Sightings Articles
Borderline Behaviors -- Martin E. Marty
WWJD -- "What would Jesus do?" -- remember that faddish acronym? WWJD recently returned with an appearance in commentator Bill O'Reilly's syndicated column. He used it a) to show that he "knew" what Jesus would do to fight off illegal immigrants, and...
June 6, 2005
Diagonal Considerations -- Jim Foorman
"Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." This quote from scientist J. B. S. Haldane came to mind at a recent meeting of the Martin Marty Center Advisory Board, as we discussed w...
June 2, 2005
Paean to Pipe Organs -- Martin E. Marty
Call this column "Hearings" this week, since it deals with something auditory, namely pipe organs. Pipe organs as a topic, when there is so much that is urgent in the religion-and-politics world? Yes. I keep in mind the Hans Kuitert book title Everyt...
May 30, 2005
Petitioner or Prophet? -- David Domke and Kevin Coe
President Bush delivered his first 2005 commencement address on May 21 at Calvin College, a small evangelical Christian school in western Michigan. This address marked the latest attempt by the Republican Party to use talk about God for political gai...
May 26, 2005
Entertaining Religion -- Martin E. Marty
"The United States is a secular society." "Elites don't give religion a break." "Hollywood ignores the spiritual and the religious." Whether you hear such lines as truisms, myths, clichés, charges, distractions, or delusions, you certainly will hear ...
May 23, 2005
I See Dead People
Body Worlds, an exhibit featuring over 200 preserved pieces of deceased human beings, opened in February at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. In addition to the sundry fragments, there are two dozen human individuals preserved whole, for the ...
May 19, 2005
Collisions and Doubts -- Martin E. Marty
Where to draw "the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority" (James Madison)? Or, less felicitously, where to maintain or breach "the wall of separation between church and state" (Thomas Jefferson)? When to make use o...
May 16, 2005
Believing and Doing: The President's Religion -- Andrew R. Murphy
Asked to comment on the role of faith in contemporary politics at his April 28, 2005, news conference, President Bush responded with three salient statements, enumerated here in order of their delivery: 1) "I view religion as a personal matter"; 2) "...
May 12, 2005
Herberg's Relevance —-- Martin E. Marty
Talk about irrelevance: Think of Will Herberg's Protestant-Catholic-Jew when it was published exactly fifty years ago. Talk about relevance: Think of the same book in its golden jubilee year (there will be celebration publications). In the foreword t...
May 9, 2005
The Two Swords of Pope Benedict XVI — Ken A. Grant
Wading into the turbulent waters of the relationship between church and state is always a treacherous affair, whether entering from the church or state side. With the installation of Pope Benedict XVI, we might be reminded of this fact. Cardinal J...