Martin Marty, one of the foremost interpreters of religion in American public life, died on Tuesday. He was 97 years old.
For more than half a century, Marty was the go-to interview for journalists trying to make sense of some religious moment, whether it was a presidential election or an ecumenical agreement between Catholics and Lutherans.
In 1976, he appeared on NPR's All Things Considered to explain what it might mean that born-again Christian Jimmy Carter was entering the White House.
"The Southern Baptist Tradition at its best is one that doesn't want merging of church and state," Marty said. "And all you ever have to do to someone like Carter is to remind him that he might be tilting that way and he would back off very fast."
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