Two Giants. . .

Within days of each other, two Lutheran giants passed away.  I should feel the deeper affinity to Marty E. Marty.  After all he was born not many miles from where I was born and we both hail from the great state of Nebraska.  His dad was the pastor there and he grew up in a parsonage on the precious soil of the Cornhusker State.  The other was born in St. Louis and grew up at Concordia Seminary where his dad was none other than Walter A. Maier the radio preacher.  One biography said that Marty left never to return.  Paul Maier never left. At least on the surface, my life and Martin E. Marty have more in common than me and Paul L. Maier.  Dig deeper and you will find a study in contrasts and the reason why I have respect for Marty but love for Paul.

Martin E. Marty was the author of some 60 books and a world acclaimed authority on Christian history.  He was affable and well spoken.  He enjoyed the respect of his peers and those interested in Christian history all across the world.  I met him a couple of times and was in awe of him.  Paul L. Maier was also the author of many books and endless articles and also had a distinguished career as an educator and historian.  I knew Paul well, hosted him four or five times as a speaker and preacher in my parish, and broke bread with him at least as often.  I was not in awe of him but I adored him.  Let me tell you the difference.

Everyone knew where Martin Marty stood on the messiness of the 1960s-1980s in the Missouri Synod.  He left.  He found a home eventually within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  Though he was not mean about it, he did not have much respect for the Missouri Synod.  Paul Maier did not get mixed up in the wars of Missouri as a general but you knew where he stood.  He contended for the Word of God.  He was an historian but he was also an apologist (in the classical sense of that term).  He defended the faith and the historicity of the Scriptures and the truthfulness of its claims.  He was elected Vice-President and served the LCMS in this way over many years.  Both were highly acclaimed within their university settings (Marty at the the University of Chicago Divinity School and Maier at Western Michigan University).  Marty adept at navigating the relationship between culture and religion (even working with Norman Lear) and Maier adept at making the case for the faith in words every person could understand and yet without making simplistic.

On one occasion, my middle child accompanied us for supper.  My son thought it would be boring.  He loved and hung on every word Paul said.  Paul talked about his yellow Pontiac Solstice (or was it the Saturn version?).  He talked about a 50 foot drag line crane he bought and used to dig holes in his property, along with driving his bulldozer, tractor, and such.  He had the ability to transcend a difference in age and experience and yet hidden in his words and witness lived large the image of Christ.  I cannot help but remember this aspect of the man who was not simply a commentator but a defender of the one and forever truth of Christ crucified and risen.  He often said the best thing that could happen for Christianity is people digging up Palestine to build new buildings for everything they unearthed gave testimony to the truth and truthfulness of the Scriptures.  Martin Mary could tell us about movements and connections and the development of church bodies and Christian influence but Paul Maier could tell us that we need not be embarrassed about the faith we confess because it's facts have every foundation in archeology and history.  I will continue to read and reread the works of Martin Marty but I will long for the conversations with Paul with my son who learned something of the faith while imagining Paul operating the drag line crane making his backyard look like the craters on the moon.