Imagination Redeemed

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/.