media criticism

In a recent essay for The Atlantic , David Wolpe, a rabbi and visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School, sizes up former president and insurrectionist Donald Trump as follows: “the lavishness of his…

Cloying sentimentality, saccharine pablum, ridiculous camp and embarrassing kitsch—in the contemporary moment the word “angel” hasn’t fared well among those who describe themselves as sophisticates or…

As the New Year approaches and gift guides (and pleas for support) litter our inboxes, let’s take some time to reflect upon 2023. As I’ve previously stated , this is rarely a joyous occasion in my…

Earlier this year, before Hamas’ attack and Israel’s siege of Gaza, and before the House of Representatives passed a resolution declaring it so, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said the…

What inspired you to write The Exorcist Effect ? Over twenty years ago, Michael Cuneo wrote a book called American Exorcism , arguing that William Friedkin’s The Exorcist had almost single-handedly…

Even after seven years of incendiary statements, Trump’s Veterans Day comments at a New Hampshire rally still managed to shock: We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists…

When the news broke that the recently elected Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson (R-La), used a Christian technology service called Covenant Eyes to monitor his online habits for porn, reactions…

Who is Mike Johnson, the man with horn-rimmed glasses who managed to become Speaker of the House—something Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan and Tom Emmer all failed to do? And what does he have that the…

Please note: spoilers ahead. Stop me if you’ve heard this one: three evangelicals, an atheist, an ex-nun, and a rootworker walk into an exorcism. Fifty years after William Friedkin’s The Exorcist…

Germany has often been lauded for its memory culture and its reckoning with its fascist, genocidal past. “ Never again ” is both a solemn vow and an integral part of the remembrance culture of the…