Beliefnet.com, the internet’s largest faith-based site which since 1999 has been a home to spiritual and religious content and dialog across all denominational and religious borders, has been purchased today by Murdoch.

Beliefnet was my introduction to social media faith sites. I hung out with folks on the Lutheran and Episcopalian boards mostly as LoveIsTruth. Rollicking dialogue was the norm, with many of us making friends offline. It is a powerful site for connecting. It is well-policed to disallow personal flaming, hate speech, deliberate disruption. It has been a spot for civil dialogue. It has, until now, had a homey feel. And it has developed into a lalarge and thriving community.

Per FishbowlNY “Beliefnet.com, which boasts over 3.1 million unique visitors a month, won the General Excellence Online Ellie in 2007 this past May, beating out Slate and ESPN.com.”

The street.com had this to say:

Beliefnet will become part of Fox Digital Media, which consists mostly of News Corp.'s popular social networking site, MySpace. The move looks like part of News Corp.'s efforts to expand its vast media reach onto the Internet, where Wall Street sees the best growth opportunities for media conglomerates.
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"Beliefnet has garnered respect for its commitment to quality, editorial strength and unbiased approach to faith and spirituality from a broad range of consumers, religious and political leaders, journalists and advertisers," said Fox Digital Media President Don Fawcett in a press release. "Fox's goal is to leverage these characteristics across a broader media canvas and provide programming, production, advertising sales, technology and marketing expertise that will enhance an already terrific product in a rapidly growing market."
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Faith and spirituality content is a growing business as consumers look for deeper meaning in their lives. News Corp. cited the Pew Internet Project as saying that over 82 million Americans and 64% of all Internet users look to the Web for faith-related matters.

Technewsworld.com says:

News Corp.'s latest purchase will give the company a platform from which it can launch and distribute content generated by its other subsidiaries with a faith-based focus, such as HarperCollin's Zondervan and HarperOne publishing houses. The media conglomerate also now has a knowledge base from which it can draw on very specific demographics…

"This is a great move for Fox, who can benefit from a pre-existing, self-identified demographic. Each of these niche communities within Beliefnet provides News Corp. with the opportunity to expand it's advertising platform, gain intelligence from its community and learn about trends," said Jeremiah Owyang, a Forrester Research analyst.

"It's an audience that selected advertisers are interested in tapping. A more cynical or skeptical view might see alignment between the political and ideological interests of News Corp. and Murdoch and a segment of the Beliefnet community -- conservative Christians," Sterling told the E-Commerce Times.

Beliefnet could also give News Corp. a bit more street cred with religious conservatives and act as a balance against its other secular sites.

It will be interesting to see if the editorial climate changes. This gigantic and roiling site has always had an inclusive feeling, a commitment to tolerance, an editorial policy that gave a voice to all aspects of spiritual and religious expression. Any group, any belief, any religious statement was up for discussion. People who came to hate or to disrupt were ejected. It was a great place to learn.

Now it is interesting to hear people on the site described as a ‘marketplace’, a commodity. I know that is naive thinking, but I had seen Beliefnet as a community. Will it thrive under new masters? Especially Murdoch masters?

Is Zondervan, a conservative organization, but a fellow-holding of Murdoch, now going to be pushed as the publishing voice of Christianity on B'net?

When I think of this in combination with the Pew figures above about the number of people turning online for spiritual community, I start seeing The Church Of Stepford, a carefully crafted demographic. Maybe that is a step or two too far – maybe not.

All I know is that there are some very strange bedfellows these days. It feels like my neighborhood church just got bought by the local supermarket. Somehow I wouldn't think they would do it to open a soup kitchen.

In Think Christian, Chris raises some interesting points about the buy-out:

Religion and money rarely mix well, history is rather clear on that account. So, to take the discussion outside of the Beliefnet and Fox realm: is it possible for unbiased religious commentary (of all kinds, not just Christian) to happen when the bills are being paid by someone else? I’m really wondering what you have to think, I haven’t made up my mind. In a way, we’re all part of the larger economic world so even those of us doing “ministry” are on the payola somewhere down the line.

Heidi, who writes a blog called When Religion Meets New Media mentions the furor recently over a cell phone company in Italy.

A cell phone company in Italy has sparked controversy within the Catholic Church by offering download-able images of saints as cell phone screen savers. Concerns seems to be that these holy images are somehow being trivialized in this new form, and that sporting an image of Pope John Paul II on one's mobile might lead to a distorted understanding of sacred images. Check out the Reuters story Saints on cellphones spark controversy in Italy.

Saranasseri, a college student, poses some questions as she begins a course in Religion and Media:

So I initially took the class thinking that religion and the media were two completely separate entities and that one had no influence or absolutely no connection to the other. Slowly but surely, as I began to think more about it and dive into the topic, I realized that the link between the two is certainly there. In the U.S., we have a society based upon the principles of freedom of speech and so forth and a definite separation between church and state. But, if we look closely, there is undoubtedly an influence of religion on not only how our lives are governed, but on the media and so forth. It's something we don't really expect from a democratic society such as America's. If we look at the Middle East, there is an obvious influence of religion and religious beliefs and ideologies on everyday life, including media coverage. Television networks such as Al Jazeera and other such examples portray the definite link between religion and the media and the tremendous influence that one plays on the other. In the United States, we tend to think that this does not exist. That freedoms and rights do not render a society influenced by any such ideologies, let alone religion. Interestingly enough... this is not true or at least I don't think so.