Sightings Articles
Bonhoeffer Now -- Martin E. Marty
"Bonhoeffer Was Wrong," screams a headline in the National Catholic Reporter, atop an article by Raymond A. Schroth, S.J. (January 27). For balance, then, should we also read "Schroth Is Right"? Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed by Hitler and company one...
February 6, 2006
Super Bowl Sunday Sermon -- Christian Sheppard
Over 90 million Americans will watch Super Bowl XL this Sunday. The game is a national ritual; friends and family gather to dip chips, hearken to our anthem, smile or snipe at the commercials, and gawk at the halftime show. Much hoopla surrounds the ...
February 2, 2006
Textbook Cases -- Martin E. Marty
Historians, to whose company I belong, are often taught to feel irrelevant. Survey after survey shows that most citizens know appallingly little about the past, including "their" past, the past on the basis of which they make decisions. Whether the f...
January 30, 2006
Why Is It So Hard to Talk about Mormons?
It seems nearly impossible for those in the public discourse to talk evenly about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Commentators are given to hyperbole (the growth of Mormonism is "one of the great events in the history of religion," s...
January 26, 2006
Celebrating Carter -- Martin E. Marty
In weekly Sightings and biweekly "M.E.M.O" and Context, my regular outlets, readers may have noticed that I very rarely "do" presidents, especially sitting ones. Today an ex-president comes into periscope range, since it's exactly a quarter of a cent...
January 23, 2006
The Changing Faces of Islam — Malika Zeghal
Since September 11, 2001, the issue of the connection between Islam and violence has been raised repeatedly. An adequate response lies not in positing some allegedly "violent" nature of Islam, nor is it even about Islam as such, but rather about how ...
January 19, 2006
Palestinian Christians -- Martin E. Marty
Sightings was originally conceived as a means for calling the attention of more of the public to the roles religion plays in public life. That was a few years ago, when coverage of religion was comparatively slight and rare. Today, by contrast, it is...
January 16, 2006
Beyond Scopes -- John Witte, Jr.
Eighty years ago, the nation stood transfixed by the spectacle of two giants, William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, fighting valiantly over the place of creation and evolution in public schools. Bryan, three-time presidential candidate, defende...
January 12, 2006
Correcting Loconte -- Martin E. Marty
Ask a friendly neighborhood liberal Protestant, if you can find one, who could be a poster-person for the religious left—someone who applies biblical prophecy to contemporary issues. Theologian Stanley Hauerwas is liberal. He attacks Christian libera...
January 9, 2006
Christian Groups in Colorado Springs -- Andrew Lee
Just east of Pike's Peak, a Colorado city has become, in the words of US News & World Report, the "Vatican for evangelical Christianity." Colorado Springs, founded as a tourist attraction for wealthy Europeans, is the base for over a hundred evangeli...