Sightings Articles
The Theodicy of Everyday Life -- Martin E. Marty
Sightings was overwhelmed with more theological news clippings in the wake of the Asian tsunami than at any time since September 11, 2001. Not being free to go on here at book length, I choose this week to shift the genre from "op-ed" or "civic pedag...
January 17, 2005
The War Against Christmas -- Jerome Eric Copulsky
From various conservative media personalities, the alarm was sounded, and loudly: Christmas was in danger. Rev. Jerry Falwell penned a pair of articles entitled "The Impending Death of Christmas?" (WorldNetDaily, December 11, 2004) which purported to...
January 13, 2005
The State of Giving -- Martin E. Marty
Some recent 'theological' headlines: "Disasters Like Tsunami Can Test or Strengthen Faith"; "When Faith Is Tested"; "Who Gets the Blame This Time?" (Blaming God may make us feel good, but it doesn't accom...
January 10, 2005
Science and Religion in Dialogue — Eric Weislogel
Editor's Note: Today's issue of Sightings features two articles: a column by Dr. Eric Weislogel and a response from Prof. William Schweiker. In his comments on British philosopher Anthony Flew's recent admission of the existence of God, William Sc...
January 6, 2005
Greeley's War — Martin E. Marty
Andrew Greeley, sociologist, novelist, columnist, and priest, asked in the Christmas Eve edition of the Chicago Sun-Times, "Why?" He was referring to the Iraq war in the decades ahead. His language about the adventure was incautious: It's a "cockamam...
January 3, 2005
People of Faith — Elizabeth Hayes Alvarez
Geoffrey Nunberg comments on the growing usage of the phrase "people of faith" in Sunday's New York Times (December 26). Increasingly used in place of "churchgoers" or "believers," the media has been busy citing the words, deeds, and intentions of pe...
December 30, 2004
Yuletide Journal — Martin E. Marty
The text for our morning meditation is the Christmas Eve day edition of the Wall Street Journal, which is crowded with many subtly polemical, and some insightful, good cheer items. The lead-off is the annual reproduction of the late Vermont Royster's...
December 27, 2004
Faith and Flew
Atheism seems under revision. For the masters of suspicion, religion was nihilistic will-to-power (Nietzsche), class ideology (Marx) or expressions of repression (Freud). Modern science from Bacon through Darwin to the socio-biologists has revoked th...
December 16, 2004
Symbols and Signs — Martin E. Marty
Some year Sightings hopes to transit from November to January without having to notice what Albert J. Menendez called, in his book of the same title, "December wars." We like to deal with events and trends that might otherwise be overlooked; December...
December 13, 2004
Solutions — Nathan Bierma
We are a society that loves "solutions." The word combines America's can-do spirit of self-reliance and its capitalist impulse to sell things. And so "solutions" has become a marketing buzzword, a sudden synonym for "products." The Solutions Catal...