Trinity Forum Conversations

By The Trinity ForumSociety & Culture Religion & Spirituality Christianity

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Trinity Forum Conversations episodes

May 30, 2023 Cultivating a Life of Learning with Zena Hitz
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 as the cultivation of a rich inner life of learning and contemplation:
“Virtually any intellectual activity, any piece of thinking or contemplation involves others. Even just sitting reading a book, there's an author that wrote that book and there are characters within the book that the author is sharing with you. And a lot of what I think we do and in a great books education is you encounter the minds of these authors and…even if they're long dead you see something about who they were and what they saw. So there's a human connection at the bottom of it.”
Learning in Community, and the need for Perseverance
Zena argues that learning is worth doing for its own sake, as something intrinsically valuable, reflective of, and fortifying to our dignity as human beings and a vital part of the good life. And when we find our energy flagging or our motives for learning to be mixed, community and perseverance are the necessary prescription for deepening and sustaining our intellectual lives.

Our podcast is an edited version of an Online Conversation with Zena from September, 2022. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.
Learn more about Zena Hitz.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of the Intellectual Life, by Zena Hitz
Augustine
Plato
Aristotle
Jonathan Haidt
David Hume
Jessica Hooten Wilson

Related Trinity Forum Readings:
On Happiness, by Thomas Aquinas
On Friendship, by Cicero
Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl
Augustine’s Confessions
The Long Loneliness, by Dorothy Day
Wrestling with God, by Simone Weil

Related Conversations:
Strength in the Second Half with Arthur Brooks
Cultivating a Life of Learning with Zena Hitz
Being, Living, and Dying Well with Lydia Dugdale
Hope, Heartbreak, and Meaning with Kate Bowler
The Burden of Living and the and the Goodness of God with Alan Noble
All the Lonely People with Ryan Streeter and Francie Broghammer

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.
32 min
May 16, 2023 Strength to Strength with Arthur Brooks
As we start to approach middle age (or beyond), how do we think about our vocation and purpose? Should our sense of mission change? What should we do to equip ourselves for a joyful, purposeful, and meaningful second half?

Arthur Brooks joined us to discuss ideas in his latest book Strength to Strength, which weaves together philosophy and research on human flourishing to illuminate the inescapable fact of change as we grow older — and to offer practical guidance on flourishing in new stages of life:
“I can tell you that if you boil the ocean of 10,000 research articles, you'll find the happiest people, they pursue four things every day. Faith, family, friendship, and work that serves others. In other words, love, love, love. And more love.”
Friendship, crystalized intelligence, and the beatific vision
This conversation is rich in reflections on achievement, the way our intelligence changes as we age, the importance of making and sustaining real friendships, and how pondering our own mortality can lead to greater joy.

Our podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from February, 2022. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.
Learn more about Arthur Brooks.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Love Your Enemies, by Arthur Brooks
From Strength to Strength, by Arthur Brooks
Summa Theologica, by Thomas Aquinas
The Nicomachean Ethics, by Aristotle
The Dalai Lama
The Apostle Paul
St. Augustine
David Foster Wallace
Abraham Maslow

Related Trinity Forum Readings:
On Happiness, by Thomas Aquinas
On Friendship, by Cicero
Two Old men, by Leo Tolstoy
How Much Land Does a Man Need? by Leo Tolstoy
Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl

Related Conversations:
Strength in the Second Half with Arthur Brooks
Cultivating a Life of Learning with Zena Hitz
Being, Living, and Dying Well with Lydia Dugdale
Hope, Heartbreak, and Meaning with Kate Bowler
The Burden of Living and the and the Goodness of God with Alan Noble
All the Lonely People with Ryan Streeter and Francie Broghammer

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.

31 min
May 02, 2023 The Soul of Desire with Curt Thompson
We all long to be fully known. Yet so often this desire for true connection and community is impaired by trauma, shame, and suffering. In October of 2021, we hosted psychiatrist Curt Thompson to discuss his book, The Soul of Desire: Discovering the Neuroscience of Longing, Beauty, and Community.

In his book, Thompson weaves together neurobiological insight and spiritual formation to open up new ways of understanding our longing for connection with God and each other. Curt explored the ways cultivating presence with ourselves, others, and God can move us from brokenness to beauty:

“The reason that this is important is because our trauma and our shame, all that stuff–if I don't take care of that, I'm necessarily literally going to have to be burning neurobiological energy to contain it, and that is energy that I then will not have available to create those artifacts of beauty and goodness in the world that God has prepared for me and you together, along with the presence of the Holy Spirit from before the foundation of the world, to create.”

Confessional Community and the Imagination
During our conversation, Curt offers up a vision for the ways in which a confessional community can reshape our imaginations and reveal new possibilities for better knowing and loving God ourselves and others. It's a redemptive, hopeful, even beautiful vision, and we hope it inspires you to press into your community too.
This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from October, 2021. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.
Learn more about Curt Thompson.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

The Soul of Desire: Discovering the Neuroscience of Longing, Beauty, and Community, by Curt Thompson
Daniel J. Siegel
Tina Payne Bryson
James K.A. Smith
The Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Insights from Great Literature
Man’s Search for Meaning

Related Conversations:
Strength in the Second Half with Arthur Brooks
Cultivating a Life of Learning with Zena Hitz
Being, Living, and Dying Well with Lydia Dugdale
Hope, Heartbreak, and Meaning with Kate Bowler
The Burden of Living and the and the Goodness of God with Alan Noble
All the Lonely People with Ryan Streeter and Francie Broghammer
To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.

41 min
April 18, 2023 Public Faith in Polarized Times
Public Faith in Polarized Times with Mark Labberton, Claude Alexander, Walter Kim

In a public square increasingly riven by tribalism, identity politics, and polarization, how can Christians wisely and faithfully engage?

We were joined by Mark Labberton, Claude Alexander, and Walter Kim in August of 2021 to explore ways of understanding and approaching Christian public engagement beyond the ruts of timid quietism or belligerent culture-warring:

“It's easy to think about public faith in terms of our public character. In other words, how we conduct ourselves in public. And that's critical, that's very important. The posture, the characters of integrity. The ability to bring joy and peace to others. But there's a deeper issue at stake of not merely character, but the very presence of the gospel in society, the presence of faith in society.
"So the gospel no longer becomes this narrow vision of personal and characterological transformation, which it is including, but it also encompasses this very expansive vision of the implications of faith for every sector of human existence and endeavor.” - Walter Kim

The Church's Historic and Global Witness
Drawing on both the church’s historic witness under times of stress and persecution, and the ways in which the faith is expressed globally, Labberton, Alexander, and Kim offer a vision that is both sobering and hopeful:

“I do think for me, there's the assurance that God is not the least bit surprised or undone by this moment. In fact, it's quite familiar if you look back on the pages of both the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament, you find plenty of evidences of the makings of such moments as this.
“So the sense of faith against staggering power or resistance to change, or to deep confession or all of that, that's familiar biblical terrain. That's why it required the death of God in Jesus to be able to actually take all of this with the deep seriousness that it requires.” - Mark Labberton

The Church can be a Blessing in Polarized Times
We believe you’ll find their vision for a church that can thrive in the midst of difficulty and serve as an exemplar of unity in a time of fragmentation and political polarization inspiring.

This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from August, 2021. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.
Learn more about Mark Labberton, Walter Kim, and Claude Alexander.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Martin Luther King. Jr.
Yuval Levin
G.K. Chesterton
St. Paul
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Crisis-Ready Leadership Collection
The Confessions of St. Augustine
City of God
Children of Light and the Children of Darkness, by Reinhold Niebuhr
Politics and the English Language, by George Orwell
Politics, Morality, and Civility, by Václav Havel

Related Conversations:
Leadership in Tumultuous Times with Ron C. White
Lincoln in Private with Ron C. White
Crisis Ready Leadership
Redeeming Power with Diane Langberg
Character, Virtue, and Leadership with Michael Lamb

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.
43 min
April 04, 2023 Character, Virtue, and Leadership with Michael Lamb
Character, Virtue, and Leadership with Michael Lamb
The increasing conflict, chaos, and moral confusion of our time has made leadership more challenging, and the role of character increasingly questioned. What does it mean to lead wisely and well? Is successful leadership defined by “winning”? How is trust built in a cynical age?

The Link Between Virtue and Leadership
Wake Forest professor, author, and director of the The Program for Leadership and Character, Michael Lamb helps us wrestle with these questions by exploring the link between virtue and wise leadership, and showing how character formation enables leaders to establish trust, think wisely, empower others, and persevere through difficult times.

“If we do care about our social fabric, if we care about our communal flourishing, we need the virtues that help us build meaningful relationships. We need empathy and we need humility to recognize our limits. And we need courage and justice, and we need other virtues. And I think in that context, I think what's really important is to recognize that.

“Character matters and it matters for our flourishing, but also it can actually lead to more effective results.”

Defining Leadership and Character
In addition to helpfully defining leadership and character, Michael offers insight into why we often prefer unscrupulous or brash leaders in public while seeking friends of virtue. Drawing on Augustine, Michael reminds us that we aren’t victims of our times, but instead have an active, hopeful role to play in shaping the character of our communities in our time.

This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from February, 2023. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.
Learn more about Michael Lamb.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Anthony Kronman
Harry Lewis
Return on Character: The Real Reason Leaders and Their Companies Win, Fred Kiel
Richard Reeves
Machiavelli
Aristotle
The Road to Character, David Brooks
St. Augustine of Hippo
Martin Luther King Jr.
Gandhi
The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer

Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Crisis-Ready Leadership Collection
The Confessions of St. Augustine

Related Conversations:
Leadership in Tumultuous Times with Ron C. White
Lincoln in Private with Ron C. White
Crisis Ready Leadership
Redeeming Power with Diane Langberg

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.

31 min
March 21, 2023 Redeeming Power with Diane Langberg
Redeeming Power with Diane Langberg

Psychologist and author Dr. Diane Langberg joins our podcast to discuss the themes in her book, Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church. Dr. Langberg who has been working with survivors of trauma and abuse, clergy, and caregivers for almost 50 years, desires to increase awareness and understanding of power and its abuse so those who have been abandoned by broken systems of power can be defended and protected.
Defending dysfunctional and abusive systems
"When we think about a system of any kind, whether it's a government or some kind of organization, or the church, which is a system, it's people standing together usually for a particular goal or purpose or whatever.And so what the people want to do is maintain the system because of what it gives them. So if you come along and say, the person who's running that system is a wolf and is devouring the sheep, nobody wants to hear that. Because if that's the case, then the thing that they believe in that keeps them safe isn't safe. That's terrifying." - Diane Langberg
In this conversation Dr. Langberg discusses the purposes, dynamics, systems, and proper place of power, as well as the ways in which it can deform and distort, noting that “our responses to the vulnerable expose who we are.”
And she noted that while “much of Christendom today seems less interested in seeing as Jesus saw…and far more interested in gaining power,” there is also the invitation and opportunity before us to “cross divides, step out of high positions, and reach out with love to those who are vulnerable, whose power is little or trampled, bestowing benedictions as we go.” We trust you’ll find this conversation inspiring and hopeful.
This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from July 2021. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.
Learn more about Diane Langberg.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
George Herbert

Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Crisis-Ready Leadership Collection

Related Conversations:
Leadership in Tumultuous Times with Ron C. White
Lincoln in Private with Ron C. White
Crisis Ready Leadership

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.
30 min
March 07, 2023 Crisis Ready Leadership
Crisis Ready Leadership with Justin Giboney, Russell Moore, Shirley Hoogstra, Walter Kim

What does it take to listen, respond, learn, and lead? How do leaders prepare for the unexpected and unpredictable?

In this episode Shirley Hoogstra, Russell Moore, Justin Giboney and Walter Kim consider the historic values of leadership, share lessons learned from their own lives, and provide encouragement for leaders today.

How to Speak in a Crisis
Reflecting on the temptation to tell people what they want to hear, Russell Moore encourages leaders to consider long-term credibility and speaking the truth:
“I think one of the most dangerous things that can possibly happen is if people don't believe that you believe what it is that you're saying. And that's a tendency…to think, well, what would people want me to say? And I will say that. And that can make things easy for the moment, but long term, you're not going to be believed by the very people who need you to lead.” - Russell Moore
Faithfulness vs. Perfection
Shirley Hoogstra shared about the freedom that comes with being “roughly ready” in a crisis, and in casting our fears and anxieties on God:
“In this time of fear, Christians actually have the advantage because the Bible speaks about fear. It speaks about “don't be afraid,” “don't be anxious,” not because you've got the willpower to do it, but because you can bring your anxiety and your fear to God.
“And I'm sure with the other leaders on this call, you've woken up in the middle of the night and you've wondered about decisions or actions that you have to take, and then you say, ‘Lord, I just have to give it over to you. You have it. I don't have to have it. You are the engine. I'm not the engine. And you'll gimme a redo loop if I get it wrong.’ It is not perfection, it's faithfulness.”
This podcast offers a wealth of wisdom on leading through crisis, and is an edited version of our Online Conversation from June 2020. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.
Learn more about Justin Gibony, Russell Moore, Shirley Hoogstra, and Walter Kim.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Max De Pree
Seth Godin
Learning in Wartime, by C.S. Lewis
Good to Great, by Jim Collins
Bishop Claude Alexander
Dr. Charlie Day
Esau McCauley
Andy Crouch
A Rule of Life, by Praxis Labs
The Dip, by Seth Godin
Eugene Peterson
Your Labor is not in Vain
Leadership on the Line, by Martin Linsky and Ronald A. Heifetz

Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Crisis-Ready Leadership Collection

Related Conversations:
Leadership in Tumultuous Times with Ron C. White
Lincoln in Private with Ron C. White

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society
Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.
44 min
February 21, 2023 Lincoln in Private: Leadership Behind Closed Doors with Ron C. White
Lincoln in Private: Leadership Behind Closed Doors with Ron White

Lincoln did not keep a diary but he developed the habit of writing reflections and ruminations on little slips of paper. These notes, which Lincoln never intended for anyone to see, help us understand the depth of Lincoln’s character and thinking and introduce us to the private Lincoln behind the public Lincoln.

In his new work Lincoln in Private, renowned historian and biographer Ronald C. White takes the reader through a tour of Abraham Lincoln’s private notes that illustrate the ways in which he struggled with the national, moral, and spiritual crises of his times, and reflected on the possibilities of God’s purposes during the Civil War. In doing so, White shows the struggles of leadership behind closed doors — and what can be learned from Lincoln’s example.
At the end of the day, character does matter that policies are important, but policies will come and go. Character is what is lasting and over the long haul, whoever the person is. We don't need to think even simply of political figures. Leaders in business, lawyers, teachers, presidents of colleges or universities, character is what will endure or what will actually cause a person to fall.
Whether we know it or not, whether we talk about it or not. Character might sound like an old-fashioned word, but I think it's the underlying definition of who leaders are. - Ron C. White
This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from May 2021. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.

Learn more about Ron White.

Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Abraham Lincoln: the Spiritual Growth of a Public Man
The Great Lives Collection

Related Conversations:
Leadership in Tumultuous Times with Ron C. White

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.
28 min
December 20, 2022 The Blessing of Limitations with Kelly Kapic
The Blessing of Limitations with Kelly Kapic

We live in an age of speed and overwhelm, where we often feel we are constantly expected to do more, move faster, work harder, brush past boundaries and limits, and shave margins. When we inevitably fail to meet all demands, we are left feeling not only exhausted and discouraged, but often disoriented and diminished.

But what if, instead of seeing our limitations as an impediment, we could learn to view them as a blessing, even a gift? In You’re Only Human, theologian and scholar Kelly Kapic provides a theologically grounded approach to understanding and receiving the gift of our human finitude.

On this final podcast episode of our Advent series, Kelly Kapic offers us a way to find joy and relief in our incarnational limits and use them to foster greater freedom, spiritual growth, and deeper community.
This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from December 2022. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.

Learn more about Kelly Kapic.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
You’re Only Human, by Kelly Kapic
Embodied Hope, by Kelly Kapic
The God Who Gives, by Kelly Kapic
The Devoted Life, by Kelly Kapic
Becoming Whole, by Kelly Kapic
Wendell Berry
The Sabbath, by Abram Joshua Heschel
Robert Emmons

Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Bright Evening Star, Madeleine L’Engle
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Babette’s Feast, by Isak Dinesen

Related Conversations:
Practicing Gratitude with Diana Butler Bass
Beauty and Wonder with Andrew Peterson
Time and Hope with James K.A. Smith
Beauty from Darkness with Curt Thompson

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.

31 min
December 13, 2022 Beauty from Darkness with Curt Thompson
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 believing what is true about our stories can transform our perspective and bring hope and healing:

"Shame is the antithesis and is that force that evil wants to use to undermine not only our ability to be known by one another deeply, which we were made for, we were made to be known, but we were also made to be known on the way to creating artifacts of beauty, whether those artifacts are relationships, whether they're new pieces of music, art, businesses, and so forth."
– Curt Thompson

This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from November 2020. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.
Learn more about Curt Thompson.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Makoto Fujimura
M. Scott Peck

Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Bright Evening Star, Madeleine L’Engle
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Babette’s Feast, by Isak Dinesen

Related Conversations:
Practicing Gratitude with Diana Butler Bass
Beauty and Wonder with Andrew Peterson
Time and Hope with James K.A. Smith

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.
36 min

About Trinity Forum Conversations

From the publisher's feed

Trinity Forum Conversations is a podcast exploring the big questions in life by looking to the best of the Christian intellectual tradition and elevating the voices, both ancient and modern, who…