Discord and Rising Decibels over Broadcasting Religious Music

Are Christian-oriented radio stations being forced to help support godless aspects of the secular music industry? And are the laws that govern the use of copyrighted music unfair to religious broadcasters?

Yes on both counts, insist some Christian broadcasters.

No, reply spokesmen for the organizations that handle the licenses broadcasters must purchase in order to air most music legally.

Among those represented by the licensing organizations, which function primarily as royalty collectors and distributors, are a number of well-known Christian composers and publishers.

The disagreement has mushroomed into a series of lawsuits. First, in February 1977, a group of religious broadcasters brought a class-action suit against ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers). That suit is known as the Alton Rainbow case, named for one of the four corporate plaintiffs. Their class-action suit automatically includes hundreds of other religious-format stations whose executives may or may not be sympathetic to the suit. In turn, ASCAP filed infringement suits against more than 50 of the class-action radio stations for illegal use of ASCAP music. As required by law, the suits were filed in the names of the copyright owners, some of the biggest names in Christian music—Bill Gaither Music, Word, Manna, Lexicon, Hope, Maranatha, John T. Benson, and others. Members of ASCAP are bound by membership conditions to allow ASCAP to become involved legally on their behalf in licensing issues. About 20 of the religious-format stations settled out of court with ASCAP, but a dozen or so have filed countersuits against the Christian copyright owners represented by ASCAP.

As a consequence, an undetermined number of stations have banned the use of ASCAP music; silenced on their frequencies are the familar (and popular) sounds of the Gaithers, Evie Tornquist, Andrae Crouch, Ralph Carmichael, and many others. Some of the stations have also declined to use music of the other two major licensing organizations, BMI (Broadcast Music, Incorporated) and SESAC (Society of European Stage Authors and Composers). The three organizations account for the vast majority of music not in the public domain, a free-use category of music whose copyrights have expired.

A variety of issues are at stake. They range from questions of seemingly monopolistic practices to government-sanctioned definitions of church boundaries. And religious broadcasters aren’t the only ones in the thick of the battle. American Legion members are hopping mad because under the rules they must purchase a music license in order to sing “God Bless America” in Legion halls. Schools are required to buy licenses for copyrighted music performed at school shows or in half-time rites during football games.

Much of the controversy centers on the use of the so-called blanket license. Under this provision, ASCAP and the other organizations issue a license that provides unlimited “access” to all of the music listed in their respective catalogues for a single annual fee. In the case of commercial radio and television stations the fee is based on a percentage formula; ASCAP’s amounts to about 1.5 percent of a station’s gross income, with a shade less charged by BMI and SESAC. Fees for noncommercial (nonprofit) stations are set by a federal copyright tribunal and based on other factors.

Critics charge that a blanket license in effect makes them subsidize a lot of music they don’t broadcast. They also complain the formula is unfair in that it doesn’t differentiate between stations that broadcast a lot of music and stations that broadcast relatively little. Officials of the licensing organizations reply that the blanket license system is the simplest and most sensible way to administer the complicated copyright aspects of broadcasting. It is in effect throughout most of the world, they point out, even in the Communistic countries. Too much paperwork and monitoring would be required in setting up limited use arrangements, they maintain.

(ASCAP does offer a per performance license, but broadcasters charge that the formulas involved are too much of a headache to consider.)

The Alton Rainbow suit challenges the use of blanket licenses. Other suits, filed by major secular television interests, are also pending against ASCAP.

The four plaintiffs in Alton Rainbow are; Alton Rainbow Corporation, WTLN, Atopka, Florida, headed by Tom Harvey of Philadelphia; Pilgrim Broadcasting, WROL, Boston, headed by Kenneth Carter; John Brown Schools of California, KGER, Long Beach, headed by Clint Fowler; and Largo Broadcasting, WSST, Largo, Florida, headed by Norman Bie, Jr. The four have formed the American Association of Religious Broadcasters, with Harvey as president, to press the suit. Discovery cutoff is set for the end of this month; the case will then be scheduled for trial in federal district court in New York.

Bie, who is an attorney as well as a broadcaster, is the chief counsel in the Alton Rainbow case. He cites other issues in copyright law that disturb him. Under the major revision law in 1976, exemptions from music licensing were no longer granted for nonprofit use except for music performed in a service within a church or in a classroom for educational purposes.

Bie and other AARB members warn that church groups are violating the law if they sing ASCAP music outside the four walls of their church—at the youth retreat or Sunday school picnic, for example, without purchasing a license. “We are not about to license Sunday school picnics and youth outings,” scoffed ASCAP attorney Richard Reimer in an interview, but he and religious publishing representatives who expressed similar sentiments seemed reluctant to discuss the letter of the law. “It could happen,” asserted Bie.

Another issue perplexes Bie. Music performed in a church service is exempt from licensing, he points out, but not if the service is broadcast. In such a case, the radio or television station is liable for any infringements. Prerecorded programs supplied by radio preachers are likewise subject to licensing, according to Bie, “even if they use only three bars of ASCAP music as a theme for their programs.” The broadcasts ought to be classified as church services, too, he believes.

Pending the outcome of their suits, the AARB members are pursuing alternatives. They are making direct arrangements with individual copyright owners (evangelist Jimmy Swaggert and the Happy Goodman Family) for the use of music at nominal or no fees, and they are using the airwaves to promote new groups in exchange for the use of their music. They have also asked program producers to screen out ASCAP music before sending tapes. And they are asking for funds from other broadcasters to fight ASCAP.

The AARB insist they are willing to pay “a reasonable license fee” for the music they actually use. ASCAP’s rules, unlike BMI’s, permit members to negotiate directly with broadcasters; the ASCAP proceeds of those who do so are reduced accordingly. AARB secretary David Denig has written to Bill Gaither and others requesting price quotes for both single and multiple use of certain music. In one letter to Gaither, Denig strongly suggested that a fee of “0 to $5 per year per selection” would be appropriate, adding, “you may want to consider offering some or all of the works with no royalty involved.” Gaither’s agent, Robert R. MacKenzie of Paragon Associates in Nashville, in effect replied: “Make us an offer.” No offer was forthcoming. The AARB members complained publicly that Gaither turned them down, a contention MacKenzie rejects.

Most observers agree with editor John Styll of Contemporary Christian Music magazine: “Airplay creates sale [of records]—the religion market is no different from the secular market in that respect.” For this reason, declares AARB’s Harvey, the composers and record companies ought to pay stations for airing their music “the same as any other advertisers”—a practice that would probably be condemned as payola by authorities. Declared Harvey to an audience at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in January: “We are the market necessities for these writers.” If stations had not broadcast Gaither’s music, he asserted, “Bill Gaither would be back in that little church he talks about in Indiana; nobody would know him, and he wouldn’t make the millions of dollars that he’s making right now.”

Gaither, in an interview, expressed regret at the bitterness and divisiveness surrounding ASCAP’s legal turmoil, but he defended the ASCAP system as fair. “My concerts are a break-even proposition; I couldn’t do them if it were not for the royalties from ASCAP,” he said. It is difficult, he acknowledged, for people to understand that mental creations like songs are property under the law. The difference for Christians, he said, is that “we are creating something that can make a difference in people’s lives.” As for payment for use of “the property,” Christians have to make a living just like anyone else, he indicated.

Politics 1980

The New Lobbies Solicit Endorsements from Pulpit

Liberal politicians won’t have a prayer in the fall elections if two conservative religious lobbies have their way. Christian Voice, a year-old group claiming 126,000 registered members, and Moral Majority, television preacher Jerry Falwell’s political arm, got their political wheels and campaign dollars rolling last month.

Christian Voice endorsed former California Governor Ronald Reagan, and through its political action committee, the Moral Government Fund, started a “Christians for Reagan” campaign. Voice geared up first for the New Hampshire primary; it sent letters endorsing Reagan to every minister in the state, and bought ads in local newspapers, said Voice legislative director Gary Jarmin.

Jarmin said his group likes Reagan’s “sincere devotion to Jesus Christ,” and that the Republican’s views represent those of a majority of Christians in the United States.

Moral Majority is preparing a “hit list” of liberal candidates it will oppose, as well as a “support list.” Executive director Bob Billings, known for mobilizing the successful church opposition to the Internal Revenue Service proposals for making it tougher for private schools to pass nondiscrimination tests and retain their tax exemptions, told the Dallas Morning News his organization is looking for candidates to back who are “pro-life, pro-American—free enterprise, et cetera—pro-Bible morality and pro-family.”

Those seeking support from Moral Majority must be viable candidates, have a state organization, be in opposition to a “bad incumbent,” have their own fund-raising capabilities, and attend campaign school, said Billings. The $500, five-day training school will be directed by Paul Weyrich (an Eastern rite Catholic) of the Committee for Survival of a Free Congress. Candidates will learn how to organize a precinct, raise funds, and even select a campaign manager, said Billings.

Moral Majority, which claims a $1 million budget, is giving $5,000 each for primary and general elections to its chosen candidates, Billings said. (As nonprofit, nonexempt corporations, Christian Voice and Moral Majority by law cannot give more than $5,000 to a candidate’s campaign for any single election. Christian Voice got around that by filing with the Federal Election Committee to establish its Moral Government Fund. Through such a political action committee, unlimited expenditures are allowed to an independent campaign on behalf of a candidate, Jarmin said.)

Voice legislative director Jarmin acknowledged that many pastors would feel uncomfortable endorsing from the pulpit Reagan or any other candidate. Of the 37,000 pastors to whom Voice will send mailings, Jarmin hopes at least 10 percent will make pulpit endorsements.

Jarmin said in an interview: “If we accomplish nothing else except to influence Christians to become more active politically, then in the long run, we will have accomplished a great deal, no matter whom they vote for.”

The ASCAP music pool is “a cesspool,” alleged the fiery Harvey, avowedly a fundamentalist, at the NRB meeting, and he criticized Gaither and others for associating with ASCAP. Afterward, Manna Music head Hal Spencer, president of the 26-member Church Music Publishers Association, fired off a letter of protest to NRB executive Ben Armstrong. Spencer charged that the AARB speakers had given untrue information in their two seminars and had ridiculed and insulted Christian personalities with “potentially libelous statements.”

Why are Christian composers and publishers reluctant to enter into direct relationships with the religious stations on a per performance basis? Spencer indicated the bottom line is lack of trust. Voluntary logs have been tried in the past but without success (because of widespread cheating), he said, and the cost of administration, monitoring, and enforcement would be prohibitive, resulting in license fees higher than those charged by ASCAP. “That so many Christian stations have been caught using music illegally,” said another publisher who asked to remain anonymous, “is a clue as to why we cannot rely solely on the ethical integrity of broadcasters to provide us with the straight facts.”

Although most of the composers and publishers interviewed seemed satisfied with ASCAP, which is a 66-year-old nonprofit body, some expressed doubts that they were getting their fair share of the revenues. Officials of ASCAP readily acknowledged that the surveys on which they base their data are not precise; exact figures would require a full-time monitor for every station in America, they say. Field people equipped with tape recorders monitor “scientific samples” among stations in a broadcast market, then send the recordings to ASCAP’s New York headquarters where about 100 of ASCAP’s some 600 employees in two shifts seek to identify ASCAP music. The information is fed into computers, adjustments and projections are calculated, and statement printouts along with royalty checks are sent to the copyright owners. Religious and classical music is given additional weight in the distribution formula because it is performed less frequently than secular music, said ASCAP’s Reimer. The formulas are on file in federal court, and anyone who is unhappy with them can seek redress there, he adds.

Last year ASCAP collected an estimated $120 million from license fees, according to officials. Between 15 and 20 percent was kept for administrative overhead. Religious composers and publishers received about $2 million from license fees, and some 800 religious-format stations paid an estimated $1.5 million in fees, according to the officials.

As for the legal trouble, Reimer says: “This is not a fight we instigated.”

EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

Profile

Evangelist James Robison: Making Waves—and a Name

Texas evangelist James Robison has had a successful crusade ministry for nearly two decades—second only to Billy Graham’s in terms of attendance, he says. The tall, dark-haired Robison has a bombastic preaching style that provokes comparisons to an Old Testament Isaiah with a southern drawl. He claims to have preached face to face to 10 million people, with 500,000 persons making public Christian commitments through his ministry.

But lately, Robison has attracted others besides Bible-believing Baptists. Republican presidential hopefuls John B. Connally and Philip Crane attended Robison’s recent annual Bible conference, seeking endorsements more than evangelism. They received none.

Robison’s clout has grown along with the new, conservative religious lobbies. In these lobbyist groups are many of the same TV preachers and powerful laymen—Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker, and Pat Robertson, to name a few—and Robison himself is becoming a leader in the New Right power elite. Time magazine recently called him “Fort Worth’s fastrising Baptist evangelist.” Because of his relative youth, age 36, and a broader support base than some other conservative leaders—having both a 90-station television outreach and a Southern Baptist constituency—Robison may be the conservative leader of the future.

Robison has gained support from some moderates and others not popularly recognized as hard-line conservatives. Dallas Cowboy’s coach Tom Landry was honorary national chairman of a Robison television campaign last summer. Executive director Jim McKinney of the James Robison Evangelistic Association previously had directed Campus Crusade’s billion dollar fund-raising campaign for world evangelism. Tyndale House has published Robison’s books on the Christian family, and the evangelist doesn’t hesitate to mention that producer Ted Dienert of the Walter Bennett Agency, with which his oganization works closely, is Billy Graham’s son-in-law.

For many, Robison simply is too abrasive. In recent speeches he has blasted fellow Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter. (He says the President lacks commitment and “doesn’t really understand what it is to have convictions.”) At last summer’s annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention his withering speech against alleged liberalism in Southern Baptist seminaries chiseled the initial rift between Baptist conservatives and liberals.

Robison attributes his recent political involvement to an experience last summer: his much-publicized legal wranglings with Dallas television station WFAA-TV, which canceled Robison’s program after the evangelist’s televised attacks against homosexuality. The station management explained that Robison’s programs were a “continuing problem” because of his statements about other religious organizations and groups, which required the station to give those groups equal time to respond under the Fairness Doctrine. After his antihomosexuality sermon, the station allowed air time for response to the Dallas Gay Political Caucus.

Robison said the Fairness Doctrine, which led to the station’s action, violated his personal freedom: “The bureaucracy and the government restrictions began to choke me and silence me from preaching the whole counsel of God.” He believed the case represented a larger threat against free expression and traditional moral values in America.

Robison’s program since has been reinstated but he has maintained the level of activism reached in the Fairness Doctrine fight. Robison previously had stayed out of politics “because I didn’t really know if it made that much difference.” (Robison has said the late Texas millionaire H. L. Hunt once offered to set him up in business and a future political career, but Robison, then 23, turned down Hunt’s offer.)

For too long, says Robison, Christians have been indifferent to politics. “We’ve literally put our light under a basket. We’ve not been the light of the world. We haven’t been the salt in Washington.…”

Robison’s public and political activities are many:

• He is chairman of the newly-formed Coalition for the First Amendment, which is lobbying for the right to have public school prayers. The coalition includes Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ, president Adrian Rogers of the Southern Baptist Convention, public affairs spokesman Bob Dugan of the National Association of Evangelicals, Falwell, Bakker, and Robertson.

• He serves as vice-president of the Religious Roundtable, a Washington, D.C.-based organization formed to educate religious leaders and pastors on various political issues. Baptist layman Ed McAteer organized the group several months ago, and already has arranged personal meetings with several presidential candidates. He was designated chairman of a Robison crusade scheduled for Memphis, Tennessee.

• He is a leader in Moral Majority, conservative lobbyist group formed by Falwell a year ago with the goal of mobilizing two million people to work for government policies based on traditional moral and biblical principles.

• Robison in January addressed a crowd of 28,000 antiabortion marchers in Washington, D.C. He said his mother had considered aborting him, having been deserted by her alcoholic husband and living in poverty, but a doctor successfully persuaded her against it. This personal experience, said Robison, has made the prolife cause one of his primary missions.

Robison’s views are characteristic of the so-called New Right: He preaches against SALT II, the Equal Rights Amendment, homosexual rights, moral permissiveness, and communism. He supports public school prayer and Bible reading, stronger families, traditional moral values, and less government regulation.

Robison’s 15-year-old evangelistic association has the accessories common to today’s big-time conservative preachers: a growing television outreach, a magazine, a professional advertising agency, and a toll-free telephone counseling service. He reportedly gets an annual base salary of $35,000 on which to support his wife Betty and three children.

A multifaceted program costs money, and Robison is not averse to emotional fund-raising appeals. During a particularly dry donor period last November, Robison wrote to supporters, “This letter is not simply an attempt to raise money—This is an emergency, an effort to save the ministry which God has blessed and Satan hates, and is fiercely attacking.”

His 125 employees are spread across four buildings. For the last several years Robison has professed to a vision of reaching America for Christ through prime time television and has budgeted $15 million for the project. Three prime time television specials already have been produced and aired, and now he is promoting televised crusades in selected cities, rather than on national television. He expects to conduct crusades overseas; Honduras and Egypt are tentative targets.

Robison was raised in a broken home and was converted at age 15 in the Pasadena, Texas, church pastored by his future foster father, H. D. Hale. On the day he was saved, said Robison, Mrs. Hale had mobilized the entire church in prayer for his salvation. So confident was Mrs. Hale, said Robison, she had thrown a change of clothes in the car so Robison could be baptized the same night—which he was.

At age 18, while attending East Texas Baptist College in Marshall, Robison began conducting city-wide crusades. He says he witnessed “everywhere I went.” He would even approach strangers in restaurants.

“That’s how I witnessed. Tear ’em up. I’d have truck drivers push back their beer and start crying and say ‘tell me more.’ Never had anybody laugh at me. Never had anybody mock me. It’s always been that way. God blessed my witness in a fantastic way.”

Robison claims his staff workers see more conversions in hotel kitchens, where they meet employees during Robison’s crusades, than do many pastors of churches. One of his complaints against “liberal” professors is that they don’t evangelize or teach their students how.

In private, Robison has a personable manner that can disarm critics turned off by his fire in the pulpit. During an interview, Robison was relaxed—anticipating supper at home with his family—and he heated up only during intervals when he discussed problems he felt needed solving to “save America.”

Robison has no right criticizing Southern Baptist seminaries since he never attended one, say some critics. Others point out that Christians often reach different conclusions on the same issue—while Robison and other New Right spokesmen imply they have the only right answer.

Those kinds of criticisms don’t seem to bother Robison, who lately has stirred more commotion than the helicopter factory across the four-lane highway from his Hurst, Texas, headquarters (outside Fort Worth). “Tell me one prophet that didn’t divide,” he says.

JOHN MAUST

Presbyterians

Repulsing the Overture

The congregation of historic Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia was expected to vote in favor of withdrawing from the United Presbyterian Church earlier this month. In the March 2 worship service, before the March 9 vote, well-known evangelical pastor James Boice explained why he favored pulling out: the UPC’s alleged retreat from scriptural authority and inerrancy, toleration of unbelief among UPC pastors, and weakening power of local congregations. He even suggested, “The most effective way evangelicals can reform [the UPC] today would be to leave en masse.” His church is particularly upset with Overture L—denominational policy requiring election of women elders. The church’s 15-member session (all male, and in violation of Overture L), discussed the withdrawal question with Philadelphia Presbytery officials March 7. Boice said his church would go to court if, after withdrawal, the UPC seeks control of his church’s property.

North American Scene

The Mennonite Central Committee (U.S.) has advised Mennonite young people to register their conscientious objector status now with their local congregations. In a prepared statement, the committee reaffirmed “the historic Mennonite commitment to nonresistance and conscientious objection to military service.” Mennonites and Brethren in Christ planned an Assembly on the Draft and National Service later this month in Goshen, Indiana, for discussion of the options and issues in draft registration.

Hollywood entertainers are helping raise the curtain on the $15 million, star-shaped, Crystal Cathedral of Robert Schuller’s Garden Grove (Calif.) Community Church. Frank Sinatra, Mickey Rooney, and Art Linkletter are among committee members planning a May 13 recital by operatic soprano Beverly Sills in the still unfinished cathedral. Organizers hope to raise the final $4.5 million needed for the project by selling the 2,900 available tickets at $1,500 each.

A 22-year-old California-based cult has become a fast-growing multimillion dollar enterprise with 80 branches in 35 states and six foreign countries. The Church Universal and Triumphant, the Los Angeles Times revealed, owns property in several western states as well as in Ghana overseas, the nonaccredited Summit University, and a variety of entirely secular business interests. Its estimated 5,000 members follow Elizabeth Clare Prophet King, 40, also called Guru Ma, as God’s one true messenger on earth. Members seek their full potential through the teachings of the “ascended masters,” who include Jesus, Buddha, and Zoroaster.

Archconservative Herman Otten won’t be considered for certification as a Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastor unless he closes his Christian News weekly newspaper, if LCMS president Jacob Preus has his way. Preus reportedly set this condition out of fear of synodical liability for libel suits. (He also has been criticized frequently by the newspaper.) The denomination’s Concordia Seminary faculty refused to certify Otten after his 1958 graduation, citing Otten’s “adverse statement” against Concordia professors’ theology. A New Haven, Missouri, church called him anyway, and Otten’s disputed certification has been the subject of study at several LCMS conventions.

The United Methodist Board of Discipleship last month dropped its use of 10 controversial sex counseling films. Most of the sexually explicit films, which show acts of masturbation and homosexuality, were produced during the late 1960s by San Francisco pastor Robert McIlvenna.

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