I, too, had dismissed No Country as another affected, self-consciously “cinematic” Coen brothers’ dead end, but Holloway’s careful reading converted me. The mistake is to see No Country as being about the bad guy. Instead, it’s about a traditional Hollywood good guy, the local sheriff, Bell (Tommy Lee Jones): “a kind of traditionalist conservative, … a lifetime lawman, a proud member of a line of lawmen.” But when this old-fashioned guy is confronted with radical evil in the person of Chigurh (Javier Bardem), who possesses not “an inordinate attachment to some real good” but a sadistic need to show everyone who crosses his path the utter worthlessness of their existence, Bell is lost.

Why? The lawman is unable to contend with Chigurh’s perverse brand of lawbreaking because he fears God has abandoned him and that “he may somehow be drawn into this evil.” In the end, Bell “quits” the fight because a “low estimate of himself arises from a vain aspiration to self-sufficiency.” When you believe you’re in a fight against the odds all by yourself, that you’ve lost God as your backup, what else is there to do but turn tail and run? (Contrast this with Franz Jäggerstätter’s exemplary fortitude, ably explicated in Thomistic turns by Jennifer Frey in her essay on A Hidden Life, a more-or-less true-life story of an Austrian farmer’s steadfast resistance to pledging allegiance to Adolf Hitler.)

As I hope I’ve conveyed, Film and Faith is smart but never obtuse, entertaining but never frivolous, and thorough but never overstuffed. It will leave the reader, religious or not, with an enhanced critical vocabulary, better able to espy the spiritual depths even of those films that on first viewing appear to be thoroughly secular.

Hollywood's shift from classic religious portrayals to exploring deeper, sometimes critical themes of faith reflects a changing societal engagement with spirituality in cinema.

On the harrowing of Hollywood with @amsacramonehttps://t.co/llwRGVIEb5

— Law & Liberty (@LawLiberty) May 31, 2024

The bishop is married to Rachel, an Occupational Therapist, and they have four adult children. He was born in Bolton and is a passionate supporter of Bolton Wanderers football team, as well as being a beekeeper, keen cake baker and fan of live comedy.

He said: “I have long-standing connections with Devon – we used to holiday in North Devon every year as a child, I courted my future wife in Exeter when she was a student at St Loyes College, and I discerned a vocation to the ordained ministry while worshipping at Exeter Cathedral and a local church.”

“As Bishop for the whole of Devon, I am looking forward to providing oversight, pastoral care, prayer, fellowship, and partnership in the gospel across the whole breadth of the diocese. We are a broad church with a diversity of traditions and views, and I am committed to working together and being united in our shared mission to grow in prayer, make new disciples and serve the people of Devon with joy.”

Read it all.

"I’m looking forward to working with Devon’s amazing churches and their communities to share the gospel message of hope, joy and wonder…"

Dr Mike Harrison is to be the new Bishop of Exeter in @CofEDevon.

Read more at https://t.co/puu66J3gh8.

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) June 4, 2024

The American worker is making peace with a longer ride.

Big shifts in the way people live and work are making commutes of over an hour into the office more common—and even more palatable. Rising housing costs have prompted many to move farther away from city centers, while the staying power of hybrid work means they don’t have to drive into work every day. 

The share of super commutes—those 75 miles or longer—have grown the most and are up by nearly a third since 2020, according to new research from Stanford University. 

Craig Allender’s family of four felt they had outgrown their three-bedroom home in Novato, Calif., and wanted to upgrade. They found a five-bedroom one 30 miles north in Sonoma County where lower housing costs put a 3,000-square-foot house in reach. 

America’s Commute to Work Is Getting Longer & Longer: "The share of super commutes—those 75 miles or longer—have grown the most & are up by nearly a third since 2020, according to new research from Stanford University" https://t.co/dfQsXWei1x

— Jim Russell (@ProducerCities) June 4, 2024

Lord of all truth and peace, who didst raise up thy bishop John to be servant of the servants of God and bestowed on him wisdom to call for the work of renewing your Church: Grant that, following his example, we may reach out to other Christians to clasp them with the love of your Son, and labor throughout the nations of the world to kindle a desire for justice and peace; through Jesus Christ, who is alive and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Pope Saint John XXIII was born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli in a stone farm house on November 25, 1881 in Sotto il Monte, a small country village 40 miles from Milan. His father was a sharecropper who had saved enough money to buy a plot of his own. https://t.co/GT5WMEW6V6 pic.twitter.com/hauvrILoO7

— Trivia Encyclopedia (@edpearce080759) November 25, 2019

O God, the God of all goodness and of all grace, who art worthy of a greater love than we can either give or understand: Fill our hearts, we beseech thee, with such love toward thee that nothing may seem too hard for us to do or to suffer, in obedience to thy will; and grant that thus loving thee, we may become daily more like unto thee, and finally obtain the crown of life which thou hast promised to those that love thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Ealdwulf, archbishop of York from 995, died #OTD in 1002. Wulfstan II succeeded him. ©Paul Lakin pic.twitter.com/rA7DEurujh

— North Ages (@NorthAges) June 4, 2024

Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up by revelation; and I laid before them (but privately before those who were of repute) the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, lest somehow I should be running or had run in vain. But even Titus, who was with me, was not compelled to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. But because of false brethren secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy out our freedom which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage— to them we did not yield submission even for a moment, that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. And from those who were reputed to be something (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those, I say, who were of repute added nothing to me; but on the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised (for he who worked through Peter for the mission to the circumcised worked through me also for the Gentiles), and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised; only they would have us remember the poor, which very thing I was eager to do.

–Galatians 2:1-10

Summer sunrise over @Bamburgh_Castle…#Northumberland #photography pic.twitter.com/4aZxJWHA2b

— Jim Scott (@jimscottphoto) June 4, 2024