Sightings Articles
Atlas Shrugged and its Reviewers by Martin E. Marty
Atlas Shrugged, viewed by reviewers of most stripes as being appallingly appalling, draws crowds of devotees, and has champions on the right, including the Religious Right. Reviewing movie reviews is not standard fare in this column, but the support ...
April 25, 2011
Elizabeth Johnson by Martin E. Marty
We have not looked in on the Catholic press for some time, but a glance at the “liberal”—one is always obliged to say that!—National Catholic Reporter reveals many stories bidding for Sightings attention. We had to pass many candidates by, dealing as...
April 18, 2011
Modernity and Religion by Martin E. Marty
Beyond religion-in-the-news stories about Japan, Libya, Washington, and other crisis points, “religion in public life” continues to be a topic which deserves notice. This week in a conversation two sociologists who are turning attention to religious ...
April 10, 2011
Fasting for the Poor by Martin E. Marty
“Why We’re Fasting” is the title of columnist Mark Bittman’s essay in Saturday’s New York Times, the “we” being himself and David Beckmann, here described as a “reverend,” and “this year’s World Food Prize laureate.” The pastor heads “Bread for the W...
April 4, 2011
A Governor, A Cardinal, and the Death Penalty by Martin E. Marty
“On that decisive morning of March 9, [Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois] laid aside the secular factors and opened his Bible to a passage in II Corinthians about human imperfection,” Samuel G. Freedman wrote in the New York Times. “He prayed. And when ...
March 28, 2011
Jerusalem, Jerusalem by Martin E. Marty
Jerusalem, Jerusalem is not about Jerusalem the city. Guidebooks abound and histories are plentiful. What author James Carroll was moved to write is a reflection that deals with Jerusalem both as real and as metaphor. He does not exactly do justice t...
March 21, 2011
Newt Gingrich's Comic Repentance by Martin E. Marty
After a week of tsunamis, earthquakes, Libyan horrors, Philadelphia clerical sex scandal news, National Public Radio disasters, and National Football League lock-out threats, we the people look for some comic relief. Celebrity politician Newt Gingric...
March 14, 2011
Hell's Bell by Martin E. Marty
Americans may have thought that cracks in the façade and framework of evangelicalism would show up most visibly when serious evangelicals argued whether Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee would be the better presidential candidate. But now we have a chance...
March 7, 2011
Liberal Judaism in Decline by Martin E. Marty
“Liberal Denominations Face Crisis as Rabbis Rebel, Numbers Shrink: Struggling for Relevance and Funding” headlined the prime story by Josh Nathan-Kazis, in the newspaper Forward. A prime column follows it a week later, as Dana Evan Kaplan writes on ...
February 28, 2011
A Bishop's Defense of Government by Martin E. Marty
Belgian sociologist of religion Henri Desroche once observed three functions of religion in society. Religion normally attests a society when it is in the business of “affirming.” There and then it serves an integrating function. That’s normal: think...