Michael Ward: Is Faith Without Imagination Dead?

Alister McGrath says in describing C.S. Lewis that faithful imagination is “a certain way of seeing that brings [reality] into the sharpest focus, illuminating the shadows and allowing its inner reality to be seen.” In this conversation, Michael Ward explored the roles of reason and imagination in the thought of C.S. Lewis and the vibrant Christian life. ABOUT THE SPEAKER Michael Ward is a Senior Research Fellow at Blackfriars Hall in the University of Oxford, author ofPlanet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis (OUP, 2008), and co-editor ofThe Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis (CUP, 2010). He presented the BBC television documentary, The Narnia Code(2009). Though based at Blackfriars in Oxford, Dr Ward is also employed as Professor of Apologetics at Houston Baptist University, Texas, teaching one course per semester as part of the online MA program in Christian Apologetics. As an Anglican clergyman, he served as Chaplain of St Peter’s College in the University of Oxford from 2009 to 2012 and as Chaplain of Peterhouse in the University of Cambridge between 2004 and 2007. He was resident Warden of The Kilns, Lewis’s Oxford home, from 1996 to 1999. He studied English at Oxford, Theology at Cambridge, and has a PhD in Divinity from St Andrews. More information: http://www.anselmsociety.org/events/2015/3/18/is-faith-without-imagination-dead