Atheist sells chance to save soul on eBay

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.