So said Chuck Todd this today on Morning Joe. Consider my hometown Exhibit A. I live in Edina, Minnesota, a quintessential suburb. Southdale, the first-ever enclosed shopping mall was built here in 1956. During that same era, when my mom was growing up here, Edina was a “Sundown Town — non-whites were required by law to be out of town by sundown kept out of town by real estate covenants and supposedly asked to leave town by sunset. Edina is... Read more
I awoke early today, as I often do. About 4:30am. I had hoped to sleep longer since this is a tough stretch of travel for me. I spoke at the National Youth Workers Convention this weekend — after 10 years of giving seminars at this event, I was given the opportunity to speak in front of all 2,000 registrants at the Sunday evening general session. Doug, Mark, and I attempted a reprise of the Church Basement Roadshow, and, um, well,... Read more
Yesterday and today, I’m at the Minnesota Horse and Hunt Club on an annual outing hosted by my uncle. My dad had knee surgery last week, so he’s absent, as is my brother, Andrew. But my brother, Ted, is here, as well as a dozen other guys who are somehow related to me via marriage. We spend a couple days shooting pheasants, eating steaks, smoking cigars, and chewing the fat. Most importantly, however, Beaumont is here. Beaumont has been my... Read more
I’m glad to be here at Beliefnet. I trust this will be a long and fruitful partnership. If you’re just finding me for the first time here, you can read a bit about me on my site. My blogging will begin in earnest tomorrow. Read more
“Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.” -Cornel West Read more
Collin Hansen’s fine CT piece on the evangelical world of Minneapolis-St. Paul is now online. Enjoy. Read more
I answered that question for one of my new favorite conglomo-blogs, The Daily Scroll. Read more
Well, actually, not really. But I’ve been thinking about journalism and blogs this week, for three reasons. First, I received a couple comments and then a personal email regarding a post that I wrote earlier in the week. The correspondence came from a friend who is also an academic, and she challenged the lack of sophistication in my post, saying that I was slinging around terminology in a sloppy manner. In an email response I agreed, and then went on... Read more
I’ve been thinking most of the day about my contribution to Blog Action Day. But, try as I might, I cannot think of anything more profound than the title of this post. I want poverty to end, particularly the extreme poverty that kills 25,000 persons a day. I’ve tried to explain to my son, Tanner, who has a burden for this issue, that, indeed, enough food exists for everyone in the world. The problem is getting it to the places... Read more
That’s basically how Andrew Sullivan describes Barack Obama in his Sunday Times essay. And there’s really something to this. First, Obama’s calm in the face of the Clintonistas drove Bill (“Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice”) Clinton and Hillary (“Shame on you, Barack Obama!”) Clinton to say things that they’d later regret, and that may well have lost them the primary. Now Obama continues unruffled in the face of McCain/Palin onslaught of negative ads and tenuous connections to Bill Ayers... Read more
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