http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/ Sightings reports and comments on the role of religion in public life via e-mail twice a week to a readership of over 5,000. en-us Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:58:30 -0600 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss OmniUpdate (OU Publish) http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/1119.shtml This week marks the twenty-year anniversary of the beginning of the "Velvet Revolution" (or the "Gentle Revolution" as referred to by the Slovaks), which led to the rapid demise of the totalitarian regime in Czechoslovakia. On November 17, 1989 in Prague, a heavily armed riot police squad harshly suppressed a peaceful student demonstration that commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the killing of the Czech medical student Ján Opletal by the occupying Nazi forces. This event supplied the needed spark that lit the flames of courage and hope for non-violent political protests across the country. Ten days later, hundreds of thousands of Czech and Slovak citizens gathered in city squares to participate in a two-hour nationwide general strike that called for the abolishment of the leading role of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. Before the year was over, the Communist leaders relinquished their grip on power, and Czechoslovakia has embarked on a challenging journey towards a democratic future. Lubomir Martin Ondrasek Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:58:16 -0600 http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/1116.shtml Recently Turkish television station Kanal T announced a new game show in which representatives from four different world religions will try to convert atheists. The show's title Tövbekarlar Yarisiyor translates roughly as Penitents Compete. Each episode features ten atheists who have been screened to ensure they are not secretly faithful. Audiences can then watch a Muslim imam, a Jewish rabbi, a Greek Orthodox priest, and a Buddhist monk attempt to bring them into the respective fold. Any atheist who experiences a conversion wins an all-expense-paid pilgrimage to a holy site of the newfound faith: Mecca, Jerusalem, or Tibet. (Producers follow new converts to ensure the pilgrimage does not become a free holiday.) Penitents Compete is the brainchild of Seyhan Soylu, a transsexual pop figure who goes by the nickname "Sisi." Soylu has said of the show, "We are giving the biggest prize in the world, the gift of belief in God." Needless to say, Penitents Compete has aroused ire as well as curiosity from both atheists and believers around the world. Many see the show as disrespectful to religion while others see it as an indictment of atheism. However, the motivation for Penitents Compete may simply be a curiosity about religion, conversion, and pluralism. Joseph Laycock Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:56:42 -0600 http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/1112.shtml Those interested in the intersection of religious values and public policy, and particularly criminal justice policy, should take note of a brief filed this past summer in the Supreme Court of the United States in the joined cases of Graham v. Florida, No. 08-7412, and Sullivan v. Florida, No. 08-7621, on behalf of approximately twenty religious organizations as amici curiae or friends of the Court (see endnotes for a full list of organizations). These two cases present the issue of whether the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment proscribes the sentencing of juveniles convicted of non-homicide offenses to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, as occurred in these two cases. Oral argument for the cases took place on Monday, November 9. Joan Gottschall Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:55:28 -0600 http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/1109.shtml Rome's October 20th announcement that it will open the door for former Anglicans to join the Catholic Church led some to respond with suspicion, seeing the move as a conservative commentary on Anglican problems. That morning's AP release, for instance, summarized Cardinal Levada's statement and quickly focused on more gripping drama: an "increasingly conservative" Roman church, the Cardinal's hasty travel plans (including his midnight flight), the Archbishop of Canterbury downplaying the fear, and the Anglican representative in Rome who was "surprised" by the Vatican's decision and asked, with hints of intrigue, "[W]hy this and why now?" The possible merit of such suspicions notwithstanding, it might prove worthwhile to take the Vatican at its word. It may be that the Pope is offering a new model of ecumenism, and one which might bear great fruit in the long run. Gregory Syler Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:53:56 -0600 http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/1105.shtml As reported in Sightings last Monday, the Vatican announced two weeks ago that it was setting up a new canonical structure, or Apostolic Constitution, to facilitate the conversion of disaffected Anglican traditionalists to Catholicism; the converts will be able to "enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony," in the Vatican's words. Married former Anglican clergy will be allowed to become Catholic Priests, though not Bishops. Ryan McCarl Mon, 9 Nov 2009 08:25:21 -0600 http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/1102.shtml Covering "public religion" is our assignment. To many, reporting on congregations and, worse, on "giving," looks private, personal, beside the public point. They should look again: By far the largest sector of charitable giving is to and through religious institutions. The hundreds of thousands of congregations, parishes, synagogues, mosques, and more, are the most widely and diversely represented of American voluntary agencies. They usually fly under the reportorial radar, but what their members think and do has enormous public influence, locally, nationally, and globally. We pay attention. Martin E. Marty Thu, 5 Nov 2009 07:44:10 -0600 http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/1029.shtml In his general audience in St. Peter's Square on October 14th, Pope Benedict gave an address in which he held up the twelfth-century monk and abbot of Cluny, Peter the Venerable, as a model for contemporary Christians, lay and monastic, praising him for his ability to balance both contemplative spirituality and the demands and pressures of the world. Peter was an unusual choice. Though the pope associated him with the abbey's canonized abbots, quoting his papal predecessor Gregory VII that at Cluny, "there was not a single abbot who was not a saint," Peter in fact was never canonized. Why select him as a model over other Benedictine contemplative administrators, not least Saint Benedict himself, who could provide the same example of tranquility in the face of turmoil? What makes Peter stand out from his brethren at this moment in time? Lucy K. Pick Thu, 5 Nov 2009 07:43:16 -0600 http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/1026.shtml The top ecumenical - some are saying un- or anti-ecumenical - news of the year occurred October 20th with a Vatican announcement. Bypassing forty years of Anglican-Roman Catholic conversations-cum-negotiations and blindsiding Archbishop Rowan Williams, the head of the seventy-million-member Anglican Communion, Vatican officials announced that they were taking steps to receive Anglican (in the United States, Episcopal) clergy through conversion into the Roman Catholic priesthood. Headlines had it that Rome wanted to "lure," "attract," "bid for" or "woo" priests and congregations to make the drastic move, while the Vatican front man, as he fished for Anglicans, said he was not fishing for Anglicans. Martin E. Marty Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:59:46 -0500 http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/1022.shtml Last week's Sightings explored religion's horrific side, discussing a Supreme Court case regarding the constitutionality of videos showing animal deaths. The content of the videos under judgment ranges from demonstrations of hogs being killed by dogs (in hunting and training scenarios), to images of deadly dog-on-dog fights and sadistic acts such as setting puppies on fire and the sexually fetishistic crushing of kittens and bunnies, in addition to the insects that Sightings addressed. Repulsive and inhumane though such acts are, last week's Sightings argued that they should nonetheless be understood as expressions of a religious sensibility. Spencer Dew Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:55:47 -0500 http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/1019.shtml Sometimes we do our sightings and findings of religion-in-public-life themes among throwaway or incidental lines, writings or sayings which suddenly hit us with unexpected force. A seemingly banal one struck me, and provides the base for all charters which deal with health care in the United States. The sentence is so obvious it could have just lain there, inert and overlookable, but its reminder can strike consciences and should spur action. It leaped out in the first paragraph of Daniel Callahan's "America's Blind Spot: Health Care and the Common Good" in the October 9th Commonweal, as follows: Martin E. Marty Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:50:43 -0500 http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/1012.shtml Israel, its politics and policies and its religion(s) past and present, is the subject of so much pro and con (never neutral) comment in media, politics, and religious circles, that we could do enough sighting each week to fill this column. In such a complex scene, one trusts commentators who have won our trust already on other themes. Jonathan Sarna of Brandeis, in his American Judaism, writes the best history of the subject that I have seen, and is a respected participant in most projects which deal with American Judaism. I count him a wise and trusted friend. So when he writes from his sabbatical in Israel, I pay attention. And he does write, in the October 9th Forward, "After Utopia, Loving Israel." Martin E. Marty Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:54:36 -0500 http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/1015.shtml A previously obscure sect of sexual fetishism with enigmatic religious dimensions was exposed to the full light of the media last week, as the Supreme Court began deliberations on U.S. vs. Stevens. The case centers on a 1999 statute making it illegal to "create, sell, or possess 'any visual or auditory depiction' of 'animal cruelty' if the act of cruelty is itself illegal under either federal law or the law of the state in which the depiction occurred" (Lithwick). The Supreme Court is determining whether prohibiting such depictions would constitute an infringement on free speech rights. Jeremy Biles Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:53:04 -0500 http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/1008.shtml One of the most popular biblical translations among evangelical conservatives is the New International Version. Introduced in 1978, and immediately endorsed by Billy Graham, the NIV has sold over 300 million copies. As of 2011 the NIV is scheduled for an update. Editors argue that as language changes, biblical translations need to change in order to reflect current usage. Some of the proposed changes, however, are creating a controversy among the conservative faithful. James L. Evans Fri, 9 Oct 2009 06:42:44 -0500 http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/1005.shtml Take one day, say Friday, October 2, in the life of what we should start calling "Evangelicaldom." One-fourth to one-third of Americans consider themselves "Evangelicals." Many are exemplary citizens and, let us say, exemplary Christians. Somewhere along the way millions among them, however, sought what they would call "earthly power," and won enough of it to dream of and work for "Evangelicaldom." That "-dom" signals "domain," as in old "Christendom" and modern "Islamdom." In it, any hints of traditional "otherworldliness" were forgotten, and the once least-worldly sector among us came to be among the most driven by commerce, markets, media, and politics. Martin E. Marty Mon, 5 Oct 2009 15:19:04 -0500 http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/1001.shtml Several of the greatest poets in the English tradition from the Renaissance onward have sought to replace God with the human imagination, a quest whose vehicle most of these poets have, unsurprisingly, envisioned as poetry itself. But George Santayana's definition of poetry as "religion without practical efficacy and without metaphysical illusion" may go some way toward explaining why poetry has decidedly failed to replace religion. The idea that poetry might usurp the traditional functions of religion was predicated upon the social and cultural authority of poetry as a bearer of value. Every discussion of poetry as it is practiced in the United States today must begin from an acknowledgment that it suffers from an impoverishment of such authority. Contemporary poetry is a tinny bickering among insomniacs crowded onto the head of a shrinking pin. Michael Robbins Fri, 2 Oct 2009 04:37:15 -0500