The Veritas Forum The Veritas Forum

The speakers in today’s forum engage with two main questions: What stories are you telling yourself? And how can you learn to tell better ones?

You’ll hear today from practicing psychiatrist Curt Thompson and Health Behavior and Health Education professor Victor Strecher (UMichigan). Curt and Vic discuss what it looks like to tell better stories, the role community plays in storytelling, and what difference the Christian story can make in our lives.

This forum was held at the University of Michigan in January of 2024 and was moderated by graduate student Annika From. Thank you to the Forum planning team at the University of Michigan for making this event possible.


Find additional resources and quotes on the podcast episode page here.

For many of the key issues today, it’s challenging to simply agree to disagree. Not only do we have serious differences in opinion and belief, but how we choose to act in light of them can have profound consequences.


How, then, should we live together? Is compromise a necessary component of community?


In a forum originally titled “Can Truth and Tolerance Coexist,” theologian Mirsolav Volf (Yale) and Dean of Students Vijay Pendakur (Cornell) delve into the complexities of a diverse, democratic society. Volf and Pendakur discuss how we can go beyond simply agreeing to disagree, what the role of physical and emotional safety is on college campuses, and what speaking the truth in love really means.


Their conversation was held at Cornell University in 2019. Thank you to the Forum planning team at Cornell university for making this event possible.



Watch the full Forum event here.
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In college, it's common to feel the pressure to do everything—overload classes, join clubs, apply to internships, and more. But rarely do we stop to ask why. Behind all of our striving, what’s the purpose of our work anyway?

The speakers in this episode ask this question. You'll hear from Lydia Dugdale, a primary care physician and director of the Center for Medical Ethics at Columbia University, and Mike Fontaine, professor of Classics at Cornell. They discuss our desire to cling to life, how to find a purpose that transcends the daily striving of school and career, and what ancient wisdom might offer us that the “grindset mindset” can’t. This forum was held at Cornell in Fall 2023. Thank you to the forums team at Cornell for making this event possible.


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Watch the full Forum here.
Visit veritas.org to learn more about the mission of the Veritas Forum and find more resources to explore the ideas that shape our lives.

What if there was a way to alleviate the symptoms of depression in just five days by changing a person’s brain activity? Obviously, this kind of shift would radically change a person’s life, finally letting them find happiness and satisfaction.

Our guest today in this episode is David Carreon. He’s the co-founder of Acacia Clinic, a mental health clinic in Silicon Valley that uses a radically fast treatment for mental illness. He’s just released a new book called The Opposite of Depression to share what he’s learned.

In this conversation, David and Seth discuss how depression affects more than just the mind, why removing symptoms of depression doesn’t remove habits of depression, and what the opposite of depression really is. We also talk about how Jesus is an emotional exemplar for us today.


Find additional resources and a link to David's book on the podcast episode page here.

One of our faculty partners and frequent Veritas Forum speakers, John Inazu (WUSTL), has a new book out — Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect.

His book isn’t about the election per se, but so many of his ideas and tools will be helpful this year. As November approaches, we'll have to decide not just who or what we will vote for, but how we will engage in political conversations, especially with people we love.

In this episode, you’ll hear about his book and the empathy we need, the challenges of compromise, and his recommendations for difficult conversations. He also talks about the model of Jesus for how to disagree in truth and love.


Find additional resources and a link to John's book on the podcast episode page here.

It would be great if the world was a better place. More kindness and friendship. Less war and injustice. For “everything sad to become untrue” (to paraphrase Tolkien). 


Our speaker in this episode is Mary Poplin (Claremont), and she cares about making the world a better place. In fact, she’s dedicated her life to it. Yet her dedication was challenged when she encountered someone else who was dedicated to social justice but was going about it in a completely different way. That person? Mother Teresa.


In this episode, you’ll hear Mary Poplin share how her life was changed by Mother Teresa. Mary walks us through her personal faith journey, her time spent working with Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, and how this experience led her to better understand the inextricable role of Jesus in making the world a better place.


This forum was held at the University of Michigan in 2012. Thank you to the Forums planning team at University of Michigan for making this event possible.



Watch the full Forum event here.
Sign up for our newsletter here.
Visit veritas.org to learn more about the mission of the Veritas Forum and find more resources to explore the ideas that shape our lives