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With such preachers drawing sums that surpass the national budgets of entire denominations, there are inevitable questions about financial practices. The gospel broadcasters make no apology for pitching for funds on the air, since they need to raise lots of money from their audience to produce the shows and buy air time. Says William Fore of the National Council of Churches, a questioner of electronic faith: "These people are not building up wealth in Swiss banks, but the system brings them the things money buys: power and prestige."
Still, broadcast preachers until recently have often had compliant boards of directors and little outside scrutiny over their personal dealings. Though he sometimes begs gifts to fend off PTL's bankruptcy, Jim Bakker and his wife draw $90,000 in salary and perks, plus a clothing allowance and use of a $200,000 home provided free by a supporter. Not much by secular TV standards, but exorbitant in traditional church terms. Bakker's organization has also been shaken by mismanagement during a giddy empire-building phase.
The FCC is currently investigating charges that Bakker and another evangelist, California Station Owner Eugene Scott, sometimes raised money on the air for one purpose and used it for another. Scott is also being pursued by the California attorney general. Whether or not any of the allegations stand up, religious-broadcasting-industry leaders are privately alarmed by the sleazy image such allegations convey. The NRB has toughened its internal code of ethics for members, and a new Evangelical Council on Financial Accountability is accrediting Protestant organizations to protect their image with contributors—and head off government controls. Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell are the first TV stars to win the council's approval. Some big operators, including Eugene Scott, apparently have no intention of applying.
More than ever, this year's NRB convention was animated by a new purpose: using its access to millions to influence public opinion and policymaking, generally from a conservative position. Falwell, most politically inclined of the lot, thundered last week to an appreciative audience: "255,000 secular humanists have taken 215 million of us out in left field. The time has come to take the crowd back to right field."
The next morning over breakfast at the White House, a delegation of preachers, including Falwell, Bakker and Oral Roberts, got down to business with President Carter and came away reassured on two matters close to their hearts. Carter said he did not oppose prayers in public schools if they were truly voluntary, and left the impression he would support an antiabortion amendment to the U.S. Constitution if it passed Congress. One participant, Rex Humbard, seemed less than comfortable with the new-fashioned political Christianity that some of his fellow broadcast evangelists have begun pursuing. "If I got into politics," he allowed, "I'd be like a blacksmith pullin' teeth."