Martin E. Marty
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Martin Emil Marty (born on February 5, 1928) is an American Lutheran religious scholar who has written extensively on
religion in the United States Christianity is the most widely professed religion in the United States, with Protestantism being its largest branch, although the country is believed to be "rapidly secularizing".
.


Early life and education

Marty was born on February 5, 1928, in West Point, Nebraska, and raised in Iowa and Nebraska. He was a member of the
Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), also known as the Missouri Synod, is a traditional, confessional Lutheran denomination in the United States. With 1.8 million members, it is the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States. The LC ...
and was educated at Concordia College, Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri. Marty continued with graduate work, receiving a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Chicago in 1956. He served as a Lutheran pastor from 1952 to 1967 in the suburbs of Chicago.


Career

From 1963 to 1998 Marty taught at the University of Chicago Divinity School, eventually holding an endowed chair, the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professorship. His more than 130 doctoral advisees at the University of Chicago include
M. Craig Barnes M. Craig Barnes (born 1956) is an American Presbyterian minister and professor who serves as president of Princeton Theological Seminary. Biography and Career Born on August 28, 1956, and raised on Long Island,"Shadyside Presbyterian Church" Th ...
, James R. Lewis, Jeffrey Kaplan,
Jonathan M. Butler Jonathan M. Butler (born 1945) was a historian of religion. He was formerly employed as a lecturer by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Biography Jonathan Butler earned a BA in religion at La Sierra College (1967) and an M.Div. at Andrews ...
,
John G. Stackhouse Jr. John Gordon Stackhouse Jr. (born 1960) is a Canadian scholar of religion. As a journalist he has been recognized with over a dozen awards by the Canadian Church Press, and his scholarship has been supported by research grants from the Social Scie ...
, and Vincent Harding, as well as
Susan Henking Susan E. Henking (born 1955) is an American religious studies scholar. She was the 14th and final president of Shimer College in Chicago, appointed in July 2012 and finishing in 2017. She then served in interim roles at Salem Academy and College ...
, Shimer College president. Marty served as president of the
American Academy of Religion The American Academy of Religion (AAR) is the world's largest association of scholarly method, scholars in the List of academic disciplines, field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association, serving as a profes ...
, the American Society of Church History, and the American Catholic Historical Association. He was the founding president and later the George B. Caldwell Scholar-in-Residence at the Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith, and Ethics. He has served on two US presidential commissions and was director of both the
Fundamentalism Project The Fundamentalism Project was an international scholarly investigation of conservative religious movements throughout the world, funded by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The project began in 1987, directed by Martin E. Marty and R. Sco ...
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Public Religion Project at the University of Chicago sponsored by the
Pew Charitable Trusts The Pew Charitable Trusts is an independent non-profit, non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent ...
. He has served at
St. Olaf College St. Olaf College is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. It was founded in 1874 by a group of Norwegian-American pastors and farmers led by Pastor Bernt Julius Muus. The college is named after the King and the Patron Saint Olaf ...
in
Northfield Northfield may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Northfield, Aberdeen, Scotland * Northfield, Edinburgh, Scotland * Northfield, Birmingham, England * Northfield (Kettering BC Ward), Northamptonshire, England United States * Northfield, Connec ...
, Minnesota, since 1988 as Regent, Board Chair, Interim President in late 2000, and since 2002 as Senior Regent. Marty retired on his seventieth birthday. He holds emeritus status at the University of Chicago; he served as Robert W. Woodruff Visiting Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Emory University 2003–2004. His first wife, Elsa, died and he married again, to Harriet. He has seven children (including two foster children), among whom are
John Marty John J. Marty (born November 1, 1956) is a member of the Minnesota Senate, representing District 40, which includes parts of Ramsey County in the northern Twin Cities metropolitan area. As a young state senator, he ran for governor of Minnesota ...
, a Minnesota State Senator, and Peter Marty, who hosted the ELCA radio ministry ''Grace Matters'' from 2005 to 2009; and is now publisher of '' The Christian Century'' magazine and senior pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in
Davenport Davenport may refer to: Places Australia *Davenport, Northern Territory, a locality * Hundred of Davenport, cadastral unit in South Australia **Davenport, South Australia, suburb of Port Augusta **District Council of Davenport, former local govern ...
, Iowa. The Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion is named for Marty and has been awarded annually since 1996.


Awards and accolades

Marty has received numerous honors, including the National Humanities Medal, the Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the University of Chicago Alumni Medal, the Distinguished Service Medal of the Association of Theological Schools, and 80 honorary doctorates. In 1991, Marty was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (LHD) degree from Whittier College. Named in his honor, the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion is the University of Chicago Divinity School's institute for interdisciplinary research in all fields of the academic study of religion. He is an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society and of the American Philosophical Society and is the Mohandas M. K. Gandhi Fellow of the
American Academy of Political and Social Sciences The American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS) was founded in 1889 to promote progress in the social sciences. Sparked by Professor Edmund J. James and drawing from members of the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmo ...
. Marty was inducted as a Laureate of
The Lincoln Academy of Illinois The Lincoln Academy of Illinois is a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to recognizing contributions made by living Illinoisans. Named for Abraham Lincoln, the Academy administers the ''Order of Lincoln'', the highest award given ...
and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State's highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in 1998 in the field of Religion.


Works


Overview

Marty published an authored book and an edited book for every year he was a full-time professor. He maintained that authorial pace for the first decade of his retirement, slowing only in the second. His dozens of published books include ''Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America'' (1970), for which he won the National Book Award in category Philosophy and Religion;"National Book Awards – 1972"
National Book Foundation. Retrieved March 8, 2012.
the encyclopedic five-volume ''
Fundamentalism Project The Fundamentalism Project was an international scholarly investigation of conservative religious movements throughout the world, funded by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The project began in 1987, directed by Martin E. Marty and R. Sco ...
'', co-edited with historian
R. Scott Appleby Robert Scott Appleby (born 1956) is an American historian, focusing in global religion and its relationship to peace and conflict, integral human development, and comparative modern religion. He is a Professor of history at the University of Notr ...
, formerly his dissertation advisee; and the biography ''Martin Luther'' (2004). He has been a columnist and senior editor for '' The Christian Century'' magazine since 1956, edited the biweekly ''Context'' newsletter from 1969 until 2010, and writes a weekly column distributed electronically as
Sightings
by the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School. In addition, he has authored over 5,000 articles and many more incidental pieces, encyclopedia entries, forewords, and the like.


Bibliography


Author

*''The New Shape of American Religion'' (1958) New York: Harper and Brothers *''A Short History of Christianity'', The World Publishing Company, Cleveland, Ohio (1959) *''Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America'' (1970) Harper Torchbook 1977 paperback: *''Protestantism'' (1972) Garden City, New York: Image Books. *''The Public Church: Mainline-Evangelical-Catholic'' (1981) New York: Crossroads. *''A Cry of Absence, Reflections for the Winter of the Heart,'' (1983) Harper & Row, *''Pilgrims in Their Own Land: 500 Years of Religion in America'' (1984) New York: Penguin. *''Modern American Religion''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. **Volume 1: The Irony of It All, 1893–1919 (1986) **Volume 2: The Noise of Conflict, 1919–1941 (1990) **Volume 3: Under God, Indivisible, 1941–1960 (1996) *''Religion and Republic: The American Circumstance'' (1987) Boston: Beacon Press. *''The Glory and the Power: The Fundamentalist Challenge to the Modern World''. (1992) Beacon. Boston, Massachusetts. *''The One and the Many: America's Struggle for the Common Good'' (1997) Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. *''Martin Luther'' (The Penguin Lives Series). New York: Viking (2004) *''Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers From Prison: A Biography'' (2011) Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey. *''October 31, 1517: Martin Luther and the Day that Changed the World'' (2016) Paraclete Press. Brewster, Massachusetts.


Book chapters

*Martin E. Marty. "Half a Life in Religious Studies: Confessions of an 'Historical Historian'." pp. 151–174 in ''The Craft of Religious Studies'', edited by Jon R. Stone. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.


Articles and monographs

*Marty, Martin E. "Fundamentalism Reborn: Faith and Fanaticism." '' Saturday Review''. May 1980, 37–42. *Marty, Martin E.
"Fundamentalism as a Social Phenomenon."
'' Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences'' 42 (November 1988): 15–29. *Marty, Martin E
"Too Bad We're So Relevant: The Fundamentalism Project Projected"
''The Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences'' 49 (March 1996): 22–38.


Editor

*''The Place of Bonhoeffer: Problems and possibilities in his thought'' , Association Press, 1962. *''
The Fundamentalism Project The Fundamentalism Project was an international scholarly investigation of conservative religious movements throughout the world, funded by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The project began in 1987, directed by Martin E. Marty and R. Sc ...
'', Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, Editors **Volume 1: Fundamentalisms Observed, Marty/Appleby, (1991) **Volume 2: Fundamentalisms and Society: Reclaiming the Sciences, the Family, and Education, Marty/Appleby/Hardacre/Mendelsohn, (1993) **Volume 3: Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking Polities, Economies, and Militance, Marty/Appleby/Garvey/Kuran, (1993) **Volume 4: Accounting for Fundamentalisms: The Dynamic Character of Movements, Marty/Appleby/Ammerman/Frykenberg/Heilman/Piscatori, (1994) **Volume 5: Fundamentalisms Comprehended, Marty/Appleby, (1995) *''Hizmet Means Service: Perspectives on an Alternative Path Within Islam'', University of California Press (2015).


See also

*
Franz Bibfeldt Franz Bibfeldt is a fictitious German theologian and in-joke among American academic theologians. Bibfeldt made his first appearance as the author of an invented footnote in a term paper of a Concordia Seminary student, Robert Howard Clausen. ...
(fictitious theologian promoted by Marty)


References


External links


Martin E. Marty homepageSightings, a publication of the University of Chicago Divinity School's Martin Marty CenterVideo interview on his book, The Mystery of the ChildDownload or listen to Martin Marty interview by The Progressive magazine
September 27, 2006
"Prison Writings in a World Come of Age: The Special Vision of Dietrich Bonhoeffer"
Martin E. Marty,
Berfrois
', May 12, 2011 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Marty, Martin E. 1928 births American historians of religion 20th-century American Lutheran clergy American Lutheran theologians Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Christians Living people National Book Award winners National Humanities Medal recipients People from West Point, Nebraska Presidents of the American Academy of Religion Presidents of the American Society of Church History Public theologians St. Olaf College people University of Chicago faculty Concordia Seminary alumni Members of the American Philosophical Society