Part 2

The Electric Church Turns On

THE preacher wears no black robes. Instead, he glistens in a three-piece white polyester suit. He presides over no altar, but roams over the multilevel stage of his television “cathedral,” bathed in klieg lights. Polished to a mirror finish, with every step outlined in flashing lights, and numerous backdrops constantly changing the scene, the stage itself seems to be the star of the show.

It is time for prayer, but this is no ordinary prayer. The preacher pauses before a table full of letters from his “prayer-key family” and settles down on one knee before the table, hands reverently clasped together. His freshly scrubbed choir takes its place, forming a semicircle behind him. As the preacher prays, the choir hums along, the lips of each member just caressing a microphone, nightclub-style.

At the close of the prayer the scene dissolves to a videotaped commercial plugging the preacher’s “prayer-key family.” It is very professionally done. An elderly woman, obviously devout and lonely, is shown writing the preacher a letter. In the voice-over she tells how her loneliness, and most of her other problems, have vanished since joining the “prayer-key family.”

Now we return to the preacher, just in time for his sermon. There is no Bible-waving. The sermon is “cool,” in TV jargon, which means the preacher is talking to you as he would if he were in your living room. Again and again he makes the same point. If you want your prayers to be answered you must join his “prayer-key family.” Where does the key fit in? “Prayer is the key,” he earnestly intones, “that unlocks the bank of heaven.”

This is one example of the attention-grabbing phenomenon in American religion​—the Electric Church. Its newly attained sophistication and popularity are sending religious and political shocks through the United States. Its brightest stars are taking in more money than most large American denominations. Who are they? Where did they come from? What do they stand for?

The Electric Church consists of TV preachers who buy their own air time and use it to get contributions with which they buy more air time, and so on. Of course, most TV stations are leery of selling time to a preacher who is only going to dun their viewers, so the preachers have elaborate ways of avoiding the appearance of asking for funds over the air.

What are some of these? They encourage their viewers to write in for a free pin or “prayer key,” at which point the viewers are put on a computerized mailing list, and then the hard sell begins. Or they offer a televised “counseling service,” and those who call for help are later contacted by mail. Computerized mailing has made the Electric Church a very profitable business. How profitable? Here are some typical figures:

Oral Roberts, former Pentecostal faith-healer, now somewhat toned down as a Methodist, $60,000,000 a year.

Jerry Falwell, Lynchburg, Virginia, Baptist with a strong political message, over $50,000,000 a year.

Pat Robertson started the first popular religious guest interview show and now has his own network broadcasting from his new $20,000,000 headquarters. His Christian Broadcasting Network took in $70,000,000 last year.

Jim Bakker, formerly associated with Robertson, has started his own guest show, and his network grosses $53,000,000 a year.

Rex Humbard, with his “Cathedral of Tomorrow” and its spectacular stage, takes in $25,000,000 or so.

The list goes on and on. All told, the top start of the Electric Church are able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to buy air time every year. Where do they get it?

Most of the people who watch the Electric Church are not rich. Benjamin L. Armstrong, who coined the term “Electric Church,” explains: “As part of the Electric Church concept, the listener is conditioned to give.” Most of those millions of dollars come to the Electric Preachers $25 or $50 at a time. Jerry Falwell, for example, may get 10,000 letters in a typical day’s mail, over half of which contain contributions.

A prisoner in Pontiac, Michigan, was surprised to receive a computer-written request for $35. Why? He says: “The machine-printed note explained that a friend of mine, who wished to remain nameless, had . . . requested that a special prayer be said in my behalf on the air . . . The prayer had been said, but my friend had not responded to the subsequent required ‘donation card’ that had been mailed. Would I be kind enough to send a check?”

Sometimes the pitch for money is more subtle. “I saw a television show the other day that epitomized my fears about paid religious broadcasts,” said one observer. “The preacher put two phone numbers on the screen during the program. One was a toll-free number for those viewers who wanted to make contributions, and the number for people who wanted counseling was not toll-free.”

Why the constant demand for money?

One reason is that the Electric Church has been made possible by a great deal of very expensive technology. Most religious broadcasters could never compete with regular network programming for the America mass audience. When a religious program comes on TV, most people, bluntly put, turn it off. The problem for the Electric Church is: How can they reach the dedicated minority of viewers who want to watch religious programs?

The answer? “Revolutions in satellite technology, breakthroughs in computer applications, and the advent of cable TV systems and new over-the-air stations are turning the U.S. into a global village and making it economical to ‘narrowcast’ to a relative handful of supporters,” as Forbes magazine points out. “So what if not everyone wants to watch a religious program? . . . TV, like magazines, can now cater to specialized audiences.”

The result is a different economics for the Electric Church. The viewers do not support these programs indirectly by purchasing soap flakes that have been advertised on the show. Instead, they must support the programs directly with their contributions. Soliciting and maintaining those contributions has become a massive computerized operation for most of the stars of the Electric Church. The computer is as vital to the Electric Church as the television tube.

The need constantly to raise money traps Electric Preachers in a boom-or-bust cycle. Big projects, like “cathedrals” or universities or hospitals, are started, followed by desperate pleas to the faithful for more money to “finish God’s work.” As a local banker said of one Electric Church superstar: “There’s only one problem with a ministry like Jerry’s. He can’t stop raising money; if he does, it all falls apart.”

This aspect of the Electric Church may remind thinking Christians of Jesus’ words found in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus pointedly said, “No one can slave for two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will stick to the one and despise the other. You cannot slave for God and for Riches.”​—Matt. 6:24.

With the preachers of the Electric Church constantly in need of vast contributions from their viewers, is it likely that they will risk offending those viewers? Hardly. The theology of the Electric Church, not surprisingly, is simplistic and self-gratifying. “Ask not what you can do for your religion; ask rather what your religion can do for you,” as Forbes put it.

Even some sympathetic to the Electric Church admit that it has little content. As evangelical theologian Carl F. Henry observes: “Much television religion is too experience-centered, too doctrinally thin, to provide an adequate alternative to modern religious and moral confusion.” In other words, TV religion cannot really help you to solve life’s problems.

Instead, as Harvard divinity professor Harvey Cox notes, the preachers of the Electric Church “are merely perpetuating and deepening the values of a materialistic consumer culture. They are helping people to accept some very shallow values, while promising easy salvation in the most commercial setting.”

How does that message square with Jesus’ warning that the road to life is not easy, but difficult​—“narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life, and few are the ones finding it”? (Matt. 7:14) Does that sound as though eternal life can be yours merely by dialing Channel 21?

Consider this further admonition from Jesus Christ: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross [torture stake, New World Translation] daily, and follow me.” (Luke 9:23, Authorized Version) Does a person deny himself and take up his “cross” daily propped in front of the TV? Could Jesus Christ really approve of a religion that promises people easy salvation​—no torture stake, no self-denial—​for just a monthly check to somebody’s “worldwide TV ministry”?

Rather, it looks as if the Electric Church is a 20th-century example of what the apostle Paul warned Timothy about when he said: “For there will be a period of time when they will not put up with the healthful teaching, but, in accord with their own desires, they will accumulate teachers for themselves to have their ears tickled; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, whereas they will be turned aside to false stories.”​—2 Tim. 4:3, 4.

Why are people willing to give millions of dollars to support the Electric Church? Because they are being told what they want to hear. They are assured that God will answer their prayers. They do not have to deny themselves or ‘bear a cross’ or do the work Christ did, but they are “saved” and God loves them​—just as long as they keep those checks coming in.

However, even if the theology of the Electric Church is vague and imprecise, its politics are clear and specific. That is the subject of the following article.

[Blurb on page 5]

The theology of the electric church is simplistic and self-gratifying

[Blurb on page 6]

Even some sympathetic to the electric church admit that it has little content

[Blurb on page 7]

“They are helping people accept some very shallow values, while promising easy salvation in the most commercial setting”

Part 3

The Electric Church Shocks American Politics

THE speaker was impassioned and dynamic. Waving his Bible at a group of 1,000 ministers’ wives, he declared: “We’ve got the answer to the political chaos in the country, to the economic ruin, to the moral shame and to the weakness of the family.”

What was the answer? “We’ve got to unite our hearts and hands together to put this nation back together . . . We’ve got to demand a turnaround,” said Texas preacher James Robison.

In language that would appeal to many sincere Christians, he scathingly denounced abortion. “If the mutilated massacre of the unborn in the wombs of their mothers is not wicked, then man can be found guilty of no sin ever.”

Meanwhile, across the country another speaker, equally eloquent, was giving advice to a roomful of his colleagues. “What can you do from the pulpit?” he asked. “You can register people to vote. You can explain the issues to them. And you can endorse candidates, right there in church on Sunday morning.” Like Robison, Jerry Falwell​—superstar of the Electric Church—​was campaigning energetically for political issues.

A lot of people listen to what these preachers say. James Robison’s weekly TV program is carried by 100 stations. Falwell’s show is even more popular. Every week he reaches between 6 million and 18 million people on nearly 400 TV channels and another 400 radio stations.

Such politically conservative preachers of the Electric Church were eager to influence voters in the American elections last fall. Not long before the elections some of them spoke at a National Affairs Briefing in Dallas, Texas, which was attended by some 15,000 religious fundamentalists, mostly ministers. Republican candidate for president, Ronald Reagan, also addressed the group and praised it, saying: “Religious America is awakening. Perhaps just in time for our country’s sake.” He was warmly applauded.

Of course, Reagan went on to win the election in what has been called a “conservative landslide.” The religio-political action group, the Moral Majority, claimed a share in that victory, saying it had registered some 4 million voters during the campaign, most of whom voted for Reagan. Significantly, many of the senators opposed by the Moral Majority and similar groups lost their seats to relatively unknown politicians.

Surveying the Senate races, the New York Times commented that “the Moral Majority, Christian Voice, and other conservative, church-oriented groups played an active role with ‘morality ratings’ that were weighted against liberals. No matter how many members of Congress they helped to elect, their effect is expected to continue to be felt because of the number of incumbents whom they badly frightened.”

One preacher was jubilant, calling the results “the greatest day for the cause of conservatism and American morality in my adult life.” Others were less pleased. The Episcopal Bishops of America issued a pastoral letter condemning the endorsement of political candidates by preachers. The bishops claimed that such endorsement “in the name of God distorts Christian truth and threatens American religious freedom.”

Other preachers are also concerned about the politics of the Electric Church. A Fort Worth minister objected that while gatherings like the National Affairs Briefing are billed as nonpartisan, they “always seem to turn into a Republican rally.” Even conservative politicians have expressed concern, one Reagan aide saying that “this marriage of religion and politics is the most dangerous thing, the creepiest thing, I’ve ever seen.”

None of these critics faze activists such as the one who admits that “fifteen years ago I opposed what I’m doing today, but now I’m convinced this country is morally sick and will not correct itself unless we get involved.”

These preachers are quick to point out the apparent hypocrisy of liberal clergymen who were politically active against the Vietnam war or nuclear energy, but who denounce similar activism from conservatives. “Nobody’s ever accused the National Council of Churches of mixing religion and politics,” complains one of them, adding that when he gets involved, “that’s violating separation of church and state.”

By the end of the election campaign, it was clear that American religious leaders were sharply divided. Liberal religious leaders claimed that conservative preachers wrongly implied that people who did not agree with them were not Christians. The National Council of Churches, an object of the ire of these conservatives, issued a statement that “there can be discerned no exclusively ‘Christian vote.”’

The conservatives, on the other hand, were convinced that they were on a mission from God to turn the country around morally, and that their liberal fellow clergymen were part of the problem. Indeed, when the Moral Majority decided that a Baptist minister who had served in Congress for 16 years was too liberal, they helped to organize some 2,000 volunteers to go from door to door in favor of the minister’s opponent. “It was the Moral Majority movement that very quietly, but very effectively, covered my district like a tent,” admitted the preacher, who was defeated in the primary election.

There is no doubt that many of the politically active preachers of the Electric Church are deeply concerned about the rising tide of immorality in America and the world. Most of them feel strongly that a nation that tolerates abortion cannot have God’s approval, and any sincere Christian would have to agree. They believe that a national lack of interest in the Bible has contributed to the moral breakdown we see today. In a TV sermon one of their leaders said: “We must all study the Bible and learn to believe in God. It is vital that we follow His teachings so that we will have the strength to fight back against the immoral and blasphemous forces that are taking over politics and the media.”

What Christian would deny that we must study the Bible and believe in God? The question is, Does God teach us in the Bible to “fight back” for control of politics and the media? Is that the message God’s Word contains for our generation?

You may recall that Jesus Christ had more than one opportunity to exercise political power, but never chose to do so. When people saw that he could feed them miraculously they sought to make him king, doubtless thinking that their economic problems would be solved. The account relates that “when the men saw the signs he performed [feeding about 5,000 men with only five loaves and two fishes], they began to say: ‘This is for a certainty the prophet that was to come into the world.’ Therefore Jesus, knowing they were about to come and seize him to make him a king, withdrew again into the mountain all alone.”​—John 6:14, 15.

Jesus did not seek political power; he ran from it! Why should he wish to become embroiled in the dirty politics of Judea and Galilee? As Jesus later pointed out to Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is no part of this world.” (John 18:36) If Jesus’ kingdom was not of this world when he was on earth, is it now of this world just because Jesus is in heaven? That would not be logical, would it?

Jesus knew that he could not reform the corrupt politics of his day, and he did not try. He knew that if he had become a political messiah promising freedom from Roman oppression, he would only have been used by various interest groups, such as the Jewish nationalist Zealot party, and then he would have been discarded. None of this would have brought any glory to his Father, Jehovah God.

Is it likely that Jesus is interested in reforming the equally corrupt politics of our day? Or is it more likely that preachers who enter politics are themselves liable to be used and corrupted by the experience? It is significant that the Moral Majority was not any preacher’s idea. The idea, and even the name Moral Majority, came from a group of conservative political lobbyists who persuaded Mr. Falwell to back the organization because of his nationwide popularity, his vast computerized mailing list, and his proved ability to raise money. Even well-known Electric Church star Pat Robertson, host of The 700 Club, admits that “the evangelists stand in danger of being used and manipulated.”

Was it not this very manipulation that Jesus sought to avoid when he refused Satan’s offer of “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory”? There was a string attached to that original offer that remains attached today. Satan asked Jesus to “fall down and do an act of worship to me.” (Matt. 4:8, 9) Political power is available to the ministers of the Electric Church. All they have to do for it is to continue to go along as a part of this world’s political system under Satan.​—John 14:30; 15:19; 2 Cor. 4:4.

No doubt fourth-century apostate Christians rejoiced when, after so much persecution, political power came their way under Emperor Constantine. But what did that power do to them? “Almost immediately after the Christians of the Empire received legal status the leading churchmen began to give the magistrates advice on how to conduct themselves in office,” notes theologian Robert Culver. Soon the Church was fully drawn into Roman politics, fighting wars and torturing its enemies. Was political power worth the price? Or had Satan simply used it to entice the Church to abandon the precepts of Christ?

Suppose that the preachers of the Electric Church, however good their intentions, were to attain the same degree of political power as those early churchmen. Would they be able to resist the corrupting influences of Satan’s political system? History does not indicate that they would. Indeed, in his limited political activity to date, one of them has publicly admitted resorting to an age-old tactic of the Devil​—deception. He was forced to acknowledge that he had fabricated a conversation with the president of the United States about alleged homosexuals on the president’s staff. “I shouldn’t have said it,” he admitted. “Obviously it was a reckless statement.”

EVEN before the American presidential election was over, some leaders of the Electric Church expressed concern that their candidate, if elected, might not keep his promises to them.

How different it is with God, who cannot lie!​—Heb. 6:18.