Televangelist Report Card
A recent study reveals how religious broadcasters actually use their airtime
Stephen Winzenburg | posted 10/22/2001 12:00AM
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Some religious broadcasters came close to endorsing George W. Bush for the presidency. "I know I'll probably get in trouble saying it," Mother Angelica admitted, then told viewers to vote prolife. After one of the presidential debates, Robertson concluded, "Bush came through. He passed the test." And Falwell pointed out that though black urban pastors were allowed to endorse Al Gore from the pulpit, "What would happen if Jerry Falwell. … told the pastors to tell the people to vote for George Bush?"
Others used a more subtle approach. Just two weeks before Election Day, Robert Schuller let former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev praise former President George H. Bush from the Crystal Cathedral pulpit (just as Republican Jack Kemp and Persian Gulf War General Norman Schwarzkopf had made appearances at the Crystal Cathedral shortly before the other presidential elections in the 1990s). In October 2000, Hinn said he wrote two letters to the presidential candidate "who believes what I believe," telling the candidate that he would win the election. "Anybody with brains," Hinn added, "knows who I'm talking about."
Despite the half-dozen ministries that used their TV platforms to discuss the presidential election, most religious broadcasters devoted almost no airtime to politics and continued to use only a small amount for fundraising and promotion.
During the past 20 years of conducting these studies, I observed that the commercial portions of the broadcasts were at their lowest average in 2000 and the political aspects were close to the 1996 low. The long-term response by televangelists to the scandals of the 1980s has been an overall reduction in discussing politics and money, while the amount of airtime devoted to ministry has increased.
Though pleas for money and thinly veiled political agendas have become synonymous with televangelism, we should remember that many souls have been touched for the good by TV ministries. Rather than tune them out, we should pray that God uses them, keeps them honest theologically and fiscally, and inspires them with a fresh vision to stay relevant in a media-saturated culture that, like or not, is more inclined to sit in front of a television than a pulpit.
Stephen Winzenburg is associate professor of communication at Grand View College in Des Moines. He hosts a weekly talk show on WHO-AM (www.whoradio.com).
Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere:
The full results and analysis of the study are available on the Grand View College site.
Author Stephen Winzenburg was featured in a 1997 Christianity Today article on research of fundraising practices of television evangelists.
Winzenburg also wrote a 2000 article for Christianity Today: "Whatever Happened to Hospitality? | Even in churches, many believers feel safer ignoring those they don't know." (5/16/00)
Winzenburg hosts a Saturday radio show on WHO-AM.
Official Web sites for televangelists analyzed in the survey include:
Previous Christianity Today articles on televangelists:
Smut Magazine Publishers Convert | Pornography producers convert after watching televangelist James Robison. (April 26, 1999)
The Re-education of Jim Bakker | Back on the streets, this fallen televangelist is preaching good news to the poor and predicting an asteroid-studded Second Coming. (Dec. 7, 1998)
Still Wrestling with the Devil | A visit with Jimmy Swaggart ten years after his fall. (March 2, 1998)
Bakker Bios | Jim, Tammy Faye describe their downfall. (Nov. 11, 1996)
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