University of Virginia Library

Chapter 1
The Gathering Electronic Storm

During the decade of the 1970s, televangelists amassed more undisputed access to the airwaves than any other interest group in American society. As the decade drew to a close, the cathode ray preachers were adding a political message to their traditional message of salvation.

William C. Martin, Texas Monthly

Martha Bell Childers and Alpha E. Humbard were itinerant preachers who chose each other as life partners while attending a preaching convention in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Often, in their travels to save souls for the Lord, they worked out of an old ragged tent. When their firstborn was just a lad, he slipped away from the gospel tent compound to watch the raising of the Ringling Brothers' circus "Big Top." As he watched, he clutched his fist and indignantly said to himself, "If God had a tent like that, He'd have a crowd like that."

Rex Humbard has always been a take-charge kind of fellow. From his teens he managed the Humbard gospel enterprises. He initially resisted Dad Humbard's efforts to get him to play a musical instrument, but when the spirit moved, so did Rex. He learned to play guitar in record time and marched down to radio station KTHS in Little Rock, Arkansas, to get the Humbard family group on the air. A few weeks later they were playing on the WLS "Barn Dance" in Chicago for $100 a week.

It took a few years, but Rex got that "Gospel Big Top" for the Lord, a gigantic tent with a seating capacity of 6,000. The Humbards had no trouble filling it, but it wasn't very long after

its acquisition that Rex began to envision an even greater challenge to spread the Good News. It happened one balmy summer night in 1952 in Akron, Ohio. Rex spotted a crowd in front of O'Neil's Department Store, close to where the "Gospel Big Top" had been erected. As he worked his way into the crowd, he realized what the source of the crowd's rapture was—a marvelous new gadget called a television set. The crowd was watching a baseball game.

Rex knew it wouldn't be easy. He had struggled through the ups and downs of the radio ministry. But what a wonderful invention this television was. He knew his mission immediately. With the far-reaching capabilities of this new technology, God's word could be spread around the world. Rex knew he would have to stay in Akron, build a church, and go on television.

Fast talk, dogged persistence, and $65 got him a movie theater where he could start a church and a television program. Today, Rex Humbard has come closer than any other human being in history, save perhaps Billy Graham, to preaching the gospel to all the world. His syndicated radio and television programs are broadcast on a total of 650 stations in eighteen countries and are translated into seven languages. His Cathedral of Tomorrow is the only church ever designed especially for television productions. It boasts a hydraulic stage, three audio recording studios, two control rooms, two editing suites, tape duplication facilities, and a video recording studio. Overhead hangs a 50-by-100-foot cross studded with 5,000 red, white, and blue light bulbs that can produce an almost infinite array of lighting effects.

From its modest $65 beginning, the Rex Humbard Ministry is now worth millions. And it is all paid for by private contributions. Still, like those of many of his fellow television colleagues, Rex's ministry appears ever on the brink of bankruptcy. On his April 13, 1980, broadcast he made an impassioned plea for immediate cash contributions needed to stave off disaster. The program was $2.5 million behind in its obligations, and Humbard was running an average of four months behind in payments to stations for TV time.

Humbard's appeals brought in $4 million and wiped out the debt. About the same time, a Cleveland Press writer discovered that Rex and two of his sons, who work with him on the

television ministry, had purchased a home and condominiums in Florida valued at $650,000 with down payments of $177,500 in cash. A lot of people have long believed that preachers, especially the evangelical variety, have their hands in the offering plate. In light of this belief, the timing of Humbard's corporate debt and personal investment certainly didn't make him look very good. And he didn't help his own cause any when he told the prying Press reporter, "My people don't give a hoot what I spend that money for."

He later said that what he meant was that his people don't care how he spends his own money, but that's not the way it came across. The wire services and network television quoted old Rex as saying plainly and simply, "My people don't give a hoot what I spend that money for." The implication was that the dollars he had so recently solicited to pay off corporate debts had been used to provide second homes for him and his family in Florida.

It's quite possible that a lot of Rex's loyal followers wouldn't have cared a whole lot if he was dipping into the collection plate just a mite. He and Maud Aimee and the kids and grandkids have brought a lot of happiness into people's lives over the years, and with Maude Aimee being sick now and all, the Humbards ought to be entitled to a few little comforts.

Perhaps Rex's supporters really don't care what he does. But many observers of the American religious scene—from the left and the right—care passionately about what is currently happening in religious broadcasting. It is a social phenomenon so widespread and important that it has acquired a name—the electronic church.

Although religious broadcasting is as old as broadcasting itself, until 1978 most Americans were only vaguely aware of its existence. Of course they knew that there were preachers on radio and television. But since only a fraction of the American population regularly hears or views these programs, they received little public notice. Only an occasional scandal or financial problem caused TV religion to be mentioned in the secular media.

Beginning in 1978, however, several mainline Protestant leaders began attacking the electronic church. By early 1979 secular magazine, newspaper, and television reporters were

beginning to hear the mainliners and to take an interest in what they were saying. By early 1980 the outpouring of critical commentary on the electronic church had reached flood proportions. It was the critics, thus, and not the religious broadcasters themselves who were responsible for bringing the phenomenon to the attention of a broad spectrum of American society.

Perhaps nothing focused as much attention on the cathode church, however—or drew as much fire from its critics—as the involvement of some of its stars in the political events of 1980. In late 1979 several of them had begun meeting quietly with the prospective presidential candidates. There were perhaps a dozen meetings in all with various members of the electronic church in attendance. As the primaries began and the list of presidential hopefuls shrank, so also did the list of televangelists who were willing to go out on a limb and declare a political agenda. Most who were initially involved fell back to the nonpartisan position that it is a Christian's duty to be an informed and involved citizen—though that in itself was more political than most evangelicals and fundamentalists had previously been. But the few who remained actively political were also highly visible— and the media attention they got made them even more so.

The first evidence of political thunder from evangelical Christians occurred late in April 1980, when about 200,000 of them went to Washington, D.C., for two days of prayer and repentance. Pat Robertson, head of the Christian Broadcasting Network, and Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, cochaired the Washington for Jesus program. They spent a lot of time trying to persuade a skeptical press corps that the event wasn't political, but several factors made it difficult for these otherwise effective communicators to do so. A highly partisan document called "A Christian Declaration" was rather widely circulated, though it was withdrawn before it became an official statement of purpose of Washington for Jesus. Someone who identified himself as a congressional liaison for the rally sent a letter to all members of Congress which invited them to contact Washington for Jesus to learn how they should vote on a variety of issues. And the rally's leaders had organized the gathering by congressional districts so that people could be better prepared to call on their elected representatives in government. Disclaimers

of political intent notwithstanding, there was sufficient appearance of politics to result in a threat by a ranking U.S. senator to investigate the tax-exempt status of the ministries of the program's leadership.

Media consciousness of the involvement of conservative Christians in politics increased severalfold when Jerry Falwell, another TV evangelist, and his Moral Majority showed up in force at the Republican National Convention in Detroit. When some electronic preachers participated in the National Affairs Briefing in Dallas a few weeks later, the media showed up in force—more than 250 strong—and an additional hundred or so members of the press corps arrived with Ronald Reagan when he addressed a screaming crowd of 15,000 at the Briefing on August 22.

Within a matter of days hardly anyone in the media, print or broadcast, didn't know that there was a New Christian Right and that it was moving into politics in force. And the media proceeded to inform the rest of the country, zeroing in on Falwell and the Moral Majority. He appeared on the cover of Newsweek and quickly became one of the most sought-after figures in the 1980 campaign. His many guest appearances on television included "Meet the Press," "Today," and "Donahue." He also addressed the National Press Club. When he wasn't present, he was often the subject of conversation—and controversy.

By the time the elections rolled around, the corralling of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by a onetime cowboy movie actor wasn't totally unexpected. Ronald Reagan, though long associated with the right wing of the Republican party, was not considered a sufficient threat to excuse the liabilities the Carter administration had amassed. What was not expected on that first Tuesday of November, however, was the virtual annihilation of the liberal leadership of the Congress that was running for reelection. Millions of liberal Americans felt their hearts drop to the pits of their stomachs as they watched the election returns. One by one the liberal senators went down to defeat—Frank Church, Birch Bayh, John Culver, George McGovern, Warren Magnuson, and Gaylord Nelson—all replaced by persons of much more conservative persuasion.

Some analysts saw this housecleaning as a reaction to the incompetence and misfortunes of the Carter administration.

Others saw it as a continuation of a national drift to the right. But what happened was an avalanche, not a drift. And Jerry Falwell, whose name by then had become practically a household word, wasted no time in stepping forward to claim responsibility for the political shift in the name of his Moral Majority and other New Christian Right organizations. Pollster Louis Harris agreed with Falwell's assessment. So did several of the defeated senators and congressmen. It seemed—and the media played up the idea—that the televangelists had created a force to be reckoned with.

What was lost in the furor, however, was the identity of the participants. A myth that emerged from the 1980 campaign was that the New Right and the New Christian Right were one and the same. There is some overlap in their respective rosters, to be sure; but they are distinct. Furthermore, it is not specifically the televangelists' political influence that is significant, but rather, in a broader sense, their power to mobilize masses of everyday Christians. They represent a nascent social movement that has the potential to reshape American culture. Astutely managed, that power will not be easily checked. What the campaign of 1980 actually demonstrated was that this potential is real.

From a long tradition of circuit riders, tent preachers, and Elmer Gantry-like revivalists, the evangelists—now the televangelists—have come a long way. No longer are they simply safeguarding the moral and spiritual character of their private constituencies. No longer are they satisfied with Sister Lou or Brother Jim finding the Lord and being born again. For although salvation is still their goal, the sinner is not you and me anymore; it's America. And saving a nation takes a lot of believers, a lot of money, and a lot of power.

Ben Armstrong, who heads the powerful National Religious Broadcasters, thinks that what he prefers to call the electric church ". . . has launched a revolution as dramatic as the revolution that began when Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the cathedral at Wittenberg. " Armstrong's views of the electronic church are wholly and uncritically positive. He foresees that it will result in sweeping changes in how people worship and how they understand their relationship to God. To him television is a miraculous instrument of God which now makes

possible the fulfillment of the great commandment to preach the gospel to all the world.

Mainline Protestant and Catholic groups are far less enamored of the religious broadcasting of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. For openers, the great expansion of paid religious broadcasting all but drove the mainliners, who relied on free time from local stations for their programs, off the air. Add to this the fact that they profoundly disagree with what they consider to be the fundamentalists' simplistic theological messages. The main rub, however, is a growing concern that their own constituencies are deciding to take their religion in the comfort of their living rooms and that they may be sending their offerings to the television preachers instead of dropping them into the local collection plate. When a few TV preachers turned to politics in 1980—a uniformly conservative politics—more fuel was added to an already explosive situation.

In February 1980 a group of about 200 communications specialists from the mainline Protestant and Catholic churches gathered in New York to consider some of the vexing issues raised by the electronic church. Robert Liebert, a psychologist and one of the major speakers at the gathering, told them that the conflict over the electronic church "has every hallmark of an intensifying war of survival among battling Christian groups." He continued: "The forces are gathering ominously, and not even a remote basis for reconciliation is in sight.... Today's war is not just another recurring phenomenon. New technology, and particularly communication electronics, has brought an advantage of enormous magnitude for the conservative, fundamentalist side of Christendom's oldest battle."

That's pretty strong language, but the events that unfolded in the year following his presentation seemed to give a great deal of credibility to his assessment. There are others who see the effects of the TV preachers as much broader and more important than a struggle among the major religious groups in America. Writing well before anyone was paying much attention to the television preachers, Jeremy Rifkin stated that there was little doubt but that "the evangelical community is amassing a base of potential power that dwarfs every other competing interest in American

society today" (emphasis added). How? Through its electronic communications network.

The big-time TV preachers are the generals of this new power base. They are flanked by scores of lieutenants who lead more than sixty syndicated television programs. And more programs are being readied for syndication, to be sent by satellite to cable systems over the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), PTL Broadcasting Network, and Trinity Broadcasting Network. But this is only the tip of a vast communications network. More than 300 radio stations broadcast religion full-time. Hundreds more—perhaps thousands—sell many hours of time each week to religious time buyers. There are thirty-six television stations with full-time religious schedules, some of which broadcast twenty-four hours a day. Hundreds of commercial TV stations are completely sold out on Sunday morning—or any other time they are willing to sell to religious telecasters. Sunday evening is fast becoming as lucrative as the morning for those willing to sell to the religious syndicators. There is virtually no home in the United States into which the electronic church cannot send its songs, sermons, and appeals in generous measure. Merely to contemplate its potential power is staggering.

There is no doubt that the electronic church has brought to millions of Americans a new way of experiencing religion. In fundamental ways, the electronic religious experience is affecting the manner in which those same millions view and understand the world they live in. Yet there is nothing very new about religious broadcasting. In fact, the first wireless voice broadcast ever sent out to the world was an informal Christian religious program. From Brant Rock, Massachusetts, on Christmas Eve, 1906, Reginald Fessenden, a Canadian scientist working in the United States, broadcast a program to ships at sea. A. F. Harlow describes the event in Old Wires and New Waves: "Early that evening wireless operators on ships within a radius of several hundred miles sprang to attention as they caught the call ‘CQ CQ’ in the Morse code. Was it a ship in distress? They listened eagerly, and to their amazement, heard a voice coming from their instruments—someone speaking! Then a woman's voice rose in song. It was uncanny! Many of them called to their officers to come and listen; soon the wireless rooms were crowded. Next

someone was heard reading a poem. Then there was a violin solo; then a man made a speech and they could catch most of the words. Finally, everyone who had heard the program was asked to write R. A. Fessenden at Brant Rock, Massachusetts—and many of the operators did. Thus was the first radio broadcast in history put on." According to Fessenden's wife, Helen, Fessenden himself played the violin solo, Gounod's "O Holy Night," and read the Nativity passage from the Gospel of Luke. The "woman singing" was a phonograph recording of Handel's "Largo."

Only two months elapsed after regularly scheduled radio programming began in late 1920 at station KDKA in Pittsburgh before there was a regularly scheduled religious service. Radio exploded in America in the 1920s; within five years there were more than 600 stations, most of which engaged in some form of religious broadcasting.

The second generation of electronic communication emerged during the late 1940s when television was developed. By 1960, nine of every ten households in the United States possessed at least one TV set. Religious telecasting was available almost from the beginning of this marvelous new medium. Its first superstar was Fulton Sheen, the Catholic bishop with a twinkle in his eye, an impeccable delivery—and an angel to clean his chalkboard.

Since only limited air time existed, mainline Protestants and Catholics cooperated with Jews and Southern Baptists in sharing the scarce resource of free network time. But a few evangelical fundamentalist preachers saw greater possibilities in television and proceeded to buy their way onto the air on local stations.

Rex Humbard wasn't the only evangelical to sense the potential that television offered for preaching God's message. Shortly after Humbard's epiphany in front of O'Neil's Department Store, a young preacher named Oral Roberts brought cameras into his revival tent. Jerry Falwell, who eventually would become another giant of the electronic church, began his ministry in 1956 at the age of twenty-two in an abandoned soft-drink bottling plant. One week after organizing a congregation of thirty-five, he started a weekly radio broadcast. Within a year he was telecasting live from Lynchburg, Virginia. Pat Robertson, son of a U.S. senator from Virginia, filed a charter for the Christian Broadcasting

Network in January 1960 and opened a bank account with a deposit of $3. Today the CBN telecasts religious programming twenty-four hours a day.

At the time they began, each of the television ministers seemed to have a good bit more faith and courage than wisdom or cash. But each of them also believed that the invention of television made available a wonderful new way to spread the Good News of God. Their adventures on the road to TV success read like the "Perils of Pauline"—each, again and again, was rescued from the brink of seemingly certain disaster. The biographies of most of the stars of the electronic church would sound like Horatio Alger novels. To them, the elements of pluck and luck that characterized Alger's heroes have been simply God's interventions in their lives and careers.

Rex Humbard preaches from a church tailored to the requirements of television. "The 700 Club" talk show is produced in studios that are the envy of commercial networks. Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral is a soaring, stunning monument in glass and a perfect showcase for one of America's most flamboyant preachers. The parade of guest stars across the stages of some of these shows might make a viewer forget that they are religious programs—except for what is being said. So successfully has the electronic church adapted to television that it reflects secular television's diversity of programming.

Marshall McLuhan once stated that the children of the television age realize intuitively that the classroom is an interruption of their education. Church pastors today are having to face the fact that electronic religion is changing the way millions experience worship, even in church. Even if their people do not stay home to watch the television preachers, the electronic church has altered the expectations both of the role of the preacher and of the content of religious services.

One preacher who has learned the importance of television is Wayne Dehoney, pastor of the Walnut Street Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Dehoney has been telecasting his Sunday morning worship services for twenty years, and his telecast is generally acknowledged among Southern Baptists to be one of the very best nonsyndicated programs. He had been on TV for

more than seven years before he ever saw a videotape of one of his services. He described his reactions to this viewing to fellow pastors at the Sixth Annual Workshop of the Southern Baptist Radio and Television Commission: "It was the deadest thing I ever saw . . . . It really shook me up. I discovered how slow moving our church service was. When it's all video, you've got ten seconds with nothing happening, fifteen seconds with nothing happening. Somebody is just taking their time walking up the steps . . . . to sing, and picking up the microphone and nodding to the pianist to start, and then turning away for a twenty-second prelude on this tinny piano. It was the slowest-moving thing I ever saw . . . . " Dehoney went on to describe colorfully every dreary detail: the ushers who strutted down the aisle like little generals to take up the offering; the deacon who prayed for three minutes while the camera focused on the top of his bald head; the people in the choir immediately behind the preacher who became restless and scratched their faces and picked their ears. And, of course, that brilliant sermon laced with mental gymnastics that were, Dehoney confessed, of more interest to him than to anyone else.

Dehoney reasoned further that what was dull on the cathode tube was probably dull for those sitting in the pews as well. He discovered that as he took measures to make the telecast more dynamic, the worship service also came alive.

Still, the successful broadcasters face criticism for being too slick, too secular. If television is to be used to communicate the gospel, however, the televangelists believe it needs to be done right. Mike Nason, executive producer of Robert Schuller's "Hour of Power," takes strong exception to those who "feel that low budgets and amateur programming reflect humility as ‘Jesus would want.’ Christ must be presented in a first-class manner."

That point of view is virtually universal among the most successful talents. Most are professionals by the highest standards of the business. They're proud of their studios, their equipment, and their personnel. CBN, sometimes called the Video Vatican of Christian broadcasting, claims to have the best equipment and studios in the world, and the network takes great pride in the fact that television producers from all over come to inspect its facilities—if not to respect its messages.

The electronic churches have imitated the successes of commercial television, the talk-show format being the most successful clone to date; all three Christian networks (CBN, PTL, and Trinity) use it as the cornerstone of their broadcasting. At one point the format of "The 700 Club," flagship show of the CBN, matched "The Tonight Show" of Johnny Carson in almost every detail—band, desk-and-sofa set, sidekick, and appreciative audience. One might even find Hollywood stars as guests, but only those who are born again or Spirit-filled need have their agents book an appearance. Instead of sharing show-biz gossip, guests swap miracles and personal testimonies.

More recently, Pat Robertson of the CBN has smelled the success of the television magazine format and in late 1980 began to move "The 700 Club" in that direction. But other commercial successes are being imitated, or plans are being made to do so. Christian news and game shows already exist, and CBN is developing a Christian soap opera. It takes a lot of money to make a network competitive with the big three, but the Christian three are working on it. With a little help from God and their viewing audiences, it just might happen.

In addition, they are working on the production of Christian communicators. CBN University now has a School of Communications and soon will be exporting graduates who will contribute to the professionalization and proliferation of religious broadcasting. More important, CBN University hopes to produce a graduate who is qualified to compete in the secular communications world, thus broadening the Christian influence in our culture. Broadcasting skills are also being taught at Jim Bakker's Heritage School of Evangelism and Communications, at Jerry Falwell's Liberty Baptist College, and at Oral Roberts University.

But what are the messages of the electronic churches? Here too they have imitated the success formulas of commercial television. Most religious television, like its secular counterpart, deals largely in simple solutions to human problems. Television can't handle complicated material very well. Unless one can afford the luxury of time and money for imaginative illustration, one is limited to what can be said. And what is said must be said quickly and extremely simply, or the audience won't understand.

Furthermore, audiences also want to be entertained. And they want to be made to feel good. When they are made to feel bad, they turn to another channel. The televangelists preach a message that is supportive of the worth of the individual.

Most TV preachers have gone beyond saying that it is all right to think about yourself. Get right with God, they say, and you won't have to wait until the next life for your rewards. You can expect them now. America has become a privatistic society. Whether this is good or to our ultimate detriment, religion has not escaped the growth of the cult of personhood. Rather, it has developed its own modes of expression. And the television preachers are helping to shape this private religion.

Both motivation theory and the pragmatism born of experience in religious broadcasting dictate that the greatest promise of benefit elicits the greatest response. Entrepreneurial religious broadcasting cannot survive without audience response that can be converted into contributions. TV preachers may begin with the simplest and sincerest of motives, but they are inevitably confronted with the budget demands—of producing programs, building colleges or cathedrals, and paying for the escalating costs of broadcast time.

The means to generate this income already rests in the televangelists' hands, for if television made the electronic church possible, the computer has made it profitable. With the ability to target direct mail, to poll its constituency, and to put out reams of advertising and public relations copy, the electronic church now has the tools to generate both members and dollars. The computer can acquire, sort, store, and retrieve increasing amounts of information about people on mailing lists with ever accelerating speed and sharply declining unit cost.

Targeting direct mail to viewing audiences is grounded in very sophisticated communications technology. Already it has elevated the electronic churches from an esoteric offering of the television smorgasbord to a powerful force in American culture—this, even though their audience size remains small compared with that of secular prime-time shows. Already the electronic church has blurred traditional notions that television is a one-way communications medium. In the future, the line between personal and parapersonal communication may be virtually

abolished as computers develop the capacity to respond with competence and empathy to a greater array of human needs.

Did the televangelists use their technology to influence the 1980 elections? Many chose to believe so, and the shock of the election results and their attribution to Christian zealots set in motion a chain reaction of fear that has not been experienced in the United States in some time. The American Civil Liberties Union sent an urgent appeal to its membership to fight. Everywhere there was a sense that the country was being overrun, not by sensible garden-variety conservatives like Bill Buckley and George Will, but by crazies hell-bent on shoving their brand of Americanism and Christianity down the throats of the rest of the American people.

Christian leaders, both liberal and conservative, took the initiative in speaking out against the born-again politicians. Individual criticism soon became an avalanche of organized attack as large segments of the liberal press and secular organizations jumped on the bandwagon to denounce the New Christian Right. Leaders of fifteen major Protestant denominations, for example, released a statement which they called "Christian Theological Observations on the Religious Right Movement."

In addition to existing organizations that denounced the New Christian Right, new organizations sprang up for the purpose. Norman Lear, creator of "All in the Family" and a lion's share of other successful television sitcoms of the 1970s, hastily assembled a blue-ribbon board of some of the more prominent U.S. liberals in the fields of religion, education, publishing, and entertainment to create People for the American Way. Its stated purpose was to promote religious pluralism, and its first visible effort was a series of television spots that were critical of the televangelists.

Was all this an overreaction? Would the acquisition of real political power by these born-again politicians result in a massive assault on First Amendment rights? Does their view of saving America mean burning books for Jesus, affronting Jews and nonbelievers by restoring Christian prayers in classrooms, and granting the literal biblical story of Creation superior status to the data of science? Does their view of restoring traditional family values mean that a woman's place is in the home? Does "right to

life" mean that women will be forced to have children they don't want—or resort to back-room butchers for abortions? Would the new religious conservatives ban what they call smut from every legal avenue of public acquisition and jail those who get caught publishing or peddling it? Would gays be forced to retreat to the closet or lose every existing opportunity for gainful employment? Would libertine values of all sorts be suppressed? Where would these zealots stop? Where would they draw the line in imposing their values and life-style on the rest of society? Are they really out to establish a theocracy? Would they create a society like Iran's under religious madmen?

Jerry Falwell says the press and the liberal establishment have overreacted and not really heard what he is saying. He claims Moral Majority doesn't want to Christianize the nation. Its members just want their chance—like everybody else—to have their say. He says he believes in religious and cultural pluralism and has no intention of walking on anyone's First Amendment rights. Privately he admits that in his enthusiasm he sometimes overstates his point of view.

We'll have to wait and see whether Jerry Falwell is "lying through his teeth," as one of his more ardent critics puts it, and is deserving of another's protestations that he is "the most dangerous man in America." Some are inclined to think that Falwell's harshest critics have overreacted to his intentions and motivations. But this doesn't alter in the slightest the possibility that in creating Moral Majority he may have reenacted the role of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. The Moral Majority consists of semiautonomous state and local chapters. Whether Falwell is willing and able to control those on the lunatic fringe who will act in the name of Moral Majority remains a question of paramount importance.

There is much restlessness and discontent among U.S. conservatives. Many of them are mobilizable in the name of Christian virtue. Whether their energies will be channeled toward constructive redress of the excesses and mistakes of liberals or toward destructive negation remains to be seen. It is impossible to foresee the ultimate impact of the New Christian Right because the future of this country depends so much on economic, political, and social developments that are only now unfolding.

Some, like our relations with the Soviet Union, are global in character. Others, like our economy and the presence or absence of an energy policy, are national in scope. Other developments are personal in nature, such as whether Jerry Falwell will put his own reputation on the line in defense of the First Amendment in the presence of those who have no regard for the rights of others.

One thing is clear. The televangelists are destined to play a critical role in the shaping of the balance of the twentieth century. They have more undisputed access to the airwaves than any other social movement in American society. Their potential for good should not be overlooked in our current state of apprehension about their sudden presence. They share much in common, but we should not assume they are a monolithic group; their views of society and the public good are not immutable, nor is their theology inerrant. They might just lead to new hopes and possibilities that liberals can only imagine. They might also find themselves disillusioned and frustrated by a system they cannot learn to master.

But neither can this nation afford to take lightly the fears that the sudden bursting of the New Christian Right on the political scene produced. Much of what the televangelists are currently transmitting on the airwaves plays upon the fears and deepest disappointments of Americans. And much of what they advocate is a return to values and life-styles that never were or are inadequate for the complexities of the late twentieth century.

This book is about these televangelists who, even more than they may realize, will play a role in shaping the destiny of us all. Thoughtful Americans, whether they agree or disagree with the messages and agendas of the televangelists, cannot afford to take lightly their impact on American culture. Our task is to help define who these people are, how they got to be so important, to whom they speak, and what will likely be their effect on the future of this country.