Martin E. Marty
Handel scandal: Anti-Judaic themes
I have never given much thought to Titus, Roman destroyer of Jerusalem in the year 70, or seen reason to rejoice in the destruction of the Second Temple and the defeat of Israel....
Trademark Gospel® A monopoly on the truth: A monopoly on the truth
PrincÍpio do Evangelho® de Jesus Cristo, Filho de Deus, is the Portuguese translation of Mark 1:1, “Here begins the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.” João Ferreira translated it in 188...
Pitching dreams: Prosperity thinking
When I was nine years old I dreamed of being Bobby Feller. I forget about that dream for long stretches, but then something comes back to remind me of it. Recently that something was Tyler Kepner’s profile of Feller in the March 7 New York Times. I learned that at age 88 Feller still suits up every day, and that he is often called a hero because of his World War II service. He responds to this term by saying, "Heroes don’t come home; survivors come home." What good did that baseball dream do? For one thing, it's a bracing alternative to the dream talk that afflicts us now.
Going Bunco: The Age of Innocence
Draw up your chairs, younger ones, and I will describe a moment in the Age of Innocence, back in late-medieval time of 1945-1949....
Home church: Gratitude for Ascension Lutheran
The Martys move their residence and parish membership every 43 years, so every 43 years I should devote a column to my parish, Ascension Lutheran in Riverside, Illinois....
Reshelving: Frustrating congregations
This winter I had occasion to caress every one of my thousands of books, kiss thousands of them good-bye as I downsized my library, and decide which to save and which to give away....
Getaway sermon: Jonathan Edwards takes his leave
Christopher Niebuhr of the well-known Niebuhr tribe wrote to me recently....
A funny thing: Up today and down tomorrow
One night years ago, when there were such things as open tickets on airlines and one did not have to establish identity to get through security, my wife and I left $900 worth of tickets on the back...
Let them grunt: Showering cheap grace on sweating sinners
When I was young I spent two summers “icing” refrigerated cars on Burlington trains....
Hymn sing: A secular liturgy for hymnal transition times
New hymnals, a.k.a. “Worship Books,” are forthcoming from numerous church bodies, including two Lutheran groups (among them my own ELCA). Having studied none of these books, I write with vincible ignorance about the details. Having studied church history, however, I write with invincible knowledge of how all of them will be greeted in some sectors of each church group. Those old enough to have savaged the books being replaced will now mourn their loss, just as they will—if they live long enough—grieve over the shelving of the ones they are now trashing.
Regifting: Redeemed and put to work
The verb regift was not in my vocabulary until this season, but now I see it leaping out from a sheaf of magazine covers....
Stirred up: A reflection on decades at the Christian Century
We have relegated to the “remember when” columns all resistance to the updating of Thanksgiving Day to lengthen time for Christmas shopping....
Sneers: Critiques as show biz
At a conference in Maine last month I was cast alongside Richard Dawkins, author of the best-selling The God Delusion. But we did not debate....
Sisters: Good hearts, good works
Reading the obituaries of Sister Mary Luke Tobin, who recently died at 98, inspired reminiscences of her and other women religious....
Fudging: Do we lie about sitting in the pew?
According to a recent Bloomberg News survey, researchers for the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine asked people to answer two easy questions: How tall are you? How much do you weigh?...
Them and us: When citing texts in times of war, play fair
While doing research for a talk on religion and violence, I kept running into accounts of people who selectively quote the Qur’an to show how it commits Muslims to killing “us” infidels....
Call me Nestor: A brave, garrulous character
Have your ever played a game in which participants identify themselves with an animal, biblical figure, athlete or Greek hero, and others try to guess the connection?...
Myth-buster: Speaking truth to power
Dear Pastor Gregory Boyd: My editors do not favor the “open letter” genre, so let’s consider this a “closed letter,” something I’d more or less sneak to you....
Head cases: The mental health of saints and presidents
Being president of the United States undermines one’s mental health or else an inordinate number of people with mental disorder have been elected to the post....