Eric Gorski of The Denver Post has written a finely balanced article about Promise Keepers founder Bill McCartney’s latest interest: building unity between Christians who grew up Jewish and those who did not. Gorski uses the phrase “Messianic Jews” repeatedly, and that concept, among others, is at the heart of conflicts between the organizations Jews for Jesus and Jews for Judaism.

United Methodists did an amazing thing during the weekend in choosing William H. Willimon of Duke University as their next bishop in northern Alabama. Willimon, one of the few theologians to devote a book to humor, was jocular and self-deprecating as journalists reported on his appointment.

As I’ve noted before in this space, The Life of David Gale once offered this dubious advice regarding cultural geography: “You know you are in the Bible belt when there are more churches than Starbucks.”

The Parliament of the World’s Religions, which concluded yesterday in Barcelona, marked one happy development on the God Beat: seeing the latest on-site journalism by Gustav Niebuhr, former religion correspondent for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, who now teaches at Syracuse University.

Scott Goldstein of the Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote a concise and energetic story on Monday about the 10th anniversary of a devastating fire at St. James’s Episcopal Church in Richmond (which I attend).

In my experience, the warmest gestures of inclusion usually come from people who spend little time talking about how inclusive they are. When a person flashes inclusivity like a badge, especially in comparison to those noninclusive extremists over there, it’s a safe bet an ideological mugging is imminent.