Sightings Articles
The Muslim Luther and Reformation — Mun'im Sirry
On February 15, 2012, Abdulkarim Soroush, a visiting Professor at The University of Chicago, delivered a thoughtful and enlightening talk about revival and reform in Islam. Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar writes inThe New York Times, "Soroush has been des...
February 23, 2012
Religion of Atheism — Martin E. Marty
Notice: This is an alert, not a review. Repeat: This is an alert, not a review. In our sights this week—they would be hard to miss—are notices of Alain de Botton's Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion. The ethic of re...
February 20, 2012
Romney, Mormonism, and the American Compromise — Terryl Givens
Mitt Romney is threatening to disturb the American compromise with Mormonism. Nineteenth-century observers were largely indifferent to the new religion Joseph Smith founded in 1830. Most dismissed his claims about angels and gold plates as just an...
February 16, 2012
Protestant Accommodation — Martin E. Marty
Keeping an eye and ear on hourly, daily, and weekly incidents and trends in zones where "religion and public life" intersect is one thing. Taking looks at such incidents and trends in half-century cycles is another. These longer-range surveys provide...
February 13, 2012
Death Gospel and the Heart of Saturday Night
The recent release of Adam Arcuragi's album Like a Fire that Consumes All Before It... has raised interest in the popular-musical category of "Death Gospel," a metaphysically attuned variety of the Americana genre named by Arcuragi. Death Gospel is n...
February 9, 2012
Reuse or Replace: What Becomes of Religious Structures When Congregations Move On? — Robert Powers
In late December, the City of Chicago issued an emergency demolition permit for the Anshe Kenesseth Israel building, a grandiose former synagogue in the city's downtrodden west side. Built in 1913, Anshe Kenesseth rose in a well-to-do neighborhood wi...
February 2, 2012
Government, Religion and Contraception — Martin E. Marty
"To hell with you!" is the message of the government to churches. So reasoned or charged Pittsburgh Catholic bishop David Zubik last week. He was reflecting on new federal rules that would force employers to include access to contraception (and steri...
January 30, 2012
Shared Paradise — Robert M Geraci
There's a new flying spaghetti monster in the spiritual marketplace: the Church of Kopimism. The newly "established" religion has become the talk of the internet, in part because of its transparently "unreligious" outlook and in part because of the g...
January 26, 2012
American Divide — Martin E. Marty
Next week Crown Forum will publish Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. The weekend Wall Street Journal gave a generous two-page preview. The foretaste in the Journal presented no surprises, since the author, Charles Murray, offered t...
January 23, 2012
Rome Pokes Canterbury in the Eye—Again : by Peter W. Williams
On January 1, the New York Times reported that the Roman Catholic Church had established a "Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter" which will function as an ecclesiastical home for members of the Episcopal Church who wish to transfer their...