Trinity Forum Conversations

Latest Episodes:

Living a Non-Anxious Life, with Alan Fadling Apr 28, 2026

Show notes

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; Augustine
Brave New World; Aldous Huxley
The Long Loneliness;Dorothy Day
Wrestling With God;Simone Weil

Practicing Slow Theology with Nijay Gupta Apr 14, 2026

Show notes

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, its co-author, theologian Nijay Gupta, joined us for an online conversation in 2026, where we explored these questions for a live audience:

"There's a journey that we have to take of striving after God, not because God is a cosmic killjoy, but because we have growth that needs to take place. And that happens slowly."

This episode is from a conversation from March 2026. You can view the transcript and other resources here.

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.

Related Trinity Forum Readings:

Confessions; Augustine
Wrestling With God;Simone Weil
Man's Search for Meaning;Viktor Frankl
Who Stands Fast?Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Why God Became Man;Anselm of Canterbury

Discovering a Life Worth Living, with Miroslav Volf Mar 31, 2026

Show notes

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 Frankl
On Happiness; Thomas Aquinas
Brave New World; Aldous Huxley
How Much Land Does a Man Need? Leo Tolstoy
Wrestling with God; Simone Weil

Hope in the Darkness with Curt Thompson Mar 17, 2026

Show notes

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 working to move toward Jesus, while I'm moving to be further in the dance of the Trinity, I continue to suffer because evil is not about to go quietly into the night ... [we must] posture ourselves with our suffering in the same way that the Holy Trinity does when it comes to the suffering that Jesus experienced, such that we can join him in that."

This episode is drawn from an online conversation recorded in 2023. View the transcript and other resources there.

Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Confessions; St Augustine
God's Grandeur; Gerard Manley Hopkins
Bulletins from Immortality; Emily Dickinson
On Friendship; Cicero
On Happiness; Aquinas
Man's Search for Meaning; Viktor Frankl

Affirming God's Goodness Amidst Suffering, with Alan Noble Mar 03, 2026

Show notes

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.

Habits of the Way with John Mark Comer Feb 17, 2026

Show notes

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 the Christian way is becoming a person of love through deepening union with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit…It’s the two greatest commandments: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, that Jesus put at the center of apprenticeship to him.”

This episode is drawn from an online conversation recorded in 2024.

America's Vanishing Church, with Ryan Burge Feb 03, 2026

Show notes

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 bookThe Vanishing Churchdraws 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.

Charisma in Leaders: The Hidden Dynamic with Molly Worthen Jan 20, 2026

Show notes

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 our Senior Fellows at the Trinity Forum. She’s written widely on her unexpected turn to Christian faith.

In this conversation, drawing on her book Spellbound, Molly will guide us in understanding the powerful effects of charisma in leadership on religious and political life in America, all the way from the Puritans to the 21st century:

"We are not that different from humans four centuries ago. The advance of democracy, the rise of the internet, scientific literacy, all of this has not really severed us from the deep past and from this, this fundamental desire to connect with a transcendent story about the universe."

This podcast is an edited version of an Online Conversation recorded in 2025. It’ll help people find us if you subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen.

On Epic Beginnings with Malcolm Guite Jan 06, 2026

Show notes

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.

Singing at Christmas and How it Forms us Dec 23, 2025

Show notes

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 Christmastime conversation, we explored music, formation, and beauty:

“We’re fearfully and wonderfully made. We remember tunes and we forget sermons, not because we’re bad people, but it’s because of how God made us. The carols are special because repetition is a form of liturgy. And each Christmas, the liturgy of singing provides such an opportunity for us.” – Keith Getty

This podcast is an edited version of an Online Conversation recorded in 2023. You can find the full video on our website, ttf.org.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Trinity Forum Conversations

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected