Marlene (MB) Lang is author of "Listening for Change," published in 2024 by Pickwick. The award-winning columnist and former government reporter is an educator who has served as Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Institute for Forgiveness and Reconciliation at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia and Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati.
From 2005-10, she penned her column for the Chicago Tribune's SouthtownStar. As a county government reporter, she exposed budget misrepresentations and efforts at a county prison to hide holding-cell tuberculosis exposures among immigration detainees. She covered the nuclear power industry up close as editor of Three Mile Island's hometown news.
Her columns have taken up politics, civil liberties, and justice issues, served on "wry," and with insight that waxes clearer with time. Her prescient writing in this first career forewarned of the the erosion of checks and balances in the early years of the 21st century, and pointed out the dangers to human rights and dignity inherent in morphing incarceration of human beings a into profit-making enterprise.
Her academic work since earning a doctorate in practical theology focuses on the urgent need for the skill of listening, from one-on-one encounters to listening across historic cultural divides. Informed by her studies of religion as practice, and spirituality as humans seeking wholeness, Lang finds effective listening with mind and heart at the center of life. Her studies are continually engaged in asking why we are not better listeners, and how we can learn to listen - and create peace and justice.

Art and photography on this page are the work of Marlene Lang and may not be used without permission. Copyright by Marlene Lang 2026.