Sightings Articles
Reports Analyzing Issues Around the World Oddly Silent on Religion — Noah Toly
This semester, a colleague and I are co-teaching a course on Faith & Globalization. The first half of the term is a crash-course on important global issues, including poverty, environment, and urbanization; the second half considers the intersection ...
March 6, 2014
Son of God on Film — Martin E. Marty
This weekend was time for movies and for talk about them. The Academy Awards, as readers of Sightings may have heard, were awarded. They may also have noticed that "Son of God," a film about Jesus, was released in 3,000 theaters. Reviewers are not fr...
March 3, 2014
Group Defamation Laws Like India's Invite Religious Bullies to Suppress Speech — Martha Nussbaum
NOTE: This essay originally appeared in The Indian Express, under the title "Law for Bad Behavior," on February 21, 2014. It is reprinted with permission of the author. These are grim times for scholars who study India. For years, in both India an...
February 28, 2014
The Doniger Affair: Freedom of Scholarly Inquiry Takes an Ominous Turn in India
Last month, the executives on the board of directors of Penguin India made the determination that it was best to settle an anti-defamation case that names the historian of religions, Wendy Doniger, as one of the defendants. The lawsuit, filed in 2...
February 27, 2014
Niebuhrian Irony and Drones — Martin E. Marty
“IRONY. THE OPPOSITE OF WRINKLY” reads the message on a sweatshirt wife Harriet gave me, perhaps in reaction to my probable overuse of a topic. The word “irony” appears in the title of at least one book, one article, one chapter, one column, and one ...
February 24, 2014
Selling Scientology at the Super Bowl — Ken Chitwood
Suddenly, there it was. Like a spaceship, it appeared and, in a flash, it was gone. It promised a fusion of science and religion, “technology and spirituality combining,” and “that everything you ever imagined is possible.” This was no UFO, but a TV ...
February 20, 2014
God as Sister, God and Sister — Martin E. Marty
Put “God” in a headline and we can’t help sighting it. Neil Steinberg, columnist in theChicago Sun-Times (Feb. 13, 2014) did so: "'Who's God but us?' Sister tells it like it is." My wife, Harriet, the monitor of syntax and scorner of clichés who re...
February 17, 2014
Divining Grace — Betty M. Bayer
Grace—a word of such command, and, yet, one seldom spoken today. Has the word fallen out of favor? Or has grace itself? And, if we aren’t talking about grace, does that mean we are not living it? Do we prefer to keep our distance from matters (or re...
February 13, 2014
Pipe Organs as a Niche Market — Martin E. Marty
The American Organist Magazine delights us each month as it serves the several thousands of us who, I am told, have to be content with inhabiting a “niche market.” After having paid respects to the pipe-organ and organist niche in the paragraphs ahea...
February 10, 2014
Public Education and the Common Good: Is It Wrong to Send Your Child to Private School? — Matthew Petrusek
Allison Benedikt, a writer for Slate, published a self-described “manifesto” against private schooling (see Reference below). With a mixture of sarcasm and sermonizing, the article—polemically entitled, “If You Send Your Kid to Private School, You Ar...