Trinity Forum Conversations

• The Cost of Ambition with Miroslav Volf

  In this episode we’re joined by theologian and bestselling author Miroslav Volf of Yale Divinity School. His latest book is The Cost of Ambition: How Striving to Be Better Than Others is Making Us Worse.  The question he explores is one that relates to all of us: how can we find a way to strive for excellence, rather than for superiority over those around us? Finding new insights in familiar Biblical passages and the Christian tradition, he’ll help us to defy our culture of merciless ambition:Let’s dare trust in the God who comes down to serve those who are a refuse of society. And let’s trust in that unconditional love of God that takes those of us who are nothing and places us to become sharers of the community of those who are God’s beloved children.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 working to keep the Christian intellectual tradition alive, and to nurture new growth in it in our time, for the renewal of our culture.  If that resonates with you, please join the Trinity Forum as a member at ttf.org. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

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• Living Well and Dying Well with Lydia Dugdale

  This conversation is on the practical wisdom the Christian tradition offers for something that affects all of us: matters of life and death. Dr. Lydia Dugdale will be our guide. Lydia has applied practices from this faith tradition in her daily work with patients and families as a physician, professor and medical ethicist in New York City. She draws deeply from it in her book The Lost Art of Dying: Reviving Forgotten Wisdom – which she wrote for her patients, and those who love them:“[Death] exists as a paradox … death has been conquered in the Resurrection of Christ, and then death is still the last enemy to be destroyed in the final resurrection of the dead.” — Lydia DugdaleWe hope this conversation helps paint a picture of what it means to live as a Christian on the road of life, where death is not the end, but a stop along the way to eternity.This podcast was recorded with a live audience at a Trinity Forum evening conversation in Nashville in 2025. It’ll give you a good sense of what the Trinity Forum is about: a community of people working to keep the Christian intellectual tradition alive, to nurture new growth in it for society’s renewal, and to make it available to all. Related Conversations:Being, Living, and Dying Well, an Online Conversation with Lydia DugdaleFaith, Health, and Healing, an Evening Conversation with Farr Curlin and Daniel SulmasySuffering and Flourishing: Perseverance and Faith in the Midst of Pain, an Evening Conversation with Dr. Ray Barfield and Rev. Michael Walrond

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• Reason and Belief with Ross Douthat

  In this conversation, author Ross Douthat draws from the tradition to tackle a foundational question: Why believe?Amid evidence that America’s long trend of secularization has leveled off, a perception of the limits of a strictly materialist worldview, and growing dissatisfaction with “do it yourself” approaches to spirituality, what does traditional faith uniquely offer those seeking truth in our time?New York Times columnist and author Ross Douthat joins us for this conversation, making the case for Christianity and rejecting atheism, all through the lens of reason: “I think secularization as a deep and profound phenomenon is not real, as you can tell. I think the world remains shot through with miracle and mystery and enchantment.” – Ross Douthat We hope this conversation provides a look at faith from a fresh angle, and encourages you in practicing traditional faith as an answer to the search for truth in our time.This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in February 2025. Watch the recording here.Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:Ross Douthat for The New York TimesMatter of Opinion PodcastThe Deep Places: A memoir of Illness and DiscoveryThe Decadent Society to Change the ChurchTo Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of CatholicismBad Religion: How We Became a Nation of HereticsBelieve: Why Everyone Should Be ReligiousBethel McGrew, on left vs. right brain of ChristianityRelated Trinity Forum Readings:The Wager; Blaise PascalThe Strangest Story in the World; G.K. ChestertonA Practical View of Real Christianity; William WilberforceGod’s Grandeur: Gerard Manley Hopkins selection of poems; Gerard Manley HopkinsRelated Conversations:A World Transformed with Tom HollandThe Strangest Story in the World: G.K. Chesterton and the Incarnation with Dale AhlquistTruth and Trust with Francis CollinsFaith in an Empirical World with Ard Louis and Tremper Longman

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• Our Souls on Technology with Andy Crouch and Jonathan Haidt

  We were made for relationship — to be seen, loved, known, and committed to others. And yet we increasingly find ourselves, in the words of sociologist Jonathan Haidt, “disoriented, unable to speak the same language or recognize the same truth. We are cut off from one another and from the past.”On our podcast Haidt and bestselling author Andy Crouch pair up to explore how the technology era has seduced us with a false vision of human flourishing—and how each of us can fight back, and restore true community:“A person is a heart, soul, mind, strength, complex designed for love. And one of the really damaging things about our technology is very little of our technology develops all four of those qualities.” - Andy CrouchWe hope you enjoy this conversation about the seismic effects technology has had on our personal relationships, civic institutions, and even democratic foundations — and how we might approach rethinking our technologies and reclaiming human connection.This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in 2022. Watch the full video of the conversation here. Learn more about Jonathan Haidt and Andy Crouch.Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:The Happiness Hypothesis, by Jonathan HaidtThe Coddling of the American Mind, by Jonathan HaidtThe Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan HaidtCulture Making, by Andy CrouchPlaying God, by Andy CrouchStrong and Weak, by Andy CrouchThe TechWise Family, by Andy CrouchMy TechWise Life, by Amy and Andy CrouchThe Life We're Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World, by Andy CrouchErnest HemingwayFrancis BaconHoward HotsonGreg LukianoffWolfram SchultzThe Sacred Canopy, by Peter L. BergerEpictetusMarcus AureliusRelated Trinity Forum Readings:Brave New World, by Alduous HuxleyBulletins from Immortality: Poems by Emily DickinsonPilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie DillardPolitics and the English Language, by George OrwellThe Origins of Totalitarianism, by Hannah ArendtCity of God, by St. Augustine of HippoChildren of Light and Children of Darkness by Reinhold NiebuhrOn Happiness, by Thomas AquinasRelated Conversations:Rebuilding our Common Life with Yuval LevinThe Challenge of Christian Nationalism with Mark Noll and Vincent BacoteThe Decadent Society with Ross DouthatScience, Faith, Trust and Truth with Francis CollinsBeyond Ideology with Peter Kreeft and Eugene RiversJustice, Mercy, and Overcoming Racial Division with Claude Alexander and Mac PierHealing a Divided Culture with Arthur BrooksAfter Babel with Andy Crouch and Johnathan HaidtTrust, Truth, and The Knowledge Crisis with Bonnie KristianHope in an Age of Anxiety with Curtis Chang & Curt ThompsonTo listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help...

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• Faith and Foreign Aid

  US foreign aid is unexpectedly in the news in 2025 as never before. What do Christians need to know, to help us be part of the dialogue?America's history of foreign aid dates back at least to the Marshall Plan that followed World War II. Many Christians have been involved. How have these believers thought about the appropriate roles of government and of faith-based institutions? What has the US been doing, with what impact? And what is the situation on the ground now?Three believers knowledgeable about this work join us for this episode to illustrate the scope of how faith-based foreign aid has impacted regions worldwide, share their perspectives on what a Christ-like spirit looks like in this field, and discuss where they see aid is most needed—now more than ever."Jesus calls on us to help the poor, your neighbor, the stranger, the sick, the shunned, the scorned, the stigmatized. Think of Jesus embracing those in poverty, prostitution, leprosy ... the US ... is not a savior. That’s Jesus’s job. But it can be an enabler of human flourishing so that people can survive and thrive." — Mark LagonAmbassador Mark Lagon has served as the US Ambassador to combat human trafficking, and is now focused on the fight against malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS.Nicole Bibbins Sedaca has held leadership roles in the government, academic and NGO sectors working and teaching on democracy, human rights and religious freedom.Myal Greene leads World Relief, the development arm of the National Association of Evangelicals; while serving in Rwanda, he developed its church-based programming model.This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from April 2025. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.Related Trinity Forum Readings:A Man Who Changed His Times; William WilberforceThis Child Will Be Great; Ellen Sirleaf JohnsonOut of My Life and Thought; Albert Schweitzer Cry, the Beloved Country; Alan PatonSphere Sovereignty; Abraham KuyperPolitics, Morality, and Civility; Václav HavelRelated Conversations:Abraham Kuyper’s Sphere Sovereignty with Vincent BacoteTo 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.

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