Iowan Joel Belz, a trailblazer in Christian journalism, dies at 82

Joel Belz, who founded and ran a pioneering Christian news magazine called World died Feb. 4 at his home in Asheville, N.C. He was 82.

Belz was the son of Max and Jean Belz, who helped found Cono Christian School near Walker in northern Linn County. His brother, Andrew Belz, the former headmaster of the Cono school who now lives in North Carolina, said his brother died of complications of Parkinson’s disease.

“Joel never forgot his Iowa roots,” Andrew Belz said. “The early print shop at Cono and the school there were two big reasons he got into publishing. He loved printing, and he loved Christian education.”

Their father ran a small print shop at Cono as a side business to the school in the 1950s and ’60s that produced denominational literature for the Presbyterian church.

World magazine

The New York Times, in its news obituary on Belz, described World as a Christian magazine, modeled after Time magazine, that “covered politics, culture and other topics through a biblical lens while occasionally drawing wider notice for its reporting on prominent religious figures behaving less than holy.”

The weekly magazine, which Belz launched in 1986, had more than 100,000 subscribers in 1999. Today, the World News Group, which includes the magazine, website, podcasts and children’s publications and videos, has an audience of about 500,000 people, according to the Times.

World set out to cover topics from a “God’s-eye” view that was “biblically objective.” In contrast to traditional objective journalism, which seeks multiple viewpoints, World’s “biblical objectivity” began and ended with what the Bible says, the Times reported.

“Readers should always see World more as a cause than a business,” Belz wrote in a 1997 column. “Cultures, societies and nations get sick and die when they ignore their Maker.”

World also reported on shortcomings within the evangelical church, including the downfall of celebrity pastors. Andrew Belz said that his brother felt Christian journalists should be the first ones to report on religious scandal.

“Joel believed journalistic truth-telling was a form of healthy self-governance for the church,” Andrew Belz said.

Terry Mattingly, a former religion columnist for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, said World was the “Rolling Stone for cultural conservative evangelicals,” according to the Times report.

Cono, UI grad

Belz was born on Aug. 10, 1941, in Marshalltown. His father was a grain elevator operator before becoming a Presbyterian pastor and helping start Cono, an international Christian boarding school, in 1951.

His mother was a teacher at the school, which grew to encompass almost 200 acres. The school still operates as a day school and now is also a camp and conference center.

After graduating from Cono, Belz enrolled at Covenant College in St. Louis, graduating in 1962 with a degree in English literature. He taught at the college and helped move it to Lookout Mountain, Ga., and also helped start a Christian school in Chattanooga, Tenn.

He later earned a master’s degree in mass communications at the University of Iowa.

Belz became managing editor of The Presbyterian Journal in 1977, a struggling publication in Asheville founded in 1942 by the Rev. Billy Graham’s father-in-law.

As the Journal waned, Belz proposed that the organization start a children’s magazine in 1981, and It’s God’s World was a hit, the Times reported. When readers suggested an adult version, Belz started World magazine.

“We had a sense that this was a void,” he told The Gazette in a 1989 interview. “The church publishing scene was very full, and no one was doing this (news coverage) for either children or adults.”

He was the magazine’s editor until the early 1990s when he stepped aside but continued to write a column for the magazine.

“For so many people, church and religion are Sunday morning only, and from 11 a.m. to noon only, and then you forget about it for the rest of the week,” Belz said in The Gazette interview. “There is no engagement of those principles with what happens the rest of the week.”

Belz was a mentor to countless Christian journalists, according to the Times, and helped start the World Journalism Institute to train college students to write “biblically objective” articles. Even as he was ailing, Belz welcomed journalists to his home for advice and prayer.

His brother, Andrew, recalls a large group of World staff members stopping by to visit last year. “I hope you all break a big story,” Andrew said his brother told them. “I hope it’s as big as Watergate.”

Belz is survived by his wife, Carol, and five children.