Sightings Articles

Phi Beta Kappa | James McWilliams | identity protection | Snapchat | Instagram | Tumblr | Twitter | Spotify | selfie

How To Save Your Soul

“How to Save Your Soul in a Digital Age” is the bold banner on the cover of The American Scholar (Spring, 2016). No, the magazine of the Phi Beta Kappa Society is not turning evangelistic. On page 22 the editors simply translate author James McWillia...

April 4, 2016

Gospel of Mark | Greek tragedies | Euripides | plot device | Hollywood

Easter's deus ex machina

Even in Hollywood, Easter's approach rekindles hope. A hope for profit, that is, since films about Jesus seem to make their debut in late February. The Passion of Christ, for instance, was released in theaters on the 25th in 2004, the Son of God on t...

March 24, 2016

Robert D. Putnam | Bowling Alone | David Riesman | other-directed | David Gushee | Christian Evangelical | half-churched Christian

Wafer-Thin Commitment

Now and then a word or a phrase is understood to be so appropriate to a situation that it enters the vocabulary or catalog of slogans. ...

March 21, 2016

American church | Philip J. Hefner | Sidney E. Mead | Paul Tillich | Dietrich Bonhoeffer | religionless Christianity | James M. Gustafson | Joseph Haroutunian | Leigh R. Jordahl | ecumenism | interfaith | secularity

Futures Projected

Let’s step back this week from the overdoses of religion-in-public-life evidences which are candidates for Sightings these seasons and look for some perspective by using the rear-view mirror provided by historians, theologians, and ethicists. Recentl...

March 14, 2016

obituary | Katie Roiphe | Violet Hour | Susan Sontag | John Updike | James Salter | Maurice Sendak | David Rieff

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

Nancy Jo Sales | teenagers | Apple | iPhones | selfies | pornography | Daniel Boorstin

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