by Ashley Baxstrom Exciting merger news in the world of the God Blog Squad! (If such a thing can be said to exist, and if, indeed, people get excited about news about it.)

Patheos – you all know Patheos – has announced its… acquisition of? partnership with? holy matrimony to?  GetReligion, another online publication which, under the direction of Terry Mattingly and the Rt. Rev. Douglas Leblanc, writes about writing about religion in the news. Or, as the Patheos Facebook announcement described it, “GetReligion, the most respected site on the web for analyzing the way religion is portrayed in the media.”

That hurts, Patheos.

Affronts to our pride aside, the move is official and they already have a couple new pieces up under the new domain. We’ll be interested to see where this new friendship leads. GetReligion says that it “really, really, really is not a ‘religion’ site and it also isn’t a ‘religion news’ site,” but is rather “a journalism site dedicated to looking at the good and the bad in mainstream news media attempts to produce balanced, accurate, informed news about the world of religion.” Patheos, on the other hand, describes itself as “the premier online destination to engage in the global dialogue about religion and spirituality and to explore and experience the world’s beliefs,” a place for “people looking for credible and balanced information about religion.” Both sites do a lot of interesting writing on a topic that – don’t we know! – often doesn’t get enough serious attention.

We’ll just anxiously await the development of the new blog site. And our own embossed membership card to the Respected Sites on the Web That Analyze the Way Religion is Portrayed in the Media Club.