Televangelism

Televangelism. Televangelism, the propagation of religion over the airwaves, extended Evangelicals' long role as pioneers in mass communications: George Whitefield's open‐air preaching in the eighteenth century, Charles G. Finney's use of newspapers in the nineteenth, and the radio programs of Aimee Semple McPherson and Charles E. Fuller early in the twentieth. When Billy Graham emerged at midcentury he turned first to radio and then to television to reach the masses. The Roman Catholic bishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979), though not an evangelical, won a vast television audience in the 1950s with his program Life Is Worth Living.

Changes in the television industry gave evangelists an even larger influence on the medium in the 1970s. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had mandated that all local stations allocate time to religious broadcasting, but network policy had forbidden affiliates from charging for such programming. With the increased independence of local stations, however, and with the blessings of the FCC, they began charging for religious broadcasts.

Seizing the opportunity, evangelists solicited donations that more than paid for the inexpensive airtime available in the Sunday morning “religious ghetto.” Religious programming now changed dramatically. Whereas the liturgies and messages of Roman Catholicism and mainline Protestantism had once dominated religious broadcasts, Evangelicals, drawing on a long tradition of mixing religion with entertainment, now translated the Gospel into show business. The “electronic church” took many forms: the Pentecostal and divine healing emphases of Kathryn Kuhlman, Oral Roberts, and Ernest Angley; the positive‐thinking, Jesus‐will‐make‐you‐rich‐and‐successful message of Rex Humbard, Robert Schuller, and Robert Tilton; the inimitable theatrics of Jimmy Swaggart; the conservative political cant of James Robison and Jerry Falwell; the talk‐show format of Pat Robertson and Jim Bakker.

Televangelism became immensely profitable, with many televangelists drawing in millions of dollars every year, far exceeding the budgets of entire denominations. Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) became a formidable organization, providing the foundation for his 1988 Republican party presidential campaign and his later conservative political lobby, the Christian Coalition.

By the mid‐1980s, however, scandal enveloped many televangelists. Bakker's flamboyant lifestyle and dreams of empire led to sexual and financial improprieties that eventually sent him to prison, Swaggart was caught in several dalliances with prostitutes, and Roberts declared that God would “take him home” unless God's people ponied up several million dollars to save his flagging empire. Early in the 1990s, Tilton faced an ABC News exposé that questioned his integrity.

The scandals severely reduced ratings and, consequently, revenues. Many of the larger televangelist organizations cut back their operations, but the proliferation of cable television opened doors for new televangelists and new networks as the century ended.
See also Fundamentalist Movement; Missionary Movement; Moral Majority; Pentecostalism; Revivalism.

Bibliography

Quentin J. Schultze , Televangelism and American Culture: The Business of Popular Religion, 1991.
J. Gordon Melton, Phillip Charles Lucas, and Jon R. Stone, eds., Prime‐Time Religion: An Encyclopedia of Religious Broadcasting, 1997.

Randall Balmer