Sightings Articles
Personal Jesus — Martin E. Marty
Today is the Twelfth Day of Jesusmas, a.k.a. Christmas. The word Christmas, or "Christ"+ "mass," gives many citizens problems today. The mass part, an issue when anti-Catholicism was prime, is no scandal: Americans are patient with each others' ritua...
January 5, 2004
Kwanzaa — Martin E. Marty
In three more days Kwanzaa will end. If you are not an African-American, it will mean little to you. Ron Karenga, the inventor in 1966 of this "family, community, and culture" event timed to overlap and compete with Christmas observance, devised it a...
December 29, 2003
The Political Square, Festooned — Martin E. Marty
All is well in America at Christmas. The Wall Street Journal (December 19) cheers the superabundance of Christmas lighting around American homes. "Energy Puritans may denounce the inessential use of electricity," but aesthetic pleasure and low costs,...
December 22, 2003
Politics in the Pulpit — Martin E. Marty
"Clergy As Political Activists" takes up most of the December 2003 Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (JSSR), a special issue edited by Corwin Smidt. Smidt lined up 30 social scientists to survey and report on clergy: Evangelicals, Mainline...
December 15, 2003
Rebirth? — Martin E. Marty
Conservative evangelicals, one-fourth-plus of Americans, do not make up a solid, changeless bloc. Monitoring them, observing their fluidity, is an occasional task for Sightings. One of their voices, the weekly magazine World, offers two glimpses that...
December 8, 2003
Recalling Niebuhr — Martin E. Marty
"Liberals lay claim to Niebuhr's legacy" read a headline in The Christian Century (November 29) about Reinhold Niebuhr, the most notable U.S.-born public theologian of the century past (and brother of H. Richard, the most notable theologians' theolog...
December 1, 2003
Making Exceptions — Martin E. Marty
The Economist (November 6) brought new life to old debates about American exceptionalism by devoting a whole supplement to "A Nation Apart." Thesis: "Americans are becoming more religious, but notnecessarily more censorious" reads the headline for a ...
November 24, 2003
Tipping the Plate — Martin E. Marty
Sighting religion in public demands attention to money and giving, a theme that is as old as any measure in scriptures. In November we give particular attention to this subject, as this is the month when charities make their final pitches for the yea...
November 17, 2003
Where's the Story? — Martin E. Marty
Sightings sometimes sights the sighters, people who write on religion in newspapers, magazines, and the like as members of the Religion Newswriters Association (RNA). To cite them may seem like shop-talk, something that should concern the professiona...
November 9, 2003
Evangelical Synthesis — Martin E. Marty
There being so many things to cover, Sightings seldom allows itself to focus too long or too often on a single subject. So, having recently devoted 16 lines to the recent California election, I apologize for returning to the scene. Why do so? Firs...