Sightings Articles

Abandoned building with crumbling gray cement exterior, looking out from inside

Structural Violence | Social Injustice | Media

Structural Violence in the Headlines

Focusing only on direct violence obscures other, potentially more harmful, social injustices....

November 21, 2023
Silhouettes of multiple hands raised against a blue gray backdrop with white text

Revival | Evangelicalism | Media

What’s So Special about the Asbury Revivals?

Even moments that seem most sacred, amid revival, have the potential to reinscribe the racially and politically profane....

February 23, 2023
Jesus sculpture facing left with video camera on right

Super Bowl | Evangelism | Media

He Gets Us? The Religious-Political Machine Behind the Surprising Super Bowl Ad

A 2023 Super Bowl ad campaign offers a new twist on the longstanding Evangelical effort to employ the tools of mass media....

February 16, 2023
A white person dressed in black sitting in a black chair against a teal and white backdrop

Decolonization | hope | Media | imagination

The Sandman and Decolonializing Hope

The critically acclaimed Netflix show The Sandman addresses the transformational power of hope and imagination....

November 29, 2022
Underwater image of blue tiled pool

Evangelicalism | politics | Media

Religion, Politics, and Jerry Falwell Jr.'s Fall from Grace

Hulu's new documentary about the Falwell family sheds light on entanglements of religion and politics and has important implications for the current moment....

November 11, 2022
seder plate

Passover | politics | Media | Coronavirus

Time, Plague, and Politics at Passover

A new administration, a new pace for the news cycle, and a very old truth...

March 29, 2021
Kanye

hip-hop | Augustine of Hippo | Kanye West | pop culture | Media | Technology

Hip Hop and Christian Conversion Narratives

What do Kanye and Hip Hop have to do with Augustine of Hippo?...

January 30, 2020

American Jews | Judaism | New York Times | Media | Anti-Semitism | white nationalism | terrorism

The Cartoon and the Rabbi

Last Thursday, the international print edition of The New York Times published a cartoon depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog, with a human head and an unusually large nose, being walked by—or, perhaps, walking—President Donal...

May 2, 2019

anxiety | conspiracy theories | epistemology | fake news | knowledge | Media | Pizzagate

"We Don't Have Enough Proof": Pizzagate as Epistemological Panic

A man with a rifle enters a pizza place, not for the purposes of mass murder or terrorism but on a quest for epistemological certainty. Twenty-eight-year-old Edgar Maddison Welch had heard a theory, and he wanted to know if it was true. He had encoun...

December 15, 2016

Media | public education | religion news

Religion Coverage

No writer about religion has reason to complain that too little has been happening in “the world of religion.” ...

April 18, 2016