Lifting the Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God

by Malcolm Guite

From the first moment that he proclaims the Kingdom of God, Jesus appeals to our imagination. He makes that appeal through the parables of the kingdom, the paradoxes of the gospel, the enigmatic and beautiful signs he gave in his miracles and in those moments when the heavens open and the ordinary is transfigured, seen in an utterly new light. In this book Guite revisits and expands on the insights he gave in his Laing Lectures at Regent College, exploring how the creative work of poets and other artists can lift the veil a little and kindle our imaginations for Christ.

Genres: Poetry, Theology, Christianity, Art, Christian, Nonfiction, Faith

160 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2021

Reviews

[Cindy Rollins · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The poetic imagination does not simply rouse the moral imagination: it becomes it.” Malcolm Guite

[Anne White · Rating 5 out of 5]

2022: This will be a regular re-read. It can sit on my shelf beside The Educated Imagination.

2023: So, I'm re-reading! I like the first two sections better than the third, but that's probably just because I understand them better.

[Kay Pelham · Rating 5 out of 5]

All about using the imagination built in us by our Creator to lift the veil of familiarity and truly see the reality all around and beyond us.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect Advent read! But actually, I might re-read it for Lent. 😜 A perfect any time read! This book puts into words what I have felt in my soul for many years but could never articulate on my own. I needed the poetic imagination of Malcolm Guite to help me think with clarity about how vital the “baptized imagination” (C.S. Lewis) is to the well-being of the human soul and how Christians are uniquely called to celebrate, champion, delight in the imagination. The Christian faith is the perfect marriage of imagination and reason. Our post-Enlightenment world has left us bereft of imagination as it elevates reason but the whole Christian story, from creation to Incarnation, redemption to the second coming, embodies (literally) a sacramental and poetic vision of reality. Art of all kinds has the ability to help us see reality through our imaginations. Guite is a poet and I love his many poetic examples.

This book is on my Top 10 list of 2024 for sure.

[Adam Carnehl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book, well-illustrated and filled with classic and original poems that is a defense and celebration of imagination in the Christian life. More than that, I might say it's an apologia for imagination; Guite argues that Christians have a film over their imaginations, a residue built up from years of mindless consumption. "Lifting the Veil" began as a three-part lecture Guite gave at Regent College in Vancouver. For this book, in addition to adding an introduction, he and the publisher (Square Halo) added ample illustrations, including Reformation engravings and woodcuts, as well as black-and-white reproductions of various paintings illustrating Bible scenes and Christian ideas. Along the way, Guite introduces the reader to Coleridge's theory of the imagination, and the visionary work on the Christian imagination by William Blake. This is a call to Christian artists to create excellent and beautiful things, and to the reader, it's a winsome defense of reading and engaging with material that will spark one's own imagination (i.e. poetic exploration and presentation of Christian Truth).

If there's one thing I gained, it's the realization that the imagination is the spiritual power of visioning forth inner beliefs; through the imagination, Christian symbols become concrete in experience. So the imagination is powerful, quite powerful. Various things can stifle it while other things can nurture it. This book leads me to ask myself about what I'm filling my mind and spirit with - about what is influencing that powerful, creative, spiritual center within me.

[Samuel G. Parkison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stimulating and stirring. A beautiful meditation on imagination as a faculty for apprehending truth.

[Josh Nisley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spending time with Malcolm Guite—whether in person or in print—always sends me back into the world with renewed vision. Adapted from a series of recent lectures, the book is a brief but luminous exploration of the imagination through theology, poetry, and visual art. Like its author, it radiates the hope of Christ.

[Timothy Hoiland · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Christ is constantly inviting us to imagine, and so to encounter, the Kingdom of God. He proclaims that the Kingdom of God is at hand, and teaches us to pray that it should come. In every word, in every gesture he shows us what the Kingdom us, since he himself bodies it forth. To imagine the Kingdom is always a prophetic act, always a critique of this world, always a call to hope and action.”

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book set my imagination on fire.

[Anna Kilpatrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book! Absolutely beautiful understanding of the imagination and its use for the Christian in explaining, coloring, and reviving familiar truths.

“The artist/poet makes a home in which [a] glimpse can root and grow, be found again and again, made knowable and available to us. We have that experience constantly in returning to poems, paintings, and sculptures which keep giving more than they have, flowing with new life on each visit…All great art is a bridge with one foot in the world of comprehension, the visible, the earth, and one in the realm of apprehension, the invisible, heaven.”

“…poetic imagination is not about lulling us, distracting us, or compensating with fantasy for the grim reality of the world, but rather: ‘awakening the mind’s attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and wonders of the world’…”

[Mary Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, loved it.
Learned more about William Blake, which I am thankful for.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worthwhile essays by Malcolm Guite, mixed with lots of lovely poetry selections. He discusses the valu eof our imaginations in becoming part of the Kingdom of God. Then Christ uses that imagination to discern the arts, moral life, and in the prophetic.
Not my favorite on this topic, but one worth reading. I am glad I did.

[Andrew Wilcox · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book I think every Christian should read. Guite smashes our rationalistic thinking by arguing that the incarnation is the foundation for the arts and our imagination. He does this while quoting prophets for imagination: CS Lewis, Samuel Taylor Coleridge etc. He makes many arguments that are needed today. Some of the best are his connections between Nathanael (John 1:45-51) and Jacobs ladder. Another would be that reason is how we apprehend but imagination is how we comprehend. Brilliantly written with great art and poetry mixed in.

[Jaslyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

behold...................... my favourite book of the year. now if I had more energy on this sweltering day post 6am kitchen shift I'd write a well-worded review of great enthusiasm filled with weepy exclamation marks but I simply don't have it in me to say anything, much less come up with something eloquent or poignant to describe the vast and overwhelming feelings I have towards what Guite has to say (and how he says it in this book). suffice it to say: loved it. cried over it in public. read parts of it out loud to a friend, who raised an impressed eyebrow. sat there in silence after I finished it. MAN

[Campbell Wiersma · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you enjoyed anything by Vigen Guroian, you'll likely enjoy Guite too. His writing, while philosophical, is easy to read and comprehend. Guite discusses how Jesus appealed to the poetic imagination in parables, which was interesting. He also went into detail of how poetic imagination and moral imagination are intertwined.

While I don't agree with everything Guite says (sometimes I think he puts words in Jesus' mouth and there are a lot of images of Jesus), I'd recommend it to people who are seeking to better understand the poetic side of scripture or nature.

[Matthew McBirth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is primarily written for Christian artists, poets, and musicians. However, it is an important exploration into how art opens the imagination of the viewer/listener to receive the profound truths of the kingdom of God. Jesus understood this, made evident in his teachings of the kingdom of God, which were delivered via parables. The parable - and modern Christian art - does not serve simply as a decorative bow on the package of truth. Instead, it helps the audience apprehend the kingdom. It helps us to make room in our imagination so that we can even begin to comprehend the Gospel.

[Cassandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ten stars.

[Jennifer Floyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent insight on the role of creativity in faith. Can't wait to read more of his work.

[Walt Lindberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a delightful exploration of the interaction of the imaginative mind with the Gospel. Guite shows how the arts actually help us see and understand the realities of God, the Biblical narrative, and our own natures.

There were several connections between poetic works and scripture that I had never considered before. Well worth reading.

[Ashley Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sing the hymns, ponder the poems, meditate on art, drink in the stories and literature of the great Christians past and present, for these things all bring us out of the “veil of familiarity” as the author puts it. This book was amazing in the true sense of the word. It made me more deeply understand “the imagination” and see these arts as a now necessary part in my walk with Christ and being sure i include them heavily in our schooling. I cannot recommend it highly enough and I’m thankful to have heard about it!

Don’t miss the epilogue:

“If we make a baptized imagination available to Christ for the spiritual work of lifting the veil, then we will find ourselves taking our part in one of the great works of resistance and liberation in our time. It is by the divine art of imagination that we resist the forces at work in our own age: for sea of materialism and reductivism that have cast the film of familiarity, “the veil of the ordinary,” over God’s world, a world that is, in fact, still radiant with his glory, a glory that the modern, western mindset of domination and materialism has veiled over us.” Pg. 108

[Tamar K · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good summary of Guite's perspective on the place of Imagination for knowing truth. It's not a long book, is an easy read and is very accessible to someone who may be new to the topic. His bibliography is helpful also, for those wanting to continue reading in this vein.

[Kaitlin Otto · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the brief background this book started with and hearing where the war on the imagination started. There are a whole host of things to be discussed on the topic of the enlightenment period, but one con that was unmistakable was the “ushering in of a mistrust and marginalization of imaginative and poetic vision and a particular suspicion of the ambivalent or multivalent language of poetry.” This left people “torn between an increasingly bleak reductionism which gave data but no meaning, and an increasingly dislocated and orphaned imaginative and intuitive life crying endlessly for meaning but finding no actual purchase on the facts.” And for the believer, “some were driven to a mere literalism which treated the whole vast poem of scripture as though it were some kind of literal science manual, and others abandoning any real historical and factual core to the Gospel and just agreeing to treat it as a set of symbols which they could reinvent or reinterpret anyway that suited them.”

But as Guite shows, and C.S. Lewis himself is a wonderful real life example of, “…healing of that split and the reconciliation of that division is to be found in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He comes not only to save us for our sins, but also to heal the tragic fracture in our ways of knowing.”

Is the theme of the believer’s life not just being shown time and time again that Christ alone is the balance we can find in all things and in all areas of life? At least that’s the case for me.

I was spurred to fill my life (and my family’s life) with the rich art that is offered to us by many of the greats that have come before. Not because it will sow the seed of the Gospel, but to “jostle the soil of the imagination so that it is ready to receive the seed, which is the Word.”


“If we make a baptized imagination available to Christ for the spiritual work of lifting the veil, then we will find ourselves taking part in one of the greatest works of resistance and liberation in our time. It is by the divine art of imagination that we resist the forces at work in our own age: forces of materialism and reductivism that have cast the film of familiarity, the “veil of the ordinary”, over God‘s world, a world that is, in fact, still radiant with his glory, a glory that the modern, western mindset of domination and materialism has veiled from us.”

[Molly Grimmius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended by three Nicole, Tyler and Hannah. I absolutely loved it and copied so many quotes and poems down and has solidified and put into words about what I thought about the power of stories and poetry and art and imagination.
Malcom Guite is a poet and professor and explores how Jesus lifted the veil of the darkness of this world by talking about the kingdom of God through parables and how God continues to use artists to help give us pictures and images and stories to see the hope we have through God…. To help fill out the hard that can come with theological matters. I also loved how I felt like I was in a class as he took us through poems and pointed to meaning and depth and upward!
I highly recommend! Also this theme has been popping up in podcasts, discussions and other writings.. love it!

[Josh Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never read a book that so clearly articulates the way I think about the relationship between Christianity and poetry, creativity, meaning, the arts, and the imagination. By that, I don’t mean to say that I could’ve written this book — far from it! Malcolm Guite has taken my halting, grasping, clumsy attempts at thinking about the Christian imagination (that is, the ways I see through a glass darkly) and pushed it further up and further in toward a beautiful, profound, deeply true exploration of the reality of the imagination as “a truth-bearing faculty.”

This book is a gift. I can’t recommend it highly enough, especially if you’re a Christian who is also an artist or who creates — whether you create “Christian” art or not. Read. This. Book.

A+. Five stars. 11 out of 10. I’m almost speechless. (And also, perhaps, slightly drunk.)

[Eelinh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a fascinating and beautiful call to engage our imagination when it comes to the things of the Kingdom. Guite's focus is on the arts, namely poetry, but it's also a call to everyone to open our eyes and see into a world that Jesus invites us into and glimpse eternal truths in fresh, sometimes unconventional, ways.

Even if you don't like poetry in the academic sense (I'm not a huge fan of it in that sense but can appreciate a line or stanza that stirs my emotions), you'll find several nuggets of wisdom and insight.

"We have come to think of the imagination as merely about the imagery, about making things up, and we can of course make things up, but paradoxically, even as we do, we find new ways of glimpsing and telling the truth." (p. 12)

[Leaflet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guite is always worth reading and listening to - I continually feel my mind and imagination expanding as he deftly and with clarity, opens up poems for thoughtful and rich analysis. This slender volume (111 pp.) is one of the best books I’ve read this year so far.

[Rex · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's nothing earth-shattering here for those who are already familiar with Guite and his favorite authors, but these talks contain some very fine poetry and analysis.

[Devon Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. If you are a creative person, this is a book to pick up. Wholesome and beautiful, Guite has a tendency to pick the best words.

[Josiah Skillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book that gave me insight on what it is to create a d why we should create. This book has helped me understand how to create things that are spiritually gratifying. Got to love this one

[J.A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This slim volume holds more truth and beauty than most libraries. Guite paints the view that looking with faith to the all-thingS-new requires imagination , and that is how we call out what needs to change, and act with hope that it can.