Search

A younger Paul Schrader might have chosen to end this film, which many critics are calling his masterpiece, in apocalyptic violence. But I don’t think it’s quite right to conclude that Schrader has simply mellowed in his eighth decade.

Warning: numerous spoilers ahead. “Who will release me from the body of this death?” This question, posed rhetorically in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, has become a real question for the Rev. Ernst…

Gratitude operates like resentment. When we find ourselves in a position of owing—and people in a democratic society always owe something to other people—we may become vulnerable to control.

Recognizing mutual support is important because neoliberalism preaches the false doctrine of pure independence—that the individual exists before society, before government, before relationships—which makes any form of relationship a threat to the individual’s autonomy.

For those confident in the coming of Judgment Day or in the frictionless workings out of karma, there is naught to be done but wait for history to unfold its glorious purposes.

If American evangelicals can no longer point to the “glory days” when they were on the right side of history with regard to race, then it becomes much more difficult to avoid a reckoning.

Like all progressives, Trump’s victory in 2016 sent me into a funk. Now, as the concrete consequences of that election unfold, my Trump Funk even deepens. Most readers needn’t be reminded of the list…