 | Elmer Gantry: Exemplar of American Televangelism |  |
Elmer Gantry: Exemplar of American Televangelism
Jeffrey K. Hadden and Anson Shupe
The first news of the televangelism scandals at Heritage USA had scarcely gone out over the wire services before an old name in the lore of evangelism found its way back into America's consciousness: Elmer Gantry. He was also a hypocrite and a slick-talking scoundrel. Gantry consumed great quantities of whiskey, seduced church secretaries, and removed the choir robes of countless virgins, all without the slightest qualm of conscience. He stole from little old ladies and lined his pockets with offerings from the collection plate.
Elmer Gantry was as loathsome a character as has ever been born in the mind of an American writer. Few Americans have actually read Sinclair Lewis's (1927) novel about the barn-storming tent evangelist. Still, millions know Elmer Gantry is a story about a preacher who personified all that is wrong with fundamentalist religion.
So magnificently and seductively does Lewis develop his conniving and lecherous evangelist that it is too easily forgotten that Elmer Gantry never existed. He is a composite caricature of all the worst features of evangelists, without the slightest hint that there were any redeeming features in any of them. The thought that some evangelists might have been honest men and women, doing the best they could by the means available to them to preach the gospel and do good, never emerges for even an instant.
Elmer Gantry cannot be understood outside the context of the man who created him. Sinclair Lewis was a social critic and satirist who not only rejected, but repudiated, his small-town Minnesota roots. Lewis hated everything that smacked of provincialism, conformity, or hypocrisy. He also hated lawyers and physicians, but most of all, Lewis hated religion. Lewis's life embodies the cultural struggle between the sophisticated secular urban world and the simpler life in the hinterland, a life which urban sophisticates presumed was rapidly dying out. Lewis was not content to merely walk away from his Midwestern roots; he spent his life attempting to hasten their passing.
Sinclair Lewis's caricature of an evangelist has survived. When the televangelism scandals broke in 1988, the mass media wasted little time in invoking the name Elmer Gantry. But newspaper writers didn't have to pull the novel from a shelf or locate a videotape of the 1950s movie starring Burt Lancaster to become acquainted with Gantry. Lewis's character had long since left the tents with sawdust trails and taken up residence in plush television studios.
For most of this decade, made-for-television movies and dramatic series featuring a television preacher have been straight out of Elmer Gantry. An ABC television movie entitled "Pray TV" left viewers with little doubt that the message was about preying and not praying. Portrayals of televangelists in such series as Murder, She Wrote, Mike Hammer, and Spencer for Hire, among others, are vintage Gantryesque portraits.
Like Elmer Gantry, these fictionalized televangelists are obsessed with money and power. To protect their turf and hide their lecherous lifestyles, the characters portrayed have no qualms about living on the edge, even outside the law. Lying is not a defensive measure to save one's hide. It is, along with sweetness and slick talk, a means to whatever ends are desired. And, it is assumed, every high-rolling television preacher must have a carefully concealed Swiss bank account as insurance against the possible future discovery of his fraudulent religious racketeering. The legacy of Elmer Gantry which Sinclair Lewis bequeathed to American culture is a stereotype so mean and nasty that had he been portraying a black man we most certainly would have witnessed an outcry of protest demanding copies of the book be removed from libraries and that the movie version of the novel not be run on late night television.
Part of the success of any stereotype rests with a viewer's or reader's unfamiliarity with the person or group being portrayed. The negative image of contemporary televangelists is so powerful because it "fits" the legacy of the evangelist our culture has inherited from Sinclair Lewis. Millions of Americans who have never switched the dial on their television sets to a religious program are convinced, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the caricature they carry around in their head is quite literally true to life.
Occasionally academic scholars have published papers which, at least by inference, suggest that it might be inappropriate to tar and feather all religious broadcasters with the Gantryesque stereotype. But then came the dreadful televangelism scandals of 1987 and 1988. Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, and a lesser cast of luminaries, contributed to reinforcing the Elmer Gantry stereotype.
The stormy month of March 1987 was a watershed in the history of religious broadcasting. It began when the press discovered that Oral Roberts was claiming to be held hostage by God Almighty. If Oral didn't raise $8 million in "ransom money" by the end of the month, God would
surely call him home. The press descended upon Tulsa, Oklahoma for the bizarre countdown to April Fools Day, a donnybrook of extraordinary proportions. Would Oral emerge triumphant, cash in hand, from his Prayer Tower on the campus of Oral Roberts University? Or would he be snatched home by his Heavenly Father?
The media were having so much fun with the Roberts story that they missed the announcement that Tammy Faye Bakker, star of the PTL Network's Jim and Tammy Show, had entered the Betty Ford Center for drug rehabilitation. Then came the fateful announcement on March 19 that Pentacostal Jim Bakker was stepping down as head of PTL and Heritage USA, and that he would be replaced by fundamentalist Jerry Falwell. The precipitating event was the eminent disclosure of a sexual encounter Bakker had with a former church secretary seven years earlier. Bakker didn't deny that the tryst had happened, but he didn't go quietly or in shame. In his resignation statement, broadcast on the PTL Network, he claimed that he "was wickedly manipulated by treacherous former friends . . . who victimized me with the aid of a female confederate" (Bakker, 1987, p. A1). God and Tammy Faye had forgiven Jim for his brief sexual encounter with Jessica Hahn. He seemed perplexed that others could not forgive him as well. He was ready to get on with the business of building Heritage USA, Jim and Tammy Faye's own fantasy world, which they dreamed would one day be a veritable spiritual Disneyland.
Jim could only explain his unfortunate position in the context of years of "constant harassment and pressures by various groups and forces whose objective has been to undermine and to destroy us" (Bakker, 1987, p. A1). He admitted that paying blackmail was "poor judgment" but he only did it to "to protect and spare the ministry and my family."
With attention focused on the sordid details of the live soap opera unfolding at Heritage USA, Oral Roberts' give-or-I-die fund raising shenanigans might have been completely overlooked had it not been for his shameless acceptance of a $1.3 check from a Florida racetrack owner. The donor said he thought Oral ought to check in with a psychiatrist. But neither the putdown nor the thought that this might be Satan's money bothered Roberts in the slightest.
Even as America was learning the details of the blackmail paid for Bakker's brief encounter in a Florida motel, and trying to comprehend why a fundamentalist might encounter resistance to taking over a Pentecostal ministry, there came additional charges which drew yet another major televangelist into the conflict. From Norman Roy Grutman, attorney for PTL, came the accusation of "unmistakable evidence. . . that Jimmy Swaggart was attempting to orchestrate the ouster of Jim Bakker" (Frank & Grove, 1987, p. A14).
"I'm ashamed, I'm embarrassed," retorted Jimmy Swaggart, the thunderous pulpit pounder from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Continued Swaggart:
But those who preached the gospel on the airwaves would sink lower still. There was a lot more embarrassment and shame to come: the sex, the bad taste, the details of the robbing of the PTL treasury, the rumors of an imminent return of the Bakkers.
Then there was the presidential candidacy of M.G. "Pat" Robertson, only months earlier the host of the 700 Club, the most frequently watched religious broadcast in America (Clark & Virts, 1985). Robertson's campaign itself had some bizarre moments, but in April of 1988, just as it appeared that a former televangelist might be a serious player in the Republican presidential nomination sweepstakes, yet another scandal unfolded.
Jimmy Swaggart, the biggest and toughest and holiest of them all, tearfully confessed before television cameras that he too had fallen to the sins of the flesh. Unlike the indiscretion that Jim Bakker's former friends has lured him into, Jimmy Swaggart had, of his own volition, been hanging out with lowly prostitutes, in a New Orleans neighborhood. Marvin Gorman, once a rising televangelist whose career was wrecked when Jimmy Swaggart blew the whistle on his sexual misconduct, had trailed Swaggart to a seedy motel in New Orleans and photographed him with a prostitute.
While the fate of the Swaggart religious empire hung in doubt, Robertson's political aspirations did not. Robertson's claim that the timing of the disclosure of Swaggart's misconduct was a dirty trick staged by the Bush campaign helped seal his fate as an uncreditable candidate. He didn't drop out of the campaign immediately, but the enthusiasm of his "invisible army" was gone. And a financially troubled Christian Broadcasting Network brought him back to a co-host role on the 700 Club in May, something he said would never ever happen.
Also in May, Rufus Reynolds, the judge presiding over the Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization of PTL, concluded that liquidation was inevitable. Jim Bakker returned to Charlotte claiming that "God has given us a plan how to pay for it and how to restore it" (Associated Press, 1988, p. A2). But arrangements fell through.
By midyear of 1988 it seemed that the saga of lurid revelations of sleaze and corruption in televangelism land would never end. And all of this was not Burt Lancaster portraying Elmer Gantry. It was life imitating art!
There have been scandals in American religion before. For more than 200 years, America's great evangelists have been colorful and controversial. And a few of them have been real rascals. So it should have come as no
surprise that the development of radio and then television would only enhance the visibility of the controversial few. And indeed they did.
The scandals of 1987 and 1988 were not the first in broadcasting. Back in the 1920s, Aimee Semple McPherson, the beautiful and flamboyant radio evangelist, titillated America's prurient interests with her alleged love affairs. Father Charles E. Coughlin's bombastic demagoguery from his radical pulpit far exceeded any mixing of religion and politics that we have seen in more recent times. And in 1976, Billy James Hargis, whose program was carried on 140 television stations, became the first major televangelist to fall when he was accused of both homosexual and heterosexual affairs. Lesser figures of radio and television evangelism have fallen victims to booze, sex, and at least one was imprisoned for swindling his followers.
Nothing like the 1987-88 scandals had ever befallen religious broadcasting before. The scandals were a disaster to the broadcasting industry and a devastating blow to millions of listeners whose faith was shaken. To the secular mass media, it was "show time." "An irresistible spectacle," Newsweekcalled it on June 8, 1987 in its second cover story of the scandal in as many months (Watson, 1987). Cartoonists and satirists had a field day. Doug Marlette's nationally syndicated cartoon strip "Kudzu," for example, features in iconoclastic character named The Reverend Will B. Dunn. Transformed into a televangelist, Will's ministry was ruined when he got entangled with Tammy Faye in the "Mascarascam." But this did not destroy Marlette's ability to get Reverend Will entangled in every scrape faced by the whole world of televangelism. Perhaps no piece of videotape has been copied more times than the Saturday Night Live interview of the "Church Lady" with comedy troupe actors playing Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker discussing the infamous encounter with the church secretary at a Florida resort.
By any standard of soap opera sleaze, the televangelist scandals were spectacular first-class drama. For sheer entertainment, the unfolding sagas were better and juicier than any episode of Dallas or Dynasty. The mass media were accused, with some justification, of perpetuating a circus-like atmosphere. But if the mass media explicated the opportunity, and did not always exercise the best taste, it was the televangelists themselves who wrote the script.
Not all of the commentary was in fun. There was plenty of serious, sardonic satire, as a secular press discovered new heights of piety. "[B]eneath the little-girl sweetness and outrageous wigs and false eyelashes," wrote Jean Seligman in Newsweek, "Tammy Faye Bakker is as shrewd as Imelda Marcos and probably just as unrepentant about her excesses" (1987, p. 69). And, wrote Tom Shales, Washington Post television critic, "The thrill of watching aJim and Tammy Show is something compara-
ble to the thrill of a Judy Garland show late in Garland's career, when some members of the audience showed up just to see if she'd make it through the night" (1987, p.B1).
With ratings soaring, ABC's Nightline devoted more than a dozen programs to the scandals. There was big money in the scandals, and no one made out better than the publishers of skin magazines. Hugh Hefner twice enticed Jessica Hahn to pose and tell all about her encounter with Bakker for the pages of Playboy.Later, Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione won the bidding rights to show all and send Debra Murphree, the prostitute that Jimmy Swaggart frequented on Airline Highway in New Orleans, on a promotion tour that included an appearance on the Phil Donabue Show to bolster sales of the July, 1988 issue of Penthouse. Seldom in the history of radio and television has there been such a blatant exploitation of a pathetic person for profit.
Before the scandals broke in 1987, large proportions of Americans were scarcely aware of the thriving religious broadcasting industry. But of those who were aware of the televangelists, large proportions of them held unfavorable opinions. In a national poll conducted for the Los Angeles Times in July, 1986, 59 percent of the public reported that they were "not aware" of Jim Bakker; 47 percent and 41 percent respectively said they were not aware of Pat Robertson and Jimmy Swaggart (Los Angeles Times, 1986). Only Billy Graham (by a margin of 3: 1) and Robert Schuller (by a margin of 2:1) had net positive ratings. The scandals greatly increased name recognition and, predictably, negative ratings soared as well. The LA Times replicated their survey after the scandals broke and found that favorable ratings fell for everyone except Billy Graham (Los Angeles Times, 1987).
Had the scandals been limited to the Bakkers, America's heightened awareness of the religious broadcasters might have led to some sorting out of the cast of video vicarage. That is, Americans might have made discriminating judgments, sorting out the "good guys" from the "bad guys" as it were. But bombarded by the seemingly endless revelations of misconduct, it was inevitable that the negative imagery would spill over and taint the entire industry. How could America not come to the conclusion that the televangelists are scoundrels, all real-life Elmer Gantrys?
The high mass media visibility of religious broadcasters will pass. And most of them will consider that a blessing. The high visibility they received in 1987 and 1988 did not lead to a better understanding of who they are and why they are attractive to a rather substantial minority of Americans. Rather, it tended to reinforce the stereotypes that were already prevalent in our culture. These stereotypes, we have argued, are the legacy of an era of tension between religion and the emerging secular culture during the early part of this century. Sinclair Lewis' caricature of an unscrupulous evangelist is the conduit or carrier of that legacy. The unscrupulous televangelists have played their part in giving credence to the stereotype.
The myth of Elmer Gantry as exemplar of American televangelism will persist for a long time. It is a kind of variant on Gresham's Law: The dishonorable televangelists will not drive the honest ones from the airwaves, but the bad name they so deserve will tarnish the honest broadcasters as well and make it more difficult for the latter to do their work. And, in all likelihood, the myths enumerated by Stewart Hoover in the next chapter in this volume will also be with us.
An examination of information flow about religious broadcasters can readily provide an explanation of why the stereotypes and myths will persist. Production and distribution of information about religious broadcasting come from 4 groups: (a) the religious broadcasters themselves, (b) their adversaries, (c) scholars, and (d) the mass media.
Religious broadcasters.
From the perspective of their adversaries, scholars, and the press, information that comes from broadcasters themselves is likely to be treated as propaganda. All organizations, of course, engage in some public relations efforts to create the best possible image of themselves. And only rarely have we witnessed examples of organizations voluntarily hanging their dirty linen out for public inspection. The press knows this and they expect organizations to hide information and put the best spin possible on that which they release. And given the legacy of highly negative images, televangelists and their spokespersons will be especially suspect of slick talk and hiding the truth.
Religious broadcasters have never had a very felicitous relationship with the secular media. They tend to view the media as unsympathetic, even hostile toward them. Most of them have aufficient anecdotal evidence to sustain continued suspicion and distrust of the media. And most of them have not brought in public relations specialists to deal with the mass media. For the immediate future, at least, broadcasters are likely to continue to view their audiences, and known sympathetic supporters, as the primary outlets for communications about their ministries. A few may develop more sophistication in dealing with the media, but most will continue to flounder, ducking communication as often as possible, and living in constant fear that reporters are really only present to "do a job" on them.
Religious broadcasters, thus, are essentially locked into a closed communications loop, maintaining positive images. As long as this remains the case, they are unlikely to have much input into what the mass media write about them.
Adversaries.
Adversaries of religious broadcasting fall into 4 frequently overlapping groups: (a) theological, (b) competitors, (c) ideological, and (d) political. Theological diversity is at the heart of the religious vitality of American culture, and this diversity guarantees a large opposition. An overlapping, but distinct adversarial group are those who stand in competition for access to the airwaves. Liberal Protestants, who once had a virtual monopoly to the airwaves, are the principle but not the only group in direct
competition. Ideological adversaries are committed to a secular world and many in this group are opposed to any religious group having access to the airwaves (see, for example, Chapter 12). Finally, there are many who view the conservative political messages of the televangelists as a threat perception of "the American way." Norman Lear's People for the American Way, for example, was created for the explicit purpose of doing battle with the televangelists. In varying degrees, each of these 4 groups is engaged in the production and distribution of negative information about religious broadcasters.
Scholars.
Scholars are the smallest group engaged in the production of consumable information about religious broadcasters. Indeed, a fair proportion of the scholarly community interested in religious broadcasting is represented in this volume. As often typifies scholarly groups, they are prone to communicate obtusely, elucidate ad infinitum alternative interpretations of the meaning of data, quarrel among themselves about matters that are imperceptible to the consumer public, and qualify conclusions to the point that consumers can't understand or don't care what they are saying.
To this should be added the simple observation that financial resources to conduct empirical studies of religion have long been scarce and this is unlikely to change. In the absence of large data bases, scholars are compelled to conduct small surveys and secondary analyses of resources like the Arbitron and Nielsen audience ratings, and to engage in creative speculation (see Chapter 3 for more information).
Scholars do play an important role as resource persons for print and broadcast journalists assigned to cover religious broadcasting. But given the diversity of interpretations among this group, and the absence of much authoritative data, scholars are not very significant players in the arena where the images, myths, and symbols about religious broadcasting are created.
Mass media.
Most of what the general public knows about religious broadcasting is communicated through newspapers, radio and television news and documentaries, and radio talk shows. The messages from religious broadcasters, adversaries, and scholars are all filtered through the mass media.
The mass media collectively are not simply a conduit for communication of news and analysis. This was especially evident during the televangelism scandals of 1987 and 1988. Television personalities themselves became central players in the unholy wars. The guests they selected for their programs, the questions they asked and which answers they chose to probe, and analyses they offered made Ted Koppel, Larry King, and others as much a part of the spectacle as Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jerry Falwell, Jessica Hahn, Oral Roberts, and Jimmy Swaggart.
The mass media were simultaneously makers, packagers, participants,
and interpreters of the news. The images, analyses, and conclusions America received about the scandals and the broader world of religious broadcasting were essentially created by the mass media. The mass media shouldn't be criticized too severely for their role in keeping the story alive. But it is significant to note that during the 15-month period or so when the scandals were a regular part of the national news, not a single major news source devoted any time or space to investigative reporting about those televangelists who were not scandal-ridden. During the same time period, considerable investigative reporting resources were devoted to trying to uncover more dirt in other ministries.
It does seem curious that for all the attention devoted to the scandals editorial curiosity never brought forth any effort to learn and write about those ministries and personalities that were not scandal-ridden. One might assert that the mass media are biased against the televangelists, and there is some evidence to indicate that this is true. But the accusation of bias does not get to the heart of the problem. Rather than crying "bias," we can better understand the nature of the mass media coverage if we ask a simple and fundamental question: What are the presuppositions of those who decide what is newsworthy with respect to the subject they are investigating? If one assumes a priori that religion and the modern world don't mix, that religions belong properly in the private sphere, then it is highly likely that something as clamorous as televangelism will arouse suspicion from the onset. Nothing carries so well on visual-driven television as conflict. It follows that among the sources offering information about religious broadcasting, the adversaries of religious broadcasting are likely to gain a disproportionate amount of attention. That the critics share value presuppositions which are compatible with the presuppositions of the mass media is likely to result in their being viewed as "creditable" sources.
If the mass media had dug beneath the grotesque Gantryesque stereotype of the religious broadcasters, they would have discovered that most of the radio and television ministries are operated by men and women of good will and integrity. And they would have found that many of the broadcasters would readily admit that the scandals helped them to see themselves in a new light and forced them to reassess their own activities and accountability to supporters. Many now understand more clearly than they were earlier able to see how competition, the desire to grow, and, in some instances, how the sheer struggle to survive had drawn them into the use of fund-raising tactics that were questionable.
More importantly, in the past, religious broadcasters have jealously guarded their organizational autonomy. Scandals in someone else's ministry were not their problem. But the fraud, deception, and hypocrisy that became evident as details of the PTL scandal unfolded, and the hoax of a wrathful God holding his televangelist servant hostage to pay broadcasting bills were simply too much to ignore. The credibility of all broadcasters was
profoundly challenged. Perhaps not so much out of an altruistic desire to be their brothers' keeper as a desire to protect their own hides, the National Religious Broadcasters created a regulatory agency (Ethics and Financial Integrity Commission) with real teeth to enforce standards of ethical conduct. Membership in EFICOM is not optional for NRB members. When Swaggart confessed his sexual misconduct, NRB Executive Committee wasted no time in recommending expulsion even before the machinery of EFICOM was in place.
However reluctantly, the broadcasters have come to the conclusion that they cannot escape the negative stereotypes that a few of their brethren have helped create and sustain. If they don't become complacent once the storms of the scandals have blown over, the broadcasters would become a model of integrity for voluntary organizations in America. But this will not come easily. Even if there are no further scandals among NRB members for a sustained time, the most unscrupulous will remain outside of the organization's watchdog organization. And their excesses and misdeeds will continue to cast a shroud of doubt regarding the integrity of all broadcasters.
In the final analysis, the market test for those broadcasters who operate with integrity will be whether they are reaching an audience that finds inspiration in their message. And if they do, they will survive. But in the minds of the millions who are neither turned onto their programs nor attuned to their theology and world view, Elmer Gantry will remain alive and well as exemplar of American televangelism.
REFERENCES
Associated Press. (1988, June 9). Bakker says God has given him plan. Charlottesville Daily Progress, p. A2.
Bakker, J. (1987, March 20). Transcript of resignation statement. Charlotte Observer, p. A1.
Ctark, D.W., & Virts, P.H. (1985, October25). Religious television audience: A new development in measuring audience size. Paper presented at The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion Conference, Savanna, GA.
Frank, J.A., & Grove, L. (1987, March 24). The raging battles of the evangelicals. Washington Post, pp. A1, A14.
Lewis, S. (1927). Elmer Gantry. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
Los Angeles Times. (1986). Los Angeles Times poll: Religion and politics, LAT 108. Los Angeles, CA: Author.
Los Angeles Times. (1987). Los Angeles Times poll: Religion and politics, LAT 108C/Panelback. Los Angeles, CA: Author.
Seligman, J. (1987, June 8). The inimitable Tammy Faye; Newsweek, p. 69.
Shales, T. (1987, May 29). The "Nightline" coup. Washington Post,p. B1.
Watson, R. (1987, June 3). Heaven can wait. Newsweek, pp. 58-62, 65.
Appeared in: Robert Abelman and Stuart M. Hoover, Eds. Religious Television: Controversies and Conclusions Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. 1990. 13-22.
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