GODSTUFF A FAREWELL TO ARMS: R.I.P. REVEREND FALWELL When doctors pronounced the Rev. Jerry Laymon Falwell Sr. dead at 12:40 p.m. EST Tuesday, I was sitting in the departures lounge of the Key West airport in Florida with a dozen other journalists who had just attended a three-day conference on religion and politics. As word spread — a producer for National Public Radio got the first call — my colleagues scrambled to their cell phones, BlackBerrys and laptops in preparation... Read more

TODAY IN GOD:RELIGION NEWS BITES FOR YOUR SNACKING PLEASURE ____________________________________________________________________________________Blair to Join Catholic Church After He Leaves Downing StreetLONDON — Tony Blair will declare himself a Roman Catholic on leaving Downing Street, according to a priest close to him. Father Michael Seed, who is known for bringing high-profile politicians and aristocrats into the Catholic fold and who says Mass for the Blairs in Downing Street each week when they are in London, made the prediction to friends at a recent... Read more

“Hello, I’m a Christ-follower…. And I’m a Christian.” Brilliant spiritual commentary in this send-up of the Mac/PC commercial from the clever folks at Christ Community Church in Naperville, Illinois. Hollah! Read more

G8: Pony up the effing money already, dammit! “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”— Frederick Douglass FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES: With less than a month to go before the leaders of the Group of 8 nations gather at a Baltic Sea resort in Germany for their... Read more

GOD GIRL GETS ALL ‘BEHIND THE MUSIC’ IN USA TODAY (TODAY, WEDNESDAY MAY 16!) UPDATE: 9:40 a.m. Wednesday: OH. MAH. GAH. GG’s picture’s on the FRONT PAGE! The marvelous religion scribe Cathy Lynn Grossman has a profile of three religion journalists and their three books in Thursday’s USA Today. And, happily, our very own God Girl is the creamy filling in the middle between Bob Abernethy of the PBS show “Religion & Ethics Newsweekly” and Krista Tippett, host of NPR’s... Read more

BABY GOT BIBLE Stuck at the Ft. Lauderdale airport on my way home from Key West, where I attended a fantastic Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life conference (more on that later). A TV producer friend alerted me to the above. Thought I’d share. Oh. My. Gah. Look at her Bible. Read more

JERRY FALWELL: On to his eternal reward …(UPDATED, 4:10 P.M.) LYNCHBURG, Virginia — The Rev. Jerry Falwell has died, a Liberty University executive said Tuesday. He was 73. Earlier, the executive said Falwell was hospitalized in “gravely serious” condition after being found unconscious in his office. Ron Godwin, the executive vice president of Falwell’s Liberty University, said Falwell was found unresponsive around 10:45 a.m. and taken to Lynchburg General Hospital. Godwin said he was not sure what caused the collapse,... Read more

GREET THE MORNING WITH A BREATH OF FIRE Perhaps BBC reporter John Sweeney should switch to decaffeinated tea. Although we understand the frustration of someone taking our work (or words) out of context. And we hear the Scientologists can be, um, challenging to deal with if they don’t fully appreciate your journalistic take on their don’t-call-it-a-religion-it’s-an-applied-religious-philosophy. According to the World Today (Australian radio program) this is how it went down: ELEANOR HALL: To the bitter dispute between the Church of... Read more

TODAY IN GOD:RELIGION NEWS BITES FOR YOUR SNACKING PLEASURE ____________________________________________________________________________________The existential quest of Spider-Man Yeah, it’s about 20 minutes and a couple of plot twists too long. But the movie Spider-Man 3 continues one long tradition of the character: He’s still the Credible Existential-Man. Whatever is going on, the film knows that the core of the Spider-Man story is found in ambiguous moral choices forced upon fallible people – just like the real world. That’s what made the character special... Read more

SUNDAY MORNING CHALLENGE: “IN GOD DISTRUST” A review of professional contrarian Christopher Hitchens’ new book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything in the New York Times this morning is worth the read. Challenging, perhaps maddening to some of us, but a must read, IOHO. Here’s the link Read more