When a President can’t be taken at his word

IN APRIL 1966, THE STREETS OF AMERICA WERE crime-ridden, Southeast Asia was threatened by “godless communists,” and some radical theologians were weighing the heretical question that TIME asked on its cover: Is God dead? It was “a summons to reflect on the meaning of existence,” and while the story was as much about the state of the church as the health of the deity, it nonetheless inspired angry sermons, heartfelt letters and a lively debate at a time when