Kenneth L. Woodward had a remarkably long run as Newsweek’s religion writer (1964–2002) overlapping most of the newsmagazine’s heyday under Washington Post ownership. He’s out with a memoir whose title befits this blog: “Getting Religion: Faith, Culture, and Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama” (Convergent, $30).

The book will interest journalists first as a readable rundown of important religion events starting with the Second Vatican Council’s final phase. Also, Woodward muses about American culture’s radical change from his Ike-era boyhood centered on family, plus neighborhood, plus church, plus school.

This Memo treats a third aspect, nostalgia about Newsweek’s once-thriving Godbeat, a high-pressure gig with millions of readers and all those deadlines -- countless 3 a.m. closings.

Disclosure:  As Time’s religion writer for two decades, and a correspondent beforehand and afterward, I waged competition against Ken and the weekly we spoke of as “Brand X.”   
Newspaper types were mystified by New York-based writers drawing reportage from field correspondents, but it was a flexible, content-rich system. Woodward says in 38 years “the only really Newsweek-worthy Protestant convention I covered” in person was one Presbyterian assembly.

Depicting the decline of Newsweek to its present reduced status, Woodward says “you couldn’t really hear the death rattle until management began to close its news bureaus around the world.”  Readers also benefited from excellent editorial libraries and reporter-researchers like Time religion’s talented Michael Harris of blessed memory, a Cornell Ph.D fluent in Arabic, Greek and Latin.

Newsweek Editor Osborn Elliott, who formerly worked at Time, knew he was getting scooped on the big Vatican Council story. Applicant Woodward had given little thought to the Council, never read Newsweek, and had experience only at an Omaha weekly, but Elliott hired him thanks to a Catholic background, Notre Dame degree, and good clippings.