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GodBlogCon Day 2 Wrap-Up

October 28th, 2006 | 3 min read

By Matthew Lee Anderson

Ahhhhhhhhhh...............the memories. It's 1:42 AM, I'm exhausted, my wife is in bed, and I am playing the massochist and typing up my thoughts before the morning.

I love GodBlogCon. Today was one of the most stimulating, engaging, and fun days I have had in a long, long time. I didn't end up attending as much of the conference as I wanted, as I instead helped set up for the live broadcast by Hugh Hewitt (more on that in a second). But the conversations were varied and provocative, and I am thankful for them.

So, without further ado, here are some thoughts from the day:

James Kushiner of Mere Comments is smart. Really smart. And Salvo, the younger version of Touchstone Magazine (perhaps with First Things, the most important magazine you could read consistently) looks very, very cool in print. If you know college students in secular schools, do the good folks at Touchstone a favor and subscribe.
Roger Overton of The A-Team is tons of fun to debate with. I disagree with him on, well, let's say lots. But he is an amazing dialectical partner--fair, rhetorically sophisticated, and too smart for his (or my) own good.

Joe Carter of Evangelical Outpost is just never going to get universals right. It's impossible. I am giving up.
Charmaine Yoest is as charming and engaging as Joe found her to be. Which given Joe's theory of Universals, it is a bit surprising to find him such an astute observer of people. Incidentally, Charmaine will be on MSNBC Saturday at 1:45 pm EST talking about the New Jersey decision with Lambda Legal. Charmaine's son John, an avid blogger himself, made me feel old tonight by playing Weird Al for me, an artist with phenomenal staying power. John is an affable young fellow who I am quite sure could handle me in a debate any time. Incidentally, you can see me in the second picture down on this post by John. I'm talking with Joe Carter. Yes, that Joe Carter. I'm virtually famous. Just like Joe.

John Schroeder isn't a huge fan of dressing up, I discovered. In my defense at least my ties aren't this bad. My brother has managed to make dressing up an art form.

If you are disenchanted with politics, you'll be happy to know that at least one person is running for the Senate that is kind, honest, and hard-working. I had the pleasure of meeting Allen McCullough today, a Senatorial candidate from New Mexico. While he has received exactly no national media attention, he is running a great grassroots campaign that may cause him to be a surprise seat. Contribute to his campaign here, which I have no doubt he needs and would appreciate.

The guys at Boundless are cool. Very cool. Anytime I meet someone with inherent coolness, I get jealous. They have it, I don't, and it is painfully obvious. They also got stuck in Colorado. Apparently it snows in the world.

Is anyone in the Christian blogging community as wise, as gracious, and as erudite as Mark Roberts? I doubt it.

Hugh continues to amaze with his perpetual cheerfulness and optimism, not to mention his kind support of GodBlogCon and Torrey Honors. Like his politics or not (I do), he pays attention to each person he talks with, and for a speaker with an audience of a million people, that's pretty impressive. He was kind enough to put me on his show today with the founder of GBC, Andrew Jackson, where I promptly plugged my blog and my brothers, which raises this crucial and as yet unanswered question:

"Deck-urabilia" or "Day-core-abilia"? I don't know the correct way to type out the phonics, but you get the point. Can we get a ruling on this?

Dustin Steeve and Kevin Wang. (You think they need an explanation?)
Final thoughts: Hugh's admonitions tonight were worth the price of admission. He quoted Montaigne, I believe, to the effect that "Constant cheerfulness is a mark of a truly wise person." Indeed. And secondly, "Look for the good and praise it." The admonition is crucial for blogging and life, where criticism--in a bad sense--dominates so much of our discussion.

Matthew Lee Anderson

Matthew Lee Anderson is an Associate Professor of Ethics and Theology in Baylor University's Honors College. He has a D.Phil. in Christian Ethics from Oxford University, and is a Perpetual Member of Biola University's Torrey Honors College. In 2005, he founded Mere Orthodoxy.