“We demand an explanation, Overstreet!”
Okay, here it is! My name is Jeffrey Overstreet, and Give Me Some Light is my new-ish online journal where I ramble on about several subjects that I love — particularly cinema, music, and faith.
(Uh-oh. I said the F* word. See the last note on this page.)
Regarding publications: I’m the author of a moviegoing memoir called Through a Screen Darkly (Baker, 2007) and the four-volume fantasy series The Auralia Thread — Auralia’s Colors, Cyndere’s Midnight, Raven’s Ladder, and The Ale Boy’s Feast (Waterbrook Multnomah, 2007–2011).
Why subscribe to Give Me Some Light?
You’ll find my reflections, reviews, recordings, videos, and links that will, I hope, enhance your own engagement with the overlapping worlds of art and faith.
Sign up for a free subscription, and you’ll receive email updates and access to many of my posts.
Sign up for a paid subscription, and you’ll have full access to all the posts, including my exclusive First Impressions posts with my initial thoughts about new movies and more. (Those will often be revised later into full reviews for eventual publication at LookingCloser.org.) You won’t have to worry about missing anything. Every new post goes directly to your inbox.
“Love is attention.”
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Give Me Some Light exists to cultivate a community of attentiveness and insight in the overlapping worlds of art and faith. Consider this a love-fest for beauty, for truth, for imagination — for all that illuminates.
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Okay, so you write. But you must have a real job too.
I’m in my seventh year teaching at Seattle Pacific University, the very school where my parents met, where I earned my BA in English Literature, where Anne and I were match-made by a creative writing professor, and where I earned my MFA in Creative Writing under the mentorship of authors Lauren Winner and Paula Huston. I’m an assistant professor of English and writing, teaching courses in academic writing and creative writing (especially fiction). I also teach a course on film and faith, and another on page-to-screen adaptations.
So, this is your website, then?
This online journal is a companion endeavor to the website Looking Closer with Jeffrey Overstreet, where I’ve been writing about cinema, music, culture, and faith for more than 20 years. That endeavor grew while I wrote routinely about movies for Christianity Today over a decade and eventually got a “senior film critic” badge (which means I’m old, I guess). After a decade of writing for them, I posted over one hundred mini-essays about film at ImageJournal.org. I was surprised to find my work noted TIME and The New Yorker. For a few years I wrote for Paste, and I’ve also been published in/at Comment, Relevant, Christ and Pop Culture, and — much to my delight — the great film-essay site Bright Wall Dark Room.
I demand references, Overstreet. Where can I find some reassurances about your writing?
Well, here are a few who have offered some kind words without any bribery:
Matt Zoller Seitz — editor of RogerEbert.com, author of The Wes Anderson Collection, founder of the film review websites The House Next Door and Press Play (at indieWire), and television critic for New York Magazine — on Overstreet’s film writing:
Jeffrey is … one of my favorite film critics. He writes with great lucidity and compassion about all sorts of movies, from all sorts of angles, but what I value most about his work is the theological-moral perspective he takes on things. He’s not a dogmatic scold, sifting through popular art looking for work that fits a rigid world view; he’s more interested in Looking Closer, as his blog title suggests, to discover what, if anything, the work is saying.
Scott Derrickson — writer and director, Doctor Strange, Sinister, The Exorcism of Emily Rose — on Through a Screen Darkly:
Jeffrey Overstreet is a spiritual bloodhound, rabidly tracking the voice of God through his own experience of the history of cinema. In Through a Screen Darkly, he leads the way for all of us, demonstrating how we can look closer and experience the divine invasion of film for ourselves.
Eugene Peterson — author of The Message, The Pastor, and Eat This Book — on Overstreet’s moviegoing memoir Through a Screen Darkly:
Jeffrey Overstreet is a witness. While habituating the dark caves of movie theaters, he gives articulate witness to what I too often miss in those caves — the contours of God’s creation and the language of Christ’s salvation. … I find him a delightful and most percipient companion — a faithful Christian witness.
Dick Staub, author of The Culturally Savvy Christian — on Through a Screen Darkly:
… [T]he spirit of the Inklings is alive and well and at least one living writer could have held his own at their table!
Image journal on Overstreet’s work:
Jeffrey Overstreet is a trespasser. He’s constantly moving outside of the borders of what church and culture deem to be ironclad, eternal categories (sacred vs. profane, high culture vs. popular culture) — and he has a knack for bringing people along with him. His passport? The imagination. In his writing on film, he has used the mighty megaphone of Christianity Today to challenge its readers to take a more mature, holistic approach to film. His film criticism doesn’t count swear words or anatomical parts; rather, it speaks of beauty, paradox, and what it means to be human. Overstreet has pursued this vocation with such integrity and forcefulness that the secular media have picked up on it — precisely because he dares to trespass against the arbitrary categories of what is deemed ‘religious’ and what is considered ‘public.’ He brings this spirit of freedom to all that he does, from his many illuminating posts on various online message boards to his writing for Seattle Pacific University’s publications to his newest venture: fantasy novels. Even there he’s crossing boundaries, bringing a more literary sensibility to a genre that’s often mere swords and sorcery. When you trespass with Jeffrey Overstreet, you don’t have to ask for forgiveness.
Darren Aronofsky — director of Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain — in a message to the author about Through a Screen Darkly (shared with permission):
Inspirational…. Sometimes all of us forget that love for movies, that internal spark inside us that movies lit, and your book is going to remind many of us about it.
Steven D. Greydanus — film critic for Christianity Today, Crux, and The National Catholic Register — on Through a Screen Darkly:
[Overstreet] doesn’t just tell you whether or not he liked a movie. He offers you a seat next to him as the movie unfolds and he points out and reflects on the things that thrill, fascinate or trouble him. It’s an invitation not only to look more closely, but to ponder more deeply and appreciate more fully.
Gregory Wolfe — publisher and editor of Image; author of Beauty Will Save the World and Intruding Upon the Timeless: Meditations on Art, Faith and Mystery — on Through a Screen Darkly:
Through a Screen Darkly constitutes a milestone in Christian reflection about contemporary film. This is not simply because it is full of insightful analysis and a generous, open spirit, but because its vision grows out of a passionate, personal journey. This is film criticism with a soul and a sense of urgency growing out of the conviction that faith and the imagination need one another — the better to open our eyes to the flickerings of God’s grace.
Robert Clark — Edgar-Award-Winning Author of Mr. White’s Confession and Washington Book Award-Winning Author of Dark Water — on Through a Screen Darkly:
In this beautiful and incisive meditation on the art of film — at once memoir, manifesto and critical guide — Jeffrey Overstreet teaches us not only why film should matter to people of faith but how to see movies as vehicles for inspiration and, indeed, grace.
Brett McCracken — writer and reviewer for Relevant Magazine and Christianity Today — on Through a Screen Darkly:
If you propose in academic or professional film circles the notion of ‘Christian film criticism’ as a serious discipline … you will probably be laughed off. Thankfully, we are taking steps to change that. A significant step in the right direction has come with the brand new book by Jeffrey Overstreet, Through a Screen Darkly…. Overstreet … has taken it upon himself to free Christian arts journalism from the ghetto and shackles of narrow-mindedness, utilitarianism and aesthetic ambivalence (as well as the flipside — aesthetic gluttony). His new book … gives hope to all of us who struggle for a more thoughtful, measured and empathetic Christian perspective toward cinema.
Dr. David Frisbie — writer at the award-winning Armchair Interviews site — on Through a Screen Darkly:
Scarcely a few decades ago, the phrase ‘Christian movie reviewer’ might have seemed an oxymoron: entire denominations and churches shunned the theatre, believing it to be evil per se. Overstreet is a much-needed voice that helps postmodern Christians and others be fully engaged with their culture, yet move beyond its limitations to produce high-quality films.
Mark Moring — former editor of ChristianityTodayMovies.com — on Through a Screen Darkly:
Jeffrey Overstreet has taught me a great deal not just about how to watch movies, but also how to glean truth, beauty and redemption from films of all types — even those that aren’t necessarily comfortable to watch. I am learning the art of looking closer, and this book takes that art — and that education — to even deeper, and thus more rewarding, levels.
*There was an asterisk at the top of the page. What’s up with the ‘F’ word?
Yes, I said that I write about faith.
I believe in the person and teachings of Jesus Christ. And I can affirm with deep conviction the claims of the Nicene Creed (which — and I love this fact — is one of the things Stephen Colbert recites to warm up his audience before a show).
As a result, I find myself more at home in the world of the arts than in the hostile and nationalistic distortion of Christianity that is routinely misrepresenting and harming Christ's Gospel in American culture.
For what it’s worth, I’ll say this to address the very valid concerns of many who have been hurt by professing Christians:
I affirm the sacred worth and dignity of all people. God loves all of God’s children unconditionally, and if my behavior does not make it abundantly clear that I am learning to do that too, then I am failing. Contrary to what we see in popular “evangelical” politics, I believe that when the Scriptures command me to “love my neighbor.” And that means I am responsible to not only respect and serve all people, but I am to love them with enthusiasm and respect. This includes my BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ neighbors — and thank God for that, because I learn so much from them. While my church/private-school upbringing conditioned me to fear those who do not look like me, talk like me, or conform to the strict sexual codes of most white conservative Protestants, I find that my faith in Christ is routinely enhanced by the testimonies and grace of my diverse community. The Gospel is not exclusionary. The work of Jesus Christ is a reconciliation of all souls within the kingdom of God — and not in some faraway spiritual realm, but here, now, on this earth that is being made new by God’s love.
If you have been betrayed or abused by those of us who claim the name of Christ, I am so sorry. When, in weakness and wrongdoing, we who praise the name of Jesus harm you, we are also wounding the very God we claim to serve. And I pray that in my writing, I am reflecting the light of God’s unconditional love instead of interrupting how it shines freely and abundantly for us all.
