Essays, lectures, podcasts, & more
Essays, lectures, podcasts, & more
Scroll down for more writing, podcast, and videos, including excellent content from our friends & partners! (Or click here to explore writing for us!)
Brendon Sylvester reflects on
the “dark and shining” mysteries
in the poet's stunning poems.
Faith, hope, and poetry
in Annie Nardone's latest
Pages, Pints, & Pours
featuring Malcolm Guite.
Brendon Sylvester explores
how ordinary daydreaming
can redeem of imaginations
From the decision fatigue of modern life to the machine expectations we place on ourselves, this conversation unpacks why we struggle to be present and offers practical wisdom for reclaiming the art of attention.
Quirky characters, steadfast
determination, and Norse spirits
in this edition of Annie Nardone’s
Pages, Pints, and Pours.
Author Jennifer Layte is a firm believer in the power of story to draw us closer to Jesus and closer to an understanding of who we are. Join Mandy and Jenn at the pub table as they discuss story, nicknames, and Jenn's latest book, Follower: How Getting Close to Jesus Brings You to Yourself.
Mandy asks her cohosts to consider: why do some of us gravitate toward sad art when we're already sad? What is the purpose and value of art that's a little bit (or very much) heartbreaking?
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.
Noah Love reviews John Mark
McMillan’s latest album in a
new column from Anselm.
Show up, slow down, and
discover that what you focus on
has the power to shape who
you are, says Matthew Clark
After all, God designed us
to sing—and to wake each
other up to beautiful things.
Isaac Hans introduces us to
Rebekah Blum, Anselm's
Summer 2025 Feature Artist
John Hendrix creates graphic novels that beautifully blend prose and illustrations to tell complex stories. His latest work, The Mythmakers, delves into a subject near and dear to the heart of the Anselm Society: the friendship of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien.
How “Encanto” opens our eyes to finding the Great Story in daily life.
Sarah Hendricks is the author of a new YA fantasy novel called Ella. What’s encompassed by the term “YA Fantasy”? What are its different niches and sub-genres? And why does it have such enduring popularity with so many readers? Sarah Hendricks has the answers.
Annie Nardone recommends
a tale from Ray Bradbury in
her Pages, Pints, and Pours.
We know there's "nothing new under the sun," but must there be so many TV shows with a first responder, life-or-death, emergency services premise? Why are writers and viewers drawn to these stories--and what differentiates those worth saving from those that ought to be DOA?
SD Smith has recently announced a Green Ember video game. He joins the digital pub table to discuss this exciting new project.
Browse Sections:
101 | Encounter.Understand.Embody | Centric Genius | Sing | Stories | Art & the Church | Advent
Series
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.
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.
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.
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)
Nights full of music, poetry, food, and stories.
Series
Series
Browse Collections: Encounter.Understand.Embody | Centric Genius | Sing | Stories | Art & the Church | Advent | Recommended Content | Archives
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.
Read the series introduction: “The Centric Genius: A Vision for the Flourishing Artist Christian” by Brian Brown
Watch the video above
Series
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.
A few clips to give you an idea of what’s possible.
Story INDEX ON gREAT STORIES AND WHAT IT MEANS TO TELL STORIES.
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 do we beautify the church and sanctify her artists?
Wisdom derived from John Keats and T.S. Eliot guide the 21st century artist.
How art helps us grapple with the realities of the Story in which we live.
How darkness in art can lead our children into the light.
How art aids us in experience, not just communication.
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.
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.
Community & church launch the painting career of an ordinary woman.
Sorting out the writer of seedy pulp fiction and wholesome children’s stories.
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?
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.
Series
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
How art helps us grapple with the realities of the Story in which we live.
How darkness in art can lead our children into the light.
How art aids us in experience, not just communication.
Seven elements to answering a great pastoral challenge.
Thoughts for the pastor trying to foster beauty in church.
What do pastors and artists need to know in order to work together to inspire the church?
Browse Collections: Encounter.Understand.Embody | Centric Genius | Sing | Stories | Art & the Church | Advent | Recommended Content | Archives
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.
Christ comes as the ruling King, but he also comes as the gentle Shepherd.
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.
Browse Collections: Encounter.Understand.Embody | Centric Genius | Sing | Stories | Art & the Church | Advent | Recommended Content | Archives
Browse Collections: Encounter.Understand.Embody | Centric Genius | Sing | Stories | Art & the Church | Advent | Recommended Content | Archives