Sightings Articles
Mall Crowd: Then and Now — Michael Cooper-White
On Saturday, January 18, four members of our seminary community made the journey from Gettysburg's Seminary Ridge to Washington for the peace rally on the Capitol mall. It was a sunny, but very frigid day, yet our spirits were warmed by each other's ...
January 30, 2003
And Now a Word from. — Martin E. Marty
"Don't use your publication as a free bulletin board!" That's the advice publishers give editors and writers. "Let people pay for ads," they say. Or: "Once you start that you'll be besieged and can never stop!" In our covenant with you subscribers, w...
January 27, 2003
Does the 'James Ossuary' Bring Us Closer to Jesus? - Margaret M. Mitchell
Even if the provenance and historicity of the much celebrated James Ossuary could be confirmed as on some level being actually the bone box dedicated for the physical remains of James the brother of Jesus, the religious significance of such a finding...
January 23, 2003
Does the 'James Ossuary' Bring Us Closer to Jesus?
Even if the provenance and historicity of the much celebrated James Ossuary could be confirmed as on some level being actually the bone box dedicated for the physical remains of James the brother of Jesus, the religious significance of such a finding...
January 23, 2003
Ryan's Commute — Martin E. Marty
When former Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted the death sentences of 167 inmates on Illinois's Death Row earlier this month, he prompted a new round of intense theological and moral debate. Chicago Sun-Times columnist John O'Sullivan weighed in ...
January 20, 2003
Eminem: Hip-Hop Hype — Jon Pahl
Somewhere near the middle of rapper Eminem's new film, 8 Mile, it dawned on me why I was uneasy. I had looked forward to the "semi-autobiographical" coming-of-age story by the Detroit hip-hop artist, expecting some good prophetic cultural critique. T...
January 16, 2003
History Today — Martin E. Marty
Among humanistic and social scientific academic disciplines, history is one of the least secularized, not because historians are necessarily more pious than others, but because so much of the past that they study is so rich in religious resources. La...
January 13, 2003
Trent Lott's Roots? -- Holly Lebowitz Rossi
With the media and the political world clamoring to understand why Trent Lott made comments that sent the national conversation about race into turmoil and led to his resignation as Senate majority leader, why is nobody talking about the Mississippi ...
January 9, 2003
Wall Street Journal -- Martin E. Marty
Sightings research begins early in the morning, after four daily newspapers thud onto our porch at 4:45 a.m. Among them is the Wall Street Journal. At our house we think of it as two papers: informative and generally fair-minded news coverage coupled...
January 6, 2003
The Future of Secularization Theory -- Richard V. Pierard
The assumptions of academics and social commentators about the certain decline of Christianity in the West were challenged at a international conference on the future of Christianity in the West at the University of Otago in New Zealand this past Dec...