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Essays, lectures, podcasts, & more
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LATEST CONTENT
Scroll down for more writing, podcast, and videos, including excellent content from our friends & partners!
Plus, Annie Nardone concocts
a ‘Manic-Ease’ drink for
tackling ‘Confessions,’ in her
new Pages, Pints, and Pours.
Brian Brown is joined by Sarah Howell, Jeremiah England, and Matthew Clark to build a theology of domestic masculinity anchored in St. Joseph.
Join us as we talk to author Danielle Mellema about how she has learned to practice the ancient ways in her ordinary days as an author, wife, and mother of four young children.
Oil painter Nicole Beck and road trip photographer Isaac Hans discuss how storytelling is integral to their work, from inception to public showings.
In this episode, the hosts use Julie Canlis's "seven days" of Christ's ordinary life — born, grew, baptized, tempted, crucified, resurrected, ascended — to ask a simpler question: is God actually present in your commute and your kitchen?
Join the hosts for an exploration of visual depictions of Arthurian legends across the centuries.
Brendon Sylvester reviews the
British poet-priest's inaugural
volume of the 4-part 'Galahad,’
a bold new Arthuriad epic
In her latest Pages, Pints, and
Pours column, Annie Nardone
stirs up fascination with the
Venerable Bede and his history
of Christianity in England
. In this episode, we trace the remarkable evolution of the Arthurian legends from the shadowy origins in post-Roman Britain through Saxon England and the French courts, up through Victorian writers and into the modern day.
Following the Gathering’s Arthurian Pub night, the hosts discuss The Kitchen Knight, the importance of triumphant stories, and how we can subcreate beauty amidst our sin and limitations.
Meredith Finch joins the pub table to discuss the new graphic novel adaptation of Phantastes from Cave Pictures Publishing.
Isaac Hans' choice for Anselm's 2026 Summer Artist grows out of the clarity he discovered in unlocking his own artistry.
Dalton Olive revisits an older album from the songwriter and savors its co-creation of a reality charged with God.
Through the lens of John Skillen's "Four Parties" essay, Amy Lee unravels the Anselm Society's approach to roles in art.
Join the digital pub table to learn more about fanfiction and its purpose in continuing the conversation with the works it pays homage to.
At the digital pub table, we explore the history of intellectual property, the evolution of mythology, and how Christians should think about storytelling, creativity, and what it really means to “own” a story.
In this week's season finale, Brian, Amy, and Christina ask: what story are you telling that might need two hundred years to prove itself?
G. Connor Salter joins the Anselm Digital Pub table to discuss his new book, The Other Inklings.
Dr. Amy Hughes, a theology professor, scholar, and author joins the pub table to discuss our favorite supernatural creatures and what they have to say about humanity and God.
Join us at the virtual pub table as we discuss the pain of feeling like a weirdo, and the joy of finding our purpose (among our fellow weirdos).
In this episode, we make a surprising case: what we call “toilet humor” isn’t just childish—it may actually serve a deeper purpose in storytelling.
Lewis's favorite fantasy may be daunting but Annie Nardone has drinks to help in her latest Pages, Pints, and Pours.
Joining us at the table is Jason Crawford, a professor of English at Union University, who has written a fantastic new book called God’s Fools: Saints, Prophets, Martyrs, and the Making of Modern Comedy.
What if the resurrection isn’t about escaping the physical world, but redeeming it? Join Brian, Sarah, and special Guests Andrew Roycroft and Lancia Smith.
Join Brian, Matthew, Sarah, and Jeremiah as they explore why every culture has a Cinderella story.
At the digital pub table, we’re joined by filmmaker and culture critic Joseph Holmes to explore why the multiverse captivates us.
Join Brian, Matthew, Sarah, and Jeremiah as they explore the significance of dark fairy tales, their impact on children, how these stories equip young minds for real-world challenges.
SERIES
Collections of writings
Browse Sections:
101 | Encounter.Understand.Embody | Centric Genius | Sing | Stories | Art & the Church | Advent
Recommended Content
ARCHIVES
Join our Substack
Encounter.Understand.Embody
Series
Encounter.Understand.Embody
Series
Browse Collections: Encounter.Understand.Embody | Centric Genius | Sing | Stories | Art & the Church | Advent | Recommended Content | Archives
ENCOUNTER-UNDERSTAND-EMBODY: This framework introduces the sacramental worldview that characterizes the Christian imagination. While the transcendentals - beauty, goodness and truth - can be commingled in an experience, this framework highlights how we enjoy the beautiful, seek to understand the good, and seek to participate, that is, embody the true.
ENCOUNTER
Through feasting and laughter, storytelling and singing, we expand each other’s Christian imagination every time we encounter a good and true and beautiful thing.
The golden glory of October points both to our mortality and to nature's restoration, writes Nicole Koehn.
Isaac DeValois shows how the
courage of the faithful hound
from The Silmarillion ensured a
kingly line leading to Aragorn.
Karissa Riffel's final post in her
study of The Magician's Nephew
examines our heart's true desire
as we trust Aslan (aka Christ).
Karissa Riffel looks at dominion,
not domination, in Part 3 of
her Magician's Nephew study.
Part 2 of Karissa Riffel’s
four-part study of
The Magician’s Nephew
looks at love over selfishness.
Karissa Riffel begins
a four-part study of
creation themes found
in The Magician's Nephew.
In this Pages, Pints, and Pours, Annie Nardone orders up an collection of elder wisdom worth sipping slowly.
In the latest Pages, Pints, and
Pours, Annie Nardone invites
booklovers to screen a guide
to movies compiled in 1995.
In the latest Pages, Pints,
and Pours, Annie Nardone
invites us back to post
WWI Paris with the
Lost Generation.
In the latest Pages, Pints,
and Pours, Annie Nardone
invites us to sink into this
epic historical trilogy.
Annie Nardone offers two books
and a warm drink to curl up with
in this Pages, Pints, and Pours.
Isaac Hans, photographer, is the
Winter 2024 Feature Artist in
Anselm Society's new column.
Hope, like a candle in a window,
can draw travelers out of the
dark into the light of Christ.
Painting as a Pastime by the
great Churchill: really? Yes,
and Queen Mum loved her
Drinkypoo (recipe included)
Read a review on Ted Hughes’s Poetry in the Making and pair it with a Breakfast Martini (recipe included).
Read a review on Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life and pair it with a High Tide (recipe included).
Read a review on Neil Postman’s Amusing ourselves to Death and pair it with a comfort collins (recipe included).
Look to the lowly (and loud)
cicada for encouragement.
Haven't we all felt buried?
Yet a new life was coming.
A reflection on Reformation
poetry and its glimpse into
the death found in faith,
and the life given through
grace.
Jackson Greer ponders on why
Chesterton claims “Beauty and
the Beast” shows that to be
lovable, one must first be loved.
Read a review on Robert Farrar Capon’s The Supper of the Lamb and pair it with a Sweet Martini (recipe included).
Read a review on Francis Schaeffer’s Art and the Bible nd pair it with a homemade hot cocoa (recipe included)!
UNDERSTAND
Through podcasts, lectures, conferences, and church partnerships, we pursue deeper knowledge of God and His ways in light of a sacramental understanding of reality, in which heaven is present in the things of earth, and eternity in the things of time.
The wood a violin is made of
determines its voice, says
Christina Brown, pointing to
this truth: matter matters.
Is there a purposeful pattern
of Creation across the Canon
through stories of multiplication?
Paintings, sculptures, and murals once pointed to godliness, says scholar John Skillen. Could it happen again?
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.
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.
In this episode, Heidi White explores 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.
Matthew Clark reads his chapter on subcreation. 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, Brooke McIntire reads Gracy Olmstead's essay exploring how a posture of cultivation equips us to create as God made us to create.
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.
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.
Malcolm Guite makes the case that Christ's incarnation is the spark of Christian creativity.
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?
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.
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.
What if time is more than the passing of moments? What if it’s a gift to help us find meaning?
How should we, who have had eternity opened to us, approach the realities of living in a time-bound world that still wrestles with evil?
Brian reads Hans Boersma’s essay on how to live in the created order so that we can better know the Creator Himself.
God's workmanship and His character are crackling through every fiber of the world that we live in.
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 tee up a big question: what’s the relationship between eternity and what I do with my time now?
EMBODY
Through life in community, through our Arts Guild, and through both cultivating the Creation and adding to it, we seek to live like subcreators made in the image of a Creator God; answering the call to image Him, aiming to “show others a light so bright they demand to know the source of it.” (Madeleine L’Engle)
Christina Brown recounts unwanted limitations that abruptly shifted her life as a writer.
Painter-sculptor Kristopher Orr offers friends and lovers of artists ways to be supportive co-laborers in the sacred dance of art making.
The story goes like this. A
woman got brave and started a
book club. How did it turn out?
(You can read all about it here.)
Creating alongside others
for half a day is a sweet hint of
heaven. Elisa Lambert shows
us how to make it happen.
You’re too busy, too tired, and too distracted. But that doesn’t need to be the end of the story.
For creative Christians, art
embodies worship. But how
do they make that work
when life blocks creativity?
Terri & Steve Moon live in "one of the smallest houses on the block." But sometimes cozy hospitality is the best kind.
Anything for love! — Wooing your love on Valentine’s Day, Robert Burns style. Get a taste of Anselm’s upcoming Scottish Burn’s Night!
Will it be the sexy writer in a beret seeking recognition? Or the subcreator under the command of Christ?
Join us in feasting on good food and good fellowship October 19 as we delve into the next few missives from The Screwtape Letters!
Care to join us on an adventure? Sharing your love of The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy with like-minded fans… while enjoying Second Breakfast…and reading a favorite LOTR chapter aloud…all while dressed as a hobbit or elf!
The great modern poet T.S. Eliot is a model for poets and artists in our own chaotic world. Here are just a few things we can learn from him.
You could blame technology and the hurried twenty-first century lifestyle, or point to commercialism and pop culture. But there is another reason: People underestimate our common ability to apprehend the aesthetic.
Embodying delight
Nights full of music, poetry, food, and stories.
Centric Genius
Series
Centric Genius
Series
Browse Collections: Encounter.Understand.Embody | Centric Genius | Sing | Stories | Art & the Church | Advent | Recommended Content | Archives
AN EXPLORATION OF THE FLOURISHING ARTIST CHRISTIAN
The modern romantic ideal of the artist is the eccentric genius; a loner, an outcast, different from everyone else. And this has some basis in reality; artists often do see the world differently than their next-door neighbors.
But for a Christian artist, even acknowledging the latter, eccentric genius can't be the goal--because he isn't exempted from the call to love his neighbor, or to be a fruitful member of the Body of Christ. So what is a Christian artist to do?
In this series, the Anselm Society (across all its podcasts, blogs, and events) will explore an alternative vision: the rooted and grounded, or centric, genius. We'll encounter story after story of artists (living and dead) whose work was rooted in strong relationships and support systems; unpack different frameworks for seeing the world and understanding our place in it; and glimpse a vision of a new normal: one where everyone has a place in God's Kingdom and where thriving as an artist and thriving as a person coexist.
Start Here
Read the series introduction: “The Centric Genius: A Vision for the Flourishing Artist Christian” by Brian Brown
Watch the video above
Explore the Whole Series
What happened when Pastor Kevin Boaz invited a member of his congregation (Amy Lee) to read an original story on Sunday morning.
With iconographer Jonathan Pageau: how can we be people who are defined by seeking magic and meaning even in tough times? How can we build creative practices and communal rhythms that foster such a perspective?
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.
John Skillen talks about the ways in which the church used to create art together...and just maybe, how it can do so again.
In which Brian, Heidi, and Lancia summarize the concept of the "centric genius" and discuss its implications for both artists and churches.
A renewal of faith leads an artist to paint the suffering of the marginalized—and discover the hope of salvation.
Whether the body of Christ suffers or rejoices, the connected artist gifts her audience with the expression of experience.
Jeromie Rand shares how loving God through your craft can unleash the full potential of who you were made to be.
Refresh your spirit with guitarist, Isaac Horn, and mandolinist, Lincoln Mick, as they sing of brokenness, roots, and redemption—the ordinary life transformed by the extraordinary.
Sing
Series
Sing
Series
Browse Collections: Encounter.Understand.Embody | Centric Genius | Sing | Stories | Art & the Church | Advent | Recommended Content | Archives
SINGING: A compilation of Anselm events, lectures, and articles enjoying the joys of singing and what makes it so unique to the Christian faith.
Introduction
Teaching Resources (UNDERSTAND)
Events (ENJOY. EMBODY)
A few clips to give you an idea of what’s possible.
How to Story
Story INDEX ON gREAT STORIES AND WHAT IT MEANS TO TELL STORIES.
How to Story
Story INDEX ON gREAT STORIES AND WHAT IT MEANS TO TELL STORIES.
Browse Collections: Encounter.Understand.Embody | Centric Genius | Sing | Stories | Art & the Church | Advent | Recommended Content | Archives
How to Story
The great modern poet T.S. Eliot is a model for poets and artists in our own chaotic world. Here are just a few things we can learn from him.
Great Stories
Musicians Terri Moon and Greg Brown discuss Johann Sebastian Bach: both as a musical genius, and as a man centered in his faith and community.
John Skillen talks about the ways in which the church used to create art together...and just maybe, how it can do so again.
Taking a page from CS Lewis’s famous essay, Church Historian Blake Hartung joins the table to discuss the joys and benefits of reading ancient literature.
What do pastors and artists need to know in order to work together to inspire the church?
My Story
Father Jeromie Rand from Denver's Church of the Advent explores how learning how to love God through your craft can unleash the full potential of who you were made to be.
Art & the Church
Series
Art & the Church
Series
Browse Collections: Encounter.Understand.Embody | Centric Genius | Sing | Stories | Art & the Church | Advent | Recommended Content | Archives
There are certain questions we hear a lot at the Anselm Society. We asked a few of our wonderful writers to tackle some of the most common ones.
It was once the case that the Christian imagination was shaped (as a matter of course in every church and village) through stories, poems, songs, theater, all kinds of visual art, shared celebrations, and much more. This wasn’t just because people were illiterate (as if people who can read suddenly cease to need spiritual formation outside of holing up with a book). And if the church and the arts are to come back together and provide the kind of powerful people-shaping we so desperately need, pastors and artistic creators are going to need to understand each other better.
This series, we hope, is a helpful step in that direction.
Brian Brown, Director
The Anselm Society
What do pastors and artists need to know in order to work together to inspire the church?
Advent
Advent
Browse Collections: Encounter.Understand.Embody | Centric Genius | Sing | Stories | Art & the Church | Advent | Recommended Content | Archives
Advent Collections
Advent is a time to consider, ponder, and discover anew the meaning and joys of the incarnation. Browse our collection of musings on this topic from over the years.
Join Mandy as she talks with Amanda about how we might “reclaim the holidays for [our] heart’s formation and the glory of God”.
All earthly Christmases disappoint us, but hiver, the Eve of Everything, can sweeten the bitterness of winter with fresh hope.
Matt, Mandy, and Evangeline discuss the criteria for whether a movie should be considered a Christmas movie and then discuss a number of “close calls” to determine which are properly Christmas movies and which are imposters.
Live at the Anselm Christmas Party, Matt asks whether CS Lewis should have added Father Christmas to "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." He soon gets interrupted by a couple extra-special guests.
Does Father Christmas belong in Narnia? Brian picks a fight, we continue Lewis and Tolkien's debate, and along the way, we hit on how to portray morality in literature, and even the true meaning of Christmas gifts.
Mary is the first Christian, the first person in whom Christ dwelled. Her life and song teach us to bear Christ too.
Welcome to a special series on the season of advent. Sit in the dark, wait for the light, prepare for his coming.
The final installation of our advent series meditating on these three truths: God is light, God sent His light into the world through Christ, we are called to walk as children of the light.
This week, we await the promised shepherd through Isaiah, Hind’s Feet on High Places, Handel's Messiah, and Manchester by the Sea.
Christmas is a beautiful building block to begin to plant a flag, make a place, and let things have their proper meaning again.
Mary, the God-bearer, shows us what it looks like to receive Christ. This week we meditate on the Magnificat, the Consolation of Eve, and Thomas Tallis' Magnificat setting.
Joy explains the history of Advent, the theme of Advent, and some ways you can celebrate it, all through the lens of beautiful art.
Recommended Content
Recommended Content
Browse Collections: Encounter.Understand.Embody | Centric Genius | Sing | Stories | Art & the Church | Advent | Recommended Content | Archives
Excellent content from our friends and partners!
Check out Jonathan
Pageau’s Symbolic World
Courses which are deeply
rooted in story telling and
the ancient traditions.
Is there a purposeful pattern
of Creation across the Canon
through stories of multiplication?
It’s very likely that my heart will break over this tree in one way or another. But in God’s strange economy, being wounded means being mended in His likeness—the One for whom all of creation gladly sings.
What many people don’t know about the hymn For the Beauty of the Earth is that it was written as a communion hymn. And that makes all the difference in the world.
The Anselm Society’s executive director, Brian Brown, was a guest on The Habit Podcast with Jonathan Rogers, to discuss how our creativity relates to God’s.
Anselm Society member Danielle Mellema remembers an old country church and its heroes of the faith.
A fascinating conversation with someone who’s found the “Christian” part of an exceptional imagination.
A beautiful exploration of the work of grace that gets done when we invite kids into the Great Story in this way.
Kevin Twit and Keith Getty join the Hutchmoot podcast to discuss the history and necessity of the art of hymnody.
Dr. Malcolm Guite (Cambridge) and Dr. Michael Ward (Oxford) introduce the Christian imaginations of Dante and C.S. Lewis.
This piece by John Skillen of Gordon College has profoundly influenced our vision of a healthy relationship between pastors, artists, audience, and patrons.
From the summer 2018 issue of The Cultivating Project, Brian Brown’s piece on the role of art and artists in spiritual formation.
A gem from Anthony Esolen on the breathtaking nature of the beauty that is the redeemed imagination.
Anselmian Voices
For more like-minded content, check out these voices:
Malcom Guite
Sarah Clarkson
Lancia e. smith
Jonathan Pageau
Christie Purifoy
Anthony Esolen
Archives
Archives
Browse Collections: Encounter.Understand.Embody | Centric Genius | Sing | Stories | Art & the Church | Advent | Recommended Content | Archives
Join us in feasting on good food and good fellowship October 19 as we delve into the next few missives from The Screwtape Letters!
Why something large and churchy sits in my living room. (Courtesy Cultivating Oaks Press)
Care to join us on an adventure? Sharing your love of The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy with like-minded fans… while enjoying Second Breakfast…and reading a favorite LOTR chapter aloud…all while dressed as a hobbit or elf!
Brian Brown appears on the FORMA Journal podcast to talk about how Christian art got crippled, and how we’re going to heal it.
Anselm board member Lancia Smith was recently profiled in Christianity Today, where she talked about Anselm.
Christmas is a beautiful building block to begin to plant a flag, make a place, and let things have their proper meaning again.
Rod Dreher: We are called to testify in the ruins, by our lives and our art, to the reality of God.
Dr. Malcolm Guite (Cambridge) and Dr. Michael Ward (Oxford) introduce the Christian imaginations of Dante and C.S. Lewis.
Ken Robertson explores the art of lament as a response to grief…and as a way to walk with God through darkness.
No matter how small or great our bounded space may be in any given season, there is room to do what He has given us to do.
This piece by John Skillen of Gordon College has profoundly influenced our vision of a healthy relationship between pastors, artists, audience, and patrons.
Madeleine L’Engle’s spiritual legacy shows the challenges that can come with trying to show people who they truly are.
From the summer 2018 issue of The Cultivating Project, Brian Brown’s piece on the role of art and artists in spiritual formation.
Explaining the Anselm Society’s interest in forming artists. (In Cultivating Oaks Press)
The Anselm Society is pleased to make available the audio from every lecture and panel from the conference.
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.
Sacraments and sacramental living were a daily reality for most people in the past, but often not so much for 21st century North Americans.
All great works of art are at heart monster stories, whether the monsters are dragons, step-mothers, social injustices, or even the self.
The Anselm Society's second annual Your Imagination Redeemed conference inspired artists, pastors, and laity from around the country.
Charles Dickens, a journalist, and a future father reflect on truth, imagination, and Christmas.
A gem from Anthony Esolen on the breathtaking nature of the beauty that is the redeemed imagination.
The Anselm Society is pleased to announce the release of its first album, Songs from the Shadowlands, Vol. 1.
Anselm director Brian Brown recently wrote a letter to the Anselm leadership team, which he gave permission to the Cultivating Project to publish.
What does it mean to be a Christian writer, rather than a writer of "Christian books"? A report from Anselm writers' recent conversation with Dr. Donald Williams.