Sightings Articles
Death Books
Religion in political campaigns, church-state controversies, clerical abuse scandals, and abortion arguments, received due (and over-due?) attention in the media for another week. Having sighted more than enough items in those now-familiar fields, we...
March 7, 2016
Social Media
Sometimes an observation of quiet despair in the lives of many people—not necessarily the mass of them—is inspired by subtly voiced phrases. ...
February 29, 2016
Closing and Reopening Sanctuaries
“Trending Now…” is a familiar category in pop culture. ...
February 22, 2016
Evolution
Even bigger news this week than U.S. presidential campaigns came from the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, a group of over 1000 scientists who have been working to detect ripples in the fabric of spacetime called gravitational waves.Dennis Overbye, in ...
February 15, 2016
What Makes 'Religion' News?
January ended with a fifth Sunday, a calendar item that occasionally prompts an appraisal of what gets covered and what public-media assessors of the scene assume their publics will find of interest. While Monday’s Sightings pay close attention to...
February 1, 2016
The Ups and Downs of Religion
Those (of us) who do sightings of religion in public life are schooled to notice not only the “what” of religious phenomena and happenings, but also the “where” of each....
January 25, 2016
Fractured Christian World(s)
Look at medieval maps of Europe, urges Robert D. Kaplan in the Wall Street Journal (see "Resources" below) and you will be overwhelmed by the dizzying incoherence—all of those empires, kingdoms, confederations, “minor” states, “upper” this and “lower...
January 18, 2016
Post-Religious, Post-Spirituality Seekers
Asking questions about new spirituality...