Sightings Articles
Faith, Grace, and the Arts -- Martin E. Marty
Devoted to "public religion" or "religion-in-public," Sightings surveys public arenas that are not confined to the political world. Education, commerce, entertainment and the arts represent spheres where publics encounter religion. The arts, whi...
May 6, 2013
The Argument about Holocaust Studies -- Martin E. Marty
One of the most heated public controversies over a religious theme in America has to do with Holocaust studies. And none has been more heated and more public than that between Gabriel Schoenfeld, a senior editor of COMMENTARY (published by the Americ...
May 4, 2013
Father Andrew Greeley by Martin E. Marty
Sightings does not conventionally review books, but one book has been on my desk for months as a prompt for something on which I wanted to comment. This week, fortuitously, friend Kevin Christiano of Notre Dame, knowing of my interest in the subject,...
May 28, 2012
Whites in the Minority by Martin E. Marty
On May 17 the New York Time's headline read "Whites Account for Under Half of Births in U.S.; Tipping Point Reached; Implications for Politics, the Economy and a Nation's Identity." On the same day The Wall Street Journal underscored this "birth" the...
May 21, 2012
Jewish Values by Martin E. Marty
The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), alongside Gallup and Pew and other polling agencies--scored big this month. Right in the midst of the treated-as-cosmic discussion of "same-sex" marriage, a not-unnoticed media fest—PRRI released a poll ...
May 14, 2012
Cultural Dominance by Martin E. Marty
The class will please come to order. Our text today is "The Law of Cultural Dominance," formulated by David Kaplan in Cultural Evolution, published fifty-two years ago, and noticed too little since. I find online that I quoted it in a scholarly artic...
May 7, 2012
David Barton's Jefferson by Martin E. Marty
Our premier historian of late colonial and early republican America, Gordon Wood, while reviewing a book on Roger Williams warms up readers with references to Thomas Jefferson. "It's easy to believe in the separation of church and state when one has ...
April 30, 2012
Annenberg Poll on Religion in the Media by Martin E. Marty
"Most Americans Say Media Coverage of Religion Too Sensationalized" reads the headline of a report on a poll of a sample of "the public" and of journalists. That headline is perhaps a bit too sensationalized itself, because the pollsters had to choos...
April 23, 2012
God's Care for the Poor by Martin E. Marty
The text for today's meditation comes from The Wall Street Journal, a quotation provided by a major novelist, whose newest work was being reviewed. The quote, first: "The Lord commands us to 'do good to all men,' universally, a great part of whom, es...
April 9, 2012
Ecumenical Realities by Martin E. Marty
"Hopes for an 'Ecumenical Spring'" was a Christian Century headline above a report by Adelle M. Banks of the Religion News Service. Her report spelled out why such hopes are wan, if not desperate. Three samples: The National Council of Churches has s...