The film “Birdbox,” based on a British novel of the same name, started streaming on Netflix around Christmas time. Starring Sandra Bullock and John Malkovich, it is a taut thriller that manages, perhaps despite itself, to shed considerable light on the parlous spiritual condition of contemporary culture.

While I was in Chicago for the Christmas break, I had a wonderful meeting with around thirty young Jesuits. They were massively impressive people: smart, articulate, passionate about their work, and dedicated to the Gospel. Toward the end of our time together, one of the men posed a question that, he warned, would “put me on the spot”—and the discussion then became especially lively and illuminating.

During this Christmas holiday, I’ve been reading Anthony Gottlieb’s breezy and enjoyable history of modern philosophy, entitled “The Dream of Enlightenment.” I found his chapter on Spinoza extremely clarifying and indeed useful as a foil for what I take to be a properly religious view of things. Answering him point by point is a good exercise for anyone who would aspire to evangelize the culture today.