How the Anselm Society Got Started

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.