c. 2007 Religion News Service

Beliefnet acquired by Fox

(RNS) Beliefnet, one of the country’s leading Web sites devoted to religion and spirituality, is under new management as part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and the Fox Entertainment Group.

The deal, announced Tuesday (Dec. 4), gives Beliefnet a new sense of permanence after it emerged from bankruptcy protection five years ago. The site is now profitable and gets 3 million unique visitors each month.

Steve Waldman, who co-founded the site nearly eight years ago, said the deal would give Beliefnet access to News Corp.’s advertising, video and technology expertise and allow “content collaboration that runs in both directions.”

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed, although Waldman said he was approached by Fox. “There was no huge rush to sell the company,” said Waldman, who will serve as president and editor-in-chief of the revamped company.

The acquisition adds to News Corp.’s $64 billion media empire, including the 20th Century Fox film studios, the Wall Street Journal, MySpace, the Fox Faith film division and HarperOne and Zondervan, two of the biggest names in Christian publishing.

Waldman said the site will retain its distinctly interfaith character even as News Corp. expands its mostly Christian media portfolio.

“We’re confident that we will maintain our strong commitment to serving all faiths,” he said. “It’s part of what enabled us to create our reputation, and our reputation is part of what they’re buying.”

Comparing the site to “The Simpsons,” a sister Fox property, Waldman said, “To look at the range of American spirituality, you can look at Beliefnet, or you can look at Apu (a Hindu), Krusty the Clown (a Jew), Lisa Simpson’s Buddhism or Ned Flander’s Christianity to get a sense of American faiths.”

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Progressives call for ceasefire in `Christmas culture wars’

(RNS) Progressive Christian leaders issued an open letter to “Christmas culture warriors” such as Bill O’Reilly Tuesday (Dec. 4), asking them to direct their outrage toward deeper moral problems like poverty and war.

“It’s time for a ceasefire in the Christmas culture wars,” the religious leaders write in the letter, which was printed in Tuesday’s editions of the New York Post and The Washington Times.

The letter, sponsored by the Washington-based Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, is also scheduled to run in the Dec. 14 edition of National Catholic Reporter, an independent newsweekly.

O’Reilly and John Gibson of Fox News, as well as Bill Donohue of the New York-based Catholic League, are called on by name to “join us in a new campaign of civility and conscience that restores our focus on the common good during this holy season.”

All three men, the letter says, have targeted department stores, local governments and school systems for saying “Seasons Greetings” or “Happy Holidays” instead of Merry Christmas.

“To focus on how department stores greet customers at a time when American soldiers are dying in Iraq and 37 million of our neighbors live in poverty is a distraction from the profound moral challenges we face,” the letter says.

Donohue responded Tuesday (Dec. 4), saying “I need no lectures from those whose idea of helping the poor is opening a can of soup for them.” Donohue also said that “as a veteran, I have done more to promote the cause of peace than all the surrender types have every done. … They owe their very existence to people like me.”

Signatories to the open letter include Sister Yvette Arnold of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd; Brian McLaren, a leader of the “emerging church” movement; Alexia Kelley, executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good; and Thomas Melady, former U.S. ambassador to Burundi, Uganda and the Vatican.

_ Daniel Burke

Eds: Synder in item below is CQ

Homeless shelter residents victims of $100,000 theft

LOS ANGELES (RNS) The nation’s largest rescue mission was the target of a weekend arson/burglary, allegedly committed by a former resident whose theft included $100,000 in life savings stored in the mission’s safe by other homeless people.

A Sunday (Dec. 2) overnight arson caused $100,000 in water and fire damage to the 800-bed Union Rescue Mission in downtown Los Angeles. Another $100,000 was stolen from a safe that housed jewelry and money stored there by shelter residents before it was to be deposited in a bank by mission staff.

“I think he had it well-planned, he had the right tools,” said the Rev. Andy Bales, the shelter’s chief executive officer. “The guys that lost their money were pretty broken-hearted.”

Bales said about 31 mission residents had money stored in the safe, ranging from $50 to $50,000, plus one mentally ill resident who does not trust banks and asked that his $50,000 be kept permanently in the safe.

Los Angeles police arrested former Union Rescue Mission resident Alvin Synder, 44, on felony charges of arson and burglary, with his court arraignment set for Dec. 5. Police said they caught Synder about half a block from the mission with several pieces of the stolen jewelry in his pocket.

He allegedly busted open the back of the mission’s safe by doing what police call a “peel-and-pry job,” in which the fire-resistant safe’s metal covering is smashed through. Bales said Synder had left the mission on Nov. 30 “with a grudge.” The fire is thought to have been set to cover up the burglary.

Insurance will cover much of the lost money and three security companies have offered to give the mission new safes for free, Bales said. Two more donors, including a California state assemblyman, have offered to donate $10,000 to those who lost their life savings.

The crime would make the already twice-convicted Synder’s “third strike” in California’s mandatory “Three Strikes” penal law. If convicted, Synder could face 25 years to life in prison.

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

Career criminals are not unknown at Union Rescue Mission, Bales said. In the early 1900s, “we had a member of the Jesse James gang chased into the mission … by police.”

Once inside, the aging gang member told police where had hid some dynamite for a planned robbery. In return, the man was not arrested, Bales said, and instead he found work and a life at the rescue mission, “and he stayed 37 years.”

_ David Finnigan

Quote of the Day: British schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons

(RSN) “I have great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone, and I am sorry if I caused any distress.”

_ British schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons, who was pardoned Monday (Dec. 3) by Sudan’s president after being sentenced to two weeks in jail for allowing her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad.

KRE/LF END RNS