Forgive me as I do some shameless promotion of an excellent new blog.
The evangelical Christian publication Christianity Today has launched a new blog designed specially for covering the 2008 election season. The author, Sarah Pulliam, has been working for the publication through college in-between newsroom internships at The Columbus Dispatch and the Colorado Springs Gazette. She will be covering both the Republican and Democratic conventions this fall for the magazine and the blog.
Christianity Today in a way represents the complex evangelical political scene reporters are covering this fall. Founder Billy Graham started the publication because he wanted to "plant the evangelical flag in the middle-of-the-road, taking the conservative theological position but a definite liberal approach to social problems." Presumed Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has already been interviewed by the publication, but nothing yet from the presumed Republican nominee John McCain.
A recent online poll by the magazine shows that Obama may be winning the support of its readers:
Obama passed McCain (41%) by garnering 51 percent of the vote during our poll that closed yesterday. In June, McCain led Obama 50 to 33 percent. The two were tied in March at 26 percent.
An informal survey of the blog shows that Obama was the feature of eight posts, McCain two and four related to subjects relating to both or neither.
The blog also includes content from two others who write on religion and politics: Dan Gilgoff of Beliefnet's God-o-Meter and Mark Silk's Spiritual Politics.
If reporters needed more evidence that evangelicals are not a monolith, this blog would be a good place to go.
UPDATE: The editor of the CT blog is my younger sister.