EXPERT ON RELIGION WILL LEAD BICENTENNIAL LECTURE

Martin Marty, an authority on religion in America, will discuss the "Religious History of Southeast Missouri" as part of the Cape Girardeau Bicentennial Lecture Series and the Messer Lectures of the Baptist Student Center on Sept. 23 on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University.

Marty's lecture is slated for 7 p.m. in Academic Hall Auditorium. Earlier that day, he will speak on "Spirituality" at 1:30 p.m. in St. Mark Lutheran Church, 1900 Cape LaCroix Road. At 3:30 p.m., he will discuss "Trends and Directions in Religion in America" in the University Center Ballroom. The lectures are free and open to the public.

A reception for Marty is planned for 8 p.m. Sept. 23 in the Southeast Missouri State University Museum in Memorial Hall.

"Martin Marty is probably the top five religious scholar in the United States at this time," said Andrew Pratt, an adjunct faculty member in Southeast's Department of Philosophy and Religion and campus minister for the Baptist Student Union. "Marty's real gift is in interpreting religious culture in language people can understand. His talent as an interpreter of American religion is his greatest gift. He is a good public speaker and is ~humorous. I think people will be extremely pleased to hear him."

Marty is the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Modern Christianity at the University of Chicago. He has taught in the history department, on the committee on the history of culture, and in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago since 1963. Marty is the author of 40 books, including Righteous Empire, which was the winner of the 1972 National Book Award. He is a nationally recognized analyst and commentator and completes a full circuit of speaking engagements each year.

Marty, a West Point, Neb., native, was ordained as a Lutheran minister in 1952. He served as such for 10 years. He earned a doctoral degree from the University of Chicago in 1956.

He has received numerous awards and honors during his distinguished career, including 44 honorary degrees. He has served as president of the American Society of Church History, the American Catholic Historical Association, and the American Academy of Religion. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta. Marty is senior editor of the weekly journal The Christian Century. He edits Second Opinion, the journal of the Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith and Ethics, and Context, a biweekly newsletter. He also is co-editor of the quarterly Church History.

In addition, Marty is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, for which he directed the recently completed Fundamentalism Project, an international public policy study.

He presently is writing a five-volume work titled Modem American Religion, which examines American religion in the 20th century.

~Marty and his wife, Harriet, live in Riverside, Ill.

The next in the series of bicentennial lectures will be presented Oct. 15 by Arthur Mattingly of Southeast Missouri State University. who will speak on "Cape Girardeau in the 20th Century."