The Wireless Gospel

“Holy wars” and “hostile takeovers.” Motel room meetings and an air-conditioned dog house. A prayer-tower death threat and a ride down the water slide.

The news media’s fascination with religious broadcasting seems to have uncovered something new. But since the early days of radio, the combination of evangelicalism and broadcasting has been explosive. The gospel went out and the salvos came back: Radio preachers were hucksters; religious broadcasts substituted for local church attendance; evangelical programs promoted a narrow sectarianism; gospel broadcasts distorted and simplified the real Christian message. Though the details differ, the fundamental controversies surrounding evangelicals and the airwaves remain.

Recently, the language of the debate has increasingly been dictated by commentators who speak of “televangelism,” “electric church,” “electronic pulpit,” and “electronic church.” Exactly what such terms mean is never clear, but they are usually used pejoratively.

Even less obvious is the lack of historical perspective in nearly all journalistic accounts of some major evangelical broadcasters. In the late 1970s, when the “New Right” was given front-page status, the term electric church was coined to help explain the “sudden” rise of religio-political conservatism. More recently the media began using the word televangelism broadly to describe the large television ministries that were “suddenly at war.” In the eyes of the media, nearly everything is new and changing rapidly.

The truth is that little in contemporary evangelical broadcasting (except for some of the technology employed) lacks historical precedent. Today’s methods and personalities are remarkably similar to those of 60 years ago. The good and the bad, the extravagant and the simple, the authentic and the counterfeit, have existed side by side in evangelical broadcasting from the earliest days. Perhaps the most notable “news” about evangelical broadcasting is the myths generated by the media.

Myth 1: Evangelical broadcasting is a recent phenomenon. Actually, evangelicals were heavily involved in broadcasting from the beginning. And they led Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants in distinctly religious radio programming. According to one study, during 1932 fundamentalists alone accounted for 246 of the 290 weekly quarter-hours of religious programming aired in Chicago. The Federal Council of Churches determined in a national study during 1937 that even Holiness and Pentecostal churches had more broadcast time than mainline Presbyterians and Lutherans. In that year the major religious broadcasters were Baptist and Gospel Tabernacle churches.

Organizations such as the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and Moody Bible Institute are well known for their early efforts. But, in fact, dozens of evangelical organizations across the country owned and operated radio stations in the mid-1920s.

Only after Congress in 1927 granted the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) the power to assign stations to particular frequencies did the number of evangelical stations decline. According to the FRC policy, religious stations did not serve the public interest as well as commercial stations and should be discouraged through poor frequency assignments and limited hours of operation. Within 15 years, only about a dozen evangelical stations survived. When the FM band was opened decades later, the process was reversed and the number of religious stations grew rapidly.

The FRC policy actually encouraged evangelicals to shift their programming from religious to commercial stations, where they usually purchased time for their broadcasts. While the mainline Protestant broadcasters depended largely upon donated public-service time, evangelicals busily experimented with various fund-raising and programming strategies to ensure their survival.

Myth 2: Evangelical broadcasting became popular only in the last decade. From the beginning, evangelical programs were usually creative and entertaining, not stuffy and elitist. In the eyes of many evangelicals, the Great Commission warranted a gospel proclaimed attractively to the masses. Evangelicals launched some of the most popular national programs on radio in spite of network policies that prohibited the sale of broadcast time until television began to drain advertising revenues from radio in the late 1940s. By 1939 Charles E. Fuller’s “Old-Fashioned Revival Hour” had the largest prime-time distribution of any program in the country. In 1940 he was on 456 stations, 60 percent of all the licensed stations in the United States. (See “Charles E. Fuller: The Unadorned Life of Faith,” p. 22.)

During the mid-1940s, Walter Maier’s “The Lutheran Hour” received 30,000 letters per week—more than three times the mail of all of the programs of the Federal Council of Churches. In 1948 the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod broadcast aired on 684 radio stations and received 450,000 letters. In journalistic fashion, Time called Maier the “Chrysostom of American Lutheranism” while overlooking his role in stimulating the evangelical movement.

No individual broadcast evangelist today attracts the size of national audiences garnered by Fuller and Maier. In part this is because there was so little competition from other national radio preachers then. There were a few other rapidly growing programs, such as the Seventh-day Adventists’ “Voice of Prophecy.” But Fuller and Maier had a coast-to-coast popularity, rivaled only by the short-lived, prime-time homilies of Bishop Fulton Sheen on television in the 1950s and perhaps the controversial Father Coughlin in the 1930s.

Myth 3: The total audience for evangelical broadcasts has increased enormously in recent years. In fact, there is no evidence that a greater percentage of the population today watches or listens to evangelical broadcasts than at any time in the last 50 years. However, the number of religious radio and television stations has increased dramatically in the past decade. There are now over 1,000 radio and about 200 television stations with religious formats. Most of the programming on these stations is broadly evangelical.

Both secular media and some religious broadcasters have created the impression that evangelical programs are sweeping the land and attracting enormous audiences. While such rhetoric makes for interesting news stories and encourages potential donors to contribute, it has no basis in research. Most broadcasts and stations require a fairly small but loyal following of regular contributors to survive.

The only exception is the daily “700 Club.” About 19 percent of American homes tune in at least once during February, the major viewing period surveyed by ratings services. However, because of the talk-show format of the program, it is likely that a significant percentage of such monthly audience figures consists of people scanning the channels to see what is available. The daily audience is very small compared with prime-time network broadcasts. All other religious broadcasts have much smaller audiences—even the daily programs of PTL and Jimmy Swaggart.

Myth 4: The power of televangelism threatens to destroy the local church. In the 1920s, long before the development of television, the news media frequently said the same thing about radio. The press spoke of the “radio church” that might supplant the local congregation, and some ministers actually attempted to establish “ethereal congregations.” In 1926, the Reverend Howard Hough, an Advent Christian pastor from Portland, Maine, resigned his pastorate in order to form the First Radio Parish of Portland. Clergy and others representing nine denominations were present in the broadcast studio for the dedicatory service. For the most part, efforts like Hough’s were dismal failures.

History shows a dynamic relationship between evangelical broadcasting and local congregations. Instead of one driving out the other, they adjusted to each other; where possible, each took advantage of the other, so that neither was the same afterward.

On the one hand, various broadcast ministries have developed programming for particular markets of believers; out of this philosophy they create gift packages and direct-mail appeals designed to reach specified church groups. Programming is compatible with the sensibilities, tastes, and beliefs of the church market. For example, over the years the programs of Oral Roberts have reflected different target audiences associated with churches, from old-fashioned Pentecostal to a broader, Holiness-inspired evangelicalism.

On the other hand, local churches have sometimes adjusted to the changing content of religious broadcasting. Local worship styles and philosophies have undoubtedly been influenced by broadcast revivals and religious entertainment. Perhaps even some of the expectations of pastors and congregations today are born out of the role models and rituals emanating from the tube.

The membership gains of neo-Pentecostal churches, for example, are clearly related to the efforts of particular broadcast ministries from that tradition. Especially active on the airwaves have been ministers from the Assemblies of God, including Jimmy Swaggart. In recent years, about half of the ten highest-rated weekly religious broadcasts were based in this tradition. It might be that neo-Pentecostal and charismatic styles of worship simply make for interesting and entertaining television. If so, the medium indeed affects the gospel message by favoring the programming from particular theological and cultural traditions.

Instead of destroying the local church, evangelical broadcasting is changing its character, for good and bad. Church and television compete, but not on the simple basis of attendance and financial contributions. They compete over style and substance, liturgy and theology, action and expectation. The question is not whether the church will succumb to the power of broadcast religion, but what vision of Christian community we wish to cultivate in the local church.

Myth 5: Evangelical broadcasting is creating a powerful conservative political movement in America. The secular media love this myth because it lends itself so well to interesting news stories loaded with animated characters and sinister plots. Since the 1980 presidential election, reporters have hovered like carrion birds around the programming and news releases of broadcast evangelists who politicize the gospel message.

Religious broadcasting has always had its champions of conservative ideology. In the 1920s “Fighting Bob” Shuler of Los Angeles lost his station license in part because of sermons directed at public officials (see “The Other Bob Shuler: Protector of Public Morals,” page 21). During the next decade, Father Coughlin was silenced by Catholic prelates only after generating an enormous audience for his attacks on the Roosevelt administration. And Billy James Hargis, a pioneer in religious direct-mail fund raising, joined a host of other anticommunist preachers on the airwaves in the 1950s.

Throughout the history of religious broadcasting, evangelicals have supported a wide spectrum of programs, only a minority of which were heavily political. Evangelicals have strongly preferred devotional, instructive, and entertaining broadcasts to politicized ones. Even the more subtle political messages were usually within the context of Bible-study programs and worship services to which viewers turned for inspiration and edification rather than ideological guidance. Research documents that today few viewers or listeners tune to evangelical programs specifically for political ideas.

The fact that evangelicalism, broadly defined, includes a wide spectrum of political orientations is overlooked by the press in favor of simplistic stereotypes. Evangelicals are more conservative overall than the general population, but they hardly represent a political movement. They are largely unorganized politically, and much of their faith is private—not linked to social or political action. Pat Robertson is only the latest to attempt to mobilize evangelicals politically, and he has found, as others before him, that the religious mosaic of evangelicalism also represents great political diversity.

Certainly evangelical broadcasting has influenced American politics. But that influence may be less a result of organized evangelical political involvement than it is of media attention to particular evangelical programs and organizations. Jerry Falwell and others have convinced the media (particularly the Eastern media establishment) that they have political power largely in the form of mailing lists, contributors, and audiences. As a result, the news now includes the “Religious Right” as a character in the nation’s political dramas. Nevertheless, evangelicals are not part of any unified political movement, and many of them are not conservative.

Myth 6: Most evangelical broadcasters preach a “health and wealth” gospel that distorts historic Christianity. It is time that the church face the fact that broadcasting is indeed a vehicle for propagating counterfeit gospels, including the “health and wealth” variety. But this is nothing new, and it is hardly true of evangelical broadcasting alone; one need only consider most commercial messages.

This myth results from the limited scope of modern news reporting, which focuses excessively on personality and event. Journalists stay tuned to the major television evangelists because of their colorful personalities and outrageous statements. Just as the newspaper reports the one driver killed in an accident, not the thousands who safely made it home, the electronic media focus on the most ostentatious and outrageous broadcast preachers, not on the thousands of lesser-known honest local radio and television programs.

From its earliest days, evangelical radio had both national leaders and community pastors. While the lure of celebrity has always tempted broadcasters to abandon the historic faith in favor of a self-styled message, most evangelical preachers have not succumbed. Usually it has been the independent ministers, with no accountability to a church or denomination, who have perverted the gospel. One need only listen to many local evangelical broadcasters in order to hear and see unpretentious presentations of the gospel.

Myth 7: The latest communications technologies give media preachers unparalleled power. The news media rely on this myth to trump up alarm about the rising power of media evangelists to conform the world to their alleged theocratic designs. Meanwhile, some major evangelical broadcasters use the myth to win the hearts and pocketbooks of the faithful. In both cases, the latest technologies are seen as unstoppable forces for either good or bad.

The truth is that modern communications media are more efficient, but not necessarily more effective. Satellites, for example, enable broadcasters to transmit messages over greater distances in record times. Once the message is delivered, however, there is no assurance that it will be understood, let alone accepted and acted upon. The media and evangelical broadcasters alike often confuse transmission with communication. More than that, they frequently trade audience impact for audience size, as if the sheer numbers guarantee a broadcast’s effectiveness.

It is becoming increasingly clear that religious communication is one of the most difficult kinds of communication. Evangelicals should be the first to realize, because of their long missionary experience, that media evangelism is both cross cultural and cross religious. They should put as much effort into shaping the message as they do into appropriating the latest technology. At present this is not the case: Millions of dollars are spent transmitting benign messages, as if a modern-day miracle will mysteriously communicate the gospel directly to the hearts of all unbelievers who happen upon a program. Some are converted, and more are edified. But these results are typically in the face of a lack of attention to spiritual and cultural conditions among those being evangelized.

Studies show unquestionably that friendship is still the most effective method of evangelism. This does not mean that electronic media should never be used to proclaim the gospel, but that evangelicals should not let the apparent power of technology distract them from the important role of local churches in supporting friendship evangelism. Ironically, broadcast evangelism represents a potential threat to the communication of the gospel when it gives the impression to the laity that the Word should be shared only by a small cadre of high-tech professionals. The extent of church growth and the effectiveness of evangelism are far more related to the quality of face-to-face communication than to the amount of mass communication.

Explosive Combination

Looking back over the centuries, it is clear that a combination of evangelical fervor and media sophistication has always been explosive. Whether it was oral storytelling, script, the printing press, or the electromagnetic spectrum, visionary believers used the newest communications media to challenge the spiritual status quo and to reaffirm historic Christianity. Others were tempted by these media, establishing their own personality cults and proclaiming self-conceived religious truths.

Public controversy is a predictable consequence of evangelical broadcasting, just as it is an expected result of living the Christian life in a fallen world. Nevertheless, we must admit that evangelical use of the media has sometimes been lamentable. After all, the church has its own, stricter standards and expectations—or it should.

Evangelical broadcasting must never sell its soul: authenticity is its first mandate. The secular media will still report controversy, but if the Christian witness is genuine, in the long run it will be more effective than the mudslinging. This side of heaven, evangelicals and the airwaves are partners in controversy.

Quentin J. Schultze is professor of communications arts and sciences, Calvin College, and author of Television: Manna from Hollywood?

The Other Bob Shuler: Protector Of Public Morals

American Mercury once described Bob Shuler as “hotter news than murder—he has built up the greatest political and social power ever wielded by a man of God since the days of Savonarola in Florence.” Hyperbole aside, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, “Fighting Bob” operated the most controversial religious radio station of all time. Politicians feared him, criminals avoided him, policemen hated him, newspapers deplored him, and many ministers criticized him. But the public loved him, turning Shuler into a folk hero.

After a short career as a university pastor in Austin, the 40-year-old Methodist minister moved his ministry to Los Angeles in 1920. Within three months, the flamboyant Shuler made the front page of the paper for the first of many times. He exposed a party where a thousand people “celebrating the coming of our Lord” allegedly were “engaged in a drunken carousal, with hugging, kissing in drunken fashion, women displaying their nakedness brazenly.” Nearly 500 articles about Shuler appeared in the Los Angeles Times alone between 1927 and 1933; many of them included Shuler’s charges of municipal corruption and religious hypocrisy.

After “Fighting Bob” exposed drunkenness by the police chief, who was subsequently fired, membership in Shuler’s Trinity Methodist Church soared to 6,000. Soon Shuler’s church was given a radio station by a wealthy widow, and the “preacher who breaks police chiefs,” as he was known in the local media, expanded his muckraking pulpit to the airwaves. KGEF (Keep God Ever First) began broadcasting in late 1926 from a studio in Shuler’s study.

Listeners from Canada to Mexico tuned in to hear Shuler’s demands for “civic righteousness and for the extension of Christ’s kingdom on earth.” In 1929 his broadcasts were instrumental in electing a reform mayor who immediately fired the police chief—the second police scalp for “Fighting Bob.” One writer described Shuler as “a political preacher who has become dictator not only of the morals and manners but the politics of the community.”

Creative fund-raising techniques soon followed. “I know a man listening in,” Shuler told listeners. “If he does not give a hundred dollars I will go on the air next Tuesday night and tell what I know about him.” Many hundreds of dollars were raised.

The contentious preacher’s battle with the federal government began in 1930 when numerous citizens protested Shuler’s programs to the Federal Radio Commission (FRC). Especially troubling to some listeners were Shuler’s attacks on William Randolph Hearst, the public schools, the chamber of commerce, the Presbyterian and Roman Catholic churches, Jews, and even auto clubs. Apparently Shuler saw himself increasingly as the self-appointed protector of public morals and religious truth.

In 1931 the FRC scheduled one of the first hearings ever conducted on the renewal of a broadcast license. As in the past, “Fighting Bob” took the new battle to the airwaves, attacking the FRC and threatening to take his case to the Supreme Court of the United States. Meanwhile, dozens of people testified on Shuler’s behalf. The FRC’S report included more than 2,300 pages of transcripts from Shuler’s broadcasts and another 1,000 pages of exhibits. Shuler lost the radio license, in part because he erroneously alleged that a Roman Catholic on the FRC board was out to get him; there were no Catholics. The Los Angeles Express ran the headline: U.S. WILL GAG SHULER.

Not to miss an opportunity for publicity, Shuler held four funerals for KGEF. Ten thousand people came to Trinity Methodist Church on a Sunday afternoon, according to Shuler’s newsletter, to “honor a fallen soldier who for five years had fought the battle of public decency.” In the casket was a microphone “slain by the administration … and the government it sought to serve.” The event raised $3,495.

By Quentin J. Schultze.

Charles E. Fuller: The Unadorned Life Of Faith

No radio preacher better illustrates the long-standing popularity of evangelical broadcasting than Charles E. Fuller. He started inauspiciously with two Bible lessons weekly on KJS, the early station of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. In 1934 Fuller expanded his potential audience by purchasing evening time for his weekly “Heart to Heart Talk” on 50,000-watt KNX, the “Voice of Hollywood.” Within a few years the program was so popular, and the financial support from listeners so encouraging, that Fuller bought time for the renamed “Radio Revival Hour” on the Mutual Network, and continued syndicating it to independent stations across the country.

By 1939 Fuller’s program had the largest prime-time distribution of any radio show in the country. In 1940 he was on 456 American stations (60% of all U.S. stations) with the “Old-Fashioned Revival Hour.” Fuller paid about $ 1.6 million for time on Mutual alone in 1944, and his weekly audience was estimated by popular media at 20 million.

Although such early audience estimates are likely quite inaccurate, Fuller’s program probably had a greater audience than any of the weekly television evangelists on the airwaves today. Jimmy Swaggart, who leads the weekly religious broadcast ratings, has a broadcast audience of about 2 million. Even if his satellite and cable television audiences include an additional million viewers, Swaggart’s popularity is a far cry from Fuller’s.

Why was Fuller’s broadcast so popular? Obviously he had much less competition from other national evangelists than do today’s television and radio preachers. Still, the “Old-Fashioned Revival Hour” had a special appeal cultivated by the unpretentious nature of the man. During the same decades that Hollywood learned how to glamorize personalities, Fuller preached the gospel simply and directly. His program represented the life of faith unadorned by the trappings of consumer economy and Hollywood culture. The show was indeed “old-fashioned,” with a simple biblical exposition, a few familiar songs, and the reading of letters from viewers. By today’s standards the program would appear to lack the histrionics necessary for success.

By Quentin J. Schultze

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.