Sightings Articles

A person with long purple hair wears the pink and blue transgender flag in the style of a cape.

culture wars | identity politics | liberalism

Liberalism’s Identity Irresolution

The premise of state neutrality has given rise to identitarian conflict that cannot be resolved by appeals to the fundamental rules of the social order....

May 31, 2024
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
lil nas x and shoe

culture wars | pop culture | Race and religion | LGBTQ | evil | music

Justice and the Devil in America

A controversy around the symbolisms of evil conceals the hardening of America's heart...

April 26, 2021
Warnock

Black Church | liberation theology | political partisanship | culture wars

Raphael Warnock and the Ongoing Legacy of Black Liberation Theology

The myth of a monolithic Black theology at the heart of political scare tactics...

April 5, 2021
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

culture wars | gun legislation | gun violence

Souls and the Guns of America

“Guns and the Soul of America” is the title of an important recent column by David Brooks (The New York Times, October 6th). Sightings writers do not claim to be experts on guns, but something or other about “souls” shows up in most of our semiweekly...

October 9, 2017

Catholicism | culture wars | globalization | GLBTQ rights | global church

Christians Fighting Christians

Contemporary Disputes in Christianity...

October 19, 2015