What if watching movies could be a spiritual discipline? For one film critic, great films became guiding lights—an escape from fear-based religion into richer experiences of imagination, beauty, community, and faith.
In this Radix Live conversation, we are delighted to welcome Jeffrey to discuss his beautifully reflective new book (May 2026). Part memoir, part film criticism, and part spiritual testimony, the book traces Overstreet’s journey from a fear-based religious upbringing into a richer and more expansive vision of faith—one shaped, surprisingly enough, by the movies. As always, there will also be time for questions from our live audience.
Setting the Table for Conversation
Growing up in a bubble of churches and Christian schools, Jeffrey Overstreet was taught by example to condemn "worldly" art and culture as predatory and poisonous. Yet, the flicker of light from cinema screens proved a temptation too powerful to resist. And what he found there was quite the opposite of what he'd been told: He found God at play in ten thousand theaters. Now, through deeply personal and eye-opening stories, Overstreet invites us to retrace a revelatory journey: from Pinocchio to My Neighbor Totoro, from Disney's Hundred-Acre Wood to The Tree of Life, from The Black Stallion to Blade Runner, from Dead Poets Society and Do the Right Thing to Moonrise Kingdom and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.
Spoiler! Movies do not burn down Overstreet's faith. Rather, they free him to answer the Scriptures' instruction—not only to love the world, but to learn from it. Great cinema invites us to hear a holy voice in the beauty of the natural world, and to break away from destructive distortions of Jesus's teaching. Guided by the lights of screens and Scripture, the author of Through a Screen Darkly and the fantasy novel Auralia's Colors testifies of a God who moves in mysterious ways, calling us into a life of courageous creativity.
Jeffrey Overstreet is an American novelist, film critic, and creative writing professor whose work sits at the intersection of art, faith, and storytelling. He writes the long-running site Jeffrey Overstreet, formerly Looking Closer, where he covers film, music, literature, and spiritual reflection. He is the author of several books, including the memoir Through a Screen Darkly and the fantasy novels Auralia’s Colors, Cyndere’s Midnight, Raven’s Ladder, and The Ale Boy’s Feast. Overstreet teaches English and writing at Seattle Pacific University, where he earned both his BA and MFA, and he has been recognized for his criticism by outlets such as The New Yorker, TIME, The Seattle Times, IMAGE, and Christianity Today.