Imagination Redeemed

Why does great art so often come from broken people? And what does that mean for Christians who want to make something true—something that actually holds hope without being sentimental?This episode opens the Summer 2026 season on subcreation with a story from Camelot. Not the glory of it—the kitchen of it. Sir Gareth of Orkney arrives at Arthur's court as a servant, earns his knighthood in anonymity, and becomes a figure for every maker who's ever wondered whether they have the right to create beautiful things given what they know about themselves. We follow his road and ask: what does honest Christian subcreation actually look like? And why do the artists who move us most seem to carry their wounds right in the work?Hosts: Sarah Howell, Amy Lee, Yongwon Lee, and Matthew Clark

Have you ever looked around and felt like the last person on earth who still believes this stuff?Athanasius did. The young deacon at Nicaea spent the next forty-five years in exile, fighting a battle he couldn't win against a church that had largely caved. He wrote from the desert. He outlived four emperors. He didn't see the tide turn.He kept fighting anyway.In this episode, Brian, Amy, and Christina explore what faithful endurance looks like when you've lost the room—and why the Long Defeat is not the same thing as failure.

Life often feels like discord—a song gone wrong. Whether you're walking through grief, loss, or the quiet melancholy of longing for something more, it's easy to get stuck in wistfulness or despair. Through Tolkien's Ainulindalë, this episode explores how to hold both sorrow and hope together. You'll discover how to remember that life is gift—God's original theme of abundance and goodness—while also honestly stepping into what Tolkien called the music of "immeasurable sorrow." This isn't about toxic positivity or ignoring your pain; it's about learning to sing a third theme that weaves your grief into a larger, more beautiful story. As Thanksgiving approaches, this conversation offers a way to feast differently, carrying your homeward ache with both tears and joy.

Should we be afraid of Halloween? What about death? What about just…the past? Whether it's our own trauma, fears of the occult, family history, or that big scary word tradition, many of us feel caught between two extremes: either cutting ourselves off from it all, or feeling so surrounded by it that we feel trapped.In this episode, we journey back to medieval England to discover what Hallowtide—the three-day feast that became Halloween—actually looked like, and why it might hold keys to a healthier relationship with all of it–death, tradition, and the past.Along the way, we'll mythbust everything you think you know about Halloween, explore the meaning of “honor your father and mother,” and discover practical ways to connect our own stories to the Great Story.

In 386 AD, an Italian bishop taught his congregation to sing—and their voices held off an imperial army. Why do some songs have the power to unite us, remind us who we are, and give us courage in dark times? And how can we get more of them?Join Brian Brown, Matthew Clark, and Terri Moon as they explore the lost art of "we" songs—hymns and ballads that connect us to God, to each other, and to the great story we're all part of.

A bonus episode cross-posted from the Beauty Through Faith podcast! In this episode, part 1 of 2, Brian joins Benjamin Harding and Gustav Hower to say as many provocative things as possible, as quickly as possible. Things we talked about:Beauty as pursuit of God through the material world - How a beautiful girl became his doorway to understanding that pursuing beauty isn't separate from pursuing God—it's incarnational, found in both romantic love and the everyday physical world around us.The "You too? I thought I was the only one" moment - When the Anselm Society started hosting lectures on C.S. Lewis, Dostoevsky, and Christian architecture, people flooded in saying they'd always loved stories, music, and art but their churches had no explanation for why these things mattered to their faith.Feasting as theology in practice - How simple acts like preparing an abundant meal become a tangible way ordinary people participate in God's work of reconciliation."If we don't cry out His glory, the very stones will" - The church historically ran with Christ's statement by literally making architecture that causes tourists to hush in reverence—creating spaces where beauty itself preaches without words.The artist as servant, not hero - The Anselm Society teaches its Artists Guild members to shift from the cultural model of "artist as prophet" to "artist as gift-giver," creating not for hypothetical future audiences but as acts of love for real people in their communities right now.

Special edition in partnership with the Rabbit Room: how a healed relationship with food forms us to renew the world.Want to participate in Housemoot? Learn more.We were meant for life together. But the fallen world seeks to drive apart things that were meant to be together. People from God. Sexes and generations and tribes and individuals from each other. And the image of God from the rest of the creation (including food; through body image issues, food allergies, and McDonald's).Meanwhile, food features prominently in so many of our favorite stories—like Lord of the Rings, Wingfeather, Redwall, and Harry Potter. Why?In this episode, we'll delve into these fantastical realms to find a healed relationship with food—and reveal how eating can literally change how we do Christianity.

We are called to participate in creation through communion, not control.Join us as we consider living in a world with talking trees. Through C.S. Lewis’s disenchanted Narnia, Brian Brown, Amy Baik Lee, and Sarah Howell explore the relationship between humanity and creation from a Christian perspective. This conversation unpacks the importance of recognizing the goodness of creation, the role of beauty in understanding God, and the need for a re-enchanted view of the world. And that ultimately, human beings were made to not only be present to the created order, uncover the layers of meaning within it, but also to participate in creation as an act of worship. __⁠Get tickets now for "A Long Expected Feast"⁠ -- Sept 19-20 2025 in Colorado Springs!