This three-part series was originally presented as a single seminar during the International Baptist Convention meetings in Sicily in the spring of 2025. Follow these links to read Part II and Part III.
The idea for this series of articles was first birthed in my thoughts by a blurb on a book. I don’t know if you have ever really been impacted by reading the blurb on a book jacket before (I usually just skip right over them), but for some reason my eyes fell upon this particular blurb in this particular book, and I immediately felt its impact.
The Church is sitting upon an embarrassment of riches when it comes to a thinking deeply about the imagination.
The book was Lifting the Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God by Malcolm Guite. The blurb inside the book’s cover was by Douglas McKelvey (the author of Every Moment Holy). McKelvey described how he grew up with a lively imagination “drawn to wonder, beauty, and story,” but the churches he grew up in “had no theology of wonder-hunger.” Those churches (for whatever reason) never spoke to something so very central to his lived experience and could offer him “no robust theology of the imagination.”[i]
An Embarrassment of Riches
Only later in life would McKelvey discover that the Church is actually sitting upon an embarrassment of riches when it comes to a thinking deeply about the imagination. Our Christian roots run deeper and our fruit is more varied and enticing than any other tree in the garden. This is why it is such a tragedy to grow up in the church and not realize what Christianity offers you—to grow up not seeing that Christ offers you the most robust view of the imagination possible. Jesus actually pushes people toward having the most robust life of the imagination imaginable!
It is a shame when Christians and churches cannot articulate a thoroughly Christian theology of the imagination, and a great part of the shame is evangelistic. Many opportunities for evangelism are missed because we do not fully see the treasure we have to offer the world.
Jesus offers us imagination-capturing truth from God skillfully woven into real-world images that live in our minds and expand our imaginations.
Over 100 years ago, G.K. Chesterton pointed to the imagination as the crucial link and common ground we share with unbelievers. Chesterton wrote, “The thing I propose to take as common ground between myself and any average reader is this desirability of an active and imaginative life, picturesque and full of a poetic curiosity.”[ii] This is the same common ground we still share with non-Christians today. The playing field of the imagination is the common ground that we share with the rest of unbelieving humanity. And it’s upon this playing field that Christians have the upper hand all day long, if our eyes are opened wide enough to see it.
We have what people are looking for. People are looking for “an active, imaginative life, picturesque and full of poetic curiosity.” This is what Jesus offers us in spades! Jesus offers us imagination-capturing truth from God skillfully woven into real-world images that live in our minds and expand our imaginations.
The Genius of Jesus
It should come as no surprise to us that Jesus is a genius. That fact is undeniable to anyone who can read what he said. Jesus can do what only an incredible genius can. He can take a normal bit of the world around us and infuse it with deep spiritual meaning. He can take a small seed and teach with it a great spiritual truth (Matt 13:31). Namely, that God’s Kingdom starts out looking insignificant. It starts like the smallest of seeds, but then it grows up into the largest tree—one that dominates the rest of the garden.
This image that Jesus gives us parallels perfectly with what we see in history. From the small seed of a crucified man from Galilee sown into a grave in Jerusalem, a global movement has blossomed forth—a life-giving tree such as the world has never seen before. Whole civilizations have built their nests in the tree that sprung up from the seed Jesus sowed. From humblest beginnings (and a humiliating death that should have ended everything!) the greatest global movement in history blossomed forth. From tiny dead seed to world domination is the Christian story in world history. But it’s also Christ’s story in us.
The genius of Jesus’ image is that it works on multiple levels. In us, the seed of the Kingdom also begins small. Faith begins small, and then it grows. Christ’s words and work increasingly capture our imaginations. Gospel faith grows until it becomes the largest tree in our own garden—the central tree in the life of our imagination. The Kingdom of Heaven grows in us until it permeates our whole being like yeast permeates dough (Matt 13:33; Luke 13:20-21).
From the first moment he proclaims to us the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus is revealing hidden things to us. He is revealing Heaven’s hidden realities baked into to the observable world. Every time he does this, Jesus is making an appeal to our imaginations. He is inviting us to read the world imaginatively, by taking things like seeds and leaven and using them to convey to us eternal truths. With greater originality than anyone in history, Jesus is taking things in the visible, physical world and using them to teach us invisible, spiritual truths.
It is as though the Designer of the mustard seed has stepped into the world to tell us what mustard seeds mean. It is as though the Creator of leaven has come to us to show us why leaven exists in his world. It is as though the Author of History is explaining the reason he includes such things in his story. Jesus shows us that there is a correspondence between realities seen in the external world and the divine realities of the spiritual world.
Naturalism
This is not what you would expect if Naturalism were true. In Naturalism all that exists is matter and everything has a material cause and reason to be but with no real guiding Hand behind it. Everything in the universe is the result of the accidental collisions of atoms. The accidental, natural world is all that exists for the Naturalist. There is no super-natural. There is nothing above nature. There is nothing above and beyond the material.
The same Mind that made the external world also crafted the internal life of our minds.
If Naturalism is true, we shouldn’t expect “any real correspondence between the accidental inner life of our mind and all the supposedly mindless processes of nature going on ‘out there.’”[iii] But Jesus shows us that there is correspondence! Jesus shows us points of correspondence at every turn, and we intuitively know that he is right. As humans, we can imaginatively connect ourselves with seeds and trees, with leaven and dough, with vine and branches, with sheep and goats. These external things connect up and map onto internal (and eternal) realities. It all feels as though the same Mind that made the external world also crafted the internal life of our minds. Christians have historically given a name to this belief: the Logos Doctrine.
The Logos Doctrine
The Logos Doctrine states that the same Divine Logos (the same Divine Word) that made the world also made our cogitative equipment. The same Mind that made the universe also made our minds. And he made both in a way that correctly corresponds to the other. The Logos of the external world around us fits just right with the Logos of the internal world of the mind, because the same God made both according to his Logic.
Because of the Logos Doctrine, we are invited to read the world imaginatively with Jesus. We can use metaphors, symbols, and illustrations from the real world in order to help us grasp truths about the world unseen. This is what Jesus is doing. He is teaching spiritual truths through seeds and trees, through leaven and dough.
My central plea in this series of articles is that we as Christians would not be lazy in our task of showing others the genius of Jesus. I want to call Christian pastors and teachers to work hard at following after Christ in the task of capturing people’s imaginations with the truth. If I have succeeded in whetting your appetite, stay tuned for Part II: “Why Should Christians Care about the Imagination?” and then Part III: “How Do We Follow Jesus in Capturing the Imagination?”
[i] Guite, Malcolm. Lifting the Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God (Square Halo, 2021), p. ii.
[ii] Chesterton, G.K. Orthodoxy (Shaw, 1994), p. 5.
[iii] Guite, Lifting the Veil, p. 54.
