Sightings Articles
Intuitive Ethics — Martin E. Marty
Thanksgiving weekend took us to Palm Desert, California for an escape from the real world. Away from the headlines that we usually sight, I had leisure to catch up on scholarly journals, including the latest Daedalus (of the American Academy of Arts ...
December 6, 2004
Converging Civilizations — Jon Pahl
At a conference in Ankara, Turkey, I observed many signs of convergence between the Christian West and the Muslim Middle East that counterbalance Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" and the current events that seem to support his thesis. And...
December 2, 2004
Open Theism — Martin E. Marty
Weary of sighting controversies over abortion, gay marriage, school prayer, values, morals, blues, and reds, Sightings this week turns its scope on a rare, genuinely theological conflict within the evangelical quarter. Evangelicalism's in-house criti...
November 29, 2004
Outmoded Morals? — Martin E. Marty
“The Fourth Commandment says, ‘Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall do no work.’ … It’s simply breaking God’s law to be open on Sundays. … I don’t work on Sunday because...
November 22, 2004
Israel: Demography of the Land — Alain Epp Weaver
Ira Rifkin, in a recent Sightings column ("Theology of the Land," November 4), suggests that for "even liberal religious Jews" the State of Israel's "identity as a Jewish state" is "more important than the mere existence of a state called Israel." Ri...
November 18, 2004
Dwindling Parishes — Martin E. Marty
Sighting a story on Catholic change was easy this week. The inescapable USA Today devoted three pages to “Church Struggles with Change” by Cathy Lynn Grossman and Anthony DeBarros, which appeared on the front page of the Life section (November 8). Th...
November 15, 2004
Iraq Costs — Martin E. Marty
Monday Sightings chose to do little sighting of religious issues in the campaign this year. But not for lack of topics. Commentators tell us that citizens lined up "faith-basedly" in the recent election to vote their "values and morals" -- mainly the...
November 8, 2004
Theology of the Land — Ira Rifkin
The gap between mainline churches and the American Jewish community is widening, as talk of divestment exacerbates long-standing differences over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sightings previously addressed whether divestment, in any form, from c...
November 4, 2004
Campaign Yearbook — Martin E. Marty
Having done little Monday-morning sighting of the 2004 campaign, at its end, we should, at least, look at the "flip-flops" or "changed places" among religious groups. First, Catholics: The May 17 Sightings ("Catholic Elections") commented on how t...
November 1, 2004
Beheading: Horror in Film and War — David L. Simmons
Halloween, one of my favorite holidays, will be overshadowed this year by the presidential election and the all-too-present horrors of Iraq. Prayers were offered in the worship service I attended on Sunday for the children's aid worker Margaret Hassa...