Sightings Articles
Old Lessons for Today's Politicians — Ahmad Sadri
The epic poem, Shahnameh, a 1010 CE compendium of pre-Islamic national myths and legends, has been the center of attention in Iran—and not merely as the source of the nation’s foundation myths. Successive Iranian kings commissioned new, lavishly illu...
April 4, 2013
April Fools — Martin E. Marty
Look up April Fool’s Day or April Fools’ day in Wikipedia, no less! and no fooling! and you will relearn that this unofficial holiday is a time when people play practical jokes and hoaxes on each other. (It’s also called “All Fools’ Day,” so let me p...
April 1, 2013
Cats and Clerics: A Medieval History — Julian Hendrix
Across the pages of a fifteenth-century manuscript track the paw prints of a cat who has first stepped into the ink, then sought to plant itself in the middle of its owner's attention. Snapped by the medievalist Emir Filipović, the image went viral, ...
March 28, 2013
Scandal and the Dance Revisited: One Hundred Years after "The Rite of Spring" — Brian Collins
This spring marks the centenary of the infamous Paris premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet“The Rite of Spring,” the scene of a music riot that saw young concertgoers primed for modernity coming to blows with booing members of the old guard. Stravinsk...
March 21, 2013
Pope and Nones — Martin E. Marty
"It behooves us to keep talking about the papal election for as long as possible. Once it's over, we're back to the federal budget deliberations, and I prefer a story in which nothing gets sequestered but the cardinals." Thus columnist Gail Collins s...
March 18, 2013
Ruth Calderon's Theological-Political Treatise — Jeffrey Bernstein
That some Israelis might wish to view the State of Israel as congruent with the traditional texts of Judaism is fully understandable. That some might wish to bring Israeli politics more 'in line' with these texts is still comprehensible. That these i...
March 14, 2013
Selma: Sustaining the Momentum Still — Martin E. Marty
"Selma: Sustaining the Momentum" was the title of a Dean Peerman and M.E.M. article in The Christian Centuryforty-eight years to the month after colleague Peerman and I joined several thousand protestors and prayers at the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Sel...
March 11, 2013
Muslim Journeys Bookshelf — K. Rizwan Kadir
Since the catastrophe of September 11, ordinary Americans have sought reliable and easily accessible information about Islam and Muslims–people who are now their neighbors, co-workers, bosses, and so on. However, an intellectual gap exists between wh...
March 7, 2013
"A Man Is Nothing Without His Name": Religious Themes in the Christopher Dorner Manifesto — Spencer Dew
In the wake of former LAPD officer Christopher Dorner's recent crimes, media attention to his manifesto, "Last Resort," has focused on Dorner's description of racism within that police department and on the disturbing madness of his comments. While "...
February 28, 2013
Christian Pop — Martin E. Marty
Commenting on "Christian Pop," if one is not at home in it, is precarious and will doubtless reveal how out of it the commentator is. So I wander in with a sense of mission. If "public religion" is the field of our notice, overlooking "trendy hip-hop...