Religious Rhetoric’s Volume Goes Up in Elections

By: Martin Marty

Almost fifty times a year, the weekly Sightings column by Martin E. Marty appears. Almost every time it is based on documentation from print or digital or electronic media: newspapers, blogs, films, etc.

This week is different, not because our attempt to treat “public religion” or “religion in public” this time has no documentary base, no empirical grounding. Instead, its background is too abundant, too rich.

When we started monitoring media here not many years ago, there was fear that a nation whose citizens often liked to say “religion is a private affair” has gone to the other extreme and they find religion too available, too exploitable.
It is difficult to sort through the signals in quest of significance. Seldom is this plethora of sacred, spiritual and religious signs more evident than in an election year.
Read the rest here