{"id":166,"date":"2009-09-18T20:34:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-18T20:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/religion-editor-who-asked-is-god-dead-dies.html"},"modified":"2009-09-18T20:34:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-18T20:34:00","slug":"religion-editor-who-asked-is-god-dead-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/religion-editor-who-asked-is-god-dead-dies.html","title":{"rendered":"Religion editor who asked “Is God Dead?” dies"},"content":{"rendered":"

His question about God’s death startled and shocked the world, and set off a firestorm of controversy. But when John T. Elson died, few people noticed. <\/p>\n

The New York Times didn’t run this remembrance until 10 days after his passing. But I think it may be worth noting — as one person says — that Elson was “catholic with a capital C and a small c.” <\/p>\n

His story<\/a>: <\/p>\n

All journalists want to write a story that makes a big splash. John T. Elson, the religion editor at Time magazine, was no exception. But in 1966 he got more than he bargained for.<\/p>\n

For more than a year, Mr. Elson had labored over an article examining radical new approaches to thinking about God that were gaining currency in seminaries and universities and spilling over to the public at large.<\/p>\n

<\/a>When finally completed, it became the cover story for the issue of April 8, as Easter and Passover approached. The cover itself was eye-catching, the first one in Time\u2019s 43-year history to appear without a photograph or an illustration. Giant blood-red letters against a black background spelled out the question \u201cIs God Dead?\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue caused an uproar, equaled only by John Lennon\u2019s offhand remark, published in a magazine for teenagers a few months later, that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. The \u201cIs God Dead?\u201d issue gave Time its biggest newsstand sales in more than 20 years and elicited 3,500 letters to the editor, the most in its history to that point. It remains a signpost of the 1960s, testimony to the wrenching social changes transforming the United States.<\/p>\n

The quiet, studious Mr. Elson, who died on Sept. 7 at the age of 78, was an unlikely bomb-thrower, and his article, for those who ventured past the cover, reflected his scholarly bent. Meekly titled on the inside as \u201cToward a Hidden God,\u201d it began: \u201cIs God dead? It is a question that tantalizes both believers, who perhaps secretly fear that he is, and atheists, who possibly suspect that the answer is no.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the next six pages, readers were guided through thickets of theological controversy and a shifting religious landscape. Profound changes taking place in the relationship of believers to their faith were often expressed through the words of people, both eminent and ordinary, grappling with the same fundamental problems. Simone de Beauvoir, Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss, Billy Graham and William Sloane Coffin were quoted. So were a Tel Aviv streetwalker, a Dutch charwoman and a Hollywood screenwriter.<\/p>\n

More than 30 Time foreign correspondents were also involved in the project, conducting some 300 interviews to measure contemporary thinking about God around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecularization, science, urbanization \u2014 all have made it comparatively easy for the modern man to ask where God is and hard for the man of faith to give a convincing answer, even to himself,\u201d Mr. Elson wrote.<\/p>\n

John Truscott Elson was born on April 29, 1931, in Vancouver, British Columbia. His father, Robert T. Elson, was a newspaper reporter in Canada who later became a high-ranking editor at Time and Life and helped write two volumes of the three-volume \u201cTime, Inc.,\u201d the company\u2019s official history. He died in 1987.<\/p>\n

John Elson was educated at St. Anselm\u2019s Priory School in Washington. He received a bachelor\u2019s degree from Notre Dame in 1953 and a master\u2019s degree in English from Columbia in 1954.<\/p>\n

That year, he married Rosemary Knorr. She said her husband died at home in Manhattan after being in poor health for the last two years. Mr. Elson is also survived by two children, Hilary Elson Alter of Lake Zurich, Ill., and Amanda Elson of Wyomissing, Pa.; two sisters, Elizabeth Elson of Manhattan and Brigid Elson of Toronto; a brother, R. Anthony Elson of Chevy Chase, Md.; and a grandchild.<\/p>\n

After serving with the Air Force in Japan, Mr. Elson worked for the Canadian Press news agency before being recruited by Time and assigned to its Detroit bureau. As an editor, he started out on the lowest rung, in the milestones and miscellany departments, and rose to assistant managing editor. Along the way, he edited every section in the magazine except business. He retired in 1987 but continued to write for the magazine until 1993.<\/p>\n

It was as religion editor that Mr. Elson made his most lasting mark. He wrote numerous cover stories on religious issues \u2014 \u201cIs God Dead?\u201d was the 10th \u2014 and committed the magazine to serious coverage of ideas and arguments normally encountered in more specialized journals.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was catholic with a capital C and a small c in his interests, deeply and widely read,\u201d Jim Kelly, former managing editor of Time, said in an interview last week. \u201cHis ability to absorb an enormous amount of information and turn it into a readable story was remarkable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unquestionably, Mr. Elson touched a nerve. Clergymen took up the challenge thrown down by the \u201cIs God Dead?\u201d cover line in Sunday sermons. Church publications and newspaper editorials chimed in. The line, which many read hastily as \u201cGod is dead,\u201d provoked an outcry.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour ugly cover is a blasphemous outrage and, appearing as it does, during Passover and Easter week, an affront to every believing Jew and Christian,\u201d one reader wrote. Others wrote in to explain their faith in fervent terms. Atheists gloated or scoffed.<\/p>\n

Some managed to express their feelings in a single word. Norine McGuire of Chicago, responding to Time\u2019s bombshell of a question, wrote: \u201cSir: No.\u201d Immediately below her letter, Time ran a letter from Richard L. Storatz of Notre Dame, Ind.: \u201cSir: Yes.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

His question about God’s death startled and shocked the world, and set off a firestorm of controversy. But when John T. Elson died, few people noticed. The New York Times didn’t run this remembrance until 10 days after his passing. 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