Getting serious ...

... Life Beyond Blue: Faith and the Inner City | Via Meadia.

... technocratic fixes and government policy however wise and inspired cannot fix everything that is broken in the inner cities of the United States and abroad. Drug addiction, cycles of violence and abuse, the prevalence and attraction of street gangs and the appeal of religious extremism are not the kinds of things that bureaucrats can do much about.

... the hard truth is that unless someone reaches the lost generations in our inner city with powerful, life transforming messages, the dysfunctional cycles of violence, poverty and destruction will continue. The people in our cities need the power to change their lives — and that kind of power, for most of the people most of the time in history, comes through transformational encounters with the power and the presence of God. That, historically, is also where we have to look for many of the individuals who are ready to dedicate themselves to the lives of difficult service that our inner cities demand.