The Episcopal House of Deputies, meeting during the Episcopal General Convention, was expected to approve the "Call to Common Mission" agreement with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and it did so overwhelmingly, supporting it in a 190 to 23 vote. When it takes effect next January, the two denominations will share resources, and churches will be able to call either a Lutheran minister or Episcopal priest as pastor. See also our earlier coverage of the agreement, as well as coverage by the Los Angeles Times, Episcopal News Service, and ELCA News.

"Few top-selling Christian celebrities truly write the books that bear their names," writes Larry Witham in an article previewing the Christian Booksellers Association, meeting this week in New Orleans. The Times isn't exactly breaking the story. Christianity Today condemned Christian publishing's widespread ghostwriting in a September 17, 1982 editorial (the Times acknowledges the 18-year-old editorial, but credits a 1993 World magazine exposé for bringing the issue "into full light"). But the Times story, though not terribly original, will likely be read by an audience that doesn't know just how widespread the practice is in the Christian book market. We'll see if it makes any ripples at CBA.

The often sex-obsessed Internet magazine (though it hates to be called an Internet magazine) also breaks no new ground with its look at the religious beliefs of presidential candidates George Bush and Al Gore. But it's still a fine article that fairly examines such heady theological issues as whether non-Christian Jews ...