Sightings Articles
Who Lost Europe? by Martin E. Marty
“Who lost China?” was a taunting and accusatory question aimed at United States leaders by their political critics in the 1950s. We’ll leave that question unaddressed and unanswered. Now: “Who lost Europe?” Those who ask it claim to have answers, whe...
June 6, 2011
Financing Churches in Slovakia: Debate and Dilemma
A fairly large portion of the Slovak public believes that an inordinately important concern of churches—especially the dominant Roman Catholic Church—is to pursue their economic interest and extend political influence. As a result, Slovak churches fa...
June 2, 2011
Humanism, Newt Gingrich, and Sightings by Martin E. Marty
Sightings just entered its thirteenth year of keeping an eye on public representations of religion. Let’s see, that’s 13 times almost 52 weeks (my half of this bi-weekly publication.) By now, faithful readers can have drawn some conclusions about our...
May 30, 2011
The Catholic Church and Technology: The Case of the Confession App by Ken Chitwood
The release of a new application for Apple Products such as the iPhone, “Confession: A Roman Catholic App,” made bemused headlines across the United States, including Maureen Dowd’s “Give us This Day our Daily App,” and Nicole Brewer’s “Forgive Me iP...
May 26, 2011
Sam Harris's Atheism by Martin E. Marty
“Same Old New Atheism,” last week’s clipping about religion sighted in the public sphere (it might as well be labeled “Same New Old Atheism”) is a 6800-word review which places the trendy “New Atheism” in the context of previous efforts to establish ...
May 23, 2011
The Physics of Adherence: How A Recent Study Overlooked the Post-Secular by David Gottlieb
The increasing pace of secularization in industrialized nations has led to predictions of the demise of religion from numerous academic perspectives. The most recent example was unveiled at this year’s meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) i...
May 19, 2011
Southern Baptist Good News by Martin E. Marty
We have to wear virtual sunglasses when we do our too-rare Sightings of positive religion news in public media, so bright are these exceptions to the down and depressing accounts. Since most religious people and those who benefit from their doings se...
May 16, 2011
The Chinese House Church Goes Public by Fenggang Yang
On Easter Sunday, Shouwang (show-won) Church in Beijing planned to hold an outdoor worship service in a plaza amid high-rise office and commercial buildings. However the police sealed off the plaza and dispelled gathering congregants, as they had don...
May 12, 2011
David Barton's Christian America by Martin E. Marty
Last weekend was supposed to belong to Osama Bin Laden, and he was noticed, also by those who monitor the fates of religions in media. Amazingly, he had to share space and time with a figure self-described as an historian, and other-described as “lit...
May 9, 2011
Should the Devout be Excluded from Politics by Megan Doherty
In his April 1 “Brainstorm” blog post in The Chronicle of Higher Education, University of Washington professor of psychology David Barash offered a “modest proposal”: “Indeed, I propose that it is high time for the electorate to reject anyone who is ...