The first week of the God’s Politics Blog got us off to a great start. I’ve enjoyed this dialogue with Ralph Reed. We agree that people of faith should address the central moral issues in the public arena, while we disagree just what those issues are and how they should be addressed.

I’ve also enjoyed all of the comments it has produced. I haven’t had a chance to read all of them yet, but I have seen some very good dialogue. It’s that dialogue on a true “values politics” that this blog will continue. As I travel around the country, I find that the American people are weary of the left/right battle lines but are hungry for a “moral center” in politics, one that the media pundits cannot simply pigeonhole with the worn-out labels of liberal or conservative. We need a new dialogue that goes beyond those categories.

And as God’s Politics continues to discuss that moral center, we will be fiercely independent – a thorn in the side of both parties. It is still all too true that the Right gets it wrong, and the Left doesn’t get it. But there is a new progressive religious voice that is being heard, and a new dialogue is beginning.

This week on the God’s Politics Blog, I’ll be joined by my friends journalist Amy Sullivan, emergent church leader Brian McLaren, anti-death penalty advocate Sr. Helen Prejean, and religious scholar Diana Butler Bass. I also hope you’re enjoying our “Daily Digest” and “Verse and Voice” e-mail newsletters.

Let’s keep the conversation going. And tell your friends about it.