On April 27-28, the Anselm Society hosted a packed conference that brought together two groups with a reputation for not talking much in recent decades: the clergy and artists. More than 150 people attended the event. They included men, women, and children with a desire to see Christianity re-enchanted by wonder and imagination. Pastors and artists presented a vision for a Church in which goodness, truth, and beauty together could capture the hearts of the next generation of Christians.
ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
Your Imagination Redeemed is the annual conference of the Anselm Society, a four year-old Colorado nonprofit dedicated to the renaissance of the Christian imagination. The Society hosts events, encourages and cultivates artists, publishes educational materials, and works with churches to reintegrate the imagination into their worship and ministries. The ecumenical conference is the Anselm Society's flagship event, which uses lectures, workshops, music, visual art, and corporate liturgical worship to educate and inspire pastors, artists, and laymen.
Listen:
The Anselm Society is pleased to make available the audio from every lecture and panel from the conference. Visit the Believe to See podcast on you favorite podcast app, and scroll back to May 2018 or so!
Keynotes
To open the conference, Anselm Society director Brian Brown hosted a conversation with scholar Anthony Esolen and Anglican bishop Martyn Minns.
Biblical worship can expand our imagination, employ our creativity and lead to transformed lives.
This secular age is characterized by twin refusals: the refusal to appreciate human truths, and the refusal to be open to the divine. Combating those refusals requires an imagination steeped in the greatest creative works known to man.
Foundations
Twenty minute talks covering core ideas behind the reunification of the church and the arts.
Sacraments and sacramental living were a daily reality for most people in the past, but often not so much for 21st century North Americans.
The Scriptures are a collection of diverse literary creations, telling a story, and inviting us into a live drama.
All great works of art are at heart monster stories, whether the monsters are dragons, step-mothers, social injustices, or even the self.
Beauty, and the people who make it, got functionally kicked out of most churches a long time ago. But how do we add them back in?
Workshops and Panels
The Church needs songs and genres that can build up who we are individually and communally and prepare us to be the people of God in a difficult world.
The most beloved fictional places are never seen for long before being overshadowed by fire and death from which they must be saved. But these days we need more than glimpses of the good life in our stories.
How far is too far? Is there room in a Christian creative’s journey for delving into the deep?
Madeline L'Engle wrote a classic fantasy and a theologically rich masterpiece in A Wrinkle in Time. What is that theology and how does imagination help us enter into it?
In a world of haste and homesickness, we’re all longing for Rivendell: a place of love and belonging, healing and beauty.
The road back to experiencing sacred words of strength and beauty lies in our recovery and full appreciation of the Bible’s literary works.
Explore the themes of Sehnsucht and Joy, and consider how our own art may emerge from deep-seated homesickness to light the way to our true country.
Explore what it means to cultivate in context of a whole life, what a rule of life is, how it works, and how to create one for yourself.