Sightings Articles

no justice no peace

social justice | Black Church | Martin Luther King Jr.

On Prophetic Rage

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a prophetic rage that rejected the status quo and strove for a just and loving community: we should too....

October 21, 2021
Francis at Western Wall

Anti-Semitism | Pope Francis | Catholicism

Pope Francis And The Jewish Law (Torah)

Pope Francis accepts Vatican II's Nostra Aetate, but has yet to fully extricate himself from two millennia's teachings of contempt ...

October 14, 2021
empty pews

American church | Christianity | Catholic decline

Sunday Mournings

Sunday worship was valorized as something it was not, but the “new normal” could turn out to be something that warrants renewed hope....

October 7, 2021
back to school image

Rituals | church attendance | American church

Beginning Again... and Again... and Again

We hoped that “Back to School” rituals might turn the page, but beginnings are never as straightforward and uncomplicated as we wish they could be....

September 30, 2021
unraveling flag

American religion | culture wars | 9/11 | sociology of religion

On Social Dissolution: Lost Threads and Forgotten Dogmas

From passing conversations on the street to extended news commentaries on air and online, it is hard to miss the pervasive sense of social breakdown....

September 23, 2021
war on women protest

culture wars | sociology of religion | American public | political religion

Don't You Know There's a War On?

Thirty years after its publication, Culture Wars remains an essential guide to American politics....

September 17, 2021
conspiracy wall

conspiracy theories | humanness | political partisanship | power differentials

Conspiracy Theories and Human Psychology

The unsettlingly normal cognitive roots of outlandish explanations...

September 9, 2021
summer on the quad

Summer Hiatus '21

A curated Sightings reading list for you during our summer break...

June 30, 2021
Protester

Coronavirus | political religion | Roman Catholicism | protests

A Year to Mask and Unmask

What the pandemic has concealed and revealed about the conditions of possibility for our society...

June 28, 2021
Cold Cave live in Paris 2018

music | pop culture | religio-secular culture | Religion and Literature

Secular Music in Seven Lessons

Darkwave artist Cold Cave's recent album, "Fate in Seven Lessons," sheds light on the complexities of popular culture's interaction with religion...

June 24, 2021