From Time’s “Is God Dead?” in 1966 to the New York Times’ Call to “Give Up God” Today

Townhall.com ^ | April 18, 2022 | Michael Brown

[Kaslin]

On April 8, 1966, the pictureless front cover of Time Magazine asked a bold and direction question: “Is God Dead?” This was just two days before Easter Sunday, and in the decades that followed, it became increasingly common for anti-God, anti-Jesus, anti-Bible essays to be featured in various secular publications at this time of year.

Now, in keeping with this anti-God attitude during this sacred season, an April 15 op-ed piece for the New York Times was headlined, “In This Time of War, I Propose We Give Up God.”

How deeply sensitive for the Times to post this anti-God essay on the day which is both Good Friday on the Christian calendar and the first day of Passover on the Jewish calendar! What a nice touch, editorial department! You have really outdone yourselves this year. (And a special shoutout to Liana Finck for her graphic, depicting God as an angry, Godzilla-like giant, marching through the city with terror on his mind.)

The author of this op-ed is Shalom Auslander, who was raised as an ultra-Orthodox Jew in Monsey, NY before losing his faith. But even as an 8-year-old boy, he was troubled by aspects of the Passover narrative in which God poured out his plagues on the Egyptians.

That’s because it was “not just Pharaoh and his soldiers” that were afflicted. Instead, “Egyptians young and old, innocent and guilty, suffered locusts and frogs, hail and darkness, beasts running wild and water becoming blood. Mothers nursing their babies, the rabbi explained, found their breast milk had turned to blood.” (For the record, the Bible says nothing about milk turning into blood, let alone breast milk. But this is what Auslander remembers hearing as a boy from his rabbis.)

[LouAvul]

1 John 2:18: Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.

America has been inundated with people who deny the Messiahship of Jesus Christ. And, as we (as a nation) have expelled Christ from schools, entertainment, govt, etc, chaos has ensued.

Only a fool could fail to see the correlation. That's what we've become, viz. a nation of fools.

[C210N]

The Slimes doesn't really want anybody to think God is dead, nor to give up God.

Slimes and their deep state ilk just want folks to switch to their androgynous god. After all, this is essentially the Great Reset.

[silent majority rising]

You are right about that. It is not that the NYT is godless, they have many gods.

[imardmd1]

Is this the time that the anti-God "Time" and "New York Times" are DEAD to Him?

[alloysteel]

Somebody is having a crisis of faith. The fact is, all prayers ARE answered, only sometimes the answer is “no” or not yet”. The times when prayers are answered in the positive, numerous though they may be, are simply discounted in the minds of those who do not believe with all their hearts and all their minds.

A leap of faith is just that, done blindly and with no expectations beyond a feeling of great exultation. This emotion may be far beyond the capabilities of many.

[metmom]

That’s because it was “not just Pharaoh and his soldiers” that were afflicted. Instead, “Egyptians young and old, innocent and guilty, suffered locusts and frogs, hail and darkness, beasts running wild and water becoming blood. Mothers nursing their babies, the rabbi explained, found their breast milk had turned to blood.” (For the record, the Bible says nothing about milk turning into blood, let alone breast milk. But this is what Auslander remembers hearing as a boy from his rabbis.)

And therein lies a major problem of religion.

Some teach things as fact that are not supported Scripturally and then people rightly reject the error, but in the process, reject God as well.

They throw the baby out with the bath water.

The reasoning is that they couldn’t serve a God like that, and my response is that if I thought God was really like that, too, I’d also reject Him.

People need to learn to seek out the truth instead of just blanket rejecting it all.

Of course, for those who are looking for excuses to reject God, anything will do.

[Sans-Culotte]

The author of this op-ed is Shalom Auslander, who was raised as an ultra-Orthodox Jew in Monsey, NY before losing his faith.

Mr. Auslander does not appear to be a deep thinker.

[airborne]

Socialism can have only one god.

Government.

[Salman]

Time magazine was reporting on a very real trend in "mainline" Protestant divinity schools. They may have been slanted, but they were genuinely informative about what was going on.

The current New York Times thing is a hate propaganda hit piece in God Himself.

[bigbob]

Q is dead.

[FlyingEagle]

It is glaringly obvious who is sending the Time message.

[FlyingEagle]

Instead of giving up God, I gave up the NY Times. Decades ago.

[Jan_Sobieski]

Psalm 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, [There is] no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

[The Great RJ]

We as a society have largely given up on God. We celebrate the murder of infants tolerating even “abortion” after birth. We have so radically rejected the concept of God creating male and female that we have embraced an alphabet of gender absurdities and lauding biological men athletically competing as women. We accept every immorality and denigrate anyone who dares to question these choices. As a result our society is in chaos and conflict. The evil on our world is not the result of those believing in God. Fortunately God has not given up on us and will bless those who return to Him.

[x]

They missed the companion cover that came out 20 years later.