Sightings Articles
Chaplains in the War Zone — Martin E. Marty
During the next few years, as the war drags on in Iraq, there will be plenty of time to think through religious and ethical issues that do not follow quite the same track as that of the original just/unjust war debates. (Notice that few of the contro...
May 15, 2006
The Buddha's Birthday, Live from New York — Matthew Weiner
May marks the anniversary of the Buddha's birth more than 2,500 years ago. And now, all across America, Buddhists are observing "Vesak," a highly significant time for commemorating the birth and enlightenment of the Buddha. Traditionally falling on t...
May 11, 2006
Where the Youth Are — Martin E. Marty
On principle we do not let Sightings act as a bulletin board for upcoming events or as an intentional advertiser. We have to wait for something to happen or to have been said before we can sight it. An implicit covenant with subscribers restrains us ...
May 8, 2006
Palestinian Christians in Their Own Words — Saliba Sarsar
It has often been said that "an enemy is one whose story we have not heard." I prefer the flipside of that notion: "A friend is one whose story we have heard." Among many voices that most of us have not yet heard are those of Palestinian Christians. ...
May 4, 2006
Belief in the Best Sellers — Martin E. Marty
Don't believe the celebrators of "the good old days" in American religion, when "everyone was religious and religion was all over the public place." And don't believe the denigrators of "the good new days" who sulk because government will not do the ...
May 1, 2006
Belief in the Best Sellers — Martin E. Marty
Don't believe the celebrators of "the good old days" in American religion, when "everyone was religious and religion was all over the public place." And don't believe the denigrators of "the good new days" who sulk because government will not do the ...
May 1, 2006
Color Beyond Race in an Afro-Cuban Religion — Elizabeth Pérez
Sometimes I forget the sight of myself, dressed top to toe in white: white head-wrap, white sweater, white petticoat, with snow-covered boots in the winter or, in the summertime, white sandals. A passerby might inquire, eyeing my grocery bags, "Can I...
April 27, 2006
Strauss and Judaism — Martin E. Marty
The Chronicle of Higher Education keeps paying attention to religion, a fact that many of us in academe cheer. The April 14 issue features Richard Wolin's discussion of Leo Strauss ("Leo Strauss, Judaism, and Liberalism"). Strauss on religion? Wasn't...
April 24, 2006
Reflections on Chicago's "Cloud Gate" — Jeremy Biles
April 22 will mark the twentieth anniversary of the death of Mircea Eliade, prodigious writer of novels, articles, journals, and numerous scholarly books in comparative religion. Eliade was also a "founding father" of the history of religions discipl...
April 20, 2006
Remembering William Sloane Coffin — Martin E. Marty
Where are the Bill Coffins of today? That question comes up in most reflective comments on the death of William Sloane Coffin, Jr., the most celebrated and charismatic liberal Protestant preacher of the last half-century. Not long ago we responded to...