And what does being "called" mean to him? Is there a kind of blinding flash of revelation, similar to the biblical account of the apostle Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus?
 
   "I tell my students that it comes in billions of particulars," he said. [CCCInc. Note: 100% contrary to His Biblical patterns]
 
   Whatever the theological implications may be, some of the particulars that would eventually propel Marty to the faculty in Hyde Park make for a good story:
 
   It's late 1951, his senior year at Concordia Lutheran Seminary in St. Louis, and Marty is eager for his graduation in the coming spring and his ordination in July so he can embark on a dream assignment as pastor of a Lutheran congregation in London.
 
   But while at home on Christmas break, he receives a troubling telegram from the dean, ordering him to report to school a day early.
 
   "There was an ominous tone to it, certainly," Marty said, revisiting those days to satisfy a curious reporter.
 
   The problem, he would discover, was with what one of his sons describes today as an exercise in "mischievous creativity;" more precisely, the 23-year-old seminarian was being called on the carpet for designing an elaborate campus hoax involving a fictitious German theologian dubbed Franz Bibfeldt whom he and a classmate had invented.
 
   Created to satirize the professorial (and human) weakness for self-importance, Bibfeldt has gone on to attain a kind of academic immortality as the subject of tongue-in-cheek seminars at the U. of C. and recipient of autographed portraits from prominent political and religious figures, not all of them in on the joke.
 
   Yet not everyone is laughing in 1951. The dean tells Marty that, because of his "irresponsible and immature" actions, London is out; instead, he is being sent for a dose of discipline to Grace Lutheran Church in the Chicago suburb of River Forest, serving an assistant to Rev. Otto Geisemann, who, as it happened, thought the Bibfeldt hoax was hilarious.
   Pleased to be welcomed, Marty would learn that his mentor had a requirement for his young assistants - study toward a Ph.D. in religion or theology.
 
   Jerald C. Brauer, now a U. of C. professor emeritus of the history of Christianity, would recruit Marty as a grad student in the Divinity School, where Marty would earn a 1956 doctorate in American religious and intellectual history.

   And after Marty spent seven years as pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Holy Spirit in Elk Grove Village, starting it from scratch with 180 members who met in a public school and nurturing it into a thriving congregation of 1,700 with a large sanctuary and its own church-school buildings, Brauer would next persuade him to teach at the Divinity School.
 
   "I'd heard about Marty and met him when he was in seminary," Brauer says. "I think what struck me most was his fruitful imagination. There are no tests, no SATs, that capture imagination, motivation and discipline, which are the traits of a truly great student. He had all these, and he has developed them to an even larger degree in becoming a great teacher."
 
   It's hard not to marvel at Marty, who is, by any measure, amazing.
 
   For one thing, he does so much so well. Indeed, as has been noted on more than one occasion, he is a reproof to all of us who complain that there aren't enough hours in the day. A sampling:
 
   Since 1959, he has published, 50 books, and turned out more than 4,000 essays, columns, book reviews and articles; these include 40 years of writing some 40 annual columns for the Christian Century and 28 years of producing Context, a biweekly digest of commentary on religion and culture gleaned from scores of periodicals.
 
   He teaches on Mondays and Wednesdays, never having had a sick day and missing only a dozen classes, mainly because of the illness and death of his first wife, Elsa, in 1981.
 
   On Tuesdays, he serves as senior scholar-in-residence at the Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith and Ethics, a research institute he helped found in 1985; on Thursdays, he speaks at other American campuses; and on Fridays, he works with graduate students.
 
   Thursday night Marty's friends, colleagues and students will celebrate his 70th birthday with a dinner at the Chicago Historical Society. The hosts are Harriet Marty; Norman Lear, the TV producer, and his wife, Lyn; and TV document Bill Moyers and his wife, Judith. The honorary dinner committee includes Gov. Jim Edgar, Mayor Richard Daley and Catholic Cardinal-designate Francis George.
 
   All will probably be trying to figure out how Marty does it.
 
   "He can get more out of 60 seconds in every minute than anyone I know," says Rev. Dean Lueking, Marty's seminary classmate, best friend and Otto Geisemann's successor as senior pastor at Grace Lutheran in River Forest.
 
   Two of the earliest to be impressed were his siblings, traditionally a tough audience.
 
   "I knew I was living under the roof with a genius before I knew what a genius was," says his younger brother, Myron, known as Mike, who is himself a professor of history, at Drake University.
 
   "I was in awe of him as a child," says his sister, Mildred Burger, two years his senior and a retired middle-school teacher in Ft. Wayne, Ind. "Before he ever started to school, he could identify almost any selection of classical music. He did it from listening to [conductor] Walter Damrosch and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra on the radio."
 
   Mike has a theory about how his brother operates: "Every task requires three stages, and most of us give equal time to each. Stage 1 is thinking about doing it, stage 2 is getting started and stage 3 is doing it. Marty skips the first two stages."
 
   Laurence O'Connell, president and CEO of the Park Ridge Center, has another view. "I don't think he skips any steps. It just seems that way because he can think so fast. He's like a mainframe [computer], and the rest of us are desktops."
 
   Not surprisingly, Marty's awards have been numerous; in addition to honorary degrees from 57 colleges and universities, he has received the National Humanities Medal (1997), the Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1995) and the National Book Award (in 1971, for "Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America").
 
   The news media constantly seek his insights, and he consistently delivers. He's often quoted in major newspapers and is a top choice by producers for TV news shows and documentaries. In an attempt to increase media awareness of religious issues and of other scholars versed in various fields of religion, he is directing the three-year Public Religion Project, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

   Marty won't address certain subjects. "I avoid abortion, homosexuality and anything else where there is so much polarization that nobody will do any fresh thinking," he said. "I've always seen the role [of scholars] as being teachers to the nation."
 
   R. Scott Appleby, director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame and a former Marty student, defines Marty as "a consensus historian" and among a small coterie of "public intellectuals" important to civic dialogue.
 
   "One of his gifts," Appleby said, "has been to interpret contemporary events with nuanced understanding of how these themes have played out through the long course of American history. His enemies are the culture warriors, those who profit from conflict and do not seek consensus. Marty is an anti-absolutist, and absolutists don't like that."
 
   And wouldn't you know it? His personal qualities seem as formidable as his professional achievements. Everyone who knows him speaks of his unfailing kindness and generosity, including his four sons. (Joel, 42, of Minneapolis, a businessman; John, 41, also of Minneapolis, a Minnesota state senator; Peter, 39, a Lutheran pastor in Davenport, Iowa; and Micah, 38, a Chicago photographer who has collaborated with his father on three books).
 
   "He was as good a father as he was at anything else he did in his career," said Micah. "He was never too busy to see us, and every Saturday night for 21 years was family night, although we didn't have to be there as we got older."
 
   "He has a strong faith in the LORD, and I think that's how he does what he does," says Fran Garcia-Carlson, the Martys' foster daughter. "He's always inclusive and warm, he shares his love and he was never judgmental with me, only supportive."
 
   His first and strongest influence, Marty says, was his father, Emil, a church organist and a teacher in Lutheran elementary schools, mostly in small Nebraska towns.
 
   "He taught us integrity by his example," Marty said. "He was good at imparting the intrinsic value of doing the right thing. It's the conviction that you do good acts when nobody is paying attention, not because there is a secondary or pragmatic value that will help you get a bigger paycheck but because this is simply the best way to live your life."
 
   Marty added: "And he taught me to tie a bow tie."