Listen in as I interview Todd Bouldin of Pepperdine University. Todd is the Director of the Lilly Endowment Program on Vocation, Assistant to the Provost for Art and Media Initiatives, and is co-founder of the new MFA (masters of fine arts) program in Screen and Television Writing at Pepperdine.

Todd and I discuss the new MFA program at Pepperdine, the role of Christians in culture, the role of Christians in politics, and the upcoming election.

Listen in to an interview with my friend Andy Crouch, editorial director of for The Christian Vision Project at Christianity Today. Andy has written a new book released this week called Culture Making: Rediscovering our Creative Calling. In this interview, Andy and I discuss an alternative to Christians seeking to change culture through politics, why non-Christians shouldn't fear Christians seeking to create culture, and examples of culture making.

I highly recommend checking out Andy's new website, Culture Making, and getting his new book.

Culture Making referenced in this interview:
Chick-Fil-A
In-N-Out Burger
Kiva
Prison Entrepreneuership Program

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting Daniel Radosh, author of the new book Rapture Ready. Daniel wrote the book to investigate Christian pop culture and came away surprised at what he found. I highly recommend checking out his book.

Daniel and I had a great time discussing the "Culture War" and civility in the public arena. While I am sure that Daniel and I have many differences, I couldn't have found a better guy to enjoy a morning chat with.

Yesterday I wrote about the loss of community in America and mostly talked about what we have lost. What do we have now?

I lived in San Diego for almost 3 years from 1999-2001. The neighborhood we moved into was intended I believe to encourage community. There were public green spaces instead of individual private yards, lots of sidewalks, and the homes were oriented so as to encourage interaction. Yet somehow there was absolutely zero community. And not for lack of trying. There is only so many times that you can try to strike up a conversation with neighbors as they are trying to escape back into the confines of their home. I'll never forget the day we moved. We had a moving van out front and my next door neighbor walked by. "We'll miss you John." Yeah, that's how close we were. read more »

My friend Jeff Shinabarger wrote a very thought provoking post earlier this week about community in the wake of tornadoes that came through his neighborhood in East Atlanta. His post ended up being a great topic of discussion with my posse this week and prompted these thoughts from me:

I've been thinking about this idea of community for years and I can't quite put my finger on what has caused a general decline in the sense of community. Many people talk about the rise of suburbs or wealth as primary reasons but I think that those are but small contributing factors. Many of my friends grew up in suburban neighborhoods in Atlanta or elsewhere and had a tremendous sense of community. I know that I did in my prototypical suburban neighborhood. In my cul-de-sac infested suburban sprawl neighborhood, I have at one point been inside every single house in that neighborhood and dozens in surrounding neighborhoods. And not just those where my friends lived. There was a sense as a kid that I could get in almost as much trouble with another adult in the neighborhood as with my parents; parents weren't afraid to actually discipline other people's kids even if they hardly knew them. I have talked about these experiences with friends who grew up in other parts of the country, with friends who grew up in poverty stricken neighborhoods, and those who grew up around the country club and while the details may differ, the general experience of community was the same. read more »

Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing my friend Chris Heuertz, Executive Director of Word Made Flesh. Chris has a new book arriving on bookshelves next month called Simple Spirituality: Learning To See God in a Broken World. In this interview, Chris and I discuss his time in India with Mother Teresa, his impetus for this new book, and how this idea of spirituality can sometimes conflict with common perceptions of Christianity in a Western culture.

For those of you disillusioned with Christianity or those who lament the state of organized religion, I encourage you to check out how Chris and his community is "serving Jesus among the poorest of the poor." read more »

A friend of mine posed these very thought-provoking questions:

I have a question for any Obama voters from one who is sympathetic to Obama, has defended him on many occasions, voted for him in the primary, but isn't sure that he could ever vote for him in the general election:

Four observations and then a question:

1) Today NARAL endorsed Obama.
2) The New York Times recently reported that the Obama campaign will make abortion an issue in the general election in an effort to draw independent and Republican moderate women who may be uncomfortable with the prospect of Roe v. Wade being overturned.
3) Obama voted against Roberts and Alito. Let me focus on Roberts: eminently experienced, qualified, and respected across the board. In my estimation, there was no reason to vote against him unless you were making abortion a litmus test. Keep in mind that there is a long precedent of giving the president some respect in terms of Supreme Ct. nominees. This explains why John McCain voted for Ginsburg and Breyer despite disagreeing with them on abortion.
4) Obama has never voted against any abortion measure, including partial birth abortion.

So...

How does this fit with Obama's post-partisan political persona? Isn't this just hardball partisan politics because no one could get the Democratic nomination without capitulating to the pro-choice lobby? Wouldn't it be more consistent with his post-partisanship to say: "You know what? 2/3 of Americans are against partial birth abortion. We need to respect that and find some common ground. Etc. Etc."

This is a big, big problem for me. Discuss...

It appears that Pastor Roger Byrd of Jonesville, SC thinks so. I read this article today about a sign that Byrd placed in front of his church.

It reads: "Obama, Osama, hmm, are they brothers?"

Byrd then goes on to explain....actually, he goes on to lie about why he put the sign up.

Byrd said that the message wasn't meant to be racial or political.

"It's simply to cause people to realize and to see what possibly could happen if we were to get someone in there that does not believe in Jesus Christ," he said.

When asked if he believes that Barack Obama is Muslim, Byrd said, "I don't know. See it asks a question: Are they brothers? In other words, is he Muslim ? I don't know. He says he's not. I hope he's not. But I don't know. And it's just something to try to stir people's minds. It was never intended to hurt feelings or to offend anybody." read more »

I am in the midst of reading Os Guinness's new book, The Case for Civility. I have had high expectations for this book and so far I am not disappointed. In my mind, Guinness is the foremost expert of this topic, which is too often misunderstood. He makes this point in the first chapter.

"This short essay is a proposal for restoring civility in America, as one model for fostering civility around the world and helping to make the world safe for diversity. But civility must truly be restored. Is it not to be confused with niceness and mere etiquette or dismissed and squeamishness about differences. It is a tough, robust, substantive concept that is a republican virtue, critical to both democracy and civil society, and a manner of conduct that will be decisive for the future of the American republic." read more »

Here is Part 2 of the conversation between Glenn Lucke and Michael Lindsay. Part 1 can be found here.

GL: In Chapter 1, Presidents and Politics, you write that Bill Clinton and Al Gore are Southern Baptist evangelicals. They beat incumbent President George H. W. Bush in 1992, but you also state that 63% of evangelicals voted for the mainline Episcopalian Bush against these two Southern Baptists. read more »

My good friend Glenn Lucke sent me this excellent interview that he has conducted over the past few months with noted sociologist Michael Lindsay (for the record, Glenn recently attained his Ph.D in Sociology from University of Virginia while working with James Davison Hunter; Glenn is also wicked smart). I read Michael's book back in the fall and while I wasn't blown away, the depth of research in the book is very impressive.

Below is Glenn's introduction along with the first half of the interview. I will post the second half of the interview tomorrow. I welcome all comments especially those from readers of Glenn's blog, Common Grounds Online.

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Michael Lindsay, a sociologist at Rice University, recently published Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined America’s Elite. The endorsements for this book demonstrate that historians and sociologists of American religion are taking Lindsay and his work seriously.

For this project, Lindsay interviewed 360 evangelical elites in business, politics, academia and entertainment/media. While his labors in this regard are impressive (it is difficult to get access to many of these leaders), and have garnered most of the publicity that I’ve seen, a greater strength of the book in my estimation is the vast amount of history, sociology and political science scholarship that Lindsay read and synthesized. The breadth and depth of Lindsay’s work commend it to specialists. read more »

The author Os Guinness is one of my heroes and has greatly influenced my thoughts on politics and religion. In his new book, The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends On It, Os get at the root of much of what I dislike about the Religious Right.

As one who believes that the call of Jesus is to a path of suffering that shuts the door to every form of victim-playing, I am angered by organizers of the Religious Right who play the victim card and appeal openly to Christian resentment. . . .

Do they not know that those who portray themselves as victims come to perceive themselves as victims and then to paralyze themselves as victims? . . . read more »

A friend of mine sent me this story this morning:

"Controversial: Dr Rowan Williams believes the introduction of Sharia law to Britain will help maintain social cohesion

The Archbishop of Canterbury has today said that the adoption of Islamic Sharia law in the UK is "unavoidable" and that it would help maintain social cohesion.

Rowan Williams told BBC Radio 4's World At One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

He says that Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.

He says Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty". read more »