Sightings Articles
Bach in Bethlehem — Martin E. Marty
The Center that issues Sightings is devoted to "public religion endeavors." Its leaders have always been emphatic: "Public religion" is not just about politics. As many of the Thursday Sightings articles by other contributors demonstrate, "public" in...
May 14, 2007
Speaking of Speaking of Faith — Martin E. Marty
My website reminds readers that I cannot write dust-jacket blurbs for forthcoming books, a policy explained on the "Regrets" page. Sometimes, however, when I read a manuscript critically for a publisher or an author -- my "Regrets" page also explains...
March 26, 2007
Against Coercion — Martin E. Marty
Two events this season led me to go back to the Sightings archive, to a column dated October 29, 2001 ("Listening to Lactantius"). Giving evidence of our passion always to be current, we cited Lactantius from the years 302 and 303, because what he wr...
December 11, 2006
Bill Moyers's Message — Martin E. Marty
Let me start unconventionally this Monday by passing on a link: http://www.tompaine.com/print/message_to_west_point.php. Let me also continue unconventionally. Most of the 375-plus "sightings" from the past almost eight years have fulfilled my assign...
December 4, 2006
The Catholic Vote — Martin E. Marty
"God Gap Narrows as Democrats Take Majority of Catholic Vote" is Joe Feuerherd's headline in the liberal National Catholic Reporter (November 17). "Republican hopes that socially conservative church-going Catholics would help forestall an electoral c...
November 27, 2006
Listening to Andrew Greeley — Martin E. Marty
If all will have gone according to plan — Bible believers would cite James 4:13-15 — yesterday at noon in Washington, D.C., at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Andrew M. Greeley will have discoursed with Harvard's Robert A. Ors...
November 20, 2006
Watch Your Language — Martin E. Marty
With regard to the recent election — was it a seismic or glacial change? — I want to make one observation or suggestion. It's in the "watch your language" category. Ever since my article "The New Christian Right" appeared in the Encyclopedia Britanni...
November 13, 2006
Considering Ted Haggard's Plight — Martin E. Marty
Sightings usually avoids stories that are over-reported and commented on, but this is an exception. Here's why: If Pastor Ted Haggard had not waited until a second query to admit that he bought methamphetamine and a massage from a male prostitute ...
November 6, 2006
Theocratic Tendencies — Martin E. Marty
Let's settle this issue about "theocracy" in America once and for all — or at least for this week. Is the Christian Right, from its Catholic-minority, evangelical, Pentecostal, fundamentalist flanks over to some African American church fronts, aiming...
October 30, 2006
A Muslim Pope Luther? — Martin E. Marty
Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, a.k.a. Paracelsus, was challenged by authorities who called him the Luther of medicine. "Why do you call me a medical Luther?... I leave it to Luther to defend what he says, and I will be respo...