Sightings Articles
The Christology of the Keiskamma Altarpiece — Scott Haldeman
One evening recently, I visited St. James Cathedral in downtown Chicago. The cathedral's sanctuary is handsome but not ornate: a painted ceiling around the border of which many 'Ossanahs ring; two steps up to the ambo with two reading desks and a lar...
September 28, 2006
A New Use for "Cults"? — Martin E. Marty
I spotted a new idea, or at least a new idea to me, for approaching terrorism, a phenomenon fraught with religious significance, or at least significance that scholars of religion might probe. This one comes from psychologist Marc Sageman, whose Unde...
September 25, 2006
Allah's Trailblazer — R. Jonathan Moore
Minnesota's fifth congressional district is about to make some history. This past week, Keith Ellison defeated three challengers to receive the Democrat-Farmer-Labor Party's nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives. Given the district's De...
September 21, 2006
The Pope and Islam — Martin E. Marty
Pope Benedict XVI has had a free ride so far. Back when there were still Protestant anti-Catholics, some would have found much fault with him, but most appreciated his encyclical on divine and human love, and said so. Many Catholics and non-Catholics...
September 18, 2006
Making Myth Real — Richard C. Salter
September 22 will mark the 45th anniversary of a moment par excellence in American civil religion: Congressional approval to fund the U.S. Peace Corps. President Kennedy initiated the Peace Corps in March of 1961, but for the new venture to succeed, ...
September 14, 2006
Muslim-Protestant Relations — Martin E. Marty
"Dumb me!" one says or thinks — at least this one does — when awakened to knowledge of what one's sleepy eyes and consciousness had long overlooked. For a half-century, I, like the colleagues of my generation among American religious historians, coul...
September 11, 2006
The Pittsburgh Twelve and Catholic "Fringes" — Julie Byrne
In July, aboard a boat sailing Pittsburgh's Monongahela River, three female bishops ordained twelve women to the priesthood and diaconate. The bishops traveled from Germany as part of Roman Catholic Womenpriests, a group that advocates lifting the Ro...
September 7, 2006
Heeding Edward O. Wilson — Martin E. Marty
A former Southern Baptist spends her or his post-Baptist years trying to make sense of, and sometimes fighting, the past, and seeing what elements of it might be resources for the future. Former Southern Baptist Edward O. Wilson makes no effort to mi...
September 4, 2006
Sanctuary or Spectacle?
Two weeks ago, Elvira Arellano and her seven-year-old son sought sanctuary in the Adalberto United Methodist Church of Humboldt Park, Chicago, instead of reporting to the Department of Homeland Security for deportation. Arellano, a 31-year-old Mexica...
August 31, 2006
A Bird's-Eye View of the Badminton Game — Martin E. Marty
The late Brooks Hays once said, "I felt like the sparrow that flew into a badminton game." Observing, reporting on, and communing with scholars and activists in the worlds marked "religious" and "secular" is not as hazardous as was Hays' great and de...