Believe to See

In this episode, we talk with guest Brian Brown about the reasons for the Anselm Society, how an Arts Guild works, challenges facing artists in the church, and even whether some traditions are more hospitable to the arts than others. We also talk about whether Shakespeare's language should be updated, and what we've been reading and listening to lately. Music links Brian mentions: New College Oxford Christmas album: https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Carols-College-Oxford-Higginbottom/dp/B0012JT6DU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1481127453&sr=8-2&keywords=new+college+oxford+christmas Chanticleer Christmas album: https://www.amazon.com/Our-Hearts-Joy-Chanticleer-Christmas/dp/B001L5M5A6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1481127407&sr=8-2&keywords=chanticleer+christmas

C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were members of a group called the Inklings--writers who met to challenge and inspire each other in their work. Yet despite widespread appreciation for their writing, and even though many work tirelessly for the Kingdom, few Christians today choose to make their most precious thoughts, work, and identities vulnerable to the criticism of others. This talk exploded myths about the Inklings, showed where you can see Lewis in Middle Earth and Tolkien in Narnia, and most importantly, revealed how Christians today can learn to cut through shallow praise and truly sharpen each other as iron on iron. ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Did you enjoy our events with Michael Ward and Malcolm Guite? Then you'll love this evening with the third part of the trifecta. Their friend Diana Glyer is also a powerful speaker, Lewis/Tolkien/Inklings expert, and profound contributor to the scene of the Christian imagination. Diana is a professor of English at Azusa Pacific University, where she teaches on literature and theology. She has published extensively on Lewis, Tolkien, and the Inklings, including contributions to The C. S. Lewis Readers’ Encyclopedia and C. S. Lewis: Life, Works, and Legacy. She is the recipient of the Wade Center's Clyde S. Kilby Research Grant (1997) and APU's Chase A. Sawtell Inspirational Teaching Award (2002). Her latest book is "Bandersnatch: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings. More info: http://www.anselmsociety.org/events/2015/7/17/diana-glyer

The opening lines of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri launched Rod Dreher on a journey that rescued him from exile and saved his life. Dreher found that the medieval poem offered him a surprisingly practical way of solving modern problems. Following the death of his little sister and the publication of his New York Times bestselling memoir The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, Dreher found himself living in the small community of Starhill, Louisiana where he grew up. But instead of the fellowship he hoped to find, he discovered that fault lines within his family had deepened. Dreher spiraled into depression and a stress-related autoimmune disease. Doctors told Dreher that if he didn’t find inner peace, he would destroy his health. Soon after, he came across The Divine Comedy in a bookstore. In the months that followed, Dante helped Dreher understand the mistakes and mistaken beliefs that had torn him down and showed him that he had the power to change his life. Dreher knows firsthand the solace and strength that can be found in Dante’s great work, and distills its wisdom for those who are lost in the dark wood of depression, struggling with failure (or success), wrestling with a crisis of faith, alienated from their families or communities, or otherwise enduring the sense of exile that is the human condition. ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Rod Dreher is nationally famous as a "localist" and proponent of Christians creating communities that stand as a beacon of hope to the world around them. His new book on Dante is absolutely wonderful, and keeps getting better as it goes. It's a privilege to have him here to talk with us. Rod is a senior editor at The American Conservative and the author of How Dante Can Save Your Life, Crunchy Cons, and The Little Way of Ruthie Leming. His work has appeared in numerous publications including the New York Post, the Dallas Morning News, National Review, First Things, and the Wall Street Journal, and broadcast on NPR’s All Things Considered and BBC Radio. He lives in St. Francisville, Louisiana, with his wife Julie and their three children. More info: http://www.anselmsociety.org/events/2015/10/30/how-dante-can-save-your-life

We've all been moved by something beautiful, be it the majestic glory of a snow-capped mountain or the homey chords of a country song. And most of us have been told that beauty can point us to God. But this often clashes with how we’re used to approaching God, where we’ve taught ourselves that beyond our daily bread, it is only the invisible and spiritual that matter. How would God have us think about beauty? We often find God in unexpected places, but are there places we should expect to find Him? Can we balance the earthly beauty that moves us and the God of beauty that made it? In this conversation, dynamic speaker Junius Johnson will explore why beauty moves and inspires us, and how we were made to encounter God more deeply through it. ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Junius Johnson is a scholar, freelance writer, and musician. His captivating conversation with us during his last visit kept an entire room on their toes as our ideas were challenged and strengthened. And that was before he started an exploration of the moral themes in the Marvel superhero movies! Junius is assistant professor of historical theology at Baylor University. He previously taught sacred music at Yale Divinity School, where he was affiliated with our friends at the Rivendell Institute. More info: http://www.anselmsociety.org/events/2015/2/21/does-beauty-matter

We see strangers more often than friends, sit in gridlock more often than in conversation, and hunger for a deeper community we have never seen. Like the character Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, we know isolation far better than we know communion. Yet communion was designed to shape us as individuals and communities. An evening with award-winning poet Scott Cairns, Guggenheim Fellow and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow. Using his own poetry and prose, Scott will explore how we can recover the crucially communal way in which we must understand our identity. More info: http://www.anselmsociety.org/events/2015/9/5/a-hunger-for-communion

The spellbinding Malcolm Guite came to us all the way from Cambridge University, where he is a priest, rock band musician, jazz poet, and teacher. He also smokes pipes we're pretty sure are imported from Hobbiton. This Brit took us on an energetic ride through Shakespeare's sonnets, his own poetry, and John's Gospel, exploring how the "Word made flesh" is the spark at the core of the best Christian creativity. SPEAKER Malcolm Guite is a chaplain and teacher at Cambridge University. He researches and writes about the interface between theology and the arts, more specifically Theology and Literature, and has published books on both subjects, separately and together. He also has special interests in Coleridge and CS Lewis. More info: http://www.anselmsociety.org/events/2015/3/28/incarnation-and-imagination

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

We talk about stewarding the natural environment, but what about the built environment? What about our streets, neighborhoods, and cities? How can we promote manmade environments that help people in their pursuit to live well in community with one another? This lecture (with reference to traditional towns and cities) will explore these questions and the question of how Christians can think about their role in the city. ABOUT THE SPEAKER John Griffin is a practicing design professional and educator who has experience working in the US, UK, and Central America on a variety of project types and scales, from mixed-use urban infill projects to neighborhood and regional master plans. John and his wife Jennifer have received multiple New Urbanism Charter Awards for their work, most recently for a planning project in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. More info: http://www.anselmsociety.org/events/2015/3/18/the-architecture-of-community

In prison, Dostoevsky discovered that the desire for freedom was the wellspring of human action. But this wellspring comes from a deeper source: Christ and his promise of a future kingdom. Focusing on Notes from the House of the Dead, Notes from Underground, and the Brothers Karamazov, this lecture will examine the intertwined themes of Russian nationalism, freedom, and Christ in Dostoevsky’s thought. ABOUT THE SPEAKER Peter Leithart President of the Theopolis Institute Author of “Gratitude: An Intellectual History” Contributor to First Things and Touchstone More information: http://www.anselmsociety.org/events/2014/3/29/dostoevsky-and-the-desire-for-freedom

In The Pilgrim’s Regress, C.S. Lewis explored the idea of a person who has to wander in order to recognize and appreciate his own home. In the Narnia Chronicles and the Space Trilogy, Lewis used fantasy to give his readers gleams of divine truth. It’s well known that Lewis was a friend of J.R.R. Tolkien. What is less well known is that both the motifs above, and many others, were inherited by Tolkien and Lewis from a prior generation, from writers like George MacDonald and G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton’s writing influenced Lewis’s conversion, and how he conceived of Christianity, fantasy, and the Christian concept of home. This event will explore the ideas of Chesterton and how they shaped the writers who produced the greatest fantasy literature of our time. ABOUT THE SPEAKER Dr. Donald Williams is the chair of the Department of Humanities & Natural Sciences at Toccoa Falls College. He holds a B.A. in English from Taylor University, a M.Div. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in Medieval and Renaissance Literature from the University of Georgia. He is the author of seven books, including Inklings of Reality: Essays toward a Christian Philosophy of Letters (Toccoa Falls College Press, 1996), Mere Humanity: G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien on the Human Condition (Broadman, 2006), and Credo: Meditations on the Nicene Creed (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2007). He has also contributed essays, poems, and reviews to such journals as National Review, Christianity Today, Touchstone, Modern Reformation, The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Philosophia Christi, Theology Today, Christianity and Literature, Christian Scholar’s Review, Mythlore, SEVEN: An Anglo-American Literary Review, Christian Educator’s Journal, Preaching, and Christian Research Journal. An ordained minister in the Evangelical Free Church of America with many years of pastoral experience, he has spent several summers in Africa training local pastors for Church Planting International. More info: http://www.anselmsociety.org/events/2015/3/18/the-origins-of-cs-lewis