Sightings Articles
The Invisible Organization: Religion and Politics in Cyberspace -- Martin E. Marty
The World Church of the Creator, the white supremacist movement that helped impel Benjamin Smith to go on a hate-crime murdering spree, propagated itself online. Like many other hate groups, it has had a Web site, and like so many others, it promotes...
July 9, 1999
A New Temple or a Vacant Lot? Mormons Consider Symbols of the Past -- Peggy Fletcher Stack
On Easter Sunday, Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley announced to an astonished crowd of believers in Salt Lake City and thousands more watching via satellite that the church was going to rebuild a temple in Nauvoo, Illinois. Nauvoo is now a sleepy ...
July 7, 1999
Looking to the Left: Religious Attitudes in Periodicals on the Left -- Martin E. Marty
Attempting to trace religious attitudes in magazines that are decisively on the left is difficult, chiefly because there are so few surviving periodicals over on that side. On the right one can do sightings in the NATIONAL REVIEW, the AMERICAN SPECTA...
June 30, 1999
Religion Books on the Millenium -- Martin E. Marty
A score of years ago predictors about predictors predicted that the year 2000 would see many books by apocalypse-minded Christians who would date and picture the second coming of Christ around 2000. Much has happened since then. Some of the Christi...
June 28, 1999
Wiccans in the Constitutional Spotlight -- Martin E. Marty
Americans take turns appraising the relative dangerousness or unrespectability of religion after religion. Most recently Representative Bob Barr of Georgia turned on the lights when he discovered that Wiccans had the right to worship on military ba...
June 24, 1999
What Do Evangelicals Believe? -- Edith Blumhofer
What do evangelicals believe? Is it possible to lay bare the doctrines that stand at modern evangelicalism's core? As evangelicals become more adept in the arena of public life, the beliefs that animate them assume greater public relevance. While it ...
June 23, 1999
The Serbian Orthodox Church: Responses and Identity -- Martin E. Marty
Isolating American religion from the global scene is impossible in these times. The Serbian Orthodox Church in the United States, for instance, has been much in the news, both for its links with Serbia--at least in memory and sentiment--and for Ser...
June 18, 1999
Examining the Effects of Black Theology -- Martin E. Marty
Whoever monitors sightings of religion in American public life has no trouble finding examples in African American communities. Black churches are known to be agencies of service, activism, and voting, but not everyone knows what types of religion ...
June 16, 1999
Looking for Martyrs -- Martin E. Marty
Asked "Do you believe in God?" seventeen year-old Cassie Bernall of Littleton, Colorado, witnessed that she did and was shot. She has since been proclaimed a martyr. What is a martyr? How many martyrs are there? Who needs them? If you believe the sta...
June 14, 1999
Number of Centers Studying Public Religion Grows -- Martin E. Marty
The concept of public religion generally went unmentioned two score years ago. Only within this decade has it become linguistic "coin of the realm." The term admits of many meanings. It can be something like "civil religion," which means it is some s...