On the God Beat

When Editor Louis Seltzer fed Staffer Frank Stewart a fancy lunch one day in 1938 and then "promoted" him to church editor of the Cleveland Press, Stewart felt like a fattened turkey under the ax. To Stewart, who had been night editor, sports editor and state editor of the Scripps-Howard Press (circ. 282,000), the promotion seemed a polite way of telling him that he was through. Like most daily newsmen, he thought a church editor was farther away from the news than any real journalist should ever get. For several days Stewart groused about his lot. Then he got an idea from St. Matthew ("I was a stranger, and ye took me in") for a new kind of church column: he decided to visit a different church every Sunday as an unannounced stranger, and tell Press readers about the reception he got.

Stewart climbed into his car and drove aimlessly until he chanced upon the First Congregational Church on Franklin Boulevard. Its slogan beckoned like a beacon: "Only a Stranger Once." Stewart went in, sat through the service and wrote a folksy column for the Press about the church, its frock-coated, friendly pastor and its "mighty fine" mixed choir.

In his ten years "on the God beat" for the Press since that Sunday, Frank Stewart has been a welcome stranger at 550 of Cleveland's 800 churches, and his Monday column on the editorial page ("A Stranger Goes to Church") has become probably the liveliest and best-read newspaper church column in the U.S. This week, at its first meeting in Buffalo, the Religious Newswriters Association took official note of this; it elected 55-year-old Frank Stewart president.

A slight, mild man who likes bow ties and baseball, Professional Stranger Stewart sprinkles his columns liberally with names, reports on the collection plate, the size of the "house," and the number of times that the congregation stands, sits and kneels. (At the Unity Evangelical Lutheran Church, reported Stewart, "it would be difficult ... to try to snooze" because everybody is always bobbing up & down.)

The Stranger has kept his readers awake by such tricks as going to church on a transcontinental train, in a county jail, and by "interviewing" a dog who never misses a Sunday service at the Epworth Euclid Methodist Church.

At a 7 a.m. Roman Catholic Mass last Mother's Day, Stewart noticed one woman leaving abruptly. He followed the police ambulance that raced her to a maternity ward, and landed a story about mother and newborn baby on Page One.

A firm believer in interfaith understanding, Editor Stewart, a member of the United Presbyterian Church, has taught at a Methodist Sunday school, and every year goes on a three-day Roman Catholic retreat. During summers, he preaches what he practices by substituting in the pulpit for vacationing Protestant pastors. But Stewart's own pastor considers him a disappointing churchgoer. Since he started covering the God beat, Frank Stewart has been to his own church just twice.

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