Film critic and editor to speak at Northwestern College

Josh Larsen, a film critic and editor of Think Christian, a digital magazine on faith and culture, will speak in Northwestern College’s chapel service on Tuesday, April 3, at 11:05 a.m. The public is invited to attend.

Larsen is author of “Movies are Prayers: How Films Voice Our Deepest Longings,” which was published by InterVarsity Press last year. He is also the co-host of Filmspotting, a radio show and podcast. Larsen has been writing and speaking about movies professionally for more than two decades. His career began in the newspaper business, where he started out as a beat reporter for a weekly community newspaper and went on to become the film critic for the Chicago-based Sun-Times Media for more than 10 years. In 2011, he joined the Christian media landscape as editor of Think Christian, and in 2012 he joined the long-running weekly podcast Filmspotting, aired on WBEZ in Chicago.

A veteran of the Sundance, Toronto and Chicago international film festivals, Larsen has given talks on film at various colleges and conferences. He has also led “Ebert Interruptus,” a tradition established by Roger Ebert, which analyzes a single film scene by scene over several days at the University of Colorado’s Conference on World Affairs.

“Communication in our society has vastly changed the landscape of the ways to which truths and values are transmitted, and the cinema is becoming more and more of a central means of such cultural communication,” says Mark DeYounge, Northwestern’s dean of Christian formation. “Josh Larsen is someone who is doing the hard work of helping God’s people discern what is being communicated through the art of the cinema, engaging such communication with a gospel lens. Never has there been a more pertinent time to have a Christ-centered approach to the cinema, so we’re excited and privileged to have Josh speaking to our campus.”

Larsen will also speak in an evening session for parents, youth leaders, pastors and interested community members on April 3. The event, which will begin at 7 p.m. in the Vogel Community Room of the DeWitt Learning Commons, is sponsored by Living Your Faith, Northwestern’s youth theology institute.

Think Christian is a ministry of ReFrame Media/Back to God Ministries International, supported by the Christian Reformed Church in North America.