Martin Marty to Speak April 18 at the Library of Congress on the Moral Trauma of Americans

A year after the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, University of Chicago theologian Martin Marty will speak on the moral trauma Americans are experiencing when he gives the fourth annual Goldman Memorial Lecture at the Library of Congress. Marty will discuss the tension between those who want the United States to be “one nation, under God,” or a homogenized Judezo-Christian America, and those who want to be part of small, exclusive groups that are against the “establishment” that they perceive to be dominating American life. Because of these tensions, a national community is impossible. Marty will instead advocate for a new commitment to voluntary associations to stimulate civic life. The Goldman Lecture fosters consideration of topics in areas such as American culture and customs, economics and social issues, international relations, and government and public policy. Past lecturers include University of Chicago sociologist William Julius Wilson. Marty will speak at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 18 at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. An expanded version of his lecture will be published by Harvard University Press. MARTIN E. MARTY is the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. One of America’s foremost theologians and religious historians and the author of more than 40 books, Marty was Project Director for the recently completed five-year Fundamentalism Project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which studied comparative fundamentalist religious movements around the world. His newest work is Under God, Indivisible, which will be published by the University of Chicago Press.