Religion stories are popping up everywhere this week. In Sacramento, there's Michael Newdow's revived lawsuit on the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, a cartoon Nativity scene making the rounds in Europe and tonight's Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza's Christianity-vs-atheism debate tonight at George Washington University. [I'm moderating the event at the Marvin Center, so brave the snow and come on down.]

Meanwhile, journalists are flying to College Station, Texas, for Mitt Romney's Big Religion Speech tomorrow. I'm not going but I loaned political reporter Joe Curl -- who is going -- a copy of my dog-eared Mormonism for Dummies by Jana Riess and Christopher Kimball Bigelow. I read it from cover to cover last year.
Feel free to tell this blog what question YOU would ask Mitt if given the chance.

My question: Assuming that Mr. Romney identifies himself as Christian, how would he define Jesus Christ? Mormon doctrine says, among other things, that Jesus was Lucifer's spirit brother. He is also the elder brother of all humans, all of whom are the offspring of a God, Who is married to a heavenly Mother. Does the candidate agree with these doctrines?

On a closing note: This blogger is very amused to hear all the huffing and puffing going on by media critic Howard Kurtz at the Other Paper about CBS News' Nov. 7 ad for an environment reporter. The listing asks for a "wicked smart, funny, irreverent and hip" reporter for whom "knowledge of the enviro beat is a big plus but not a requirement."

"I'm all for hiring smart and funny people," said Mr. Kurtz in a Dec. 3 column. "But wouldn't it be nice if an environmental reporter knew something about the environment? Or is my thinking on that hopelessly Old Media?"

Whoa, Howard. Your employer for years has been placing folks on the religion beat who have little or no background on the topic. Please see my 2005 Poynter.org column about this exact topic. Please comment.

— Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times