YOUNGSTOWN Author to speak at Schaff Lecture

Martin E. Marty's public talk will examine religious pluralism.
YOUNGSTOWN -- Author and columnist Martin E. Marty will be the speaker at the Schaff Lecture at First Presbyterian Church on March 10.
Marty, 75, is the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he taught for 35 years and where the Martin Marty Center has been founded to promote "public religion" endeavors.
He is the recipient of the National Humanities Medal, the National Book Award, and the Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Marty was ordained in 1952 and served for a decade as a Lutheran parish pastor before joining the university in 1963. He's the author of more than 50 books, including the three-volume "Modern American Religion."
He writes the "M.E.M.O." column for Christian Century, for which he has been a staff member since 1956, and has been editor of Context since 1969.
Registration will be at 3:30 p.m. A workshop for clergy and church leaders, "Risking Hospitality Among the Religions and the Religious," is at 4 p.m. The workshop is free but reservations are required.
A catered buffet supper will be at 5:30 p.m. Paid reservations must be in by March 5. Mail reservations to First Presbyterian Church, attention: Dawn.
Marty will give a public lecture at 7 p.m.: "Awash in a Sea of Religious Pluralism." The event is free and reservations are not required.
Lecture endowment
The late Jane Booth Schaff completed the endowment of the previously established Schaff Lectureship at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, with the condition that the Schaff lecturers would deliver one address in Youngstown to bring the finest scholarship in theology to the Mahoning Valley annually.
The 2003 Schaff Lecture is also sponsored by the First Presbyterian Church of Youngstown, in conjunction with the Mahoning Valley Association of Churches, Eastminster Presbytery, and the Diocese of Youngstown.