(~) Marathon Day
Sightings 10/10/05

Marathon Day
-- Martin E. Marty

Yesterday, 40,000 atheists, agnostics, Muslims, Jews, and secularists
gathered on the lakefront in our city for a sacred tribal rite. And
seventy-four days from now, thousands will gather at a huge theater near
the lakeshore to celebrate another rite. "You're just kidding," you might
say. So I'd better explain.

At 8 a.m. on Sunday, 40,000 runners participated in the 28th LaSalle Bank
Chicago Marathon. They were supported or viewed by thousands, while others
watched or listened to a broadcast of the event at 10 a.m. -- church time.
As for the other event, I learned of it in a story about a Chicagoan who
was eager to trade for a ticket to a possible future White Sox play-off
game. His offer: "fifth-row passes to a sold-out, Christmas Eve
performance of 'Wicked.'" My wife assures me that "Wicked" is an enjoyable
musical -- nothing wrong with it. But:

You might think that this week's column should be called not Sightings but
Squintings, because these evidences of "secularization" or
"resacralization" on new terms are not headline items. But they occur a)
on the Lord's Day and then b) on the eve of one of the two holiest days on
the Christian calendar. And this in a very religious city -- not "Bible
Belt Buckle" religious, but still heavily Catholic, Protestant,
Evangelical, and "African American."

But Chicago is really no different from anywhere else. Sunday morning has
simply and triumphantly become Marathon Day in most cities. We can
remember when Jewish bartenders in Milwaukee would substitute for
Christian bartenders on Christmas Eve so the latter could attend mass or
other worship. Will the attendees on Christmas Eve at "Wicked" all be
non-Christians? Not likely. Eighty percent of America's citizens identify
with "Christian," which led to my tongue-in-cheek deduction that the
runners and the play-goers had to be non-Christian. Otherwise "Christians"
have given away their Holy Day and Holiest Night.

Time to editorialize: Also about 80 percent of the American people when
polled are ready to coerce witness to God in public places, on courtroom
and public-school walls. They want the state to deliver religion -- even
Southern Baptists want this! -- to mixed captive citizenries. The marathon
runners wore shorts without pockets, but when they pulled on slacks, they
carried money fortified by the slogan "In God We Trust," and will head
later in the week to public high school games where they and their
children will sing "God Bless America."

The question: Why insist on the legal support and not the voluntary?
America, most scholars agree, displayed religious vitality because
churches a