Snap. Pop. Fizzle. Bang.

To me, that’s the sound of the modern news cycle, with headlines blowing up in rapid succession, each demanding our attention before we scroll to the next. We live in the midst of an unrelentless attention economy, where urgency becomes currency, outrage is easy to manufacture and what seems to matters most is whatever is newest, loudest or most emotionally charged.

In this environment, it is perhaps inevitable to get trapped in the present moment, mistaking immediacy for importance and something going viral for significance. But when it comes to understanding religion’s role in society, staying locked on today’s headlines is not enough.

To make sense of religion in public life, we need not only track breaking stories or flip through reels on our social media feed but lift our eyes to the horizon, looking for emerging patterns, global developments, and stories still unfolding.

As 2025 ended and 2026 began, I had the chance to contribute to two recent efforts to chart that horizon: the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture’s “6 to 7 Trends to Watch in Religion and Society in 2026” and ReligionLink’s 2026 predictions.