Dr. Martin E. Marty was born February 5, 1928 in West Point, Nebraska. Ordained as a Lutheran to the ministry in 1952, Dr. Marty served pastorally for eleven years. He is married and has four sons and two foster children. He is the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago where he earned his Ph.D. in 1956. marty began teaching history of modern Christianity in 1963 at the University of Chicago Divinity School where he is an active member of the Committee on the History of Culture and an associate in the Department of History.

      Dr. Marty is also associate editor of The Christian Century, editor of the newsletter, Context, and co-editor of Church History. Author of numerous books, he was awarded the 1984 Book of the Year Award by the Academy of Parish Clergy for his work, A Cry of Absence. In 1972, he won the National Book Award for Righteous Empire. marty has contributed to several major international encyclopedias and written many magazine articles. Other recent books which he has written are: A Nation of Believers (1980), and Pilgrims in Their Own Land: Five Hundred Years of American Tradition (1984).

      A past president (1971) of the American Society of Church History, Dr. Marty is Vice-President and President-Elect of the American Catholic Historical Association, and holds twenty two honorary degrees (Litt.D., LL.D., D.D., D.Hum., L.H.D.). He is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Society of American Historians, and other academic and honorary societies and is an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society. Marty serves on numerous boards, including the National Humanities, and is active in the Author's Guild, the National Book Critics Circle and the various historical associations.

      Dr. Marty is mentioned in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the World and various other biographical reference guides to the world of authors and scholars. January 1984