Hi, I'm Ben Lansing

Artist, writer, deacon and creator of Our Church Speaks

My Story

I've been a professional artist for the past two decades. As an artist, I appreciate the power of patterns, symbols, and story. Together, these can bring greater clarity to a complex and fracturing world. In my Christian faith, I've asked hard questions about what I believe and why I believe it. These questions launched me into a deep appreciation for Scripture, the historic church, the writings of ancient Christian authors, liturgical prayer, and the legacy of Christian art. I began drawing Our Church Speaks and teaching church history through story and art to help bolster our faith. My prayer is that your faith, challenged and encouraged by the voices of God’s people, will be led into the depths of the love and grace of Jesus Christ.

About Our Church Speaks

Our Church Speaks is an illustration series featuring the words of Christians from around the globe, across traditions, and throughout the centuries. Each saint in this series is commemorated in the Book of Common Prayer tradition, in the global Anglican communion’s calendar of saints. C.S. Lewis called for Christians to "keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds." Our Church Speaks aspires to open the perspective of modern Christians to this clean breeze of the witness of the historic church. Our Church Speaks is is an ongoing project, currently at over 250 portraits, with new work every week. You can follow the latest entries on Instagram. I also write a short biography or historical sketch for each post. Prayers and liturgies in this project are from the Book of Common Prayer. This project is aligned with the historic interpretation of the Christian Bible, as summarized by the Nicene Creed and expressed in the Documentary Foundations of the 2019 edition of the Book of Common Prayer (pgs. 766-802).

An Our Church Speaks book has been published by Intervarsity Press. You can order the book here.

Artist Bio

Ben Lansing is an artist and author from Richmond, Virginia. His award-winning art has appeared in hundreds of American publications over the past two decades. His work has been featured in the Newseum in Washington D.C. and received multiple Best in Show awards from the Virginia Press Association. In 2007, in response to the mass shooting at Virginia Tech, Ben created Today, We Are All Hokies, an editorial illustration that received global attention. John Seigenthaler, Sr., founding editorial director of USA Today, nominated this image for a Pulitzer Prize in 2007. Ben is currently the cartoonist for Jeff MacNelly’s classic comic strip, Shoe.

Ben is an ordained Anglican deacon and a lifelong student of the history of art and religion. He loves sharing the history of the global church through art and storytelling and regularly teaches church history at Redeemer Anglican Church in Richmond, Virginia. He lives in Richmond with his wife, Bethany, in a house full of books.