Sightings Articles
Theocratic Tendencies — Martin E. Marty
Let's settle this issue about "theocracy" in America once and for all — or at least for this week. Is the Christian Right, from its Catholic-minority, evangelical, Pentecostal, fundamentalist flanks over to some African American church fronts, aiming...
October 30, 2006
The Crush of Paradox — Leslee N. Johnson
Rachel Corrie, a twenty-three-year-old native of Olympia, Washington, died on March 16, 2003, crushed by a bulldozer deployed by the Israeli army to demolish Palestinian homes on the border of Egypt. The bulldozer engulfed her in a wake of stones and...
October 26, 2006
The Crush of Paradox — Leslee N. Johnson
Rachel Corrie, a twenty-three-year-old native of Olympia, Washington, died on March 16, 2003, crushed by a bulldozer deployed by the Israeli army to demolish Palestinian homes on the border of Egypt. The bulldozer engulfed her in a wake of stones and...
October 26, 2006
A Muslim Pope Luther? — Martin E. Marty
Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, a.k.a. Paracelsus, was challenged by authorities who called him the Luther of medicine. "Why do you call me a medical Luther?... I leave it to Luther to defend what he says, and I will be respo...
October 23, 2006
Acts of God or Forces of Nature? — David Albertson and Cabell King
Just over a year has passed since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Media sources marked the anniversary with analyses of the various forces contributing to the sufferings of New Orleans. What was "Hurricane Katrina" exactly? Was it an "act of Go...
October 19, 2006
Used — Martin E. Marty
Columnist David Kuo's book Tempting Faith, published today, will rival, on a smaller scale, Bob Woodward's State of Denial as a disturber of the peace. "Smaller scale" does not mean "small scale," since its accusations and revelations refer to the wa...
October 16, 2006
Upon This Stone — Jerome Joseph Gentes
In the recent film World Trade Center, Officer William Jimeno, trapped beneath the rubble of the collapsed tower, has a vision of Christ. He describes the vision, one that a Catholic in extremis might understandably have, to his commanding officer, S...
October 12, 2006
Lawson's Return — Martin E. Marty
Theo Emery revisited the theme of nonviolence in his story on the return of James Lawson, expelled Vanderbilt student, to the classroom — this time as a Vanderbilt visiting professor (New York Times, October 4; see References, below). It's an excepti...
October 9, 2006
The Subversive Moral Essence of President Bush's Faith-Based Initiative — Lew Daly
With Karl Rove's "enduring Republican majority" under serious threat in the forthcoming national elections of 2006 and 2008, President Bush's faith-based initiative — a strategic quagmire from the beginning — has fallen completely off the radar scree...
October 5, 2006
Naming Evil — Martin E. Marty
Thirty-eight times in a four-page editorial for James Dobson's and Focus on the Family's Citizen magazine, radio talk show host Dennis Prager capitalizes and condemns the "Left," pushing everyone he does not like into a homogenized lump. His complain...