Imagination Redeemed

A huge treat: Malcolm Guite joins the podcast! In our fast-paced, ever-connected world, we've largely forgotten the art of being still. But what if stillness isn't simply the absence of activity—what if it's actually a practice that requires intention, ritual, and presence? Join Brian Brown and Matthew Clark as they sit down with renowned poet and theologian Malcolm Guite for a contemp...

What would it mean–for us, our families, and our vocations–if we could learn to be fully present? Join us as we explore the story of Taran Wanderer—a young man eager to skip to mastery but forced to learn that true craft begins with getting your hands dirty in the raw materials. Through Lloyd Alexander's tale of smithing, weaving, and pottery-making, we dive into why our souls, like Taran'...

An exploration of human vocation through the lens of one of Tolkien's most strange and mysterious characters. Featuring special guest C.R. Wiley, author of "In the House of Tom Bombadil."

Do you ever feel like you're stuck in the mundane while waiting for your "real" purpose to begin? In Disney's Encanto, Mirabel spends years wondering when she'll get her magical gift and finally enter the family story—only to discover she was already part of it all along. Like Mirabel, many of us view ordinary moments as distractions from the "real" important work o...

What does it mean to “practice resurrection,” as Wendell Berry put it? It’s easy to look at the chaos and barrenness of the world and think we can’t make much of a difference. At least not without being some kind of superhero. What good is planting a tree in a wasteland?  In this episode, the gang explores a different vision, provided by the story, “The Man Who Planted Trees,” by Jean Giono. Becau...

Who is Tom Bombadil?  Any Lord of the Rings /Tolkien fan knows that Bombadil is a very mysterious character. But what’s interesting is that as we unpack Tom Bombadil as a character, we end up unpacking things we’ve forgotten about how to do life. Tom Bombadil opens a window into what it means to pursue our vocations. Join Brian Brown, C.R. Wiley, and your fellow Imagination Redeemed listeners for...

Where do books, movies, songs, etc. fit into how we face the hard realities of life? Should they be "positive and encouraging?" Should they relentlessly portray darkness just as it is? In this episode, we invite you into a recent Anselm Society lecture by Dr. Wesley Vander Lugt from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Meet Julian of Norwich! This medieval woman suffered more than most of us will in three lifetimes—and prayed for more. And the first part of her book, Revelations of Divine Love, unveils a deeply encouraging vision of God that’s worth meditating on. What makes Julian's hope so powerful is precisely that it doesn't deny or minimize suffering. Rather, her hope encompasses both the reality of...

Despair tempts most of us at times–and it’s easy to listen to. You don’t have a problem, you are the problem; everything bad that’s happened is the trajectory for the future. In the face of this voice in our heads, how can we remember the hope of our place in God’s story? In this episode of the Imagination Redeemed podcast, the hosts (and guest Elizabeth Bam) discuss stories from the Faerie Queen...

Seasons of winter tend to paralyze us. We think we can’t move on until something changes. How can we learn to live well in those seasons, and participate in God’s work? Drawing from O. Henry’s short story “The Last Leaf,” Brian, Sarah, Amy, and Christina tackle this question in the newest episode of the Imagination Redeemed podcast.

In this episode, Brian, Sarah, and Christina explore the profound impact of stories on our lives and faith. They discuss how narratives—through books, movies, music, and art—profoundly influence our worldviews, emotional health, and even brain development. Dive with us into the magic of storytelling, the healing power of positive narratives, and the importance of integrating personal stories into...

Support the show: https://www.anselmsociety.org/podcast25 . In our last episode, Chase Whitney talked about the role of tears in relation to joy, and how that is laid out in Scripture. But the night before Chase gave that talk, he was in the audience at an Anselm Society pub night listening to Michael Ward give the following one—and he joked with me afterward that Michael must have been reading hi...

Support the podcast! https://anselmsociety.org/podcast25 We're still on hiatus as we work to plan a re-launch in a few months, and we look forward to telling you more about that soon. But in the meantime, we have two bonus episodes to share with you. These are two talks that happened within 24 hours of each other at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Colorado Springs—and in fact, the teacher for this...

Support the podcast: https://www.anselmsociety.org/podcast25 Months of planning and prep are almost finished, and in January, with your help, the first episodes of the NEW Imagination Redeemed podcast will drop.  It will be a feast: retellings of the great stories, and warm conversations on how to enter into the life of the Christian imagination. But to do it right, we need two things from you! Li...

Brian joins Michael Minkoff of Renew the Arts for a conversation about how imagination and art empower us to live like people of heaven. They also talk about Taylor Swift. Yes, you read that correctly. Learn more about Renew the Arts at https://renewthearts.org/ .

Listen to Brian Brown's talk from the 2024 Square Halo "Return to Narnia" conference. Maybe you've absorbed the fake C.S. Lewis quote that you ARE a soul and you HAVE a body. Or maybe you grew up in an environment that only valued time if it was spent getting people into the elevator going up. If so, you probably struggle to live in the world as you ought, because you have no the...

A friendly podcast interviews Brian about our new book, "Why We Create." More about Upstream .

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...

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 ti...

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. I...

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 Crouc...

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 Crea...

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...

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 perspect...

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.