Another new NIV?

But the Walter Cronkite of Bibles is dead | Marvin Olasky

Illustration by Krieg Barrie

When CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite turned against the Vietnam War in 1968, President Lyndon Johnson famously told an aide, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost America." Cronkite, repeatedly cited in opinion polls as "the most trusted man in America," was truly that important. He ended his broadcasts with "and that's the way it is"—and few Americans doubted that. Now, though, we learn what's happening from FOX, CNN, talk radio, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, whatever. We don't believe any journalist knows "the way it is."

When WORLD in 1997 broke the news that Zondervan was about to make the New International Version gender-neutral by often getting rid of "man," "he," "brothers," and so on, the evangelical world flamed like a California brush-covered hill. The NIV was then the most trusted Bible in America, with slightly over a 50 percent market share. Many evangelicals felt betrayed when a small committee secretly made changes that appealed to feminists. WORLD called the new translation the Stealth Bible, and that designation stuck.