Sightings Articles

Martin Luther | Reformation | Pope Francis | sanctity of negotiations | healthy realism | Jesus | Pope Benedict XVI | Pope Saint John Paul | Pope Leo X

Heresy and Popes

Popes have been interested in heresy and heretics for centuries...

June 13, 2016

Elijah Muhammad | Nation of Islam | Sunni Islam | Sufism | Jim Crow | Stephen Prothero | God in America | Olympics | American exceptionalism | racial supremacy

Taking Exception: How Muhammad Ali Transformed American Religion

The morning after he defeated Sonny Liston for the world’s heavyweight boxing championship in February, 1964, Cassius Clay confirmed that he was a Muslim, a convert to Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam. To a reporter who referred to him as a “card-ca...

June 9, 2016

slavery | sin | guilt | evil | Jesuits | penance | teaching moment | Max Scheler

Georgetown

Considering the Legacy of Slavery...

June 6, 2016

Georgetown

In a comment to one of the many blog posts about a controversy concerning Georgetown University’s past with slavery, we read: “I did not enslave anyone. I did not profit from slavery.” Such an abrupt dismissal of the moral issues is alienating, but t...

June 6, 2016

Hans Küng | Pope Francis | Catholic Church | First Vatican Council | ecumenism | Holy Spirit | ecclesiology | magisterial system

Infallibility: Time To Find Another Term for This Doctrine?

This is not the first time that Küng has sought to encourage open and frank discussion of the doctrine of papal infallibility....

June 2, 2016

Baylor University | Kenneth Starr | Baptist Christianity | football | sexual abuse | rape

Two Religions Make News

two religions jarred each other in national big-news and comment-sources last Friday...

May 30, 2016

White evangelical Christians | John Stormer | McCarthy Era | same-sex marriage | transgender people | Federal government | Federal debt | 2016 GOP primaries

Explained: Donald Trump's Unlikely Support from White Evangelicals

Donald Trump is deeply divisive among white evangelical Christians. In a recent story on NPR, one evangelical called the billionaire New Yorker a “reprehensible” and “wicked” man. Even so, Trump has done well enough among conservative Christians to b...

May 26, 2016

Baby boomers | American Medical Association | Harvard School of Public Health | church attendance

Living Longer

“A Possible Benefit of Going to Church: A 33 Percent Chance of Living Longer.”...

May 23, 2016

Jimi Hendrix | Nina Simone | John Lennon | Bob Marley | Carole King | Blues | B. B. King | civil rights era | Nell Irvin Painter

A Theology of Popular Music, Arts and Culture

One of the greatest achievements in terms of the expressive culture of modernity is popular music. Much of the music of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s (social protest/soul, funk, reggae, rock, rap and punk) was made by young musicians (Jimi Hendrix, Nina S...

May 19, 2016

Church and State | religious freedom | Religious persecution

Defining Religion

the issue is not simply who “gets” to define, but who “must?

May 16, 2016