The Anselm Society, founded in Colorado Springs in 2013, is an ecumenical Christian organization with an intriguing mission: “a renaissance of the Christian imagination.”
It accomplishes this goal through various means. It hosts guests like Andrew Peterson and Karen Swallow Prior to talk about creativity’s place in Christian theology and how churches can make artists a valuable part of their communities. Its Arts Guild hosts monthly meetings where artists of various disciplines share and learn from each other. Its podcasts—Imagination Redeemed and Believe to See—discuss topics ranging from the art of storytelling to classic Russian fairy tales. In the past it has hosted the Imagination Redeemed Conference, which features artistic activities (concerts, sharing stories) as well as presentations on topics like Christian hospitality or how Christian artists explore hope (and lament).
Anselm Society members have collaborated on books before. Musician Matthew Clark is one of the Society’s senior advisors, and many members have joined him for the Well Trilogy—three nonfiction books accompanying three albums inspired by the New Testament story of the Woman at the Well. The first two books (Only the Lover Sings, Tale of Two Trees) have been published, with the third scheduled for release in 204.
The Anselm Society entered a new chapter in book projects this year with Why We Create, a book edited by Brian Brown and Jane Clark Scharl that discusses creativity. The twelve essays consider topics like “What is the relationship between the Creator and his subcreators?” Or “How can I use my talents to the glory of God?” Along with contributions by Society members like Heidi White, the book also has chapters written by frequent supporters or guests like Jessica Hooten Wilson, Leslie Bustard, and Hans Boersma.
Anselm Society founder and Executive Director Brian Brown was kind enough to answer a few questions about the book.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
First off, congratulations on an excellent book. To the best of my knowledge, it’s the first book you have edited. What was that process like for you?
Tremendously fun. My role was mainly to lay out the vision and make sure we stuck to it. We wrote the book knowing exactly what we wanted to cover, so we created a detailed outline, approached the best writers we knew on each topic, and they were able to work off the outline knowing which concepts would be covered in other chapters, and when. It allowed us to complete the first draft of the manuscript in only a few short weeks. The writers did such a good job contributing their specific area of expertise to the bigger picture, and then Jane and our line editors did an outstanding job making it all feel like one book.
I’m sure this wasn’t the first time that someone on the Anselm team suggested doing a book. Did the Society’s 10-year anniversary inform the decision to do a book now, or was that coincidence?
Coincidence; we wrote it because 10 years in operation had given us enough time to identify some common theological deficiencies that were causing people to struggle. When you don’t have a Christian foundation for your vocation, you’ll unconsciously absorb at least a few secular assumptions about your role in the world, your creative process, etc.—and those tend to hold you back. And it doesn’t help if somebody tells you to go read Professor So-and-So’s 800-page treatise on something—you need a place to start. We felt we had the resources to create that starting point, and it was time to do it.
Did you or Jane Scharl look at any similar books for inspiration during the planning stage?
There are lots of good books, particularly memoir-style ones, written by Christians about the creative process. But we actually felt there wasn’t much out there that did what we were trying to do, not comprehensively. But in terms of any given chapter, in many cases we were going to the person who’d written That Book on a given sub-topic, essentially asking them to write the highlight-reel version of their central thesis. Hans Boersma is a good example; we love his book Heavenly Participation, but it can be tough sledding for a lot of readers. We hope what he did in Why We Create gives people a good introduction to their relationship to the material world, and that they’re inspired to go read his longer works on the topic.
The book has some pretty exceptional contributors—scholars like Anthony Esolen, poets like Leslie Bustard, authors like Marilyn McIntyre. How does it feel to have seen the Anselm Society attract such great supporters?
It’s such a blessing, because that’s mostly word-of-mouth. After a few years, we’d be inviting these folks to speak for us or to come on a podcast, and we’d find they already knew about us, because other past speakers had praised us to them. We want to expose people to what these wonderful teachers have to offer and to support the teachers in their own work—and that has borne fruit.
Reading through the book, I was struck by the fact this is the kind of book it would seem easy to phone it in (“another Christian book about creativity… insert reference to Narnia here, something about Tolkien and creativity there….”). Yet everyone refuses to do that. Even when the authors are engaging with topics that get discussed a lot, they push past cliches to bring something genuine. Did that make it a challenging book to edit?
Ha! Actually, no, because I think they all felt the way you did. There are a lot of books with “Christian imagination” in the title, and then you open them up, and they’re not actually explaining the Christian imagination, they’re just talking about the Inklings or novel-writing. As lovely as they usually are, for me as a reader, that was often a letdown—I didn’t just want examples, I wanted explanations. The beautiful thing about the wise teachers we worked with is that they were bursting to tell people about this stuff. “Did you know all earth is charged with the glory of God?” “Did you know goodness, truth, and beauty are a trinity?” “Do you know what can happen if you learn how to lose your ego or your insecurities in the creative process?” “Did you know how much good you can do right now if you learn how to create as a gift of love for those around you?” So our biggest problem wasn’t getting them to “go big”…it was making sure we didn’t try to cover too much ground in our mutual enthusiasm!
The book includes some deep engagement with the Inklings’ ideas—even Inklings that don’t get discussed much, like Charles Williams. How have the Inklings informed or inspired the Anselm Society’s work?
I think there are two things that make them, as a group, such colossal figures in the Christian imagination space—the reason nobody can seem to talk about the Christian imagination without Lewis and Tolkien, in particular, being the first words they blurt out.
The first is that they were steeped in the Christian imagination themselves—the mythology, the history, the literary canon, the rich sacramental theology, etc. Most people who dream of being the next Tolkien haven’t done the work; they haven’t, to loosely quote Flannery O’Connor, “become so deeply formed by the Church that they no longer have to think about how to be a Christian writer.” The Inklings were. So, in our post-industrial age, they’re our bridge to accumulated Christian wisdom.
The second is their creative process; Diana Glyer’s work has been pivotal for us in helping us begin to understand how to approach creativity in community—to be vulnerable and non-individualistic in your vocation, not just your “spiritual life.” We’ve paid close attention to the Inklings’ process as we’ve done the messy, beautiful work of supporting our member artists over the years.
You talk in your chapter, “Seeking Our Place in the Created Order,” about how Tolkien’s short story “Leaf by Niggle” ultimately pushes us to see that there are no ordinary things: all things should be done well unto God. How do you handle that pressure that can create to do everything, and do it all perfectly?
By knowing it’s not mine. This is the biggest reason why we wrote this book, and frankly, it’s been a huge personal growing point for me the last few years. The pen and ink, the people, the trees and sky and love and ambition and everything else that serves as the subject or the means of creating anything, they are God’s gift. The creative process is a microcosm of the Christian life—not a call to earn your way through or to be perfect, but to submit to the work of grace in gratitude. My job isn’t to pursue excellence and call on God to help me. My job is to name what He has given for what it is; to accept His offer to join Him in subcreating with it; and to offer the result to Him in thanksgiving, knowing that it is only in accepting this grace that I can achieve anything remotely resembling “my potential.” This is what we call “the Eucharistic life,” and it’s the subject of one of the last chapters in the book—but all the preceding chapters are there to reboot your understanding to a point where you’re ready to do something with it.
One thing that impresses me—and I say this as someone who began attending Anselm’s events just before the pandemic changed all our lives—is how the Anselm Society has continued despite obstacles that forced so many organizations to close their doors. What are some things that have helped it survive in the tough times?
Every question about the pandemic is intrinsically a loaded one. We definitely had our fits and starts as we worked through what to do with something so different, and different people in our community had different views on how to handle any given piece of the situation with wisdom and prudence.
But in the end, we found we couldn’t “refrain from meeting together” because we believed that God’s created order matters; place, embodiment and touch, sacramentality, the inescapable interplay of the face to face. Life is not done on screens, and if we are not creators, we will decay into consumers.
And yet we also couldn’t live in the here and now as if that’s all there was; as though eternal life with God could be stopped by sickness and death. Throughout history, when war and sickness and oppression have come, it’s consistently been the Christians who lived like they were not afraid of death; who were out there loving their neighbors in the face of everything; who went to prison rather than stop worshipping together. Living this way has transformed the world before.
So, we didn’t do anything radical politically, but we quietly just…kept being with each other; praying and creating and singing and telling stories. We didn’t redouble our efforts on programming; we just focused on living like humans together. And while we definitely had our discouraged moments where we wondered if there would ever be a tomorrow, in the end, it put us in a position to be saner and healthier and happier, so we could love our neighbors better and come out the other side stronger.
Any upcoming Anselm Society projects that you’d especially like to share?
We’re investing more in translating our life together into digital publications; producing written pieces that help people ENJOY, UNDERSTAND, and EMBODY a Christian imagination. We have dozens of writers and editors involved in beta roles in this project, and we’d love to talk to more. More info here.
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Why We Create is available for purchase at all major book retailers. More details about the Anselm Society, including recordings of past events, can be found on its website.
A Fellowship & Fairydust interview with Diana Glyer can be read here.