DePaul University graduate student Hemant Mehta–an atheist and chairman of the Secular Student Alliance–sold, on eBay, the chance to save his soul. His offer was that for each $10 of the final bid, he would attend one hour of church services, and document the results on his blog. The winning bidder (at $504, which was donated to the Secular Student Alliance) was Jim Henderson, a former evangelical minister from Seattle, who instead hired Mehta to attend 10-15 services of Henderson’s choosing and then write about them for his organization, Off-the-Map, where Mehta has been given a guest blog.

This has proven to be quite a bargain for Henderson–that $504 has not only gotten him a lot more than that in publicity, but it seems to me he’s gotten an excellent price on Mehta’s labor and the rights to the resulting works. I hope that SSA and Mehta also gain from the publicity.