Looking Back: TIME Asks, “Is God Dead?”

John T. Elson's most famous article for TIME magazine appeared over 40 years ago, and it largely defined his journalistic career. His April 8, 1966 cover story, "Is God Dead?," became an icon of the rebellious and increasingly secular sixties.

Elson, who died September 7 at age 78, was the son of a reporter, and he knew a big story when he saw one. He worked on the TIME cover story for more than a year, interviewing theologians and religious leaders. When published, the story became a symbol of the tumultuous decade of the sixties. For the first time, TIME published the magazine cover without a photograph or drawing. The question, "Is God Dead?," was all that mattered.

As William Grimes of The New York Times recounts,

The issue caused an uproar, equaled only by John Lennon's offhand remark, published in a magazine for teenagers a few months later, that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. The "Is God Dead?" issue gave TIME its biggest newsstand sales in more than 20 years and elicited 3,500 letters to the editor, the most in history to that point. It remains a signpost of the 1960s, testimony to the wrenching social changes transforming the United States. Read the rest HERE