During the Middle Ages, the Christian church primarily employed the visual arts to showcase and communicate theology. Yet within the realms of today’s audio-visual media, the popularity of spoken-word short films indicates a preference within the Christian community for didactic speech over traditional visual symbology. In examining ways in which the primacy of the visual spectacle might be reinstated into modern screenbasedforms of theological communication, this doctoral research identifies an enduring and powerful element in the underpinning presence of illumination. Understood in concrete and abstract modes, illumination can be both a physical process of lighting, as well as spiritual or mental knowledge. This multimodality allows it to be an effective allegorical device for expressing abstract theological concepts through concrete visual forms, exemplified in stained-glass windows, magic lantern shows and, as my research proposes, the recent mediums of film and the digital video screen. My research revises the practice of illumination for visual theology in short film. Using a conceptual framework, it identifies key properties of illumination, alongside practical filmmaking equivalents and demonstrations in the form of my three short films.