Trinity Forum Conversations

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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 Emba

Later 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.

Thanksgiving is much more than a holiday. The practice of gratitude is a biblical command, it’s a Christian virtue, and it’s even one of the best predictors of personal well-being. 

But what does the practice of thanks-giving require? How can we cultivate a spirit and habit of thankfulness with the burdens we bear as individuals, and amidst the sorrows and injustices of a fallen world?

Join us in this episode in discovering formative practices from our Christian tradition that can help each of us cultivate a deeply thankful heart. 

Together we’ll be guided by Cornelius (Neal) Plantinga, theologian and author of Gratitude: Why Giving Thanks Is the Key to Our Well-Being.

 

“Gratitude makes me content because gratitude makes what I have enough.”

This episode is drawn from an online conversation held in 2025. You can find the full video of the conversation on our website, ttf.org. You can become a Trinity Forum Society 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.

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.

Does character matter? In the last century, our society shifted away from teaching character in schools in order to focus on different forms of learning. How has that change shaped the world we live in now? Should cultivating character be a focus of education, and can character even be effectively taught in a pluralistic society?

Our guest on today’s podcast is Dr. William Inboden, provost of the University of Texas, and one of our Senior Fellows here at the Trinity Forum. He’ll be our guide as we explore the roles of education, community, and faith in forming people of wisdom and integrity.

What does it mean to be in community? What are the implications of your character for that? Loyalty, honesty. Those are fundamental to building friendships. Integrity, self sacrifice. Those are also fundamental to living for something greater than yourself.

This episode is drawn from an Online Conversation held in 2025. 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 its growth. 

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 redemptive leadership mean? As Christians, we have a unique calling: not just to lead, but to serve. What does this look like in today’s culture, and how can we serve as leaders and foster an environment of abundant grace and joy wherever we are?

Christianity Today’s Dr. Nicole Massie Martin helps us to understand how we can nail outdated models of leadership to the cross, and what it will take to replace them with Biblical ones:

“We need to nail to the cross what is a very secular understanding … of [power, ego, and performance], so that what is resurrected through Christ might be redemptive and bring glory to God and good to the people that we lead.”

This conversation is from an Online Conversation recorded in May 2025. We hope this conversation will inspire you to identify the ways you lead, and how you can step further into leading with grace, humility, and joy.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

• Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Peter Scazzero
• Killing Comparison: Reject the Lie You Aren’t Good Enough and Live Confident in Who God Made You To Be, Nona Jones

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

• How Much Land Does a Man Need?; Leo Tolstoy
• A Man Who Changed His Times; William Wilberforce
• Letter from Birmingham Jail; Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Who Stands Fast?; Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass; Frederick Douglass