Sightings Articles
Methodist Renewal: A Response — Mark Tooley
In his July 10 Sightings, “The Fighting Methodists,” Andrew Weaver uncritically accepts the hyperbolic claims of United Methodism @ Risk, a self-published outcry against conservative influence within the United Methodist Church. According to Weaver, ...
August 7, 2003
Crisis and Hope Part 2 — Martin E. Marty
Last week Sightings introduced the just published A People Adrift, The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America by Peter Steinfels. Since this column is not in the book review or book promotion business, it has to regard a book as news in order...
August 4, 2003
The Underbelly of the Faith-Based Initiative — Bob Wineburg
Having studied the complex concerns surrounding religiously related social services since 1983, I was stunned while reading Rallying the Armies of Compassion, the 2001 White House document that launched President Bush's "Faith-Based Initiative." To c...
July 31, 2003
Steinfels's Catholicism: Crisis and Hope — Martin E. Marty
If I were to choose one book to pass to those who look for a fair-minded analysis of Catholicism in the United States today, it would be Peter Steinfels's new one: A People Adrift; The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America. I am going to dev...
July 28, 2003
Robertson Recall — John P. Crossley
On Monday, July 14, 2003, on his Christian Broadcasting Network's (CBN) "The 700 Club," Pat Robertson urged his listeners to pray for the next 21 days that God might remove from office three Supreme Court justices who voted with the majority on the r...
July 24, 2003
Hispanic Correction — Martin E. Marty
The twenty-two home-delivered newspapers and many magazines that greeted me after my week-long island retreat, offered scores of opportunities for sighting religious news. I'll bypass them and return to a topic Sightings has treated several times bef...
July 21, 2003
Christian Nations? — Martin E. Marty
Europeans are having fits about the place of religion in Europe-as-Europe, and what they fight about may throw light on American discontents. In last Friday's Wall Street Journal (July 11), Brandon Mitchener in "Birth of a Nation? As Europe Unites, R...
July 14, 2003
The Fighting Methodists — Andrew J. Weaver
Northwestern University had an outstanding football team in the early years of the 20th century known as the Fighting Methodists, the name was later changed to the less colorful but more collegiate-sounding Wildcats. The Fighting Methodists, however,...
July 10, 2003
Catholics Weekly — Martin E. Marty
America, The National Catholic Weekly, the respected Jesuit magazine, attracts Sightings for its coverage of public topics. The current (and typical) issue, July 7-14, responsibly treats clerical sexual abuse, reporting on the week the bishops met an...
July 7, 2003
Milton, Mass Mary — Elizabeth Hayes Alvarez
Recently, an image of the Virgin Mary appeared in the window of a Massachusetts hospital prompting 25,000 visitors. The hospital took no official position as to the authenticity of the apparition, but tried their best to accommodate the pilgrims who ...