For Such a Time as This: Faithful Witness in Uncertain Times (NCB’s Radix Live)

What does faithful discipleship look like when the world seems to be coming apart? Join theologian Hanna Reichel for a timely conversation on their book For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional. Drawing on Scripture, church history, and the witness of Christians who remained faithful through periods of political upheaval—including the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany—Reichel offers practical wisdom for cultivating discernment, courage, hope, and community in anxious times. Rather than encouraging fear or political tribalism, Reichel invites believers to rediscover the deep resources of the Christian tradition for living faithfully in extraordinary seasons.
This special Radix Live conversation will be hosted by Michael Barram and Doug Dunderdale, whose recent congregational study of Reichel’s book sparked meaningful conversation about Christian witness, courage, and hope for today’s church.
Hanna Reichel, Ph.D., is Charles Hodge Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. Raised an ecumenical Lutheran, Reichel serves as a ruling elder in the PC(USA) and on the Theology Working Group…

Can Saints Still Change the World? (NCB’s Radix Live)

Whose life has inspired you to love God — and your neighbor — more deeply? Throughout Christian history, believers have wrestled with the perennial question: What does faithful discipleship look like when it leaves the sanctuary and enters the public square? In this Radix Live conversation, we welcome Daryl Grigsby, author of Catholics for the Common Good: An Eternal Offering, a powerful collection of profiles celebrating 36 near-contemporary Catholics who have made a significant impact in the public sphere. Spanning the globe and encompassing both laypeople and clergy, these individuals, from Fr. Daniel Berrigan to Paul Farmer to jazz legend Mary Lou Williams, offer a rich tapestry of Catholic witness in action.

Each vivid portrait reveals a life of service, sacrifice, and joy rooted in the Eucharist—the “source and summit” of Christian life. Come discover an invitation to see holiness not just in the canonized saints, but in the lives of ordinary people striving to live extraordinary faith.

“This book beautifully honors the legacy of ordinary radicals who prophetically lived out Catholic social teaching in remarkable ways, as we are all called to do.” —Joanna Arellano-Gonzalez, cofounder and director…

Lost & Found in the Cathedral of Cinema with Jeffrey Overstreet (NCB’s Radix Live)

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.…

Rhythms for a Fractured Age with Jonathan Pan Walton (NCB’s Radix Live)

Some books diagnose the sickness of an age. Others offer practices for healing. Jonathan Pan Walton’s work does both.

For this Radix Live conversation, we are pleased to have Walton discuss two of his books: Twelve Lies That Hold America Captive: And the Truth That Sets Us Free and Beauty and Resistance: Spiritual Rhythms for Formation and Repair. One names the false stories that shape our national imagination; the other offers a way of living that resists despair, burnout, and spiritual fragmentation. Sounds timely, right?

In a cultural moment marked by emotional fatigue and fierce division, Walton raises timely questions: 

-What lies have we mistaken for truth?   
-Where have politics, nation, and identity become substitutes for the Gospel? 
-And how might Christians recover rhythms of life that make justice, beauty, and repair possible?

This conversation moves between critique and hope. Drawing from Scripture, lived experience, and spiritual wisdom,…

Seeing the Gospel: Orthodox Icons and the Visual Language of Faith (NCB’s Radix Live)

We live in a visual age. Screens catechize us daily, shaping how we see the world, ourselves, and even God. But what if the Church has always possessed a visual language of its own: one not designed to distract, but to reveal?It’s an interesting question – timely, too.

In this Radix Live conversation, Eve Tibbs reflects on her gloriously illustrated book Seeing the Gospel: An Interpretive Guide to Orthodox Icons (2025) and invites us to rediscover Orthodox icons as more than religious art. Often described as “windows into heaven,” icons are theological proclamations in color and form – visual interpretations of Holy Scripture that draw viewers into the Kingdom of God.

Hosted by Matthew Steem, this event features dialogue between Eve Tibbs and Christian contemplative and essayist Arthur Aghajanian. Aghajanian writes and speaks at the intersection of visual culture and theology, examining how images guide imagination and influence our perception of reality. Together they consider how icons shape Christian imagination, how beauty forms belief, and what it means to “see the Gospel” in a culture saturated with competing images.…

Bradley Jersak’s Out of the Embers: Faith After the Great Deconstruction (NCB’s Radix Live)

Across the Western Church, a seismic shift is underway. Assumptions are being questioned, inherited frameworks are cracking, and for many, faith itself feels unsettled. This moment has come to be known—sometimes anxiously, sometimes triumphantly—as “deconstruction.” But what if deconstruction is neither a collapse nor a cure-all? What if it is, instead, a threshold?

In this Radix Live conversation, Jersak reflects on his book Out of the Embers: Faith After the Great Deconstruction, exploring what faith might look like after cherished certainties are shaken—but not abandoned. Drawing from memoir, theology, philosophy, and the Christian tradition, Jersak invites us to consider how deconstruction, when approached wisely and communally, can actually become a pathway toward deeper communion with God rather than an exit from faith.

Rather than rushing to rescue belief or cheer its dismantling, Jersak patiently “deconstructs deconstruction” itself. He engages voices from across time—from Moses and Paul to Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, and Simone Weil—showing that this unsettling process is not new, nor is it faithless.…

Living in the Book of Common Prayer, with Julie Lane-Gay

In a world governed by speed, productivity, and distraction, many Christians (us!) long for something steadier—a way of prayer that can hold the whole of life. We rush to work, share coffee with friends, collapse into bed at day’s end, and hope, somehow, to sense God’s presence in it all. Yet prayer can often feel elusive, as though God were distant rather than near.

In this live conversation, Julie Lane-Gay reflected on her award-winning book The Riches of Your Grace: Living in the Book of Common Prayer and invited us into a deeper way of inhabiting time, prayer, and grace through the Book of Common Prayer. Rather than offering a history or technical guide, Lane-Gay shared how the Prayer Book quietly forms us—shaping our hearts, ordering our days, and anchoring ordinary Christian life in Christ.

Drawing on personal stories, insight, and lived practice (which she writes about ever so beautifully), Julie explored how liturgical prayer resists cultural hurry, re-forms our desires, and roots us in God’s larger story. Along the way, the conversation touched on formation, community, catechesis, the church calendar, and why praying with the Church—across time and place—mattered now more than ever. Hosted by Radix editor Matthew Steem, this event featured Julie Lane-Gay in conversation about a way of prayer that was slow, communal, and profoundly hopeful.…

Formed to Lead: An Author Event with Jason Jensen by NCB’s Radix Live

What does it mean to lead like Jesus?

In a world that prizes charisma and control, Formed to Lead invites us to rediscover leadership rooted in humility, prayer, and spiritual depth. Author Jason Jensen draws on decades of experience in ministry and leadership formation to explore how the Holy Spirit shapes leaders from the inside out—through vulnerability, discernment, and faithful dependence on God.

Grounded in Luke 3–4, Formed to Lead offers a fresh vision of leadership that mirrors Jesus’ own journey: resisting the temptations of power, embracing the disciplines of solitude and surrender, and leading from a posture of love. Jensen helps readers discern how divine calling, character formation, and communal accountability weave together in truly Christ-shaped leadership. Sounds pretty timely right?!

This Radix Live event offers a space to reflect and dialogue about how spirituality and leadership intersect in today’s complex world. Together, we’ll consider questions like:
• How do we discern the Spirit’s movement in our leadership and communities?
• How can humility and courage coexist in faithful leadership?
• Why is the Sabbath actually really important?

Whether you serve in a church, nonprofit, or any sphere of influence, Formed to Lead offers wisdom for those seeking to grow in integrity, compassion, and trust in God’s guidance.…

Knock at the Sky: Seeking God in Genesis After Losing Faith in the Bible (An Author Event by NCB’s Radix Live)

Grant’s work invites us to ask searching questions: What does Bible study look like after inerrancy? Do you have to give up Scripture when you no longer believe in its literal interpretation? Can you still call it sacred while renegotiating your relationship with the church?

In Knock at the Sky: Seeking God in Genesis After Losing Faith in the Bible, she wrestles with these questions in a lyrical and deeply personal commentary on Genesis—offering readers a fresh vision for encountering God in Scripture, even as faith continues to shift and evolve.

Michael Barram, always warm and thoughtful, will bring his trademark curiosity, expertise in biblical studies, and engaging questions to the conversation. And, as always, there will be time for audience participation.…

Banquet of Belonging: Faith, Food & the Psychology of Healing: A Radix Live Conversation with Jeannie E. Celestial

A Conversation with Psychologist & Best-Selling Author Jeannie E. Celestial

Many from marginalized communities suffer from the mental health impacts of oppression and discrimination. Dr. Jeannie Celestial, co-author of Clinical Interventions for Internalized Oppression, shares her discoveries about possibilities for healing, particularly among women of color, through the lens of mental health practices and Christian faith. In this, Dr. Celestial explores the role of "food as medicine," which richly informs The Filipino Instant Pot Cookbook, her culinary offering that has sold worldwide.

Dr. Celestial is a licensed clinical psychologist, currently serving in the San Francisco Unified School District through RAMS, a large social services agency in the Bay Area. She has over two decades of experience in healing and transformational practices. She employs EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing), Brainspotting, CBT, ACT, and other modalities in her work. Dr. Celestial earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Palo Alto University, with emphases in Clinical Neuropsychology and Meditation and Psychology.…

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