Former U.S. Senator John Danforth, a prolife minister who has spent much of his recent time trying to help St. Louis's inner city, is George W. Bush's top pick as running mate, Time magazine reports.

Higher powers are apparently sparing the multifaith site from the dotcom meltdown as venture capital continues to pour in. Inside.com reports that Beliefnet's next step is to launch Web Start, a kind of build-your-own-homepage for churches, synagogues, and other houses of worship. "Digital charity plate functions and auctions" will follow. A nice idea, but do you really want your church web site to have banner ads and e-commerce opportunities? And hasn't this been tried before?

Rupert Murdoch's Fox Family Channel, which the Australian mogul purchased from religious broadcaster Pat Robertson three years ago, "has blown $500 million on original shows that have mostly gone nowhere, and is spending tens of millions more to buy network reruns like Providence, Early Edition and 7th Heaven," reports the all-things-media site Inside.com. "A dozen executives have fled in the past few months … " Executives blame, at least in part, Murdoch's agreement to air Robertson's The 700 Club "pretty much until the final judgment."

As reported earlier in the ChristianityToday.com Weblog, atheists responded to a council ruling that Muslims can broadcast their call to prayer by seeking the right to broadcast from their rooftops, "God does not exist." Now the city's Pentecostals are getting in on the act. Their roofs will be broadcasting, "Jesus lives. He is ...