In 600 words or less ... A bishop engages the culture beyond his church
By Bill Lewellis
Communication Minister, Diocese of Bethlehem
Soon after becoming Bishop of the Diocese of Bethlehem in 1996, Paul Marshall wanted to connect with people he would not see in his church or in any church.
He decided to write a monthly column and offer it to local newspapers "to provide a polite but direct alternative to an extraordinarily conservative religious and political culture ... to offer good news particularly to those who cannot identify with or who have begun to question that culture, in either its protestant or Roman Catholic manifestations."
Since that time, daily and weekly newspapers in his 14-county Episcopal diocese in eastern and northeastern Pennsylvania have published some 130 of his monthly columns.
He is the only bishop in the Episcopal Church -- perhaps the only bishop of any church -- whose columns have had such a long run in area newspapers.
The column is almost always different from another column he writes for Diocesan Life, the monthly newspaper of the Diocese of Bethlehem.
"Given that most of the ink in the space allotted to religious columns in area newspapers is taken up by the dominant religious culture," he writes in the preface of his new book, Messages in the Mall: Looking at Life in 600 Words or Less (Seabury Books, 2008) a compilation of more than 90 of his columns, organized along thematic lines, "I have from the first spent most of my time each month attempting to reach those who think Christianity is irrelevant or anti-intellectual, and those who have been burned by rigorist religion."
[Click here for more information about this and other books by Marshall]
In his columns, Marshall addresses all aspects of life, from the intimate and complex relationships of couples and families to thorny social and religious issues. With dry wit, gentle humor, deep compassion and, sometimes, anger, he writes about topics from the tragic Columbine school shootings to the spiritual ramifications of the TV series The Sopranos.
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