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Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the next generation?

I'm very optimistic. We put on these two Amsterdam conferences, and the average age of those attending was about 40. I told them that they were the new leaders of Christianity. I hear of great things happening on Christian college campuses. At my alma mater, Wheaton, for example, I'm told that on Sunday nights hundreds of students come to a missionary and prayer group. In my Wheaton days we would be lucky to get 100 to a meeting like that. I'm even optimistic when I go to the universities; I always find fired-up Christian young people there.

What do you read to keep up on what you need to know about the world?

I take several daily newspapers: the New York Times, Washington Post, Charlotte Observer, Asheville Citizen, Wall Street Journal, London Times—daily as well as the Sunday Times. I also take the [London] Mail, which gives me more of the other side of British political thinking. Then I take the Telegraph and the London Observer, which is a weekly.

Of course, people here help me read them and check things they think I ought to read. But I get the whole paper, and most days I at least thumb through them all. Ruth reads everything, too. She's my number-one source of knowledge in some areas.

And then, of course, we get Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report. The only Christian magazine that I really read is Christianity Today; I also take the Christian Century.

Every night Ruth and I watch the evening news. We never go out to eat—we're not socializers. While we're watching the news we have a bowl of soup and a salad for dinner.

What message would you bring to the pastors of America?

Keep preaching.

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October (Web-only) 2008, Vol. 52