Sightings Articles
Clergy for a New Drug Policy
When was the last time any of us read of a war being over? The War in Afghanistan? The Culture War(s)? The War on Poverty? For all we know, factions may still be seething over issues, such as they were, in the Thirty Years’ War or (we’ll raise you 70...
September 12, 2016
The Last Trump?
Editor's note. This is the first in a series of essays on the Trump phenomenon—or "Trumpism," if such a thing can be defined—and what it reveals about the relationship between religion and politics in America today. Look for further installments lead...
September 8, 2016
Moral Injury
Editor's note: Sightings will be taking a break in observance of Labor Day. We will return Thursday, September 8th. Moral injury is a recently diagnosed but agelessly known assault on the soul. While it cannot be isolated and defined as (relativel...
August 29, 2016
Justification
Last week, while the sports-loving public watched timed Olympic events, viewers relearned the values of timing, measuring, and scorekeeping. Some races were decided by 1/100th of a second margins. The substantially smaller, microscopically observable...
August 22, 2016
Success and Truth in Religion
Since 1972, when Dean Kelley published Why Conservative Churches Are Growing, a good portion of the noticing of religious trends has been framed in Kelley’s terms. ...
August 15, 2016
The Mormon Moment and Others
The “Mormon Moment” has passed. I learned this from a book reviewer in The Christian Century (see “resources” below), who criticized and dismissed a new book with a Mormon theme, and then from a New York Times article which dated “the end of the Morm...
August 1, 2016
Go Forth And Catch ’Em All: Pokemon Go’s Contingent Re-enchantment of the Natural World
Even if you don’t own a smartphone and have never played a computer game more sophisticated than solitaire, you have probably heard of Pokémon Go by now. The phone-based game boasts 30 million players worldwide, less than a month after its release on...
July 28, 2016
Social Problems and Religion
Meanwhile. . . . Other things than political campaigns are going on this summer, but they have a hard time gaining notice. Media attention to them crowds out other events and spheres of lif...
July 25, 2016
"I'm the One": Masculinity in the Philosophy of the Baton Rouge Shooter
Self-help guru Cosmo Ausar Setepenra, born Gavin Long, peddled a personal philosophy called “Alpha Preneurism” for years before he killed three Baton Rouge police officers on Sunday. A “mental game coach” and “freedom strategist,” Long’s wor...