Siegler's study was anthologized in God in the Details: American Religion in Popular Culture (eds. Mazur & McCarthy). I read and critiqued it for a seminar I'm just finishing.
Siegler states his goal at the outset: “This study is an effort to make sense of this kind of intrusion of religious language, symbols, and themes into the secular venue of the TV cop show.” (p. 199) He begins with a rueful review of the extent to which previous studies of television have ignored its content or assumed its uniformity. Siegler doesn’t seem interested in arguing for television as an overall cultural force for good, but he does propose to vindicate it as “a locus for real thought about serious religious issues,” using three critically-lauded 1990s police dramas as his case in point. (p. 200)
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Since I wrote this piece a few weeks ago, current events have fueled my animus on the topic.
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