Trinity Forum Conversations

What does it mean to truly see? In a world that rewards speed, certainty, and quick judgment, the patient work of attention can feel almost countercultural. Yet learning to see clearly—to notice beauty, to attend to the people before us, and to look beyond our assumptions—may be essential to learning how to love well.

The Victorian artist and missionary Lilias Trotter devoted her life to just this kind of attention. Though a gifted painter said she could become one of the greatest artists of her generation, Trotter instead chose a quieter and more hidden path.

Author and artist Jennifer Trafton’s latest book, “If We Could Only See,” traces the remarkable life and legacy of Lillias Trotter. She joined Cherie for a conversation about what Lillias can teach us about seeing the world—and one another—with greater patience, humility, imagination, and love.

This episode was also recorded in-person and the video will be available on our Youtube here!

How do we live a life of meaning, in a time when so many competing voices tell us who to be, what to want, and how to live? Told to construct meaning for ourselves, we find anxiety instead of wisdom, and exhaustion instead of clarity. For the decisions we face each day, we need insight.

In this episode we’re joined by Alan Noble. “Practical Wisdom for Moving Through Chaotic Times” is the subtitle of his new book, To Live Well. Alan will help us locate answers for our lives today – and for those we love – by exploring seven virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, faith, hope, and love.

This episode was recorded as a Trinity Forum Online Conversation in 2026. You can view the transcript and other resources here

Go deeper into the issues discussed in this Podcast with these Trinity Forum Readings:
Why Work Dorothy L. Sayers
How Much Land Does a Man Need? Leo Tolstoy
Brave New World Aldous Huxley
Two Old Men Leo Tolstoy

The relationship of Christian believers to government has long been fraught, from Jesus’ time to today. The command to love God, our neighbor, even our enemies can flatly contradict the world’s exaltation of power and domination, and the obligations that attend citizenship in the kingdom of God are often in tension with those of the kingdom of man. Reconciling Paul’s reminder to the Philippians that our citizenship is in heaven with his admonition in Romans 13 to respect governing authorities is often less than clear cut. What are our obligations as citizens in a fallen world?

Trinity Forum Senior Fellow Russell Moore joins us to delve into these hard questions. You may find his timely piece in Christianity Today, “Christians, Let’s Stop Abusing Romans 13,” a helpful read to accompany this conversation.

This podcast episode is drawn from an Online Conversation in 2026. You can view the transcript and other resources here. Also! Renovaré is hosting its annual Book Club — four books read in community from October to May, guided by scholars and authors, with weekly podcast conversations and discussion groups. This season's lineup and registration: https://renovare.org/bookclub

Go deeper into the issues discussed in this episode with these Trinity Forum Readings:

• Letter From Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Who Stands Fast? by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• City of God by St. Augustine
• Politics, Morality, & Civility by Václav Havel

We want the thousands of hours we work over our lifetime to matter. But how do we make them truly significant? What can infuse our lives, our offices, and our world with meaning?

Today’s guest is the business leader and author Barry Rowan. He contends, “We don’t derive meaning from our work; we bring meaning to our work.” With stories from his life in high-ranking roles, he helps us go from being defined by what we do, to having our work become an expression of who we are.

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:

• Why Work Dorothy L. Sayers 
• How Much Land Does a Man Need? Leo Tolstoy
• Brave New World Aldous Huxley
• Two Old Men Leo Tolstoy

The term “baptized imagination” has come to the fore of Christian discussion in recent years, and this recent episode considers what a baptized imagination can actually look like.

In the Christian tradition, baptism represents a journey of death and resurrection. In order for there to be a rebirth of truth, goodness, and beauty in us, what other imaginations must we leave behind? And what can bring about this change? 

Our guides in this episode, Mia Chung and Malcolm Guite, are extraordinary. Mia is a concert pianist, now based at MIT where she leads the Octet Collaborative, a Christian study center. Malcolm is an acclaimed poet and Anglican priest based at Cambridge, and has begun to publish a multi-volume epic poem on the Arthurian legends–-you can find our episode with Malcolm on the first book of this epic at the link in the show notes. 

This is the kind of conversation that our community of Trinity Forum Senior Fellows foster: cross-discipline discussion rooted in the Christian tradition.

This episode was recorded live at the 2025 gathering of the Trinity Forum Senior Fellows in Washington, DC, which was convened with the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation. Our moderator is Trinity Forum President Cherie Harder.

Go deeper into the topics discussed with these Trinity Forum Readings:

Spirit and Imagination by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (introduced by Malcolm Guite)
Letters from Vincent van Gogh
Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
Into the Wasteland by Malcolm Guite
Painting as a Pastime by Winston Churchill

Take Up the Tale: Bringing the Epic Tradition Into Our Time with Malcolm Guite

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, which was convened with the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation. 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 Hugo
Politics, Morality, & Civility by Václav Havel
On Friendship by Marcus Tullius Cicero

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 global advocacy, they will consider how cultivating beauty can help us to sustain courage, foster resilience, and contribute to the pursuit of justice.

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 yesterday's Online Conversation with these Trinity Forum Readings:

• Babette's Feast; Isak Dinesen  (Introduction by Makoto Fujimura)
• Four Quartets; T.S. Eliot (Also introduced by Makoto Fujimura)
• Letters of Vincent Van Gogh
• Revelations of Divine Love; Julian of Norwich
• Painting as a Pasttime; Winston Churchill

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 Augustine
Wrestling With God; Simone Weil
Revelations of Divine Love; Julian of Norwich
Revelation; Flannery O'Connor

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 that matter most, and the things that endure.

In this conversation with Cherie Harder, our Trinity Forum president who’s known him since their undergrad days at Harvard, Ben joins a room full of family, friends, and colleagues to reflect on mortality, friendship, family, faith, and the kind of attention required for a flourishing life.

What follows is a lightly edited version of that conversation. If you'd like to watch the full video of the interview, you can find a link to the YouTube livestream here.

Recommended Trinity Forum Readings

• Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville (with an introduction by Ben Sasse)
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 
• The Federalist Papers
• The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt

Here are Cherie and Ben from the live recording at National Community Church in Washington, DC: 

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 here

Recommended Trinity Forum Readings: 

• God’s Grandeur: The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins
• Four Quartets, by T.S. Eliot with an introduction by Makoto Fujimura
• The Pardoner’s Tale, by Geoffrey Chaucer