by Rita Powell…
by Chris Beuker…
What gives a human life its weight? Is it pleasure, autonomy, usefulness—or something that cannot finally be measured at all?…
Debates over Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) often turn on questions of autonomy, dignity, and the relief of suffering…
While the author, poet, pastor, and scholar George MacDonald isn’t as well-known today as some of the writers he influenced, scholars like Dr. Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson…
Death has a way of clarifying things. Accomplishments recede. Old regrets ask for attention…
James is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Northwestern University. He is the author of five books, most recently Materializing the Bible: Scripture, Sensation, Place. His current research focuses on the secondhand circulation of Christian material culture.
I spoke with James about his path into…
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 Overstreet to discuss his beautifully reflective new book, published in 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 movies. As always, there will also be time for questions from our live audience.
Setting the Scene
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 theatres.…
Ryan is a Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University. He specializes in American religious history, material culture, and historic preservation. His most recent book is Death and Rebirth in a Southern City: Richmond's Historic Cemeteries. He is also the author of Gothic Arches, Latin Crosses…
Lieke is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Art and Society at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen, the Netherlands, and works as a freelance curator. She is the author of Resonating Sacralities: Dynamics Between Art and Religion in Postsecular Netherlands and Beyond the Return of Religion…