Sightings Articles
Does Religion Make a Difference? — Martin E. Marty
Social scientists and news people who report on religion often get asked whether they are "pro" or "con" religion, or pro or con this or that religion. If they are fair-minded, as we expect them to be, they report on the highs and lows, the ups and d...
October 20, 2003
Evangelicals: Right and Might — Martin E. Marty
Business and commerce may represent the most secular sector of our common life, but the daily paper that covers business and commerce has "got religion." Especially on Fridays, the Wall Street Journal notices faith and the faiths, and we like to moni...
October 13, 2003
Catholic Rogues — Martin E. Marty
The New Anti-Catholicism, a book by Philip Jenkins, (Oxford) is occasioning some finger-pointing. Who is guilty? Mainline Protestants, Evangelical Protestants, Fundamentalist Protestants, Pentecostal Protestants, and African-American Protestants. Jus...
October 6, 2003
Religious Pluralism — Martin E. Marty
"Pluralism" is a word with plural meanings. In America it refers mainly to the way citizens live with a polity and with practices that recognize diversity and assure civil peace in the face of it. However, in theology in recent years there is also a ...
September 29, 2003
Do-gooders — Martin E. Marty
Sightings sights surveys. Opinion polls are attractive to social scientists, who are attractive to us. They provide one means at least of measuring what people think and do on the "public religion" front. All surveys are flawed, but we won't go into ...
September 22, 2003
Jewish America — Martin E. Marty
Go to www.jewishdatabank.org to consult the National Jewish Population's latest, much-publicized survey and you will have access to the same data Sightings has. The United Jewish Communities people, who count many Jewish federations under their umbre...
September 15, 2003
Wolfe's Religion Today — Martin E. Marty
"Anything anybody can say about America is true," said 60's countercultural figure Emmett Grogan. "Anything anybody can say about American religion is true," an 00's figurer about culture could also say. Whoever monitors the scene weekly, as Sighting...
September 8, 2003
Religion News 101 — Martin E. Marty
"Homosexual bishops? How long before we see pedophile bishops, necrophile Deans of Cathedrals and cannibalistic Archdeacons?" Those questions come from a Wall Street Journal op-ed (August 28) by an Anglican-ist from London. Sharing the same page is a...
September 2, 2003
Rhetorically Speaking — Martin E. Marty
A few weeks ago, while I was hiding in the mountains of Oregon and Colorado, Sightings published a critique by Andrew Weaver of "a gaggle of so-called 'renewal groups'" financed by the political right-wing. They were targeting three mainline Protesta...
August 18, 2003
Religious Cartooning — Martin E. Marty
When religion was "a private affair," it showed up in cartoons only in innocuous forms. Occasionally there would be representations of happy-go-lucky if slightly sappy, and certainly harmless, parsons. In The New Yorker the self-important Episcopal o...