Redeemed Imagination

In preparation for Heidi White's keynote session on the Art of Christian Memory (which she'll give at our upcoming Imagination Redeemed conference), this episode revisits a talk she gave at our 2020 artists' retreat. In this lecture, Heidi explores the two different attitudes we can have toward the past, and how each needs the other in order to healthily live in the present. This balanced perspective encourages courage and fortitude in artistry, but also serves as a primer on political theology as well.

How are we supposed to grapple with the past—the good, the bad, and the ugly? Why does the Bible talk about remembering so much? And can storytelling be a way to use the past to remind ourselves who we are? In this episode, Brooke McIntire shares this month's essay by Heidi White on mythmaking, and the questions surrounding creation as an act of shared memory.

Christ's incarnation is the spark of Christian creativity. Poet, rock musician, and priest Malcolm Guite joins the show to make the case for this, journeying through Shakespeare and the Gospel of John. He also tells us why he loves the Anselm Society's name.

Why did God make us? What do our personal journeys represent in the grand scale of things? Is it really true that things like feasting and creating are acts of war against the Enemy that besets us? In this episode, Brian kicks off this month's theme of "Imago Dei" by sharing Peter Leithart's essay Creators Imaging the Creator, which explores the hinge question of our "Why We Create" series: what does it mean to be human?

What is the role of gratitude in figuring out what to do with the time that is given to us? Can we pay attention to what God is doing, in both the monotonous seasons of life, as well as in the middle of life's hardest plot twists? What does the ideal of gratitude look like fleshed out in the nitty gritty? Brian welcomes back writer and storyteller Leslie Bustard to talk about how to cultivate thankfulness, and how it helps us to live well in the present moment. Leslie shares her real life experience in regards to gratitude, and shares a secret: life doesn't have to be ordinary. 

Bonus episode! After the conversation with Corey about how Bergson's theory of time influenced the literature of Lewis and Eliot, Jane and Corey take us into T.S. Eliot's poem The Four Quartets to show us an example of these ideas in the text. 

Did you know that both C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot wrote about Time? About how the present moment is the means by which we touch eternity? Join Brian, Jane, and special guest Corey Latta as they dig deeper into the philosophies that influenced Lewis and Eliot's theology of time, and consequently some of their most famous works like The Screwtape Letters and The Four Quartets. When you understand that your only point of connection with eternity is the present moment, it changes your relationship with your past, your future, and with yourself.

Time is one of those things that's bigger on the inside, and the science of Time gets complex fast. But a good story about Time? A story can push you outside your assumptions and broaden your imagination without giving you a headache. Join Brian in a conversation with Ned Bustard about time travel, Doctor Who, and the big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff.

What if time is more than the passing of moments? What if it’s a gift to help us find meaning? And what if the Christian life–in which death itself starts working backwards–can change our experience of past, present, and future? Grief and joy? Memory and expectation? In this episode, Jane reads to us her essay on the gift of time - a gift we will explore further at the Imagination Redeemed 2022 conference in September.

The ascension of Christ at the end of the Gospels leaves Christians with a paradox: how do we sing of redemption and joy, and in the same breath lament evil and suffering and pray "how long, O Lord?" In this bonus episode, Pastor Chris Stroup of Anselm's founding church uses the Ascension to show how we, who have had eternity opened to us, should approach the realities of living in a time-bound world that still wrestles with evil.

The world around us deserves our awe and wonder, but we can make the error of believing the good things of this world are the best we can have - we can idolize the creation and forget the Creator. On the other hand, if we believe that because this world is secondary to the next then all of our earthly endeavors are meaningless, we can be indifferent to God's works. Is there a third way? In this episode, Brian shares Hans Boersma's essay on "How to Look for Heaven in Earth," and how living in the created order can ready us to better know the Creator Himself. 

God's workmanship and His character are crackling through every fiber of the world that we live in. Brian and Heidi dive deeper into concepts like "the Earth is charged with the grandeur of God" and challenge our categories of the physical and the spiritual, and what we mean by heaven and earth.

Creation is redeemed, not abandoned, because creation tells the story of God’s glory in its own unique way. Brian shares Paul Buckley's essay to help us better understand how to read the "book of Creation."

Brian and Heidi explain our season focus (Why We Create), and tee up the big question: what is the relationship between eternity and what I do with my time now?

In which we kick off the 2022 season with an introduction to creation theology, and an explanation of everything that is to come this season.

How do you write fantasy without just trying to write another Lord of the Rings? How did Tolkien's faith (and particularly his Catholicism) inform his approach to writing? What did his home life look like? What were his views on women, anyway?  With the help of a live Zoom audience, Brian interviews Word on Fire scholar and (forthcoming) Tolkien biographer Holly Ordway.

Amy Lee, one of the Anselm Society's Arts Guild directors, reads her short story, "The Ferryman," which was featured in the previous episode. You can find the story text at https://www.amybaiklee.com/2016/09/20/the-ferryman-part-1/.

Pastors: you want to get artists more involved in the life of the church, but where do you begin? Artists: how can you respond (or initiate)? Anselm Arts Guild co-director Amy Lee and her pastor, Kevin Boaz, share the story of what happened when Kevin asked Amy to read an original story in a Sunday morning service.

What does it look like to create for others? For community? How can people learn to interact with art, rather than just look at it or listen to it? How can we be people who are defined by seeking magic and meaning, rather than discouraging such behavior? Brian interviews Jonathan Pageau to learn from the ancient practice of icon carving. Find Jonathan Pageau on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/pageaujonathan.

In our continuing series discussing the unique call of the Christian artist ("centric genius"), Brian interviews Lancia Smith about her work with The Cultivating Project.