Sightings Articles
In Surprise Move, Evangelical Moody Bible Institute Drops Its Alcohol Ban - Martin E. Marty
The Moody Bible Institute made national news last week when it dropped the ban on drinking of wine on the part of faculty members and staff. Born on Dwight L. Moody’s birthday, able to keep an eye on the Moody Bible Institute from my apartment’s w...
October 14, 2013
Census: Many U.S. Jews Are Cultural Not Religious — Martin E. Marty
There are more Lutherans (5.5 million) in Tanzania than there are Jews (5.4 million) in the United States. There are more Southern Baptists in the United States than there are Jews in the whole world. While religions are by no means to be valued on t...
October 7, 2013
Billy Graham Taught Christians New Ways of Being in the World -- Martin E. Marty
Billy Graham was feted in a conference at the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College in Illinois, September 26-28, 2013. The Institute for the Study of Evangelicals planned and hosted the event, which featured a dozen substantial in-process chapters ...
September 30, 2013
Pope Broadens Agenda to Include, Shock, the Gospel -- Martin E. Marty
On Pope Francis, Stephen Pope (no relation) of Boston College spoke wisely. According to many analysts, the Pope seemed, in his interview published September 19, 2013, to chide U.S. Catholic bishops for having focused too much on cultural or “social"...
September 23, 2013
Syria's Christians: A Population at Risk -- Martin E. Marty
“Buridan’s Ass” comes to mind as citizens ponder what to think and what to favor in the Syrian civil war. Look it up: this is the dilemma of Buridan’s ass (named after philosopher John Buridan). Poised equidistantly between two equally attractive bal...
September 16, 2013
Moving Forward from the Folly of a Perpetual 'Walk of Faith' -- Martin E. Marty
Last week the Associated Press reported that Pastor Robert Schuller has “stage four” cancer and The New York Times reported the destruction of the “Walk of Faith” on the grounds of Schuller’s realized dream, the Crystal Cathedral. That glass edifice,...
September 9, 2013
On Labor and Workers: the Silence of the Religions -- Martin E. Marty
After a month of non-labor, the Marty Center’s staff returns and publishes on Labor Day. Given the choice of dramatic, horrendous, headline-grabbing topics (e.g. Syria), to return to the scene with the topic of “Labor,” especially as in “Organized La...
September 2, 2013
MainlineDecline, Decline-Talk, and Decline-ism -- Martin E. Marty
Published in late 1959, my first book, The New Shape of American Religion, cited several mainstream commentators and spotted numerous trends to suggest that the then-much-noticed “revival of interest” in religion had crested in 1958. It’s bad manners...
July 22, 2013
Black Churches Divided Over Same-Sex Marriage -- Martin E. Marty
Two weeks ago Sightings picked up on some lines written by the influential Evangelical-oriented author, Eric Metaxas. “Not so fast,” he wisely enough cautioned those who consider legalized, same-sex marriage to be inevitable. And yet, hours after he ...
July 15, 2013
Competing Independence Day Ads About Religion Are Both Misleading -- Martin E. Marty
Sociologist Rodney Stark’s article in the Wall Street Journal, “The Myth of Unreligious America,” is his well-stated rejoinder to other sociologists, demographers, and religious leaders who imply that the “game is all over” for religion and religious...