Episode 105 | Pursuing Humility with Richard Foster and Brenda Quinn

Pursuing Humility

Throughout the season of Lent, we’ll be releasing weekly episodes focused on themes of reflection, prayer, and contemplation. As you listen to this episode, we invite you to take a moment to slow down, quiet your heart, and hear what God may be saying to you.

In an age when self-promotion is often celebrated as a sign of leadership and strength, humility may seem a lost virtue. In his work Learning Humility, theologian Richard Foster argues that humility is actually strength, releasing us from a preoccupation with self, and allowing us to live a life of freedom:

“One of the dangers among religious folks is that they can become stuffy bores. And it is hilarity that frees us from that. We don’t take ourselves so seriously. We can laugh at our own foibles. If you look carefully… it’s not hard to identify humble people. You’ll find the freedom that they have to just enjoy life and enjoy other people, enjoy the successes of another person rather than being envious of it. Things like that. And so that’s why humility, the most basic of the virtues, opens us up to a life of freedom.”

May Foster’s call to humility, and pastor and writer Brenda Quinn’s practical insights on living it out in leadership and community, inspire you this Lenten season to contemplate the humility of Jesus and the way of the cross.

This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in 2022. Watch the full video of the conversation here, and learn more about Richard Foster and Brenda Quinn.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
Learning Humility, by Richard Foster
Celebration of Discipline, by Richard Foster
Streams of Living Water, by Richard Foster
Sanctuary of the Soul, by Richard Foster
The Life With God Bible, contributed to by Richard Foster
C.S. Lewis
Timothy Keller
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
The Long Loneliness, by Dorothy Day
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Who stands Fast, featuring Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Babette’s Feast, by Isak Dinesen
Wrestling with God, by Simone Weil
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.
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