 | Chapter 11 Quo Vadis? Prime Time Preachers: The Rising Power of Televangelism |  |
Chapter 11
Quo Vadis?
The political process that brought Ronald Reagan and conservative Republicans to power was the result of a reassessment of the role of government in our lives—what it may and may not do, what it should and should not do, and it must and must not do. This final chapter speculates about the future of this revolution that has just begun with an eye toward the role of television preachers and the religious right.
Jeremy Rifkin, The Emerging Order
In its infancy, modern communications technology sold us automobiles,
cosmetics, soap, and beans. In its adolescence it taught us to judge
political candidates by their smile and clean presentation of self.
Whether we are moving rapidly toward the world of mind control depicted
by George Orwell in 1984 and by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World
isn't clear. Our world seems to possess greater quantities of complexity
and ambiguity than appeared to be the case in those futuristic novels.
But what does seem certain is that our consciousness will be shaped by
the messages we receive through mass communications technology. The great
struggle that is now taking shape is the struggle for access to and
control of that technology, for with it the next great social movement
will wage its wars.
The social movements of the 1960s were fought with bullhorns and human flesh. The leaders of those social movements endeavored to get a crowd large enough to attract a television camera. Thus would they gain access to the homes of America for a few moments during the newscasts. The weapons of the social movements of the 1980s will be computers that pump out direct-mail materials to audiences that have been determined to be sympathetic to the cause. Then, with the money thus raised,
At present, conservatives, both political and religious, have the upper hand in the utilization of this powerful communications technology. The liberal tradition in America is largely found in the Democratic party. The Democrats have been in power for a long time and have grown lethargic. Democratic consultant Bob Keefe put it this way: "We Democrats can be likened to a car rolling downhill and going fast. Only when we got to the bottom did we find we had run out of gas awhile back." In religion, the liberals, weary from a decade of civil rights and antiwar struggles, spent a good bit of the 1970s arguing about whether the television stations had an obligation to give them free time in the public interest. While they were doing that, of course, conservative religious traditions were building their electronic empires.
The furor created by the involvement of a few television preachers in politics during the 1980 campaign did not end after the election because the televangelists are not going to wait for the next election to attempt to develop further political clout. What we are experiencing in the United States today is not the normal give-and-take of political parties that differ mainly in the mix of liberals and conservatives in their ranks. We are experiencing an ideological struggle that in some respects is related to but is not to be equated with the civil rights struggle that began in the late 1950s.
The current struggle is more about the role of government in our lives—what it may and may not do, what it should and should not do, and what it must and must not do. These concerns create a mosaic that crisscrosses traditional liberal-conservative positions. The answers any one ideological camp gives to the questions of how government may, should, and must relate to our lives creates a kaleidoscope of incredible inconsistency. It is precisely for this reason that the upper hand now held by conservatives may not be decisive.
The counter-mobilization of people and organizations that oppose the New Christian Right is a natural part of any social movement, as predictable as the rising and setting of the sun. And the greater the perceived threat of the right-wing Christians, the greater will be the efforts to check their political influence. What
To understand better the resurgence of conservative influence in the United States to date, one should focus on the New Right and its antecedents in twentieth-century conservatism. To understand where this movement is going, one needs to study carefully and watch the movements of the New Christian Right. It is the latter group that is likely to be responsible for shaping the next major developments in the conservatives' efforts to gain political power.
It is too early to know how all of this will turn out because the outcome depends very much on decisions not yet made and alliances not yet forged. The leaders of the electronic churches are only now beginning to be influential. Their role in the 1980 elections may have been exaggerated, but the role they will play in the impending struggle may be decisive.
The outcome will determine the direction of American society as we move into the twenty-first century. The struggle to determine whether we will enter the next century with determination to resolve the vexing dilemmas and problems that plague the United States and the industrial world or will drift ever closer to the abyss will be fought largely with modern communications technology. But some of the political alliances and results of the struggle may be totally unanticipated.
That most of the electronic church preachers are not now in politics is not of any great significance. Whether in politics or not, they are all searching for a broader base to support their ministries. To the extent that they succeed in their objective, they will simultaneously be adding to the foundation of a potentially powerful social movement that aspires to return the nation to God. It is important to recognize that evangelical Christians have always believed it to be their mission to transform society. What is different about the present movement is that they now possess powerful technology that can help them realize that goal.
How the electronic preachers utilize this enormous power base will have important implications for the future of this nation, indeed of our world. The potential for abuse is all too evident, but so also is the potential for constructive use.
One of the most important books of the past decade was Jeremy Rifkin's The Emerging Order. Along with many others, Rifkin sees America coming to the end of an epoch of unlimited growth and wealth. The United States, the world's greatest creator and consumer of resources, must take the lead in the transition from an age of expansion to a steady-state world economy. The evangelical awakening in America, Rifkin believes, is inextricably a part of the convulsions that are sending economic tremors through the industrial world.
None of this is new or particularly original. What is innovative and provocative is Rifkin's vision of Christian theology as a basis for legitimizing a new covenant that governs the relationship of man to God and man to his environment. The new covenant involves a reinterpretation of the meaning of the Genesis charge to man to take dominion over the earth. Protestant theology has interpreted that passage as license to exploit the resources of the planet. The new theology interprets the concept of dominion to mean stewardship. The earth and all that dwells therein has intrinsic value because it is God's creation.
This new theological interpretation of Genesis has gained remarkable acceptance in just the past decade or so, since we have become acutely conscious of the apparent limits of our environment. It has received greater acceptance among liberal theologians than among evangelicals, and it stands in sharp contradiction to a remarkably pristine free-enterprise theology preached by many of the television preachers.
What role then might the electronic churches play in the spreading of this new covenant theology? There are two important considerations in approaching this question. First, although there is an outside chance that Ronald Reagan will be lucky enough to experience a respite in the energy crisis, the dwindling of the world's nonrenewable energy resources is too significant for the problem to go away for very long. Second, an intrinsic feature of mass communication in the modern era is that world leaders don't have to remain locked into a consistent position. There may be limits to how much of an about-face one can get away with, but certainly there is room for significant change.
If Jerry Falwell doesn't have his finger on the pulse of the real moral majority in America, why shouldn't he gravitate toward
The years just ahead are going to be very dangerous and anxious times for the United States and for most of the world. Détente has come unstuck. With each passing year the Middle East becomes more explosive. Most of the Third World is a time bomb with multiple fuses. Global economic collapse could be triggered by any number of events.
Such periods in history test the character of a people. Historically, when this nation has been tested, we have discovered deep moral fibers that have their roots in our pluralistic religious doctrines and principles. Our religious heritage has never been simplistic. As America has assimilated other cultures and religious perspectives over two centuries, the complexity of her collective faith has grown, even if its public expression has weakened. The United States may well be on the verge of another great religious awakening.
During the 1960s a small group of theologians pronounced the "death of God." But as so many scholars have noted, man is by nature a religious animal and does not exist without some form of religion. "It follows," wrote Harvey Wheeler, formerly senior fellow of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, "that a death of God era is also a god-building era.... Our time is one of the most religious periods in all history, a time in which god-building is taking place at a dizzying pace."
Eastern religions penetrated American culture in earnest during the late 1960s, and since that time we have indeed experienced a proliferation of new religious expressions. But so also has this nation experienced sustained reexamination of traditional perspectives. In all the religious ferment, there can be little question but that the growth of evangelistic faiths has been the largest, and they have had the greatest immediate effect on our culture. But it may well be premature to assume monolithic political implications from what has transpired to date.
We don't quarrel with the general proposition that there is cause for concern about the potentially regressive influence they could have on American culture. But we feel that those who are already hearing the thunderous boots of goose-stepping soldiers with swastika armbands marching up Pennsylvania Avenue are overreacting. When Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia, he wrote, ". . . we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it. " There is a great core of good and common sense in America, a moral majority capable of struggling and coming to grips with the economic, political, and moral imperatives of survival. They have survived the heavy diet of trash and pablum delivered on television since its birth. They will survive the manipulation and simplistic solutions to our problems that now are being offered by television preachers and politicians.
The struggle to reshape America will take place in front of us on our television sets. Television will not be simply the transmitter of news, but increasingly it will be the news as the cathode tube is utilized consciously to shape our consciousness. This will occur not only in explicitly religious programming, but in drama and investigative reporting as well. That the media seem primed, as never before, to transmit religious and moral messages may speak to the needs as well as the character of the American people.
| Chapter 11 Quo Vadis? Prime Time Preachers: The Rising Power of Televangelism | |