Evangelists have been using the radio since the early 1920s and the television since the 1950s as a medium to proclaim the Gospel. The word "televangelist" is a made up of television and evangelism.
The term was first employed by Time magazine in 1952, when Roman Catholic Bishop Fulton Sheen was referred to as the "first televangelist".
On January 2, 1921, two months to the day after its first broadcast, KDKA aired the first religious service in the history of radio. Pittsburgh's Calvary Episcopal Church was chosen to host the event and the junior pastor, Rev. Lewis B. Whittemore, preached because the senior pastor was wary of the new medium. The technicians were outfitted with choir robes in order to keep them from distracting the congregation. KDKA soon offered a regular Sunday evening service from Calvary Episcopal Church.
One of the first ministers to use radio extensively was S. Parkes Cadman, beginning in 1923. Within five years, Cadman had a weekly Sunday afternoon radio broadcast on the NBC radio network, his powerful oratory reaching a nationwide audience of some five million people.
Aimee Semple McPherson was another pioneering evangelist who soon turned to radio to reach a larger audience. One Sunday morning in April 1922, the Rockridge Radio Station in Oakland California offered McPherson some radio time and she became the first woman to preach a sermon over the "wireless telephone." Radio gave McPherson nationwide notoriety in the 1920s and 1930s and she went on to build one of the earliest Pentecostal megachurches.
In the northern and eastern United States Catholics such as the Roman Catholic bishop, Fulton J. Sheen (May 8, 1895 – December 9, 1979) were using the radio as a vital means for converting the unsaved and ministering to their flock. For 20 years as Father Sheen, later Monsignor, he hosted the night-time radio program The Catholic Hour on NBC between 1930–1950.
Fulton J. Sheen, successfully switched to television in 1951 after two decades of popular radio broadcasts, presenting Life Is Worth Living for six years. Sheen's final presenting role was on the syndicated The Fulton Sheen Program (1961–1968) with a format very similar to that of the earlier Life is Worth Living show. For this work, Sheen twice won an Emmy Award for Most Outstanding Television Personality.
In 1960, a Southern Baptist, Pat Robertson, founded the Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia Beach, Virginia. After being converted to the Christian faith by Dutch missionary Cornelius Vanderbreggen, Robertson decided against a career in law and instead he devoted his life to Christian broadcasting.
One of the CBC's mainstays is The 700 Club, a religious variety program that mixes sermons, interviews, and religious music. The 700 Club, which debuted in 1966, is the longest-running program in the variety format.
When the American evangelist Oral Roberts decided to embark on a new television ministry in 1954, he needed $42,000 to finance a revivalist television program. To raise the funds he entered in a blessing pact with 420 people who gave $100 each and Oral Roberts then prayed that the money be returned. If it wasn't returned he promised to refund the $100.
The prosperity teaching Roberts expounded became increasingly prevalent as evangelists found the need to raise large sums of money to finance television programs where the Gospel could be preached to large audiences. They made increasingly unrealistic promises of material prosperity to people who chose to finance their shows.
By the 1970s and 80s, evangelists were dominating the religious channels. Sadly, a number were involved in controversial scandals with their emphasis on health and wealth prosperity and various sexual and financial improprieties. Tragically evangelists such as Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart are now known as fallen men rather than the successful evangelists they were in the 1970s and 80s.
The only people who actually got rich with the prosperity gospel, was of course the televangelists. Their people who send money get little in return but phony promises - and as a result, many of them turn away from the Truth completely.
The teaching of prosperity gospel televangelists is not biblical (though they hand pack selected biblical verses to support their doctrines). However there is a historical precedent. Tetzel was a a German Dominican friar and preacher whose high-pressure selling of indulgences - phony promises of forgiveness for sin - outraged Martin Luther and touched off the Protestant Reformation. Like Tetzel, prosperity gospel televangelists prey on the poor and ply them with false promises.
Televised church services continue to attract large audiences to this day. In the USA, televangelists such as Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn and T. D. Jakes are popular names and in Nigeria, pastors such as TB Joshua, Enoch Adeboye and Chris Oyakhilome are all prominent on the small screen.
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| Televangelist Joel Osteen at Lakewood Church, a megachurch in Houston, Texas |
The term was first employed by Time magazine in 1952, when Roman Catholic Bishop Fulton Sheen was referred to as the "first televangelist".
On January 2, 1921, two months to the day after its first broadcast, KDKA aired the first religious service in the history of radio. Pittsburgh's Calvary Episcopal Church was chosen to host the event and the junior pastor, Rev. Lewis B. Whittemore, preached because the senior pastor was wary of the new medium. The technicians were outfitted with choir robes in order to keep them from distracting the congregation. KDKA soon offered a regular Sunday evening service from Calvary Episcopal Church.
One of the first ministers to use radio extensively was S. Parkes Cadman, beginning in 1923. Within five years, Cadman had a weekly Sunday afternoon radio broadcast on the NBC radio network, his powerful oratory reaching a nationwide audience of some five million people.
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| S. Parkes Cadman, one of the first ministers to use radio, beginning in 1923. Wikipedia |
Aimee Semple McPherson was another pioneering evangelist who soon turned to radio to reach a larger audience. One Sunday morning in April 1922, the Rockridge Radio Station in Oakland California offered McPherson some radio time and she became the first woman to preach a sermon over the "wireless telephone." Radio gave McPherson nationwide notoriety in the 1920s and 1930s and she went on to build one of the earliest Pentecostal megachurches.
In the northern and eastern United States Catholics such as the Roman Catholic bishop, Fulton J. Sheen (May 8, 1895 – December 9, 1979) were using the radio as a vital means for converting the unsaved and ministering to their flock. For 20 years as Father Sheen, later Monsignor, he hosted the night-time radio program The Catholic Hour on NBC between 1930–1950.
Fulton J. Sheen, successfully switched to television in 1951 after two decades of popular radio broadcasts, presenting Life Is Worth Living for six years. Sheen's final presenting role was on the syndicated The Fulton Sheen Program (1961–1968) with a format very similar to that of the earlier Life is Worth Living show. For this work, Sheen twice won an Emmy Award for Most Outstanding Television Personality.
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| 1952 photo of then Auxiliary Bishop Fulton J. Sheen |
In 1960, a Southern Baptist, Pat Robertson, founded the Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia Beach, Virginia. After being converted to the Christian faith by Dutch missionary Cornelius Vanderbreggen, Robertson decided against a career in law and instead he devoted his life to Christian broadcasting.
One of the CBC's mainstays is The 700 Club, a religious variety program that mixes sermons, interviews, and religious music. The 700 Club, which debuted in 1966, is the longest-running program in the variety format.
When the American evangelist Oral Roberts decided to embark on a new television ministry in 1954, he needed $42,000 to finance a revivalist television program. To raise the funds he entered in a blessing pact with 420 people who gave $100 each and Oral Roberts then prayed that the money be returned. If it wasn't returned he promised to refund the $100.
The prosperity teaching Roberts expounded became increasingly prevalent as evangelists found the need to raise large sums of money to finance television programs where the Gospel could be preached to large audiences. They made increasingly unrealistic promises of material prosperity to people who chose to finance their shows.
 |
| Oral Roberts Wikipedia |
By the 1970s and 80s, evangelists were dominating the religious channels. Sadly, a number were involved in controversial scandals with their emphasis on health and wealth prosperity and various sexual and financial improprieties. Tragically evangelists such as Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart are now known as fallen men rather than the successful evangelists they were in the 1970s and 80s.
The only people who actually got rich with the prosperity gospel, was of course the televangelists. Their people who send money get little in return but phony promises - and as a result, many of them turn away from the Truth completely.
The teaching of prosperity gospel televangelists is not biblical (though they hand pack selected biblical verses to support their doctrines). However there is a historical precedent. Tetzel was a a German Dominican friar and preacher whose high-pressure selling of indulgences - phony promises of forgiveness for sin - outraged Martin Luther and touched off the Protestant Reformation. Like Tetzel, prosperity gospel televangelists prey on the poor and ply them with false promises.
Televised church services continue to attract large audiences to this day. In the USA, televangelists such as Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn and T. D. Jakes are popular names and in Nigeria, pastors such as TB Joshua, Enoch Adeboye and Chris Oyakhilome are all prominent on the small screen.
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