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Sociologist Jeffrey Hadden of the University of Virginia, who was skeptical of religious broadcasters' claims to big audiences in his 1981 book Prime Time Preachers, says the Nielsen report shows a "much larger" audience than he and other experts had thought. The preachers, he now asserts, "have greater unrestricted access to media than any other interest group in America." Powered by TV evangelism, he predicts, the Christian right "is destined to become the major social movement in America" during the late 20th century.
What accounts for the surprising impact of the televangelists? In part, showbiz flair: outsize personalities, sermons carefully shaped around themes that pull audience response, dramatic personal stories of life-changing events, and toe-tapping music. But broader cultural forces are surely at work. "Everybody thinks the TV preacher is doing a number on people," says Armstrong, "but it's the viewer with his hand on the dial who controls the system." People who hope TV Gospel will fade when today's stars are gone, says Armstrong, "do not understand that the real key is grass-roots people, dying for personal religion and traditional values."
There is little doubt that many Americans are yearning for meaning and moral anchorage, which evangelical religion has ardently and successfully provided. Critics add that people find it easier to acquire simple answers to complex personal and social ills via television than to commit themselves to solving real-life troubles.
Among Pray TV's top-rated figures:
Jimmy Swaggart, 50, is a brash, rafter-ringing Pentecostal preacher and Gospel singer (his albums have sold 13 million copies) who preserves the old tent revival style at his striking 7,000-seat Family Worship Center outside Baton Rouge, La. In his weekly one-hour broadcasts, he prowls the stage, sometimes breaking into excited jig steps, as he revs up perorations assailing Communism, Catholicism and "secular humanism," the last of which he blames for abortion, pornography, AIDS and assorted social ills. He takes in $140 million a year. The money pays for his weekly show (aired in 197 markets), his daily Bible study, and in 1984 enabled him to launch the Jimmy Swaggart Bible College, which drew 18,000 applications for 400 openings.
Robert Schuller, 59, a bland-looking but calculatedly theatrical performer, presides over the vast, glittery Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif. Finished in 1980 at a cost of $18 million (paid largely by viewer donations), the structure serves as a dazzling stage set for Schuller's weekly Hour of Power. The show, seen in 169 cities, beats Swaggart in some audience listings. Schuller's TV budget is $37 million a year, and the 10,000-member cathedral spends an additional $5.7 million on non-TV operations. The author of several inspirational best sellers, Schuller shook 10,000 hands in a weeklong January tour promoting his latest volume, an upbeat rewrite of Jesus' Beatitudes titled The Be-Happy Attitudes. Schuller is affiliated with the mainline Reformed Church in America, as is his predecessor in hyperoptimism, Norman Vincent Peale.