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Contents Copyright Q 1988 by Jeffrey K. Hadden and Anson Shupe All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. Published by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 115 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011. vii Published in Canada by Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, ~cknowledgments 1 195 Allstate Parkway, Markham, Ontario L3R 4T8. 1. Getting Saved from the Televangelists 2. "Cod Bless Our President . ." and Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Other Revolutionary Ideas Hadden, Jeffiey K. Televangelism: power and politics on God's frontier 3. The Electronic Communications Revolution and the Jeffrey K. Hadden, Anson Shupe.-1st ed. Rise of the New Christian Right p. cm. Bibliography: p. 4. We're Mad As Hell and We're Not Going Includes index. to Take It Anymore! ISBN 0-8050-0778-4 5. The Other Americans 1. United States-Church history-20th century. 2. United States- Politics and government-1981- 3. Television in religion-United 6. Legitimizing the Movement States. 4. Evangelistic work-United States-History-20th century. 7. In My Father's House . 5. Evangelists-United States. 6. Evangelicalism-United States- 8. Is Anybody Listening? The Great Audience-size History-20th century. 7. Fundamentalism. 8. Conservatism-United States-History-20th century. 9. Robertson, Pat. I. Shupe, Debate Anson D. 11. Title. 9. Politics As the Instrument of a New Ecumenical BR526. H23 1988 Movement %9'. 2-dc19 87-30556 10. Pat Who? CIP 11. The March of Folly First Edition 12. Is There Not a Cause? 13. The Road to the White House Designed by Jeffrey L. Ward 14. A Strategy for Victory Printed in the United States of America 13579108642 15. The American Cultural Revolution: The Next Step Notes Index 46 Televangelism The ~lectronicCommunications Revolution 47 full-time specialists in his parachurch organization. One economics it chose to offer through the Federal Council of Churches (later the professor of the era claimed that Sunday's organization was one of the Council of Churches).l3 five most efficient businesses in the United States. When Sunday died, The ~olumbiaBroadcasting System (CBS), formed in 1927, did offer he was enormously wealthy. He may have been uncouth, but Billy commercial time out of financial necessity, but it switched to gratis Sunday added the roles of entertainer and celebrity-he liked to hob- time in 1931 as a way to get rid of the demagogic Catholic priest Father nob with leading businessmen and politicians-to the urban evan- charles E. Co~ghlin.'~Theredter, CBS used a combination of an in- gelists' repertoire. From Billy Graham to Pat Robertson, the latter- horlse advisory board and the Federal Council to select persons to day televangelists were to follow in his footsteps. appear on the CBS "Church of the Air." By 1934, the Federal Council In sum, with the advent of electronic technology, evangelistic churches' Department of National Religious Radio, with twenty- preachers already had an organizational form and strategy for ministry fourcooperating denominations, had some oversight over six regularly to follow. Without the developments in staging revivals and building network programs. l5 parachurch networks in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, The Mutual Broadcasting System was the only network to offer religious broadcasters would not wield the influence in American life colnlnercial time without restriction from 1935 to 1944.16 Two of its that they do today. And the prospects for preachers launching national Inore notable programs were Charles E. Fuller's "Old-Fashioned Re- moral-political crusades, perhaps even a presidential campaign, would vival Hour" and "The Lutheran Hour," featuring Walter A. Maier and have been extremely remote. sponsored by the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church. The marriage of this particular organizational form to the emerging In 1944, the Christian Century, the leading liberal Protestant pe- technology was possible because of another unique feature of broad- riodical, published an attack on "religious racketeers" for allegedly casting in the United States-its emphasis on free enterprise, which using radio as a medium for exploitation. The author accused Mutual has shaped radio and television broadcasting more decisively in this of tolerating programs such as "The Lutheran Hour" because they country than in any other nation. Broadcasting is regulated, but the were financially lucrative and called for the termination of all paid Federal Communications Commission gives networks and local sta- religious broadcasting, or, failing this, a "ruling from the Federal tions a great deal ofliberty in setting their own policies and procedures. Communications Commission against the sale of time for religious It is assumed, first of all, that broadcasters have a right to pursue hroadcasting. "17 profit. As long as they devote some small proportion of their broad- At the same time, James DeForest Murch, a towering figure of casting to the "public interest," and their programming is not judged evangelical Protestantism, accused Frank R. Goodman, chairman of grossly offensive, stations and networks can more or less broadcast the Department of National Religious Radio of the Federal Council whatever they wish. of Churclies, of leading a campaign to squeeze evangelicals off the air. Almost from the inception of regularly scheduled broadcasting in Goodman, he claimed, had "signed up fifty or more radio stations the 1920s, religious programming has been considered to be "in the 'with ironclad contracts obliging them to use the Federal Council- public interest." Most stations and networks offered religious groups approved programs and no other.' "'" some airtime on a sustaining (i.e., free) basis. From the beginning, Officials of the Federal Council of Churches have always denied the demand for free airtime exceeded the supply, so broadcasters had that they pressured networks to develop programming under their to develop policies governing access.12 aegis to the exclusion of evangelicals. But the evidence is clear that The first national radio network was the National Broadcasting Com- evangelical Protestants did not share in the free airtime granted by pany (NBC), formed in 1926. From the outset, NBC offered no com- the networks and, further, that there existed a campaign to pressure mercial time for religious broadcasting and allocated what free time Mutual into a "no commercial time" policy. Televangelism The Electronic Communications Revolution 49 Ill hlarcl, 1N4, ~utdannounced changes in their paid-time broad- Mutual allocated six-and-a-half hours of free time to NAE." NBC's cStillg tllat severely curtailed access Among the restrictions adopted Blue Network, which would become the American Broadcasting Com- a limit to thirty minutes. (2) a prohibition against were: broadcasts pany (ABC), also offered time to NAE on a restricted basis. tile use of airtime to solicit funds to pay for the broadcasts, and After an early burst of success, NRB lost some of its thrust and 13) broadcastingon sunday mornings only. The reason for this policy vitality, a typical pattern for social-movement organizations. Perceiv- cLmge? ~~l~hJenningS, in the most comprehensive study of radio ing extensive victory in a few visible successes, participants lose their broadcasting, concludes: "Strong criticism from mainstream lower their financial contributions, and ignore appeals to redou- Protestantism as cases of alleged abuses mo~nted."'~ ble their efforts. AS a result, a movement organization becomes vul- Evange]ica]sunderstood what was happening and had been mobi- nerable at the very moment its supporters appear to have won, or are lizing to fight back. The first major step toward developing cooperation to win. among had been taken two years earlier, at the National Liberal Protestants, now reorganized as the National Council of Conference for United Action among Evangelicals, which in turn churches, did not fail to note this vulnerability. As television expanded spawned the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). Evangelical rapidly in the early 1950s, the NCC pursued an initiative to ensure broadcasters took a prominent role in the meeting,20 whose keynote their exclusive representation with the networks. CBS, leery of earlier speaker was Harold Ockenga, pastor of the Park Street Church in conflict with evangelicals, added the Southern Baptists to its consor- Boston. Setting the mood for the formation of NAE, Ockenga's heart- tium of liberal Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, a conciliatory gesture stirring address returned several times to the theme of discrimination not particularly appreciated by the NRB, since the Southern Baptists in access to the airwaves. Referring to a meeting he had had with the were not members. The other networks also developed interfaith pro- president of NBC, he concluded that in the absence of a united evan- gramming, but evangelical Christians were basically excluded. gelical organization, there was "absolutely no opportunity of sharing An exception was Billy Graham, whose phenomenal popularity en- equally in the broadcasting facilities of that great company."21 "We abled him to cut through the liberal church monopoly and acquire are discriminated against," Ockenga asserted, "because of the folly of network time, both gratis and purchased. But the rank-and-file NRB our divided condition. "" evangelicals were effectively locked out, a situation unchanged even In April 1944, just a month after Mutual announced its policy changes,