Martin E. Marty

Frederick Denny's article on "Postures and Gestures" in The Encyclopedia of Religion may contribute to your survival in our uncivil society....

It was a major event in American Protestantism when, in 1933, Douglas Horton translated Karl Barth's The Word of God and the Word of Man, just as it was when Walter Marshall Horton, former...

Nothing's sacred. Those of us who look for continuity in culture have always known that we could count on certain trademarks and products....

Among the church bulletin misprints you readers have sent us recently was one from a church in Livonia, Michigan, which had this "Question for Godparents": "Do you promise to support and encourage ...

Every Month I look forward to reading "St. Paul Journey," the newsletter of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa. I turn first to Peter W. Marty's "Pastor's Column," of course....

Decades ago I heard someone from IBM project computer size. In the 1950s, he said, it took a whole building to house one that punched holes in cards....

These days it is risky to point fingers. Think of the members of Congress who've been found guilty of sins similar to these for which the president was put on trial....

My involvement with the Park Ridge Center for Health, Faith and Ethics has given me opportunity to write on the topic of spiritual healing. But there are times when corporal healing is in order....

Wonderfully restored, 138-year-old Holy Communion Church beckons visitors and worshipers....

Many of us columnists have files stuffed with Christmas items that came to our attention too late to be used during the season but are sure to be misplaced before the next year....

Here is a nightmare for those who hate conflict: take a not very large or airy room in Washington, D.C., and jam it full of tables and microphones, chairs and cameras...

The campaigns to discourage teens from smoking are counterproductive, says James Taranto in the American Enterprise (September-October)....

Beauty is back" was a disturbing cover story in, of all places, the Chronicle of Higher Education (Dec­ember 4)....

In about a year, after I finish directing the Public Religion Project, I plan to do some research on a way of writing about American religious history....

Tis the season for columnists to write their annual grumpy columns about how the season is misused. Here's my contribution....

Doctor Laura, the second-hottest thing in talk radio, often intrudes on my expressway reveries. Turn her on and it is hard to turn her off....

The Larry King show on October 16 featured a discussion of antigay violence in America....

William F. Buckley Jr. recently described what riding the lecture circuit meant for him (New Yorker, October 12). "Your agent discloses . . . where exactly the lectures will take place. ....

By John T. Noonan Jr., The Lustre of Our Country: The American Experience of Religious Freedom. (California University Press, 436 pp.)

American spirituality being what it is these postmodern days, anything can be turned into an icon, an idol, a god or an angel....