One of the foremost commentators on religion in American life today, Martin E. Marty, will be speaking at Virginia Tech on Monday, March 27 at 3 p.m. in 100 Hancock Hall. The event is free and open to the public. Visitors to campus are requested to park in the Perry Street-Prices Fork lot.

The Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, Marty’s lecture is entitled, "Once upon a time... America was Protestant, Catholic, Jew: …what are we now and what will we become?"

Marty is the author of more than 50 books, including Righteous Empire, for which he won the National Book Award; the three-volume Modern American Religion; The One and the Many: America’s Search for the Common Good; and, with photographer Micah Marty, Places Along the Way; Our Hope for Years to Come; The Promise of Winter; and When True Simplicity Is Gained. His Martin Luther in the “Penguin Lives” series was published in February 2004.

The founder of what is now called the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago, Marty is a regular columnist in the Christian Century, co-author of the multi-volume Fundamentalism Project with Scott Appleby, and the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Humanities Medal and the Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Marty is an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society and of the Society of American Historians, and an elected fellow of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. Marty has received more than 70 honorary doctorates.

A Lutheran pastor ordained in 1952, Marty served parishes in the west and northwest suburbs of Chicago for a decade before joining the University of Chicago faculty in 1963.

Marty’s campus forum talk is co-sponsored by the Religious Studies Program in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies. He will also be speaking at the Blacksburg Presbyterian Church on Sunday and Monday evening. All events are free and open to the public.

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