When Faith Meant Trust, with Dr. Teresa Morgan

We’re so excited to share a conversation that our friend and Executive Director, Zach Davis, had with Teresa Morgan, Professor at Yale Divinity School and a leading scholar of early Christian history. Today, Teresa invites us to reconsider one of the most central words in Christianity: faith. She explains that for the first generations of Christians, “faith” didn’t mean signing on to a list of beliefs. It meant something more like trust—faithfulness, trustworthiness, the act of entrusting your life to God. Faith was less about what you thought and more about the kind of relationship you were living: a daily, embodied trust in a faithful God. But over time, as outside pressures mounted, Christian leaders drew clearer boundaries around belief. Creeds became markers of belonging, and faith—once rooted primarily in trust and lived allegiance—was increasingly defined by agreement with specific doctrines. That shift has shaped the Christian imagination ever since. In this conversation, Zach and Teresa explore how that evolution happened, what may have been lost, and what it might look like to recover a richer, more relational vision of faith today. We also want to mention that this interview is featured in the upcoming Issue 7 of Wayfare, and that this is a special edition centering women’s voices on the theme of trust—trust in God, in ourselves, and in our communities. It’s a beautiful and thoughtful collection that we are really proud of. If you’d like to receive your own copy of Wayfare in the mail, you can become a Friend of Faith Matters at faithmatters.org/subscribe, or sign up as a paid Wayfare subscriber at WayfareMagazine.org/subscribe. Your support is what makes conversations like this possible, and we’re so grateful.