Controversy Swirls over theories of creation, evolution, and genetics. Fighting has flared up in the Middle East and other trouble spots. World and national economies are going through radical transformation, leaving stock markets jittery. Interest in spiritual issues is growing rapidly, as new modes of worship, such as house churches and storefronts, view with more traditional approaches to worship. Race and slavery are anything but "old news." People are exploring new diets, alternative medical treatments, and spiritual healing methods. And communications media are changing the way of people get their news and see the world.
Sounds very 2004. But that scene-setter also describes the world in which the magazine you're holding—and what would become a multifaceted publishing enterprise—was launched 121 years ago.
Magazine journalism in 1883 was still a new enterprise. Newspapers reigned. But in the United States alone, the number of magazine titles rose from 700 in 1865 to 3,300 in 1885. John Tebbel and Mary Ellen Zimmerman, The Magazine in America 1741-1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 57 . Thousands more were started during those years, but most new periodicals lasted no more than four years. In 1885 there were 650 US religion-oriented publications in print; John Tebbel, The American Magazine, A Compact History (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1969), p. 131 . in 2003 there were 775. www.magazine.org/Editorial/Editorial_Trends_ and _Magazine_Handbook/1145.cfm. If you expand that search to include both religion and spirituality magazines, you'll find many more. In fact an Internet search for that topic generated over four million results.
