A sense of place: the many horizons of Martin E. Marty

Christian Century, Oct 23, 2002 by Wendy Murray Zoba

WHICH TAKES US BACK to the landscape business. One stands on the prairie, faces the horizon and considers the next step, and it comes in a sort of' unifying sensibility--a sense of perceiving the whole scope of things. Marty operates from that place. He sees all human beings as fellow pilgrims on the landscape of history and valid players in the bigger picture. The clarity of vision and sense of dignity in simplicity bequeathed to him from the prairie has won him a hearing among would-be skeptics who might otherwise shrink from his Lutheran convictions. He does not and would not position himself as an advancer of one line of argumentation or of one side of a controversy. He is like the farmer who teases a harvest out of an unruly crop, working with the disparate pieces till they come together to bring fruit. He's an orchestrator, or unifier, the way an old homesteader would take dirt and water and bring them together to make bricks.

He has validated to an otherwise skeptical public the place of religion in public discourse. One of his most significant contributions, says Noll, has been his "promotion of discussion of topics that often were a means of conflict and exclusion. That contribution goes beyond the historical sphere. Marty has always emphasized that religion is important enough to talk about."

Marty has yet to write the book he wants to write. He told me, "Two people have written one book called The Sense of Presence, and another man wrote a book called The Presence. I'm not a metaphysician, and I wouldn't try to get behind the screen, but I wonder [for example], Why did Jesus come to you that time?" He was referring to a conversation we had about my spontaneous and unsolicited conversion. "What happened? A book about that is in me somewhere, but I don't know if it will ever happen."

Lately he's been reading the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz, whom he calls "the greatest poet of the century." Milosz, a native of Poland, is "a kind of implicit Christian," says Marty. "He agonizes about the resurrection--`Do I believe it? Yes, I believe it. But do I believe it?' His work is a positive affirmation in the face of horror." And so, adding to his list of confounding oddities, Marty reflects, "How odd that hope survives."

In the aftermath of September 11, he has been in high demand to help Americans understand fanatical Islam. In the New York Times of June 2 he is quoted as saying, "We're seeing now that religion is not an innocent force in the world." At the same time, he is the spokesperson in a special video for children titled "I Am with You Always, made also in the wake of 9/11, who says, "It is good to hear the words, `Fear not' from the one who said that so often, Jesus, whose name we know. Fear not the waves," he says to the children sitting about him, "Fear not the dark. Fear not the enemy. I will be with you."

IT IS A WARM SPRING DAY and Pastor Marty is presiding at Ascension Lutheran Church. He wears a white robe and a colorful woven stole. He sits on the floor with the children for their sermon. "Jesus talks about the sand so I brought kitty litter," he tells them. He is trying to demonstrate how important it is to build our spiritual foundation not on sand but on the rock. "If you dig deep enough in sand you get support," one child says. Pastor Marty answers, "I think I just heard a sermon. The point is ..."