Utne Reader

I’ve never actually written for the Utne Reader, but my work has appeared in the magazine. And even before that happened, I felt connected to Utne, probably because I had a connection to a couple of Utnes.

Eric Utne, who founded the magazine named after him, is the ex-husband of Peggy Taylor, my beloved former boss at New Age Journal. I met Eric a couple of times, once spending a south Florida day together swimming with dolphins. (Hey, I was with New Age, remember?)

I also have spent time with Peggy and Eric’s son, Leif, who for a while worked at Utne. (It must have been a bit weird for him and his dad in that office, as it would for me if I were to work for a publication called Wagenheim — which I could only hope would be a mix between Crawdaddy and Mad.)

All of that was surely coincidental to Utne Reader reprinting a piece I wrote in 1995 for New Age — at Peggy’s behest, and despite my own skepticism/cynicism. The story was about spending a weekend in a Texas football stadium filled with members of the Promise Keepers, the evangelical Christian men’s group created by then-University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney.

It was a complex, fascinating encounter, and a year after the story’s original publication, Utne printed this abridged version:

Among the Promise Keepers: An inside look at the evangelical men’s movement.