Matthew Schmitz

Starting at the 4:50 mark of this film essay, Matt Zurcher identifies three kinds of baptism that serve as visual rhymes in P.T. Anderson’s great “There Will Be Blood.” Anderson will be coming out with ” The Master ” this fall, a film that looks to continue his . . . . Continue Reading »

Revivalist Todd Bentley  has been barred from the United Kingdom  because of his sometime use of physical violence—-including kicking and punching—-to heal. Bentley, who gained prominence after the “Lakeland Outporing,” a 100-day revival that drew 30,000 attendees . . . . Continue Reading »

Via the New York Times : An elderly woman stepped forward this week to claim responsibility for disfiguring a century-old “ecce homo” fresco of Jesus crowned with thorns, in Santuario de la Misericordia, a Roman Catholic church in Borja, near the city of Zaragoza. Ecce homo, or behold the . . . . Continue Reading »

Many writers don’t understand the significant differences between Modern Orthodox Jews and their Ultra-Orthodox cousins, explains Yair Rosenberg at  Tablet . It is the latter community, of course, that tends to insist on exclusively domestic roles for its women, while the former has a . . . . Continue Reading »

“Women tend to be more religious and on average attend church services more often than men. There is also reason to believe that women on average have more conservative views on sexual and lifestyle issues than men. Overall, there is a large body of evidence to suggest that women have more . . . . Continue Reading »

Ian Bogost is fed up with TED talks—-the techno-utopian Chautauqua retread—-and spent fifteen minutes writing a strangely convincing parody: I’m here to talk to you about the biggest challenge facing upper-class Western society: ideas, and how to understand them. What is an idea? . . . . Continue Reading »

Delivered under sponsorship of the King’s College on March 30, 2012 at Calvary-St. George’s Episcopal Church, New York, New York. . . . . Continue Reading »

Women are slightly more likely than men to say that abortion should be illegal when the pregnancy results from rape, according to Gallup . This counterintuitive gender gap holds when the mother’s life is threatened, when her physical health is endangered, when the pregnancy results from . . . . Continue Reading »

“There is a nice passage in Joseph de Maistre, the counter-revolutionary, the enemy of the French Revolution, where he says that human beings are not able to build things, because when they try to create something they do not get it. You cannot really produce new and interesting things. It is . . . . Continue Reading »

Christian Sahner explains how strife in Syria is leading to the destruction of Syria’s major historical sites: Among the at-risk monuments is the Unesco World Heritage site Crac des Chevaliers, a Crusader fortress of the 12th to 13th centuries, which stands on a hilltop overlooking the plains . . . . Continue Reading »