdom from the Christian tradition, and nurturing new growth in it, in our time. If that resonates with you, please join the Trinity Forum as a member, at ttf.org.As we ponder the spirituality of walking, our fall Trinity Forum Reading features naturalist Henry David Thoreau’s ruminations on the art of walking, with an introduction by Trinity Forum President Cherie Harder. Stay tuned for pre-ordering later this week, and join our membership to receive a copy mailed directly to you.Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:AristotleSøren KierkegaardJean-Jacques RousseauGod Walk, by Mark BuchananSimone WeilThe Three Mile an Hour God, by Kosaku KoyamaWanderlust: A History of Walking, by Rebecca SolnitKnowing God, J.I. PackerKai MillerRelated Trinity Forum Readings:Pilgrim’s Progress, by John BunyanPilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie DillardGod’s Grandeur, by Gerard Manley HopkinsLong Walk to Freedom, by Nelson MandelaBrave New World, by Alduous HuxleyRelated Conversations:A New Year With The Word with Malcolm GuiteMusic, Creativity & Justice with Ruth Naomi FloydPursuing Humility with Richard Foster and Brenda QuinnReading as a Spiritual Practice with Jessica Hooten WilsonGet tickets for The Rabbit Room's Housemoot.To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcasts/ and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society.

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 summer series. Our guide today is the acclaimed writer Marilynne Robinson, author of the Gilead series, and much else. In this episode, originally an Online Conversation recorded in 2020, Marilynne reflects on the art of writing as a means of exploring truth and engaging questions around learning to live well, to love others, and to create a home and community, in our fractious world:“The unique brilliance of a human being … is something that we tend utterly to disparage, demean, utterly fail to notice … every person lives out a [life] beautiful, complicated, inaccessible to other consciousnesses. And it is sacred.”And if this conversation resonates with you, consider joining the Trinity Forum community as a member, at ttf.org. You can find the full video of this conversation there too. Marilynne Robinson's Novels | Housekeeping, Gilead, Home, Lila, Jack, Reading GenesisArticle in Breaking Ground from our event.Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:Marcel ProustRalph Waldo EmmersonPaul HardingWalt WitmanWilliam FaulknerJohn CalvinJonathan EdwardsMoby Dick, by Herman MellvillePiers Plowman, by William LanglandRelated Trinity Forum Readings:Sacred and Profane Love | A Trinity Forum Reading by John Donne Bulletins from Immortality | A Trinity Forum Reading by Emily Dickinson Confessions | A Trinity Forum Reading by Saint Augustine Brave New World | A Trinity Forum Reading by Aldous Huxley Marilynne Robinson is a novelist, essayist, and teacher, one of the most renowned and revered of living writers. Her novels Housekeeping, Gilead, Lila, and Home have been variously honored with the Pulitzer Prize, National Books Critics Circle Award (twice), a Hemingway Foundation Award, an Orange Prize, The Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, and the Ambassador Book Award. She's also the author of many essays and non-fiction works, including her work, “Mother Country”, and her essay collections, “Death of Adam,” “Absence of Mind,” “When I was a Child I Read Books,” “The Givenness of Things,” and “What Are We Doing Here?”. She's the recipient of the National Humanities Medal and an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In addition to her writing has spent over 20 years teaching at the Iowa Writers Workshop, as well as several universities.