by Martin Marty (The Martin Mary Center: Sightings) | Mar 1, 2016 | Opinion
“Trending Now…” is a familiar category in pop culture. It usually refers to fashions of this season replacing those of last season, or changes in products for musical or film audiences new since last year’s awards season. In the religious...
by Martin Marty (The Martin Mary Center: Sightings) | Nov 17, 2015 | Opinion
The Jumbotron at Soldier Field, visible from our condo window, offers a colorful set of images on Sundays when the Chicago Bears are at home. It displays more liturgical colors than can the devotees of other religions still trying to attract worshippers on what...
by Martin Marty (The Martin Mary Center: Sightings) | Oct 19, 2015 | Opinion
A mission of Sightings and the special mission assigned me here is to relate faith and faiths, as mediated by media, to public life. My sub-mission is to keep suggesting that many, if not most religious “happenings” occur away from polls,...
by Martin Marty (The Martin Mary Center: Sightings) | Oct 12, 2015 | Opinion
A citizen can look in any direction on almost any day and find confirmation of two observations that have informed many of us who chronicle and comment on inter-group conflicts. One is Else Frenkel-Brunswick’s comment on the ethnocentric hater: “Even his...
by Martin Marty (The Martin Mary Center: Sightings) | Jun 23, 2015 | Opinion
“Bowling Alone” and “American Grace” famously brought author Robert Putnam and wide readerships together. Social scientists of some sorts often alienate audiences and readerships when they choose to speak or write in dense and turgid phrases....
