Trinity Forum Conversations The Trinity Forum

A Life Worth Living
What makes a good life? What habits of attention, reflection, and action orient us towards knowing, desiring, and doing what is good, true, and beautiful? Such “big questions” may seem unanswerable and intimidating — but their exploration is at the heart of the human quest for meaning.
Drawing on his popular Yale course, theologian Miroslav Volf joined us to reflect on what makes for a flourishing life in our times:
“You realize that there are things that are much more important. I mean this is the life of fullness. This is his life of weight. [It is the] arduous life that is, in fact, the truly happy life.Despite the real challenge of human suffering and pain, Volf argues that happiness is possible and that an examined life that grapples with the good in our emotions, circumstances, and actions is a life worth living.
This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in early 2024. Watch the full video of the conversation here, and learn more about Miroslav Volf.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:Exclusion and Embrace, by Miroslav VolfLife Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most, by Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, and Ryan McAnnally-LinzFriedrich Nietzsche
Related Trinity Forum Readings:Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor FranklOn Happiness, by Thomas AquinasBrave New World, by Aldous HuxleyHow Much Land Does a Man Need, by Leo TolstoyWrestling with God, by Simone Weil
Related 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 WilsonWalking as a Spiritual Practice with Mark BuchananMaking as a Spiritual Practice with Makoto FujimuraConnecting Spiritual Formation & Public Life with Michael WearThe Kingdom, the Power & The Glory with Tim Alberta
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.

The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory with Tim Alberta

American Christians are certainly not immune to the anger, division, and fear that characterize our political moment. For many, the prospect of another election year is a source of dread or of numb exhaustion; others have responded with aggression or defensiveness.
On our podcast, author and journalist Tim Alberta encourages us toward a better media diet, and to remember where our true allegiance lies:
“I would pray alongside of you that in our political and civic engagement, no matter who it is that we ultimately vote for, no matter what policies we support, that our allegiance is never to the Donkeys or to the Republicans. Our allegiance is never to a political figure.“We have a king, we have a kingdom, and the best way for us to retain our saltiness is to prioritize that allegiance and that allegiance alone.”
We hope this conversation, coming in a heated election year and at a time of great political import for our nation, is, in fact, a kind of spiritual balm to you. May Tim’s guidance help us to retain our distinctiveness as we engage in the public square for the common good.

This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in early 2024. Watch the full video of the conversation here, and learn more about Tim Alberta.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
American Carnage, by Tim Alberta
The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, by Tim Alberta
Rush Limbaugh
Robert Jeffress

Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Children of Light and The Children of Darkness, by Reinhold Niebuhr
City of God, by Augustine
Politics, Morality and Civility, by Václav Havel
Related 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 WilsonWalking as a Spiritual Practice with Mark BuchananMaking as a Spiritual Practice with Makoto FujimuraConnecting Spiritual Formation & Public Life with Michael Wear
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.

Connecting Spiritual Formation and Public Life with Michael Wear

In the midst of what is proving to be a frustrating, fractious, and even frightening election year, how can Christians best respond to the situation in front of us, and how can we offer a positive contribution to our common life?

Drawing on the life and work of the late philosopher Dallas Willard, Michael Wear helps us explore what true spiritual formation could mean for the reformation of our polarized political life:
“We need to retrieve a sense that we live in a moral universe in which moral decisions are not optional. We make moral decisions all of the time, and our politics is actually not absent of moral assertion. “You could say our politics today is actually more robustly full of moral assertions than it has been at any other time this century.”
We trust that you’ll be encouraged by Michael’s call to gentleness in our politics and his practical suggestions of Christian practices that help orient our hearts in the midst of cultural confusion and political fractiousness.

This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in early 2024. Watch the full video of the conversation here, and learn more about Michael Wear.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
The Divine Conspiracy, by Dallas Willard
Reclaiming Hope, by Michael Wear
The Spirit of our Politics, by Michael Wear
Christian Smith
American Grace, by David Campbell and Robert Putnam
The Allure of Gentleness, by Dallas Willard
Eitan Hersh
The Spirit of the Disciplines, by Dallas Willard
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Abraham Lincoln: The Spiritual Growth of a Public Man
Letter from Birmingham Jail, by Martin Luther King Jr.
City of God, by Augustine
Politics, Morality and Civility, by Václav Havel

Related 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 WilsonWalking as a Spiritual Practice with Mark BuchananMaking as a Spiritual Practice with Makoto Fujimura
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.

Making as a Spiritual Practice with Makoto Fujimura
If at the center of reality is a God whose love is a generative, creative force, how do humans made in God’s image begin to reflect this beauty and love in a world rent by brokenness and ugliness?
As Mako argues on our latest podcast, it’s in the act of making that we are able to experience the depth of God’s being and grace, and to realize an integral part of our humanity:
“Love, by definition, is something that goes way outside of utilitarian values and efficiencies and industrial bottom lines. It has to…and when we love, I think we make.  That's just the way we are made, and we respond to that making. So we make, and then when we receive that making, we make again.”Artistry and creativity are not just formative, but even liturgical in that they shape our understanding of, orientation towards, and love for, both the great creator and his creation.

We hope you’re encouraged in your making this Lenten season that the God who created you in his image delights in your delight.

If this podcast inspires you, and you’re so inclined, we’d love to see what you create, be that a painting, a meal, a poem, or some other loving, artistic expression. Feel free to share it with us by tagging us on your favorite social platform.

This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in 2021. Watch the full video of the conversation here, and learn more about Makoto Fujimura.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Art + Faith: A Theology of Making, by Makoto Fujimura
William Blake
Vincent VanGogh
N. T. Wright
Esther Meek
Jaques Pépin
Bruce Herman
Martin Luther King Jr.
The Gift, byLewis Hyde
Amanda Goldman
T. S. Eliot
Calvin Silve
David Brooks
Related Trinity Forum Readings:Babette's Feast, by Isak Dinesen
Four Quartets, by T.S. Eliot
Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard
God’s Grandeur, by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Related 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 WilsonWalking as a Spiritual Practice with Mark Buchanan
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.

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.
Buchanan reflects on the ways in which walking can be both a spiritual practice and a means by which we can deepen our connection to the earth beneath us, our fellow travelers, and the God we worship:
“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.”We hope you’re encouraged this Lenten season as you learn to walk at godspeed, seeing this embodied act as a profoundly spiritual practice.

This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in 2023. Watch the full video of the conversation here, and learn more about Mark Buchanan.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Aristotle
Søren Kierkegaard
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
God Walk, by Mark Buchanan
Simone WeilThe Three Mile an Hour God, by Kosaku Koyama
Wanderlust: A History of Walking, by Rebecca Solnit
Knowing God, J.I. Packer
Kai Miller
Related Trinity Forum Readings:Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard
God’s Grandeur, by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Long Walk to Freedom, by Nelson Mandela
Brave New World, by Alduous Huxley
Related 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 Wilson

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.

What if we viewed reading as not just a personal hobby or a pleasurable indulgence but as a spiritual practice that deepens our faith?

In her book, Reading for the Love of God, award-winning author and Trinity Forum Senior Fellow Jessica Hooten Wilson explores how Christian thinkers—including Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Frederick Douglass, and Dorothy Sayers—approached the act of reading.
She argues that reading deeply and well can not only open a portal to a broader imagination, but is akin to acquiring travel supplies for the good life:
“What I'm hoping to see more of is that the church becomes again those people of the book that really try to make others belong and strive for a deeper connection, versus the party atmosphere that our world always is tempting us to do.”
We hope you’re encouraged this Lenten season as you learn to read as a spiritual practice, finding grace and wisdom for living well along the way.

This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in 2023. Watch the full video of the conversation here, and learn more about Jessica Hooten Wilson.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Learning the Good Life: Wisdom from the Great Hearts and Minds That Came Before, by Jessica Hooten Wilson
Giving the Devil His Due, by Jessica Hooten Wilson
The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints, by Jessica Hooten Wilson
Reading for the Love of God: How to Read as a Spiritual Practice,, by Jessica Hooten Wilson
Walker Percy
The Life you Save May Be Your Own, by Flannery O'Connor
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Boethius
Augustine
Mystery and Manners, by Flannery O’Connor
St. Basil
Origen
People of the Book, by David L. Jeffrey
A History of Reading, by Alberto Manguel
Jerome
Andy Crouch
Dana Gioia
Dorothy Sayers
Ross Douthat
Life Together, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Julian of Norwich
Dante Alighieri
Eugene Peterson
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
Revelation, Flannery O'Connor
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Augustine's Confessions
The Grand Inquisitor, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Moses Man of the Mountain, by Zora Neale Hurston
God's Grandeur: the Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins
Related Conversations:A New Year With The Word with Malcolm GuiteMusic, Creativity & Justice with Ruth Naomi FloydPursuing Humility with Richard Foster and Brenda Quinn
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.