Sponsored by the Asbury University Honors Program (AUHP) Colloquium Series, Rev. Dr. Malcolm Guite, a priest, poet, singer-songwriter, and professor of English at Cambridge University, spoke in Chapel and in the Asbury Shaw Collaborative Learning Center (CLC) on Feb. 2, 2026. His lecture, titled “Image and Imagination: Some Reflections on the Creative Imagination as an Aspect of the Imago Dei,” invited students and guests to consider creativity as a vital expression of being made in the image of God.
Guite often joked that his impressive list of titles developed “quite by accident,” yet his life reflected a story of steady formation. Raised in a home steeped in poetry, he fell in love with the classics at an early age, reading writers such as Keats, Shelley, and Milton. That love of poetry led him naturally into music, which he described as a parallel art form. Later, after studying both literature and theology at Cambridge, Guite discovered his vocation at the intersection of those disciplines, where imagination and faith met.
Drawing on years of scholarship and reflection, Guite explored the creative dimension of the Imago Dei, the belief that humanity bears the image of God. He argued that creativity did not belong only to artists or so-called “creatives,” but flowed from the core of every human soul. Engaging voices such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dorothy Sayers, and J.R.R. Tolkien, Guite reflected on the nature of imagination and its role in revealing spiritual truth. If students remembered one thing from his lecture, he said he hoped it would be this: each person was beautifully and irreducibly made in God’s image.
Guite described his own work, along with C.S. Lewis’, as “against reductionism.” Through poetry, criticism, and theological reflection, he resisted flattened views of humanity and instead affirmed the richness of the Christian imagination. A prolific author, Guite had written numerous collections of poetry and works of literary criticism, including “Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge.” His other notable books included “Lifting the Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God,” “What Do Christians Believe?” and “The Singing Bowl.”
The AUHP allows students to pursue the spiritual, moral, social, and ethical dimensions of the human experience; to explore human problem solving, ethical dilemmas, identity, and self; and to relate these human questions to the areas of work, career, family, and society. For more information on upcoming events, visit asbury.edu/honors.