Fox Entertainment Group, a unit of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., Tuesday said it has agreed to acquire Beliefnet, which claims to be the largest “online faith and spirituality destination.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Eight-year-old Beliefnet, founded by former U.S. News & World Report editor Steve Waldman, has gone through a financial roller-coaster ride that included a bankruptcy filing in 2002. Investors include Softbank Capital and Blue Chip Venture Fund.

The deal puts Beliefnet under the sprawling umbrella of News Corp., owner of turn-up-the-volume social networker MySpace and Fox Entertainment, which spawned Homer Simpson, who worships at the altar of cheeseburgers.

 

Shares of News Corp. fell $0.39, or 1.8 percent, to $21.18 early Tuesday afternoon, but analyst Alan Gould of Natexis Bleichroeder said the Beliefnet acquisition had no effect.

“It’s not going to move the stock one way or the other,” he said.

Citing comScore/Media Metrix statistics from 2006, the Beliefnet Network claims more than 3.1 million unique monthly visitors to its sites and 13 minutes per average site visit. The site skews about three-to-one female versus male. On Tuesday, the lead item on the home page was a story about whether the new movie The Golden Compass has anti-Christian themes. Beliefnet also has launched a social network in which users identify themselves as Buddhist, Pagan, Seventh-Day Adventist, or another denomination.

In a statement, Fox said the acquisition will help News Corp. expand its religious video and book publishing businesses and offer additional outlets for Beliefnet’s content.

“Beliefnet has garnered respect for its commitment to quality, editorial strength, and unbiased approach to faith and spirituality from a broad range of consumers, religious and political leaders, journalists and advertisers,” Dan Fawcett, president of Fox Digital Media, said in a statement.

The deal was first reported on the blog FishbowlNY.