The Open Door (December 15th) we discuss evangelizing young people. Statistics suggest that many of them will join the ranks of the “Nones” and profess no religious identification. Some commentators take the view that the “Nones” are prone to replace religion with politics. Our welcome and returning guest is Ed Rushman of Anaheim, California. He is a consultant who directs the enterprise IT efforts of leading companies, most recently securing them against ransomware attacks. Ed is a long-time religious educator who prepares young people for the Sacrament of Confirmation. And Confirmation is the sacrament of courage! So, it’s no surprise that Rushman is also an independent and indefatigable political reformer. He’s run for Congress twice. The smart money says he’ll do it again. Among the questions we’ll discuss are the following. Please feel free to suggest your own.

1. Could you begin, Ed, by telling us a bit about yourself?
2. How did you come to preparing young people for Confirmation?
3. Just what’s involved in your work? What did you do in your last few classes?
4. You like to tell your students stories. What are some of your favorites?
5. Do students sometimes miss the point of a story? If so, what do you do?
6. How is faith related to politics? Do your students see the connection between the two?
7. Could you tell us about your own political credo?
8. You live in a critical congressional district. What does that mean for an independent?
9. What do you make of the American Solidarity Party?
10. Why have you asked us to reflect on the last stanza of Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach? (Please see below.)
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.