Sightings Articles
Fun for Christian Soldiers? — Martin E. Marty
"It's fun to shoot some people." "You got guys who ... ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." Speaking out was Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis of the U.S. Marine Corps. Chastened by his superior and inspiring reacti...
March 7, 2005
Conservative Hopes for Liberalism — Martin E. Marty
Sightings likes to look both right and left. Few magazines in our library or mailbox are liberal, but the sometimes somewhat liberal New Republic, which celebrates its ninetieth anniversary this very day, is here with an issue dedicated "To Liberalis...
February 28, 2005
Trusting Olajuwon — Martin E. Marty
The interpreters at the Divinity School whence these Sightings issue cultivate "the hermeneutics of suspicion." In other words, they refine their anti-gullibility sensibilities. Such an approach is urgent in a time when there are legitimate reasons t...
February 21, 2005
Under Many Influences — Martin E. Marty
Charles E. Curran of Southern Methodist University asks a question people in his business and mine often get asked: "Where have all the dominant theologians gone?" (National Catholic Reporter, February 4, 2005). He notes that last year marked the cen...
February 14, 2005
The Sound of No Hands Clapping — Martin E. Marty
We (Alexis de) Tocquevilleans enjoy that great French genius's enjoyment of the United States in the nineteenth century, and like to laud his laudatory comments on Democracy in America. Most praiseworthy was his praise of Americans for boundary-bre...
February 7, 2005
Club Evangelical — Martin E. Marty
James Madison, who had a thing or two to do with constitutional matters in the early republic, wanted a "line of separation" between "the rights of religion and the Civil authority." At a recent workshop where I elaborated on that theme, a colleague ...
January 31, 2005
Proselytizing in Disaster — Martin E. Marty
By Saturday, January 22, the new dominating theme in the coverage of tsunami relief was the controversy over whether U.S.-based religious groups were using their aid efforts to "proselytize" and "exploit" the people to whom they were extending physic...
January 24, 2005
The Theodicy of Everyday Life -- Martin E. Marty
Sightings was overwhelmed with more theological news clippings in the wake of the Asian tsunami than at any time since September 11, 2001. Not being free to go on here at book length, I choose this week to shift the genre from "op-ed" or "civic pedag...
January 17, 2005
The State of Giving -- Martin E. Marty
Some recent 'theological' headlines: "Disasters Like Tsunami Can Test or Strengthen Faith"; "When Faith Is Tested"; "Who Gets the Blame This Time?" (Blaming God may make us feel good, but it doesn't accom...
January 10, 2005
Greeley's War — Martin E. Marty
Andrew Greeley, sociologist, novelist, columnist, and priest, asked in the Christmas Eve edition of the Chicago Sun-Times, "Why?" He was referring to the Iraq war in the decades ahead. His language about the adventure was incautious: It's a "cockamam...