Whenever I talk about redemptive imagination, some people are rightly wary of the message. “Isn’t the imagination somewhat dangerous? It can be the source of so much sin.” This is true – the imagination is easily twisted away from its purpose of helping humans be image-bearers of God. I have several names for the sinful imagination (the diseased imagination, the co-opted imagination, the limited imagination, etc.), and we must actively resist each aspect of our imagination’s fallenness. We can resist the sinful imagination. This is simply the continual process of discipleship! The danger of imagination should not dissuade us from using it at all. It is impossible to just stop imagining, anyway. Our imagination is a constant companion. But further, to shut off our imagination is to give up on a precious gift from God, one that is meant to be developed with care and creativity.
In this series, I’m asking the question, “Who Owns Your Imagination?” American society is quite taken with the idea of ownership, and we’d all like to think that we’re autonomous individuals who think freely and own our own imaginations. But, I have a suspicion that there’s more going on here.
The imagination is like a beautiful home with many rooms. You’ve been given the role of landlord, but you don’t own the building and you weren’t fully qualified to run such a grand estate. The list of people who want to lease a room is endless and sometimes overwhelming. Some tenants are ideal and make the whole home better, but others trash their rooms and tend to be the loudest voices in the house. Every now and then, you discover tenants who snuck in without you knowing it. As landlord, part of your job is to evict the forbidden and destructive tenants, but you don’t always try very hard. In fact, sometimes you find yourself participating in the bad behavior, and you ask yourself, “Am I a bad tenant, myself?” You wake up to reality whenever you spend time with the good tenants or slow down to work on the house and make it more beautiful. But, in your moments of greatest weakness, you go so far as handing your keys to one of the bad tenants, giving them full access to your job of managing the home.
Metaphor plot holes aside, I think this picture can help us see the importance of the imagination. God gave us the imagination to care for, and it is good. The presence of bad tenants does not make the house bad itself. The imagination is beautiful! Therefore, we must contend for its beauty and its image-bearing capacity. Redemptive imagination is the caretaking of our imagination so that our lives may be a conduit for the Kingdom of God on earth as in heaven.
So, who owns your imagination?
For the next few posts, I’ll work through some “tenants” that may attempt to take ownership of our imagination – for better and for worse. This series is an opportunity for reflection about what shapes us, repentance for the ways our imaginations have wandered, and the renewal of our imagination for Jesus’ beautiful way.
Love the metaphor and can’t wait to read the rest of this series!