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I saw this new thing called television,” Rex Humbard later recalled, “and I said, ‘That’s it.’ God has given us that thing … the most powerful force of communication, to take the gospel into … every state in the Union.” The year was 1952, and Humbard was the first evangelical preacher to launch a successful television ministry out of his church in Akron, Ohio.

Evangelical preachers had taken to radio with gusto in the 1920s and 1930s. The leap from radio to television, however, was huge, and the pioneer evangelists who used the medium in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s faced enormous challenges.

Most religious programming of the early 1950s (with the exception of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen’s uniquely successful teaching program) was sponsored by the National Council of Churches. The programs were produced on low budgets and presented on Sundays in free time given by the networks to satisfy a public service requirement. The NCC was careful to see that none of the free time fell into the hands of evangelicals. In the early 1950s, Billy Graham purchased time to air an interview program, but few ever watched it.

Oral Roberts did see the Graham programs and was more and more convinced that “the devil must not steal this great medium from God’s people.” In 1954 Roberts and his wife, Evelyn, filmed a series of 30-minute studio programs patterned on his radio program, and they flopped. Roberts was subdued but not vanquished. He remained convinced that “more souls can be reached through TV than through any other means.” What was needed, Roberts believed, was to capture on camera the charged atmosphere of the revival tent.

Two evangelical revivals were underway in the United States in the 1950s. The first was the evangelical revival led by Billy Graham. The second was a healing revival that drew hundreds of thousands into tents and auditoriums across the country seeking miracles. Its most talented leader was Oral Roberts.

In 1954 when Roberts took his big tent to Akron, Ohio, for a crusade, his old friend Rex Humbard persuaded him to film three of the evening meetings. The filming posed technical challenges because of the poor lighting under the tent, but Roberts was ecstatic about the results. The programs included not only his sermons but also the “altar calls, healing lines, actual miracles, the coming and going of the great crowds, the reaction of the congregations.” He believed he had found a way to introduce the nation to the remarkable healing revival.

Billy Graham took a similar step in 1957 when he decided to air his Saturday-evening services from the Madison Square Garden crusade in New York City. Graham contracted with ABC to air four programs, establishing a pattern of broadcasting crusade services he would follow throughout his career.

Graham’s stature was sufficient by 1957 to make him an attractive client to network television, but other evangelical broadcasters found the going much tougher. The television networks and most station owners were satisfied to donate Sunday morning time to the National Council of Churches, and many stations feared that selling time to revivalists would taint their image.

Oral Roberts painstakingly pieced together a television network in the mid-1950s; by 1957 he claimed that his program was being aired on 135 of the nation’s 500 television stations. But he met resistance at every turn. When his program first aired in New York City, New York Times columnist Jack Gould protested, “If Brother Roberts wishes to exploit hysteria and ignorance by putting up his hands and yelling ’Heal,’ that is his affair. But it hardly seems within the public interest, convenience and necessity, for the TV industry to go along with him.”

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