Every now and then, something small opens the door to something bigger. For me, that happened through an April Fools joke. I made a fake church bulletin as a tribute to Tolkien and his writings, and what began as a playful homage ended up pointing toward a serious and worthwhile idea.
Many of us already notice that the stories, films, books, and songs we love often carry themes that feel deeply true. They speak about sacrifice, mercy, courage, friendship, hope, suffering, love, and even resurrection-shaped longing. They are not the Gospel, but they often seem to lean in its direction.
This is the beginning of a new series called Almost Christian. In this series, we will look at works like The Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, Superman, The Matrix, Children of Men, The Truman Show, Les Miserables, The Shawshank Redemption, Gran Torino, and songs like “Fix You,” “Wake Me Up,” “Heroes,” “Lean on Me,” “Stand by Me,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and “What’s Going On.” We will ask what these works see clearly, what they get partly right, and why they stir the heart so deeply.
Why Popular Media Can Feel Spiritually Familiar
Orthodox Christians believe that every human person is made in the image of God. Because of that, human beings are capable of recognizing and expressing fragments of truth even when they are not speaking directly from the life of the Church. A writer, filmmaker, or musician may show us something real about love, suffering, or redemption without fully understanding where that truth comes from.
This helps explain why certain stories stay with us long after we finish them. A noble sacrifice moves us because sacrifice is not just a dramatic device. A story of mercy reaches us because mercy is woven into the deepest meaning of human life.
The Orthodox Church teaches that all truth is God’s truth. That does not mean everything is equally true or equally safe. It means that when something reflects courage, self-offering, repentance, beauty, or hope, Orthodox Christians can recognize that there is something there worth noticing.
But we must also say something just as clearly. A story can contain glimpses of truth while still remaining incomplete. It can come close. It can feel almost Christian. But close is not the same thing as full.
How Orthodox Christians Can Enjoy the Things They Love
We do have explicitly Orthodox works, and they matter.
Before going further, it is worth saying clearly that there are films that come directly from an Orthodox Christian vision of the world. Movies like Man of God, The Island, and Priestsan present the life of repentance, struggle, grace, and holiness in a way that is rooted in the life of the Church itself.
These works are not “almost.” They are intentionally Orthodox in their worldview, even if they are still works of art and not the Church herself. They can be deeply helpful, especially for those who are learning to see the Christian life more clearly.
But this series is not mainly about those kinds of films. This series is about the much larger body of stories people already know and love, stories that were not created within the life of the Church, but still manage to reflect parts of the truth.
Stories often prepare the heart for deeper questions.
Many people first begin thinking seriously about good and evil, death and meaning, or sacrifice and love through stories rather than arguments. A novel or film can make a person feel the weight of truth before he has words for it. In that sense, popular media can sometimes soften the heart and awaken spiritual hunger.
This is one reason the Church has never needed to act as though beauty and truth outside her walls do not exist. St. Basil the Great spoke about taking what is useful from other sources in the way a bee gathers nectar from flowers. The point was not to treat everything as harmless, but to learn how to receive what is good with wisdom and discernment.
Not everything moving is holy, but some things are truly noble.
There is an important difference between emotional power and spiritual truth. Something can be intense, beautiful, or moving and still point in the wrong direction. At the same time, something can be genuinely noble and still not rise to the fullness of what Orthodox Christianity proclaims.
That is why discernment matters so much. The Apostle Paul says, “Test everything; hold fast what is good” in 1 Thessalonians 5:21. That is a wise approach not only to ideas and teachers, but also to books, movies, and music.
The best stories usually show us a world where choices matter.
Modern life often teaches people to think that nothing really means anything. But good stories usually resist that lie. They show that courage matters, betrayal matters, mercy matters, and what kind of person you become matters.
That is one reason The Lord of the Rings continues to speak to so many people. It is full of humility, temptation, perseverance, providence, friendship, and the strange strength of the small and weak. It is not an Orthodox book, and it is not a substitute for the faith, but it sees many things clearly.
Some works come close to Christian themes without naming their source.
Les Miserables is full of mercy, repentance, and transformation. The Shawshank Redemption is full of hope, endurance, and freedom. Gran Torino presents a moving picture of sacrifice and self-offering for the sake of others.
Even songs can do this. “Fix You” speaks in the language of comfort and healing. “Lean on Me” speaks of bearing burdens together. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” speaks to the human need for faithful presence and consolation in suffering.
The Orthodox Church teaches that beauty and truth are fulfilled, not merely admired.
This is where the difference becomes important. A story may show us sacrifice, but the Church gives us the life in which sacrifice is joined to prayer, repentance, communion, and transformation. A song may express longing, but the life of the Church teaches us where longing is meant to lead.
Orthodox Christians do not simply admire what is good from a distance. They are called to become holy through grace, to be changed in the whole of life, and to be united to the truth not as an idea but as a way of being. The Orthodox Church teaches that the Christian life is not just about recognizing good themes. It is about being healed and remade in them.
That is why “almost Christian” is both a compliment and a limit.
It is a compliment because many works really do reflect deep moral and spiritual insight. They can help us see courage more clearly. They can make us feel the ache of exile, the cost of love, or the need for redemption.
But it is also a limit because no work of art, however beautiful, can take the place of the life of the Church. A film can stir repentance, but it cannot hear confession. A song can express longing, but it cannot give the Eucharistic life of the Kingdom. A novel can point toward resurrection, but it cannot become the worship of the Church.
Orthodox Christians should neither mock popular media nor surrender to it.
Some people make the mistake of rejecting everything in popular culture as though nothing outside explicitly Christian media could ever be useful. Others make the opposite mistake and treat favorite stories as though they are enough on their own. Both approaches miss something important.
The wiser path is to read, watch, and listen with a formed heart. We can be grateful for what is true, cautious about what is distorted, and honest about what is missing. We do not need to force every story into a sermon, but we also do not need to pretend that stories are spiritually neutral.
Scripture teaches us to see more deeply.
The Lord says in the Gospel, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” That is not only about hearing words. It is about learning how to perceive reality rightly. Romans 12:2 tells us not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewal of our minds, and that renewed mind changes how we read everything.
When the mind is formed by prayer, Scripture, worship, and repentance, a Christian begins to notice things he once missed. He sees false ideas more clearly. He also sees echoes of truth more clearly.
This is especially important in a distracted age.
We live in a time when people consume media quickly and thoughtlessly. They scroll, watch, react, and move on. But Orthodox Christianity calls us to a more careful and watchful way of living.
To be watchful means paying attention to what enters the heart. It means asking whether something is helping us love what is good, strengthening what is noble, or dulling our souls instead. It also means noticing when a story is asking a real question that finds its answer more fully in the life of the Church.
The goal of this series is not to baptize everything we enjoy.
That would be dishonest. Not every film, book, or song deserves a spiritual reading, and not every meaningful work is leading people in a healthy direction. Sometimes what looks profound is actually confused. Sometimes what feels compassionate is actually destructive.
So the purpose of Almost Christian is not to pretend that everything is secretly Orthodox. It is to practice discernment. It is to notice where a work touches a true nerve in the human soul, and then to ask what that tells us about the deeper truths for which we were made.
The series is also meant to help people talk about faith in ordinary life.
Many people are more ready to begin with a story they know than with a theological treatise. They may not yet know how to speak about theosis, repentance, or the healing of the passions. But they do know what it feels like to be moved by sacrifice, burdened by guilt, or drawn to mercy and hope.
That can become a starting place. It should not be the ending place, but it can be a beginning. Sometimes a familiar story can help open the door to a deeper conversation about what Orthodox Christians believe.
And sometimes the things people love reveal what they are already searching for.
People return again and again to stories of deliverance, friendship, forgiveness, and love stronger than death because the heart was made for those things. Even when a work cannot name the answer clearly, it may still reveal the question. That matters.
This is one reason it is worth talking about these things carefully. We are not just reviewing entertainment. We are asking what the loves and loyalties of our culture reveal about the hunger of the human person.
The Fathers teach us not to despise the search for truth.
St. Justin Martyr spoke of seeds of the Word scattered among mankind. That does not erase the difference between the fullness of truth in the Church and partial truths found elsewhere. But it does help explain why the human heart can recognize goodness even in places where the name of Christ is not fully confessed.
Orthodox Christians believe that the fullness is found in the life of the Church, in her worship, doctrine, ascetic life, sacraments, and communion. But because the world was made by God, we should not be surprised when fragments of beauty, justice, and longing show up in human art. We should simply know how to receive them rightly.
So this series is an invitation.
It is an invitation to look more closely at the things we already read, watch, and hear. It is an invitation to think more deeply, love what is truly good, and reject what deforms the soul. It is also an invitation not to stop halfway.
The things we love in stories are often signs pointing beyond themselves. They point toward truth, but they do not contain its fullness. They awaken hunger, but they cannot finally satisfy it.
The life of the Church is where the deepest longings of these stories find their home.
If a film has ever stirred your heart with sacrifice, if a book has ever made you ache for redemption, or if a song has ever made you feel the weight of hope and sorrow together, then you already know something about this hunger. The question is whether you will stop with the echo or seek the source. Orthodox Christianity does not offer a mere theme or mood, but a way of life in Jesus Christ.
That is why the answer to Almost Christian is not to stay in the realm of almost. The answer is to move from reflection to reality, from admiration to worship, from hints of truth to the life of truth itself. And if this series helps make that movement clearer, then it will have done something worthwhile.
You are welcome to help shape this series.
If there is a movie, book, show, or song you think would make a good Almost Christian topic, feel free to email me at frsteve@savannahorthodox.com. I would love to hear what works you think raise these kinds of questions and deserve a closer Orthodox look.
FAQ
Can Orthodox Christians enjoy secular movies, books, and music?
Yes, but they should do so with discernment. Orthodox Christians are called to hold fast to what is good while being honest about what is distorted, incomplete, or spiritually harmful.
What does “Almost Christian” mean?
It refers to works that reflect themes like sacrifice, mercy, redemption, longing, or hope without expressing the fullness of Orthodox Christianity. They may echo Christian truths, but they do not replace the life of the Church.
Why do popular stories sometimes feel spiritually meaningful?
Because human beings are made in the image of God and can express real truths about love, suffering, and hope even outside explicitly Christian settings. These stories often touch deep human longings that are fulfilled more fully in the Orthodox faith.
Is it wrong to find Christian themes in non-Christian media?
No, as long as it is done carefully and honestly. The danger is not in noticing what is true, but in pretending a work is more complete or spiritually safe than it really is.
How should Orthodox Christians think about the stories they love?
They should think about them prayerfully, soberly, and with a formed Christian mind. Good stories can open the heart to deeper questions, but the answers are found most fully in the worship and life of the Orthodox Church.
