Martin E. Marty

The American nation . . . is engaged at this very hour in an attempt . . . to Christianize every phase of a righteous war waged to save the life of democracy,” Lieutenant George Stewart Jr....

Eostre, the Teutonic goddess of fertility with an Anglo-Saxon name, never did much for us except, perhaps, give her name to Easter....

Some decades ago the replacement of and synonym for ummhhh and aaahhh was “you know,” a phrase introduced by “Valley Girls” and voiced by speakers not because you did know, but...

Dear Harriet: After we cried over the recent death of one of our heroes and friends, John Tietjen of (Lutheran) Seminex days, we also smiled to read that at the 50th anniversary of his ordination, ...

Testimony, not advocacy, is my intent in this first foray into a subject about which church bodies argue: the “blessing of gay marriage/unions” and “ordination to clergy status” of men and women in...

Just in time to help me understand the 2004 political campaign and church scene, my son Micah presented me with Appleton’s School Readers Fifth Reader....

I have lived with Martin Luther for 76 years, since I was christened with the reformer’s name. My father was a Lutheran teacher and organist....

The Western world lost much when the confession-absolution dyad dropped God out of the equation....

Now and then I take off the shelf Charles Péguy’s Mystery of the Holy Innocents, a book-length poem I first read as a newly minted Ph.D. in 1956, the year it was published....

"Oner,” a slang word that crossword-puzzle-makers favor, is defined as a “rare and unique person, someone especially excellent.” We just lost two oners: Century board members Paul...

Time, like an ever-rolling stream / Bears all its sons away . . .” [or, as alt. would have it, “soon bears us all away”] would be a paralyzing line were it not for the hymn’s opening invocation....

Some years ago, I accepted an invitation to referee a book manuscript that defended capitalism. The author responded that my critique revealed traces of my lifelong commitment to socialism....

Is there a Greek word for “embarrassment”? My English biblical concordances have no entry for it. “Shame,” carrying as it does the connotations of guilt, has scores of listings....

Before Old soldier Lieutenant General William G. Boykin “just fades away,” as General Douglas MacArthur said they all do, let me examine his contributions to theology. Assigned to lead the U.S....

Having just written a biography of Martin Luther, coming out in January in the Viking Penguin Lives series, I was curious to see how the movie Luther turned out....

The season of denominational conventions is over for 2003, and not a moment too soon....

"Wonderfully prolific” and “as fine a historian as America now boasts” is how reviewer Eugene D....

The graven image of the Ten Commandments, as well as the name of its sponsor, Judge Roy Moore, will a) fade into history or b) get enshrined somewhere in Alabama....

Recent findings have reopened arguments concerning when humans arrived in our hemisphere....

Something “anomalous” is “inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected.” I just learned that this definition fits the University of Chicago faculty, with whom I worked for...