University of Virginia Library

THE ENTERTAINERS

A healthy slice of the electronic church seems to reflect the maxim "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." The entertainment formats of television's secular offerings have been copied in many ways. One of the most obvious copies is the musical variety show. But the musical entertainment shows of religious broadcasting draw not only from Hollywood formats; they have successfully wed Hollywood—or Nashville—to the rousing styles of tent-meeting revival singers. Mainliners who are accustomed to stately hymns and choral anthems can find lots of new religious musical styles on TV today.

Jimmy Swaggert

Jimmy Swaggart, cousin of rock musician Jerry Lee Lewis and country-western guru Mickey Gilley, puts on a rollicking, if not rocking, musical show. Jimmy belts out good-time, hand clapping gospel songs at the piano and sings with great feeling. He is backed up by a Nashville-style band, and even a skeptical viewer is likely to get caught up in the infectious rhythms.

Music has been good to Jimmy. Gold records, symbols of recording success, adorn his office walls, and the sale of Jimmy

Swaggart records and tapes accounts for a good chunk of the Jimmy Swaggart Evangelistic Association's income. He is the only evangelist we encountered with a vigorous sales as well as solicitation program. He pitches his records, tapes, Bibles, and study course with seriousness and aplomb. Viewers who get on the Swaggart mailing list are asked to contribute to a variety of causes—feeding children in India, buying TV time, building churches in Africa, and so forth. They also get the chance to buy eight-track tapes or cassettes of "Jimmy Swaggart's Greatest Hits. "

Swaggart is a Louisiana moonshiner's son and a high school dropout. But the Assemblies of God are more impressed by commitment than education, and Jimmy is an ordained minister of that church. He supposedly has been speaking in tongues since the age of nine. He does not do so on his program, but he vigorously defends this "baptism of the Holy Spirit" and has lashed out at those who criticize the practice, particularly mainline churches, saying that some of them are dead because they don't have the gift.

Jimmy is an old-fashioned camp-meeting preacher. His sermons are impassioned. He patrols the platform restlessly while speaking, and his intensity may lead him to shout one moment and whisper pleadingly the next. He is urgent because he believes Jesus is coming soon and we may have little time in which to get ready.

His organization owns eight radio stations, and he buys time for his radio program on several hundred more. His TV show is syndicated on 222 TV stations, as well as on many cable systems.

He believes in at least a certain amount of financial disclosure. He claims that his organization was the first, even before Billy Graham's, to offer an audited financial statement to anyone who requests it.

"Gospel Singing Jubilee"

"Gospel Singing Jubilee" has nothing to sell you and won't put you on a mailing list. The program, which is sponsored by advertisers, is just another expression of the huge commercial gospel music market—and that is a big, big market. The million-sellers of gospel music don't get much attention in the

secular press, but gospel music devotees amount to nothing less than a major subcultural market in the United States. Christian Bookseller magazine regularly publishes a Christian version of Billboard's top forty songs.

"Gospel Singing Jubilee" is purely and simply an entertainment program for the gospel-loving subculture—albeit with an occasional light testimony thrown in.

Ross Bagley

Religious television has even spawned a televised deejay show. Plump and smiling Ross Bagley is the host. Between musical selections Ross relates anecdotes but always moves rapidly to the next number. Apparently, gospel recording artists furnish him with videotapes of their latest releases. A steady parade of tuxedoed, coiffed, and gowned entertainers lip-synch their way through their hottest-selling songs, in appearances and styles barely distinguishable from those of secular performers—except for the lyrics they sing. Commercial minutes in the Ross Bagley show are available to advertisers.