Imagination Redeemed

Helping you reconnect faith and imagination, hosted by Brian Brown and Heidi White. A podcast of the Anselm Society.

S3 E22 - The Art of Naming (with Marilyn McEntyre) 12/29/2022

S3 E22 - The Art of Naming (with Marilyn McEntyre) Why did God tell Adam to name the animals? When you think about it, it’s an odd time to quit creating. He left it to humankind to look for the significance of the things He made, to derive meaning from it, and to join with Him to put the finishing touches on things for which He obviously had a clear vision. Understanding the dignity and responsibility inherent in the role of naming not only allows us to better understand our relationship with the created order, but also our relationship with God, the first Creator and Namer. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/25453554

S3 E21 - A Story Full of Time (with Glenn Paauw) 12/07/2022

S3 E21 - A Story Full of Time (with Glenn Paauw) The Bible is filled with time because God’s revelation is always historical—a story of moments both old and new. God reveals who He is and what He’s doing within our ongoing story, our ongoing time. In this episode, Glenn Paauw shows us how the movement of the biblical narrative is always toward God entering into our time more and more deeply. It is a story of restoration, in which only through time is time conquered. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/25177377

S3 E20 - The Art of Christian Memory (with Heidi White) 11/23/2022

S3 E20 - The Art of Christian Memory (with Heidi White) These days we tend to take a dim view of the past. We struggle to overcome things (personal or corporate) we wish we could go back and undo. But Christianity teaches a different way of viewing the past: one in which “remember” is one of the most frequent commands in Scripture, in which gratitude is a discipline rather than a feeling, and in which nothing is outside the reach of Christ to redeem. In this episode, Heidi White will explore the posture that can enable Christians to be conservers of the goodness and beauty they’ve inherited, and restorers of things that have been broken. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/25054830

S3 E19 - The Art of Subcreation (with Matthew Clark) 11/09/2022

S3 E19 - The Art of Subcreation (with Matthew Clark) Tolkien talked about “subcreation” - this thing we do when we take something God has made and create with it. When we try to make creation about ourselves—our pride, our desire for affirmation, and so on—we only make things harder. But when we understand it properly, our subcreation is a middle act between God’s first creation and His second—and the culture we build together becomes, as Andy Crouch put it, part of “the furniture of eternity.” In this episode, Matthew Clark explores this second of three aspects of our creative task as humans (cultivation, subcreation, and naming). /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/24932547

S3 E18 - How Gardens Teach Us to Cultivate (with Christina Brown and Amy Lee) 09/14/2022

S3 E18 - How Gardens Teach Us to Cultivate (with Christina Brown and Amy Lee) At last year's Imagination Redeemed conference, Christina Brown and Amy Lee shared about the art of gardening and God's story. They covered their own journeys into gardening, how their experiences cultivating God's creation changed their relationships with Him and their families, and much more. In this episode, we revisit their talk on gardening and creative cultivation as part of our "Why We Create" series and in preparation for our upcoming Imagination Redeemed conference. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/24292455

S3 E17 - The Craft of Cultivation (with Gracy Olmstead) 09/07/2022

S3 E17 - The Craft of Cultivation (with Gracy Olmstead) Cultivation is a lost art for most of us. It requires paying attention—understanding each person and thing in its proper way. It requires love—viewing everything as the Creator does; not just as it is but as it can grow to be. And it requires agency—viewing ourselves not as a scourge upon nature but as people designed to be a blessing to it. In this episode, Brooke McIntire reads Gracy Olmstead's essay exploring how a posture of cultivation equips us to create as God made us to create. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/24292341

S3 E16 - Why We Remember the Past Differently (with Heidi White) 09/01/2022

S3 E16 - Why We Remember the Past Differently (with Heidi White) 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. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/24234219

S3 E15 - Why Christians Need Mythology (with Heidi White) 08/24/2022

S3 E15 - Why Christians Need Mythology (with Heidi White) 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. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/24154881

S3 E14 - Incarnation and Imagination (with Malcolm Guite) 08/03/2022

S3 E14 - Incarnation and Imagination (with Malcolm Guite) 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. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/23835410

S3 E13 - How Our Creating Is (and Isn't) Like God's (by Peter Leithart) 07/20/2022

S3 E13 - How Our Creating Is (and Isn't) Like God's (by Peter Leithart) 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? /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/23777312

S3 E12 - Making the Most of Our Time (with Leslie Bustard) 07/13/2022

S3 E12 - Making the Most of Our Time (with Leslie Bustard) 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. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/23714231

S3 E11 - Close Reading: East Coker by T.S. Eliot (with Corey Latta) 07/08/2022

S3 E11 - Close Reading: East Coker by T.S. Eliot (with Corey Latta) 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. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/23641697

S3 E10 - Lewis and Eliot on Time (with Corey Latta) 07/06/2022

S3 E10 - Lewis and Eliot on Time (with Corey Latta) 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. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/23641604

S3 E8 - Doctor Who and the Mystery of Time (with Ned Bustard) 06/22/2022

S3 E8 - Doctor Who and the Mystery of Time (with Ned Bustard) 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. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/23469314

S3 E7 - What is Time? (by Jane Scharl) 06/17/2022

S3 E7 - What is Time? (by Jane Scharl) 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 conference in September. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/23454056

S3 E6 - Bonus: The Already and the Not Yet 06/13/2022

S3 E6 - Bonus: The Already and the Not Yet 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. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/23390933

S3 E5 - Finding Heaven in Earth (by Hans Boersma) 06/08/2022

S3 E5 - Finding Heaven in Earth (by Hans Boersma) 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. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/23353370

S3 E4 - Does the Physical World Matter? 06/02/2022

S3 E4 - Does the Physical World Matter? 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. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/23285894

S3 E3 - The Enchanted Kingdom (by Paul Buckley) 06/01/2022

S3 E3 - The Enchanted Kingdom (by Paul Buckley) 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." /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/23273102

S3 E2 - Why Do Humans Create? 05/14/2022

S3 E2 - Why Do Humans Create? 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? /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/23110133

S3 E1 - Why We Create 04/19/2022

S3 E1 - Why We Create 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. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/22846355

S2 E7: Tolkien (with Holly Ordway) 04/08/2020

S2 E7: Tolkien (with Holly Ordway) 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. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/13903388

Bonus: The Ferryman (feat. Amy Lee) 03/29/2020

Bonus: The Ferryman (feat. Amy Lee) 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/. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/13751390

Inviting Artists into Church (S2 E6) 03/24/2020

Inviting Artists into Church (S2 E6) 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. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/13583705

Creating for Others (w/Jonathan Pageau) (S2 E5) 03/17/2020

Creating for Others (w/Jonathan Pageau) (S2 E5) 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. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/13583081

Cultivating Centric Artists (w/Lancia Smith) (S2 E4) 03/09/2020

Cultivating Centric Artists (w/Lancia Smith) (S2 E4) 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. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/13286237

Who Makes the Art Work? (with John Skillen) (S2 E3) 02/26/2020

Who Makes the Art Work? (with John Skillen) (S2 E3) In our continuing series discussing the unique call of the Christian artist ("centric genius"), Brian talks with John Skillen about the ways in which the church used to create art together...and just maybe, how it can do so again. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/13286105

Discussing the Centric Genius, Part 2 (S1 E2) 02/19/2020

Discussing the Centric Genius, Part 2 (S1 E2) In which Brian, Heidi, and Lancia summarize the concept of the "centric genius" and discuss its implications for both artists and churches. In this, the second part, we get into the implications for church, and whether we have to give up being "weirdos." /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/13063145

Discussing the Centric Genius, Part 1 (S2 E1) 02/12/2020

Discussing the Centric Genius, Part 1 (S2 E1) In which Brian, Heidi, and Lancia summarize the concept of the "centric genius" and discuss its implications for both artists and churches. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/13063100

Director's Notes: The Centric Genius 02/07/2020

Director's Notes: The Centric Genius What is a centric genius? Why does Christianity need more of them? In this episode of director's notes, Brian Brown tees up our entire winter-spring content series. /episode/index/show/redeemedimagination/id/13062866

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