By Larry B. Dendy
When religion scholar and teacher Martin E. Marty celebrated his 70th birthday at a gala Chicago party in February, host Bill Moyers joked that he was probably the only person who had read all of Marty's books, "beginning with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."
Probably few people have read everything turned out by Marty, whose 50 books, more than 4,300 articles, columns and reviews, and countless speeches have made him one of the country's best-known thinkers and writers on religion.
Marty will be at the university April 14 to deliver the spring quarter Charter Lecture at 4 p.m. in the Chapel. His talk, titled "The Dangers of Religion in America--The Dangers of NonReligion in America," is open to the public and free.
Pre-eminent authority
Regarded as one of the pre-eminent authorities on religion in the 20th century, Marty retired this past month from the University of Chicago, where he had been a faculty member for 35 years.
He is senior editor of the weekly magazine Christian Century and editor of his own biweekly newsletter, Context. He directs the Public Religion Project, a University of Chicagobased program funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts that studies and interprets public expressions of faith in modern society.
He was director of the recently completed Fundamentalism Project for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a five-year study of comparative fundamentalist religious movements around the world.
And he is senior scholar-in-residence at the Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith and Ethics, a research center he helped create in Chicago in 1985.
Described by former Illinois Sen. Paul Simon, a close friend, as "the Thomas Jefferson of the theological world," Marty is known for his ability to convey complex religious ideas in understandable language.
One colleague calls him a "consensus historian" who is the enemy of "culture warriors who profit from conflict. He is an anti-absolutist, and absolutists don't like that."
In his UGA lecture, Marty will examine how religious people can use God both to heal and to conduct warfare. He will also discuss why non-religion is not useful in modern society. He says the talk will be "pro-religion" with a theme of "handle-with-care healing."
The recipient of 56 honorary degrees, Marty won the 1972 National Book Award for Righteous Empire. He received the 1995 Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the 1997 National Humanities Medal.
He is past president of the American Society of Church History, the American Catholic Historical Association and the American Academy of Religion, which created an award in his name for public understanding of religion. He is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society, the oldest scholarly academy in the United States, and also the American Antiquarian Society and the Society of American Historians.
Marty attended Concordia Seminary in St. Louis and in 1952 was ordained as a Lutheran minister. While serving in various churches for 10 years, he earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1956 and joined the faculty there in 1963.
'Fanatic' teacher
A self-described "fanatic teacher," he has never taken a sick day and has missed teaching only about a dozen classes, mainly because of the illness and death of his first wife.
The Charter Lecture series, established in 1988, honors the ideals expressed in the charter that founded UGA as America's first chartered state university.
