Sightings Articles
The Death Penalty and (Un)Conventional Wisdom -- Martin E. Marty
The forthcoming execution of Timothy McVeigh has agitated the nation and, within it and not least of all, its religious communities. We will skip comment on the event and go straight to the background of the religious debate. "Everyone knows"...
April 20, 2001
State over Church -- Martin E. Marty
Sightings is so busy with its periscope, scanning the horizon for religious scenes and objects and events, that we cannot often stop to reply to email responses. But now and then it is worth turning the periscope around to scan an already visited pla...
April 17, 2001
Godliness and Goodliness -- David G. Myers
"George Washington warned us never to indulge the supposition that 'morality can be maintained without religion,'" offered Joseph Lieberman in a campaign stop last August. The skeptics responded: Can the irreligious not be moral? Is America m...
April 11, 2001
The Transcendence of Religious Music -- Martin E. Marty
Religion in public life shows up not just in politics, but also in the concert hall. The week of Passover and Easter offers chances to assess it. A close-up sighting: this Wednesday at the University of Chicago's Rockefeller Chapel, the world...
April 9, 2001
Changing Religious Demographics -- Martin E. Marty
Various explanations are offered for religious change in the United States, among them "church growth" or "mainline apathy" or, on occasion, the devil. Sightings has no empirical data on the last of these causes, but one hears the others cited consta...
April 1, 2001
Lessons from the Palos Heights Controversy -- Michael Vander Weele
You may remember the controversy in Palos Heights, Illinois, over the Al Salaam Mosque Foundation's attempt to purchase -- and eventually worship in -- a local Reformed church. The city council intervened to prevent the purchase of the church. Oppone...
March 29, 2001
Young Clergy: Where Are They? -- Martin E. Marty
This week, like the last, Sightings becomes "Pointings." We point to the Alban Institute, which bills itself as "the premier source of learning for congregations and their leaders." An ecumenical, interfaith organization, the Alban Institute seeks to...
March 26, 2001
Bush's Faith-Based Initiative: Asking the Right Question -- Sheila Suess Kennedy
My mother is in a Jewish nursing home. All the food is kosher. There are mezuzot (decorative boxes containing Jewish prayers) at the entrance to each room. Religious services are provided regularly. Yet the nursing home receives substantial income fr...
March 22, 2001
New Data on the Old Line -- Martin E. Marty
Today Sightings has it easy. In a time of free-floating spiritualities, we call your attention to a survey that should be useful to everyone related to "organized religion" or "the institutional church." Let the surveyors do the sighting, which they ...
March 19, 2001
Liberal Attacks and Counterattacks: Part 2 -- Martin E. Marty
Last week we listened in on an internal debate among voices on the political and religious left reacting in long letters to *The Nation* (March 12). Respondents took on author Ellen Willis, who had spoken up for "Freedom from Religion" (February 19)....