Sightings Articles
Like Sand through the Hourglass
So Joseph stored up grain in such abundance—like the sand of the sea—that he stopped measuring it; it was beyond measure....
November 29, 2018
A Season of Myths
“Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.” -Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (Götzendämmerung) This past week people in the USA entered the “season of myths” that runs from Thanksgiving through various religious holi...
November 26, 2018
Jonestown in American Religious Life
Ed. Note: This past Sunday was the 40th anniversary of the deaths in Jonestown, Guyana, November 18, 1978. Forty years ago my family sat down to Thanksgiving dinner not knowing whether my sisters were dead or alive. They were members of Peoples T...
November 22, 2018
A Firm Purpose of Amendment
A dimension of our public life that is in one respect readily sighted yet in another perhaps too easily slighted is the repetitive nature of certain specific forms of violence and violation that disrupt civic life. Shootings in schools and various pu...
November 19, 2018
Twitter’s “Like” Problem
Breaking up is always hard. But breaking off a decade-long relationship is especially difficult. So if you have Twitter thumbs, you may need to brace yourself because rumors are circulating that Twitter may soon be breaking up with the “Like” but...
November 15, 2018
James K.A. Smith's "Cultural Liturgies"
Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Michael Oakeshott, Paul Ricoeur, Jose Ortega y Gasset, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty are a few names of thinkers-about-history who have influenced me and whose books form something of an unofficial “canon” on my shelves. Is it pe...
November 12, 2018
Male, Female, and Transgender: Notes from Theological Anthropology
Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience do not speak univocally. ...
November 8, 2018
Wagner's Mythologizing of German Mythology
Ed. Note: The author has discussed other aspects of Wagner’s Siegfried in The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005) and The Ring of Truth and Other Myths of Sex and Jewelry (New York: Oxford University Press,...
November 5, 2018
Tree of Life
A man may not go out with a sword [on Shabbat], nor with a bow, nor with a shield, nor with a round shield, nor with a spear. If he has gone out [with any of these] he is liable for a sin offering. Rabbi Eliezer says: They are ornaments for him. Bu...
November 1, 2018
Faking the Bible
In each of these instances, those acquiring scroll fragments have made illuminating statements concerning their aims. ...