Celebration of Learning

The late Walter Brueggemann, one of the most widely respected Old Testament scholars of the past century, wrote, “It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing future alternatives to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.”

Act Five takes up Brueggemann’s invitation to “keep alive the ministry of imagination.” As “an educational Christian community rooted in Hamilton, Ont., that seeks to engage and prepare young adults as faithful end-providers in the world,” Act Five is known mainly for inviting students in Canada to explore and study intensively for eight months during a Gap Year. Recently Act Five expanded its programming to facilitate community workshops, lead youth service projects, and host learning events, including the recent series Unreliable Instincts: The Case for a Robust Christian Imagination. Together with alumni, church partners, and curious strangers, Act Five leaders gathered in a multigenerational setting, meeting weekly throughout the winter to ponder big questions, dream new dreams, and laugh with kindred learners. 

Led by academics and scholars, priests and writers, teachers and students, participants shared stories of Christian imagination. Each evening consisted of two talks interspersed with conversation and a lively question-and-answer session. From the stained-glassed choir looking down on 18-year-olds deep in conversation with 80-year-olds, drinking (mostly) decaf coffee, truly the saints communed – arguing, laughing and debating together.

What does it mean to have a robust imagination, anyway?

James K. Smith, who kick-started this year’s Winter Learning Series on the podcast, observed that “every human being is living out some story that they imagine themselves a part of.” 

So, we asked, what is that story? 

What if our imaginations have been co-opted, corrupted, bought and sold on the black market of click-bait and algorithms? What if our instincts about how to faithfully improvise are wrong? Where might our imaginations require reignition if we’re to live robust lives in a world where our instincts might be unreliable?

Smith, ever the philosopher, commented that “the unexamined life is not worth living . . . [while] the examined life makes things harder, but then you know it, and then you’re free.”

Then you know, and then you’re free.

Thanks to the generous sponsorship of Resonate Global Mission, Wycliffe College, Tyndale University, the Reid Trust, Stronger Philanthropy, the Christian Courier, Regent College, and the International Justice Mission, we were free to contemplate dancing with empire in 20th-century Estonia, empire and shalom and the beauty of the Eastern lens, a new imagination for solidarity in the world of work, the ways ignorance of our own stories diminishes our moral imagination, how to bless the disenchanted when the church has broken hearts, and how to engage (or not) with empire in the way of Jesus.

We examined our instincts, we grew in imagination, and together we hoped. At Act Five, it’s the heart of what we do. We believe that Christian hope longs for coming shalom, and longing is best practiced in community.

Act Five invites anyone who is interested to join in next year for their third annual learning series.