Sightings Articles
Do-gooders — Martin E. Marty
Sightings sights surveys. Opinion polls are attractive to social scientists, who are attractive to us. They provide one means at least of measuring what people think and do on the "public religion" front. All surveys are flawed, but we won't go into ...
September 22, 2003
Religion and Scholarship — Brian Britt
While national attention focused on Alabama and a granite monument of the Ten Commandments, a recent Washington state court case exposed government confusion over the academic study of religion. In Locke v. Davey, a student (Davey) at Northwest Colle...
September 18, 2003
Jewish America — Martin E. Marty
Go to www.jewishdatabank.org to consult the National Jewish Population's latest, much-publicized survey and you will have access to the same data Sightings has. The United Jewish Communities people, who count many Jewish federations under their umbre...
September 15, 2003
Freedom's Rise — Jon Pahl
Not prone to patriotic sentiment, I was surprised to be nearly moved to tears when I first visited the new National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The museum, located on the Independence Mall near the Liberty Bell and dedicated on the 4th of Ju...
September 11, 2003
Wolfe's Religion Today — Martin E. Marty
"Anything anybody can say about America is true," said 60's countercultural figure Emmett Grogan. "Anything anybody can say about American religion is true," an 00's figurer about culture could also say. Whoever monitors the scene weekly, as Sighting...
September 8, 2003
More Priests, Fewer Clergy: A Catholic Proposal — Joseph F. Byrnes
In the June 3, 1981 entry of Father Alexander Schmemann's Journals (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press: Crestwood, NY, 2000) the renowned Orthodox priest and teacher wrote, "More and more often I think that the priesthood should not be a profession; that ...
September 4, 2003
Religion News 101 — Martin E. Marty
"Homosexual bishops? How long before we see pedophile bishops, necrophile Deans of Cathedrals and cannibalistic Archdeacons?" Those questions come from a Wall Street Journal op-ed (August 28) by an Anglican-ist from London. Sharing the same page is a...
September 2, 2003
Seven Suggestions and Three Commandments? — Lawrence Webb
In the wake of the Situation Ethics debate sparked by Joseph Fletcher in the late 1960s, the defensive cry often heard regarding the Decalogue was “They’re not the Ten Suggestions; they’re the Ten Commandments.” Absolutism versus relativism (or Fletc...
August 28, 2003
Rhetorically Speaking — Martin E. Marty
A few weeks ago, while I was hiding in the mountains of Oregon and Colorado, Sightings published a critique by Andrew Weaver of "a gaggle of so-called 'renewal groups'" financed by the political right-wing. They were targeting three mainline Protesta...
August 18, 2003
An Impaired Communion? — Gregory Syler
Three events related to the ongoing argument over homosexuality in the Anglican (Episcopal) church popped up in recent months, forcing the Anglican communion to take action. The Canadian diocese of New Westminster authorized liturgies for blessing sa...