The Christian Century

Last Tuesday night, I went down to Chicago's Grant Park to witness Barack Obama's election and victory speech. At the event, I was struck by the fact that the crowd was at its loudest and most excited not when Obama and his family took the stage but earlier, when CNN projected him as the winner.

Stanford historian David Kennedy likens our political era to the Gilded Age of the late 19^th century, when there was lots of political turbulence but very little political action.