Jesus, What a Cover!

Time and Newsweek compete over their go-to religious cover boy.

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As reported by publishing trade mag Folio, magazines that feature Jesus on their covers see their issue sales jump by as much as 45 percent. (Putting the Bible front and center can boost sales as much as 51 percent.) In the past couple of years, magazines such as Wired and Popular Mechanics have tried to cash in on this miracle of marketing, but the most persistent devotees are Time and Newsweek, which have spent the last decade competing over who can squeeze Jesus on the front most often.

1996
Apr 8 Time cover

April 8
Time fires the opening salvo of the Jesus wars during Holy Week.

Apr 8 Newsweek cover

April 8
Newsweek shoots back with “Rethinking the Resurrection.”

1999
Mar 29 Newsweek cover

March 29
More than six months early, Newsweek celebrates “2000 Years of Jesus.”

Dec 6 Time cover

December 6
Time reminisces about “Jesus at 2000.”

2004
Dec 13 Newsweek cover

December 13
Newsweek looks into “The Birth of Jesus.”

Dec 13 Time cover

December 13
Time reveals “Secrets of the Nativity.”

2005
Mar 21 Time cover

March 21
Time goes for broke with “Hail, Mary.”

March 28 Newsweek cover

March 28
Newsweek intercepts with the backstory of “How Jesus Became Christ.”

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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