Sightings Articles
For Southern Baptists, a Sudden Awakening and Turn on the “Alt-Right”
In a classic essay on “Denominationalism,” Sidney E. Mead observed that “[t]he denomination, unlike the traditional forms of the church, is not primarily confessional, and it is certainly not territorial. Rather it is purposive.” When Mead published ...
June 19, 2017
Rev. Dr. William Barber and the Sound of Transcendence
In his address to the 2016 Democratic National Convention, the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, then president of the North Carolina Conference of the NAACP and leader of the Moral Mondays Movement, proclaimed, “like our forefathers and foremothers, we...
June 15, 2017
Our Abyss
“LOOKING INTO THE ABYSS” is virtually (typographically) shouted from the cover of the current The American Scholar. It’s a teaser: the “abyss” could refer to Washington or the United States or global terrorism or… It could evoke Robert Frost’s feared...
June 12, 2017
Rethinking Blasphemy in Indonesia and the Fiqh Tradition
World media have reported on the blasphemy conviction of Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, the Christian governor of Jakarta known as Ahok, with familiar oppositions of liberal-democratic norms and hardline Islam. Fears of the sharīʿa transgressing into the pu...
June 8, 2017
The Necessity of Bridge-Building
David Levithan, author of Boy Meets Boy (2003) and Two Boys Kissing (2013), will be awarded with the 2017 Chicago Tribune Young Adult Literary Prize at next weekend’s Printer’s Row Lit Fest in Chicago. Many of the bestselling author’s books feature g...
June 5, 2017
“No One Was Saved”: The Beatles and Organized Religion
Editor's Note: It was 50 years ago today... the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, one of their most important and influential albums. This issue of Sightings—the third part in our continuing series on religion and popular music—...
June 1, 2017
Memorial Day, Mayor Landrieu, and the American Future
Recommended homework for Americans on Memorial Day: read, don’t simply read about, the talk Mayor Mitch Landrieu delivered in New Orleans last week. (To make the task of locating it easy, we provide a link; see “Resources.”) As for “reading about” th...
May 29, 2017
The Hidden Roots of Betsy Devos's Educational Policies
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos favors the injection of a conservatively religious, most likely also corporate, evangelical influence into American educational politics. But the question of what exactly that means digs deeper than just the mere pr...
May 25, 2017
Updating the American Spirit
The commencement season has commenced, and in some places ended, for this spring. Having read reports of or seen televised ceremonies, we in the public could find inspiration or reasons for despairing. In cases where the occasions at colleges and uni...
May 22, 2017
Denouncing Discrimination, Enforcing Inequality
In recent months, there has been a notable uptick in public positions against prejudice being declared by academics. This is understandable and commendable, given the increase in hate crimes, rise of the alt-right, and resurgence of old hate groups. ...