Keller didn’t exactly go to ground after authoring a controversial column, published in the New York Times, suggesting that Republican presidential candidates ought to be aggressively probed about their religious beliefs.

But neither did the Gray Lady’s outgoing executive editor go out of his way to address the “heated response” his column elicited from “conservative pundits” on talk radio and cable television, and essayists in the religious blogosphere.

That is, until yesterday, when Keller’s latest column, headlined, “Is the New York Times Biased Against Religion?,” appeared on the New York Times Magazine blog, the 6th Floor. Keller’s latest offering is not the polemic that his previous column was, but a transcript of a series of rather civil e-mails he exchanged this past week with a conservative Christian critic in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

Wilburn Smith III, a lawyer, began his online correspondence with Keller by taking him to task for opening his column by likening Republican candidates, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who subscribe to evangelical Christian beliefs, to not-to-be-taken-serious political candidates who believe that “space aliens dwell among us.”

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