Televangelism: Power and Politics on God`s Frontier

Ch 1: Getting Saved from the Televangelists

He would combine in one association all the moral organizations of America perhaps later, the entire world. He would be the executive of the combination; he would be the super-president of the United States, and some day the dictator of the world. --Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry

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Ch 2: "God Bless Our President . . ." and Other Revolutionary Ideas

I've always thought that a providential hand had something to do with the founding of this country, that God had His reasons for placing this land here between two great oceans to tee found by a certain kind of people. Ronald Reagan, Statue of Liberty Relighting Ceremonies

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Ch 3: Communications Revolution and the Rise of the New Christian Right

There is no dedicated group of viewers who are emotionally committed to an anchorman. On the other hand, there are millions of viewers who are personally committed to one or another of the electronic churchmen. Thus, they will sit in front of a screen and listen to a lengthy interview, and even try to understand. This puts a major educational tool into the hands of Christian leaders a tool which the humanists cannot match on television because of the "least common denominator" principle which governs the Nielsen rating wars. Gary North, Backward Christian Soldiers

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Ch 4: We're Mad As Hell and We're Not Going to Take It Anymore!

I want you to get up now out of your chairs and go to the window! Open it and stick your head out and yell, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" --Howard Beal, Anchorman, Network

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Ch 5: The Other Americans

Millions of Americans have for a long time felt put upon. Theirs is a powerful resentment against values that they believe have been imposed upon them, and an equally powerful sense of outrage at the suggestion that they are the ones who pose a threat to undemocratically imposing values upon others. Richard John Nenhaus, The Naked Public Square

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Ch 6: Legitimizing the Movement

The New Englanders are a People of God Settled in those which were once the Devil's Territories, and it may easily be supposed that the Devil was exceedingly disturbed when he perceived such a People here accomplishing the Promise of old made unto our Blessed Jesus, That He should have the Utmost parts of the Earth for his possession. --Cotton Mather(1692)

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Ch 7: In My Father's House . ..

The overall media ministry of Christ in America has not been as open and as accountable as we should be. We are getting our hands smacked and we deserve it. . . . [W]e have had a little sense of arrogance out there in the church that it is none of your business or anybody else's what we do or how we do it. . . [but] that sense of arrogance is over. . . [W]e are coming to the painful conclusion that if we are public figures leading Christian ministries, using public monies, contributions, then we are publicly responsible. --Jerry Falwell, Press Conference, April 28,1987

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Ch 8: Is Anybody Listening? The Great Audience-size Debate

Starting in the predawn hours of each Sunday morning, the largest religious gathering in America takes place, drawing almost 130 million people to their radio and television sets. What happens is both exciting and miraculous. It involves a new approach to the problem as old as the Bible: how to introduce struggling, helpless individuals to a loving God who wants them to meet Him and be born again. This amazing event takes place every week, all week, from early Sunday morning through the final midnight stroke on Saturday night. Making this possible is the awesome technology of broadcasting, which many consider to be one of the major miracles of modern times; and making it meaningful is the overwhelming love of a God who cares passionately about each one of the world's four billion people. I believe that God has raised up this powerful technology expressly to reach every man, woman, boy, and girl on earth with the even more powerful message of the gospel. --Ben Armstrong, Executive Director, National Religious Broadcasters

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Ch 9: Politics As the Instrument of a New Ecumenical Movement

I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across the country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D.". . . And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. --Former U. S. Senator Barry Goldwater Evangelicals face a tough assignment. Secular minds virtually dismiss biblical values as a legitimate basis for public policy. Some are openly hostile, gratuitously tolerating religious beliefs as innocuous enough when confined to the purely personal, but off limits in the "real world." --Robert P. Dugan, Jr., National Association of Evangelicals Are we bigots? Are we trying to force everyone into our narrow molds? Or are we, as Christians, merely trying to act in self-defense? --Vern McLellan, Christians in the Political Arena

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10.

Ch 10: Pat Who?

We have enough votes to run the country.... And when the people say "we've had enough," we are going to take over the country. --M. G. "Pat" Robertson, President, Christian Broadcasting Network

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11.

Ch 11: The March of Folly

A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point. --Leon Festinger, et al., WhenProphecy Fails

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12.

Ch 12: Is There Not a Cause?

A prince, says Machiavelli, ought always to be a great asker and a patient hearer of truth about those things of which he has inquired, and he should be angry if he finds that anyone has scruples about telling him the truth. --Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly

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13.

Ch 13: The Road to the White House

"There's only one job in the United States and in the world I suppose, that would give me any more opportunity to do good for my fellow man." --M. G. "Pat" Robertson, President, Christian Broadcasting Network

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14.

Ch 14: A Strategy for Victory

Here's what . . . [the people] . . . want in a president. They want somebody, first of all, that is honest and will tell it to them like it is....what people want first is integrity. And the second thing they want is leadership. They want somebody who will be able to be a leader and get things done. The third thing they want is a communicator. They know instinctively that they need a leader who can enunciate noble goals for this country and then mobilize public opinion behind them. That, I think, is more important, in their view, than political experience, which they put down relatively low because there is no experience for that job.... So you have to look at all the other candidates out there and decide which one. fill these roles. --Pat Robertson, Before The Economic Club of Detroit

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15.

Ch 15: The American Cultural Revolution: The Next Step

"The most important political idea of the mid-1980s is cultural conservatism. Republican or Democrat, the first 1988 presidential candidate to genuinely grasp the timeliness of this idea-not just make some pro forma utterances about school prayer and abortion-could very quickly find himself with a powerful national constituency." --Paul Weynch

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Notes

[1]

Epigraph: Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry (New York: Dell Publishing, 1954), p. 424. Ibid., p. 232.

[2]

Ibid., p. 5.

[3]

Ibid., p. 447.

[4]

"Heaven Can Wait," Newsweek, June 8, 1987, p. 58.

[5]

Tom Shales, "The `Nightline' Coup," Washington Post, May 29, 1987.

[6]

Cited in Harry F. Waters, "A Nerd's Sweet Revenge," Newsweek, April 13, 1987, p. 70.

[[7]]

Jean Seligmann, "The Inimitable Tammy Faye," Newsweek, June 8, 1987, p. 69.

[7]

Cited in Gordon Witkin and Jeannye Thornton, "Stones Fly in the TV Temple," U.S. News and World Report, June 8, 1987.

[8]

Transcript, Jim Bakker's statement of March 19, 1987. Charlotte Observer, March 20, 1987.

[9]

Cited in Megan Rosenfeld, "Bakker Says His Ministry is at an End," Washington Post, May 2, 1987.

[[11]]

Ibid.

[10]

Art Harris and Michael Isikoff "The Bakkers' Tumultuous Return," Washington Post, June 12, 1987.

[11]

Transcript of ABC's "Nightline," May 28, 1987.

[12]

"Statements from Bakkers," USA Today, April 27, 1987.

[13]

Ted Mellnik, "Bakker, Dortch Dismissed," Charlotte Observer, May 5, 1987.

[14]

Michael Isikoff and Art Harris, "Old PTL Board Reportedly Took Tens of Thousands in Payments," Washington Post, June 5, 1987.

[[17]]

Michael Isikoff and Art Harris, "$120,000 for PTL's Washington 'Liaison,'" Washington Post, May 13, 1987.

[15]

Ibid.

[16]

Art Harris, "PTL's Books Termed `A Mess,'" Washington Post, April 30, 1987.

[17]

Ibid.

[18]

Ibid.

[19]

Jeffrey A. Frank and Lloyd Grove, "The Raging Battles Of the Evangelicals," Washington Post, March 25, 1987.

[20]

Associated Press, "Swaggart Calls Bakker `Cancer' of Christ," The Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Virginia), March 25, 1987.

[21]

David R. Gergen, "On Christian Understanding," U.S. News dr World Report, April 6, 1987.

[22]

Dale Crowley, Jr., Radio Station WFAX, Washington, DC, May 16, 1987. Reprinted in The Christian News, May 25, 1987.

[23]

Art Harris and Michael Isikoff "PTL Probe Widens," Washington Post, June 2, 1987.

[24]

Russell Chandler, "Bakker Scandal Damages Standing of TV Preachers," Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1987.

[25]

Adam Clymer, "Survey Finds Many Skeptics Among Evangelists' Viewers," New York Times, March 31, 1987.

[26]

Jack Kelley, "Roberts, Bakker in Disfavor," USA Today, April 1, 1987.

[27]

"470 Laid Off at Robertson's TV Ministry," Washington Post, June 6, 1987.

[28]

Chandler, op. cit.

[29]

Kelley, op. cit.

University of Virginia Library

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