Sightings Articles

Floyd, Taylor, and Arberry with halos

political religion | #blacklivesmatter

The Difference between Heroes and Martyrs

When we memorialize victims of police violence, their past actions are irrelevant...

October 5, 2020
TikTok

religio-secular culture | Technology | public conversation

TikTok and Cultural Criticism

The democratization of social commentary...

October 1, 2020
Shofar

repentance | political religion | conspiracy theories

On Zealous and Unrepentant Times

A Call to Self-Reflection amidst a Dangerous Devotion...

September 28, 2020
Candle burning at both ends

Rituals | Spirituality | capitalism | secularism

The Meanings that Make Us

The limits of creative agency in ritual...

September 24, 2020
Quote

Flannery O'Connor | Race and religion | Jesuits | higher education | Catholicism

A Summer Correspondence

The decision to rename a dormitory reveals the fragility of historical nuance...

September 21, 2020
Damages

Beirut explosion | Islam | Christianity | charity | capitalism

The Donation Dilemma

Charity in the aftermath of the Beirut Explosion...

September 17, 2020
Bathsheba mourning Uriah

Hebrew Bible | Biblical narratives | slavery | culture wars

Imagining History without Heroes and Villains

What the Hebrew Bible can teach Americans about reckoning with the fallenness of our nation's founders...

September 14, 2020
Christ separating sheep and goats

political religion | heresy | Orthodoxy

The Creedal Orthodoxy of the RNC platform

A divisive rhetoric of unity...

September 10, 2020
First labor day parade in New York City, 1882

working class | Social Gospel | social justice | Religious Left

Labor Sunday

How American clergy in the 1920s turned from solidarity with workers to the mythology of the Good Christian Businessman...

September 7, 2020
Tom Cotton

slavery | politics | political religion | United Methodists

King Cotton

The United Methodist Church's roots witness against Cotton's attack on critical history...

September 3, 2020