All posts by Dr. Martin E. Marty

Black man playing with a magnifying glass

The Ironies of Falwell

This is the 369th M.E.M. Sightings (archived since 1999). At forty lines each, that means there have been 14,720 lines, only seven of which — in a 2001 and a 2005 column — were devoted to Jerry Falwell. Our calculators tell us this means he

Black man playing with a magnifying glass

Used

Columnist David Kuo’s book Tempting Faith will rival, on a smaller scale, Bob Woodward’s State of Denial as a disturber of the peace. “Smaller scale” does not mean “small scale,” since its accusations and revelations refer to the way the cohort of evangelical supporters and

Black man playing with a magnifying glass

Resisting ‘Theocracy’

In his new book, The Baptizing of America, Rabbi James Rudin speaks of a developing American “Christocracy.” Kevin Phillips, in American Theocracy, writes about a developing “theocracy.” Rudin is a moderate and Phillips has carefully detailed his own odyssey. Reviews of Phillips are coming in

Black man playing with a magnifying glass

Schadenfreude

“Should I feel bad that I feel good when bad things happen to other people?” That is a paraphrase of friends’ inquiries in recent weeks. “Other people” here does not refer to just “any people.” If it did, feeling thus would be a big sin