Sightings Articles
The Perils of Publicity -- Daniel Sack
They say in this age of celebrity that there's no such thing as bad publicity. Thanks to the current presidential campaign, two American religious groups will find out if that's true. The now-suspended campaign of Mitt Romney thrust his religiou...
March 20, 2008
Torture — Martin E. Marty
No sooner had torture become national policy in the United States, religious leaders were rallying to denounce it. A day or two after the proposal opposing its legitimation was vetoed and thus defeated, Protestant, Evangelical, Muslim, and Jewish lea...
March 17, 2008
The Creation Museum — Joseph Laycock
Last summer I took a road-trip to Kentucky to see the new Creation Museum. The twenty-seven million dollar museum was established by the Biblical apologist movement Answers in Genesis (AiG). The movement teaches that the earth is only six thousand ye...
March 13, 2008
Jacob Neusner on Catholic Prayer — Martin E. Marty
A week from Friday is Good Friday, a most solemn day for Christians. It is also a problem day for Jews, and for the evident Christian majority which is (or wants to be) sensitive to the sensibilities of Jews. For centuries the most painful element in...
March 10, 2008
Caliphate is the New Jihad — Omer M. Mozaffar
The reader is surely familiar with the phrase "Islam means peace", a response to the linkages of Islam with violence. Similarly, perhaps the most common statement from Muslims since September 11, 2001 is "jihad does not mean holy war, but struggle." ...
March 6, 2008
Switching and Shopping — Martin E. Marty
"Switching Denominations" and "Shopping for Religion" made the main religious headlines last week because the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released an important new survey – the broadest and biggest yet – of church affiliations and religious...
March 3, 2008
The Frontiers of Marital Pluralism — John Witte, Jr.
Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams set off an international firestorm this month by suggesting that some accommodation of Muslim family law was "unavoidable" in England. His critics argued that England will be beset by "licensed polygamy," "barbaric ...
February 28, 2008
On Rowan Williams — Martin E. Marty
The Church of England today is a weak institution with a strong leader. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, though given few official powers, uses his office and voice in efforts to hold together the polarized eighty-million-member Anglican Com...
February 25, 2008
What Does the Headscarf "Mean" Anyway? — Jeremy Walton
Early this February, the Turkish Parliament voted to approve emendations to the Turkish Constitution aimed at legalizing the wearing of the headscarf by devout Muslim women in public space, and, in particular, on university campuses. This vote comes ...
February 21, 2008
Growth, Violence, and the Coming Religious Peace — Martin E. Marty
Decades ago an Atlantic editor suggested an idea for an article which I somehow failed to produce. I recall him saying that the magazine rarely covered religion, but when it did, as it had in a recent feature article, it quickened an enormous respons...