Hanna, you owe David Kuo an apology for bailing on the debate. What's more, I think your last-minute evasion shows the shallowness of your approach to writing about evangelicals. If you're going to be my guide to a group like Patrick Henry students, I expect you to think through their positions, digest them, and present the implications. To pose as an unmediated conduit of what you saw and heard while among them (I'll take notes") is a cop out, journalistically and intellectually. You wrote the book, no one forced you, right? And presumably you wrote it to give context to these people and their ideas in our political life, right? To claim that you're not implicated in any talk about Christian themes like "repentance, admonition, exhortation"--is to say that your book is not worth our time. To yield to one of your subjects to speak to David implies that he's not worth your while either. He deserves better.

Mundane:

I too was disappointed when Rosin deferred to her subject. When I read the letters between Rosin and Kuo I thought I was reading a wonderful debate/discussion between two evangelicals. I was so delighted to find out they were lucid and reasonable--not foaming at the mouth about homosexuals, liberals, and democats. This series was just getting good too. Not as good as "Blogging the Bible" but definitely stimulating. Now I feel let down.