DISKUS Vol 1, no.1, (1993) pp.2-14

PAY NOW, PRAY LATER
Part 1: The emergence of the Electronic Church

Klaus-Dieter Stoll

68 Windermere Road
Lancaster
LA1 3EZ


Content:
1.Definition 
2.History 
3.Theology  
4.Electronic Church and politics 
5.The Electronic Church around the world  
6.Present and future of the Electronic Church
7.List of abbreviations
8.Bibliography

1.Definition

The term "Electronic Church" (EC) is a modernisation of the term "Electric Church", invented by the early prophet of the Electronic Church, Ben Armstrong, in the 1970's and widely publicised through his book: "The Electric Church". The definition of the term varies as widely as the people who use it, and the organisations involved in it, but two criteria can be used for a definition:

a) The use of modern technology for the communication of programmes with a religious content,

b) the funding of these programmes by money generated by the programmes themselves, which means they generate enough income to cover, directly or indirectly; eg. by fund-raising appeals, subsidies by interested parties, advertising etc.; their own production costs.

Whilst the first criterion describes religious broadcasting in its widest sense, the second criterion draws a line between religious broadcasting per se, and the Electronic Church. According to these criteria, EC includes the itinerant evangelist who transports an ancient film projector from village to village to show religious programmes, even when he raises no money himself, because the network which supplies him with film, exploits in other parts of his operations its support of the itenerant evangelist to raise money. The EC equally includes the prime time tele-evangelist star appealing on his own television show for support, but excludes programmes produced by secular TV networks as part of their general service, which do not have to generate their own production costs (e.g. BBC television's "Songs of Praise").

2. History

The history of the EC is very closely connected with, and in many cases is identical with the history of religious broadcasting in the USA. This history began in January 1921 with the broadcasting of evening prayer from Calvary Episcopal Church, Pittsburg, on station KDKA.In 1922 the Omaha Gospel tabernacle tried out the new medium, wich resulted in the first non-denominational service broadcast and the first conversion experience via radio waves on record. The preacher so blessed and encouraged in this service, R.R. Brown, went on to broadcast regular "Radio Chapel Services", and built up a regular weekly audience of 1/2 million listeners. The first Christian owned radio station KFUO (Keep Forward, Upward, Onward) of St. Louis, Missouri (1924) was only a logical step forward in the development of religious broadcasting. The early days of the EC were marked by three major developments:

a) New licencing standards: In 1927 the Federal Communications  Commission (FCC) was set up and imposed stringent technical standards based on " public interest, convenience and necessity". Of the approximately 60 stations which were licenced and operated by religious groups in 1927, nearly 50% went out of business in the next few years.

b) Polarisation: The ecumenical age brought conflict between the so called "liberals" and "fundamentalist" groups. The liberals were organised into the basically main-stream Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America (F.C.C.C.) founded in 1908, now the National Council of Churches USA (N.C.C.). The N.C.C. encouraged the development of co-operative broadcasting, an unacceptable concept for predominantly non-mainstream fundamentalist churches, who, deep down, saw only themselves as licenced by God to save lost sheep and issue valid entry tickets to heaven. The fundamentalist churches organised themselves later into the "National Organisation of Evangelicals" (founded 1942), and the National Religious Broadcasters (N.R.B.)(founded 1944).

c) The "sweetheart deal". The division was deepened by the developments wich led to the so-called "sweetheart deal" (B. Armstrong). NBC was joined by CBS as the national network in 1927, and both networks, from the start, sold airtime to every religious broadcaster who was able to pay the fees, an opportunity often taken by the most radical and desperate. This resulted in a string of controversies over network religious programmes. The scandal around Fr. Charles Coughlin (RC) about his controversial religious and political statements in the 1930s convinced the national networks, who mainly wanted peace and quiet on the airwaves, to stop the sale of airtime and offer free network time to three main partners, the National Council of Catholic Men, Jewish Seminary of America and the F.C.C.C., from whom a middle of the road approach to religious broadcasting could be expected.

An uproar went through the American Evangelical churches, who claimed they were excluded from religious broadcasting, the God-given Tool to preach the Gospel to mankind, and used the exclusion myth as proof of their suppression. The reality looked rather different. "There were some Protestant Churches outside the F.C.C.C. which were centrally structured and able to make their own denominational arrangements with the networks .... The majority of Evangelicals, however, are in the congregational tradition. The important unit is the local church. If any broadcasting is to be done, or any Christian work for that matter, it will be done on the initiative of the local church, and not through some plenipotentiary in New York. If money is needed to buy time for broadcasting, it will be local money on local stations... It was neither appropriate nor possible for the Evangelicals to change direction and benefit from this new deal with the churches. They continued to purchase local air time.  Independents such as C.E. Fuller, H.M.S. Richards and Aimee Temple McPherson put large funds into buying Time." (P. Elvy, "Buying Time", page 37-38)

The 1940s and 1950s showed a parallel development of religious network broadcasting on a national level and the increase of bought time by the EC on a local level, and also the introduction of the new medium, television, until in 1960 the "Big Bang" of de-regulation occurred. Once again, the F.C.C. played a mayor role by releasing a statement that:

a) The F.C.C. would no longer make a distinction between paid (air-time bought from a broadcasting company) and sustained time programmes (free air-time provided by a broadcasting company as a public service) in respect of public interest, wich meant, in practical terms, that broadcasting stations could not serve the public interest with religious programmes based on bought/sold time.

b) money raising in religious programmes was legal because religious programmes will not be classified as commercial programmes.

c) The F.C.C. Fairness Doctrine, which places an 'affirmative obligation' on a broadcaster to cover controversial issues important to the community served, and to provide a reasonable opportunity for the presentation of conflicting views, would no longer apply to religious programmes.

The implications of these changes were dramatic, and opened the floodgates for the EC:

a) A reversal of the previous situation: Few stations or networks could afford the luxury of giving free airtime for religious programmes, when they could sell it. Mainstream religious programmes were pushed aside (but by no means extinguished) by an EC which was prepared to use 

b) aggressive and now legal methods of fund-raising which made the financing of these programmes possible.(with the bonus of being tax free!)

c) Because it was no longer required that one give equal and fair treatment to contentious religious issues, religious broadcasting appealed even more to religious and political pressure groups as a medium for their message. The controversy which led to the "sweetheart deal" was now seen as a very desirable part of fundraising activity. The following equation was formulated: controversy = publicity = increase of viewers = more funds. Controversy became part of the shows, even providing an entertainment element in itself to the extent that it did not and does not matter what to say, but only how to say it. The threshold of acceptance of radical and dangerous ideology could be lowered because the audience could not and would not distinguish clearly between message and show. It was an opportunity for manipulation that many found irresistible. What, however, appears to be the great  attraction to the EC propagandist was and is also a restriction. Would the viewer give the message any credibility? Was conversion a kind of party game, part of an entertainment on the screen, or was it something which really changed your life? Was anti-communism a "cops and robbers" game for children, or a real political concept? The receiver of the message could never be sure, nor could the broadcaster rid himself of the same ambiguity. If the 1940s and 1950s were the "golden age" for the EC and its evangelists, such as Billy Graham with "Hour of Decision" from 1951 onwards, Rex Humbard from 1952 and Oral Roberts from 1954 etc., the 1960s, 70s, and 80s saw the show take off by making full use of the deregulation, new technological possibilities, satellites, computers and credit cards, and by generally meeting a social demand. Whereas in 1959, 53% of religious broadcasting was on "bought" time, by 1977 this had risen to 92%. The membership of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) rose from 104 members in 1968 to 900 in 1980. They produce approximately 70% of all religious broadcasting in the USA and cover more then 80% of all USA television ministries.

It is impossible to cover all radio and television ministries and religious networks in an article such as this, but the following were the most significant from the 1960s to the early 1980s:

1.) CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network, based in Virginia Beach with Pat Robertson and his "700 Club" which got its name from one of the fund-raising marathons he developed in the early days of his ministries. "I asked our viewers to believe with me that God would raise up 700 people who would trust him to supply $10 apiece each month for the coming year. We called the telethon 'The 700 Club'...". (Pat Robertson,'Shout it from the Housetops'.)  Robertson was a presidential candidate for the 1988 presidential election. CBN's legally separate cable network is a profit-making company which reaches 27 million households in the USA and therefore is the third biggest cable network in the country. Advertising revenues of $46.5 million in 1986 gave an estimated profit of $6.7 milion, for $53 million in 1987, estimated profit was $15 million.

2.) TBN, Trinity Broadcasting Network, President: Paul Croach, Major Show: "Praise the Lord", Headquarters: Tulsa, Oklahoma. TBN produces Robert Schuller, James Kennedy, Kenneth Copeland, Jimmy Swaggert and is the most internationally orientated of all religious networks.

3.) Jimmy Swaggert, based at the World Ministry Centre, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with the Vance Teleproduction Centre.

4.) Jerry Falwell, founder of the "Moral Majority". His show is called "The Old Time Gospel Hour", broadcast from the second largest U.S. Baptist Church, publisher of "Fundamentalist" magazine.

5.) Robert Schuller, minister of the Reformed Church in America. Show: "Hour of Power" from the Crystal Cathedral, Garden Grove, Los Angeles.

6.) Oral Roberts, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with the Oral Roberts University complex.

7.) PTL :Praise the Lord, based in North Carolina with Jim and Tammy Bakker.

The Roman Catholic faith is represented not only by its old star Fulton Sheen, but also John Bertolucci, of the "Glory to God" television series, carried on RTL and TBN. He is the founder of the St. Francis Association for Catholic Evangelism (FACE) based in the Archbishop Fulton Sheen Centre, Dallas. Last but not least is the noticeable character of Mother Angelica, the founder/superior of Our lady of the Angels Convent, in Birmingham, Alabama, which is also the Headquarter of her Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN).

3.Theology

As shown in the previous section, the vast majority of exponents of the EC expouse the Evangelical expression of the Christian Faith. The Evangelical movement is no single unit, but consists of thousands of disparate groups, with sometimes conflicting creeds, which can, however, be roughly divided into the "fundamentalists" and the "spirit-filled" Charismatics and Pentecostals. Despite the fact that both groups life in a permanent state of warfare, interrupted by the occasional strategic truce, owing to the  Fundamentalists belief that charismatic gifts, signs and miracles today are the works of demons, since the authentic phenomena died out with the Apostles, they are united by a similar belief in the Apocalyptic. They consequently both emphasise Mt 28;19: 'Go therefore and make disciples of al nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit'.

A look into the apocalyptic beliefs of the Evangelicals helps to explain much about the EC phenomenon. Evangelical apocalyptic beliefs are based on the doctrine of "dispensationalism", a concept developed by John Nelson Darby (1800-82, Anglican priest who left 1828 the Anglican Church to join the Brethren movement) who claimed that through a literalist reading of the Bible, especially of the O.T. prophecies, a cosmic history from the past to future could be uncovered. Jesus's return is to be expected imminently in a "rapture" (Thess.4;17), which transfers the believers into heaven and heaps the unbelievers in the "great tribulation" (Rev.2;22, 2 Thess 1;7-9). The dispensationalists came to the conclusion from their studies that Israel must be restored as a national state before the "rapture". The Crimean War focussed their attention on Russia. In 1853 John Cumming revealed in his book "The End" that Gog and Magog, who will invade Israel in the last days (Ez.38;14f, cp.Rev.20;8) are  identical with Russia. For the dispensationalist  the time of tribulation was marked by a war between the USA and the USSR, or between God and the USSR, triggered off by the USSR's attempt to invate the state of Israel but the exact scenario of the time of tribulation is regularly updated by dispensationalists according to the relevant actual political circumstances of the time.

In recent years, dispensationalists have come under pressure from the more extreme apocalyptic views which advertise themselves under the names of "Dominion" or "Kingdom" theology, and "Christian Reconstructionism". (Not to be confused with a movement of that name associated with the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (FCCC ,became later the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, NCCC) and the Peace Aims Group 1940-46, or with Moral Rearmament. It is based on the idea that Christians have been given dominion by God over the earth and it is their ultimate duty to fulfil this mandate before Christ can return. O.T. law must be re-assembled, including a return to the institution of slavery, a war won against secular humanism, abortion, communism, the theory of evolution (to be replaced by  creationism) and other signs and works of Satan. This war can only be won by achieving world dominion by true Christians with the right beliefs. In the fight to achieve this goal, which will save the world, every kind of weapon can be used with justification. Dominionists and dispensationalists agree that the end is near, very near, so the commandment of Mt 28;19 and Mk 13;10 "but first the gospel must be preached to  all nations", makes mission an urgent imperative to bring the kingdom nearer and to save the lost. Significant also is the absence of a theology of the cross, or any suggestion that God's servants could suffer, that following the way of the cross could mean failure in earthly terms. On the contrary, members of the EC are assured by their leaders that they will receive material rewards for their faithfulness. Their generosity in giving to EC concerns will secure them 100% return on their investment and upward social mobility is assured. 

Since this kind of theology does not correspond with the realities of life, its followers can be thrown into severe crisis and conflict. Every kind of failure (for example, failure to convert a family member, illness, financial difficulties etc.) in this kind of theology is referred back to the lack of faith in the individual. Anyone who does not measure up to the standard (and therefore is financially and politically useless for the EC) is seen as "out" and "lost" by divine judgement. This not so glamorous side of the EC is widely  overlooked, and it has been the task of non-EC churches to provide help for EC drop-outs and to support EC believers though self-help groups like "Evangelicals Anonymous".

4.The Electronic Church and Politics

Every society develops its own forms of expression and theological concepts. Thus the society's cults reflect the economic, social, cultural and political situation and have to fulfil one single main task: to secure the existence and stability of society internally and externally. To fulfil this task, the society cult must display the following elementary conditions; it must express the norms it wants to achieve in generally acceptable theological ideas and models; it must offer therapy and integration models for the society and its fringe groups; it must provide a corporate identity and symbol figures, reinforced by a strong organisational framework which monitors the movement and has authority to introduce changes for a flexible response to a "changing enviroment". The EC is one of the major society cults of the USA and consequently the history of the EC is a mirror of American society from the 1930s. The world crisis of the late 1920s and 1930s demanded a unified country without sectarian divisions. Control of the airwaves was essential, as is reflected in the F.C.C. standard (1927). This situation changed with the end of the second world war. Defeating the enemy did not bring the war to an end: some said that the real war starts now, with the establishment of a new political, economic and social system, and religion has a very important role to play here. The mainstream USA churches did not have the real missionary drive necessary to fulfil that role, but the Evangelical churches were more than happy to take over this responsibility. 

Equipped with war surplus equipment, the Evangelicals erected radio stations in the Pacific and North Africa. The Far East Broadcasting Company (founded 1945) started service in 1948 from Manila. The Evangelicals had their representatives in the liberation armies in the shape of army chaplains and the  liberation armies were immediately followed by missionary teams from the USA. In Germany for example "Youth for Christ" started to set up their own organisation and to promote fellow German Evangelicals by paying the running costs of these organisations, equipping them with food and clothing parcels, and arranging travel visas and a meeting of German evangelicals with President Truman "to discuss the situation in Germany". This contrasts with the extreme difficulties of access and involvement faced by the fledgeling World Council of Churches (WCC)  and officers of the British Council of Churches, suspected of being pacifist and "soft on communism". 

The repercussions of McCarthyism also had their effect on the advance of the EC. In the late 1940s and the 1950s the EC proved how useful it was for the USA. The 1960s de-regulations were repayments and recognition that the EC was "in the public interest", but the full potential of the EC only became clear afterwards. The 1960s were turbulent and traumatic years for the USA with a crumbling American Protestant empire as well as disastrous colonial wars and adventures (Bay of Pigs, Vietnam etc.) In the 1970s the Empire fought back, equipped with a new apocalyptic idea, the "Dominion theology" (outlined above), which expressed moral demands better than the older  "dispensationalism", barely effective in the Cold War, and with improved technology. 

The combined forces of tele-evangelists and right wing pressure groups (e.g. Moral Majority) claimed victory wih the election of a fundamentalist preacher (Carter) and a warrior against the evil empire (Reagan) as presidents of the USA. The EC base their  unquestioning support of US foreign policy on their apocalyptic view, even seeing themselves as an active part of it, or consenting to being used by the C I A. CBN pledged "more than a billion dollars" to help General Rios Moutt in Guatemala to build "model villages" and to support the fight against the rebels. Even when CBN could not keep its pledge, a truck convoy of "aid" was sent. Later the same source supplied Oscar Humberto Mejra Victores in Guatemala with $2 million. CBN joined the R.C. sovereign military order of the Knights of Malta to send millions to support the Nicaraguan Contra forces when official U.S. aid was cut off by the  Congress. Robertson (see above) is closely connected with Oliver North, himself a member of the Officers Christian Fellowship, a  charismatic Pentecostal organisation with approx. 7000 members in the US armed forces. Deeply involved with Oliver North and the Contras was also Phil Derstine of Gospel Outreach of Bradaston, Florida. There is evidence also of links between right wing American Evangelical networks and death squads: 

     "One example is the Revd. Antonio Sandoval. Sandoval is a participant in Carl McIntyre's far right New Jersey based  International Council of Christian Churches. Sandoval served as a chaplain for the Treasury Police in Guatemala City, notorious for their death squad activity. Sandoval said in an interview in 1983 that he preached often from the Book of Proverbs and that "morale" was his greatest concern in his ministry to the Treasury Police. Morale must be a serious problem in the death squads, especially if the members want to live otherwise "normal" lives. A religion that justifies killing suspected "communists" and "subversives" can effectively function to maintain the morale of a goverment sponsored death squad". (Larry Jones, see his paper to the CIIR Faith and Development Conference 1989). 

This is only one example of direct EC involvement. Other points for EC attention are Israel, South Africa and the Philippines.

5. The Electronic Church around the world
The radio and television signals of the EC now reach approx. 90% of the world's population potentially. In 1987, 282 broadcasting organisations were listed by NRB as operating outside the USA in religious radio and television, but only a few organisations are of real significance:

FEBC The Far East Broadcasting Company was founded in 1945 and started broadcasting in 1948 from Manila in the Philippines. FEBC now has 28 stations around the world and uses old Voice of America equipment to broadcast to Central and South America. FEBC can reach 1/3rd of the world's population with 300 programme hours per day in 106 languages. A founder of FEBC is John Broger, who supervised communications operations and development in the Pentagon until 1977. FEBC's headquarters are situated in La Mirada, California, and it has a reputation for partly funding its operations by aggressive direct mailing campaigns.

Station HCJB Ecuador is one of the first Evangelical radio stations founded by US Evangelicals in the 1930's and broadcasts now worldwide in 15 languages.

TWA, Trans World Radio Association, originally based in Tangier, Morocco, has its headquarters now in Monaco. The German branch of TWA is the Evangeliums Rundfunk/Wetzlar, FRG, and TWA has stations in the Antilles, Cyprus, Switzerland, Sri Lanka and Guatemala. 

The ELWA broadcasting organisation was founded in 1954 and operates from Monrovia, Liberia in more than 50 African languages.

The "High Adventure" radio ministry is very close to CBN. It donated its television station in Israel-occupied Lebanon to CBN in 1982. "High Adventure" was founded by Lear Jet executive George Otis and has a worldwide coverage from stations in Lebanon, Los Angeles and Guatemala. High Adventure is close to the Phalangist leaders and armies in South Lebanon (for which it provides airtime) and the Israeli defence force. (IDF) IDF agreed to move the broadcasting station into Israel after it suffered frequent attacks. This is the only station CBN owns outside the USA, but CBN uses affiliated stations in 25 countries, which means it buys and sells airtime and programmes to and from other stations.

TBN Trinity Broadcasting Network owns stations in Belize, El Salvador, Italy, Switzerland and the Caribbean. It operated the first independent religious station in Africa and a South African network. TBN operates Channel 24 in the South African black "homeland" state Ciskei. TBN broadcasts 50 hours per week from Channel 24 and receives given airtime from the S.A. government. 90% of TBN Africa programmes are produced in America and it claims a 50% black audience. TBN provides the national Swaziland Network television with programmes and a second channel on the Bophuthatswana commercial network.

6. The Present and Future of the Electronic Church

In the middle of the 1980's, the EC fell into a time of crisis and change. The pillars of the EC began to crumble as financial, political and theological difficulties occured. The political power of the EC is based on the ability to influence and mobilise the masses. The EC always claimed to be a mass movement, not just a moral majority. This claim is essential, and the EC was hard hit when research showed that: 

a) the audience of the EC was far smaller than was claimed. The EC claimed a weekly audience of over 100 million people whilst realistic figures hover between 5 -20 millions;

b) political pressure groups like the moral majority also had far fewer followers than was claimed. Falwell claimed 2 - 3 million members, including 720.000 pastors, but research shows a total of 482,000 members (approx.); 

c) Exit polls and other polls showed that the activities of the EC had little or no effect, or even a negative effect for political candidates supported by the EC. The candidature of Pat Robertson for president in 1986, showed how grossly the EC overreached itself and that their function was to serve the rulers and not to rule. These ambitions were not favourably received by the real holders of power. A crushing defeat proved unavoidable.

These figures destroy the myth of the large and powerful EC and put the whole thing in perspective. However, the EC will try again and again to play the number card, and will succeed as long as politicans, churches and the general public are wrongly informed or not informed at all.

Buying airtime and having to raise the money for it means that the EC is subject to "market forces" in the same way as any other venture of the capitalist system. An increasing number of ministries tried to get their share of the EC in a time when the numbers of viewers and the income they could contribute stagnated or even declined. There is however no way back in the EC, because of its concepts of "Those whom God loves can only meet with success" and "world dominion or bust". This allows only for bigger, more spectacular and glamorous, increasingly expensive shows, buildings, hospitals, theme parks, memorials, etc.. 

Fraud and increasingly ruthless and devious fund-raising and management became a necessity for survival. Long before the sex scandals of Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swagggart were widely publicised, their moral conduct and that of other Tele-evangelists were known. Moral misconduct was merely the issue, based on carefully timed information to the media, which was used to remove competitors by subtefuge and hit the EC in general. In fact all ministries lost substantial amounts of anticipated income because of the sex scandals, but the EC had become increasingly a "lame duck" and a burden for many and was in urgent need of renewal. The sex scandals simply fullfilled a "cleaning up" function to adopt to the new situation. This became more important as the enviroment the EC is operating in, was seeing important changes and adaptations became neccesary. For example, a theology whose main theme is anti-communism becomes obsolete when the Cold War is over and a whole new market suddenly opens up in the Eastern Block countries.

These changes and shortcomings also point the way forward to the future of the EC. New markets have to be cultivated, especially in the rich, developed areas of the world. One such area is Western Europe. The EC has of course already arrived here. The most remarkable example is the European Broadcasting Network (EBN) of Pastor Hans Bratlund, a former student of the Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, who is based in Oslo, Norway. Since the early 1980's he has been preparing to be on the air when the state monopolies on television are demolished, as is happening in the UK, and powerful satellites give him the possibility of reaching all Europe. The present political changes in Eastern Europe mean that sooner or later, the EC can operate in the whole of Europe, a potential market of 770 million, three times bigger than the USA and Canada together. One additional factor works in favour of the EC in Europe.  Satellite and cable television in Europe has established itself by now but many broadcasting organisations experience a very harsh marked and are desperate to find customers to buy airtime from them. The EC is the ideal customer in this marked.

The new message of the EC is in fact "back to the roots". The keyword is mission, the target to reach the whole world by the year 2000. Two major projects are moving in this direction. 

Since 1985 the World Radio Missionary Fellowship, TWR, FEBC, HCJB and ELWA have been working together to achieve this goal. 

The other project bears the name of Lumen or Evangelization 2000, a Roman Catholic attempt to catch up with their Protestant partners in the EC. Financed by the Dutch Catholic businessman Piet Oerksen and supervised by the former US Air Force officer Colonel B.G. Cavner, Lumen 2000 has been trying to build up an international association of Catholic television producers by training mainly third world Catholics in radio and television production, and wants to convert "at least 51%" of the worlds population to the Catholic charismatic faith.

Old direct political messages are replaced by proven issue carriers like abortion, which carry the political message under a layer of emotion, fear and psychological blackmail. AIDS as a new issue carrier offers even greater scope for this.

The third major development is the changes in the structure of the ministries themselves. The crisis of the EC showed that ministries and tele-evangelists who a) own their own studios and broadcasting  facilities b) are based on a young, qualified and financially potent congregation c) are not involved in costly long term projects like universities, hospitals etc., have a much better chance of survival than those one-man-show ministries which have to rent and buy everything and involved themselves in prestigious but expensive adventures. This lesson was learned, for example, in the build up of the EC in Europe. The first intention of the new apostles of the airwaves is to build up a young, strong and broadly built network of congregations throughout Europe. They take the theological training of the young members into their own hands and use them to increase and strengthen the network and to go on the air after the congregations have built and financed church centres which are places of worship, television studios and university all in one.

The EC has arrived in Europe and is here to stay. Part two of this article (hopefully to be published in a later Diskus issue) wants to look in more detail at the establishment and current developments of the EC in Europe and especially Great Britain.


Abbreviations

CBN  THE CHRISTIAN BROADCASTING NETWORK Inc.
CBS  COLUMBIA BROADCASTING SYSTEM.
EBN  THE EUROPEAN BROADCASTING NETWORK.
EC   ELECTRONIC CHURCH.
ELWA Call-sign of Liberian-based Christian radio station.
EWTN ETERNAL WORD TELEVISION NETWORK
FACE St FRANCIS ASSOCIATION FOR CATHOLIC EVANGELISM
FEBC THE FAR-EAST BROADCASTING COMPANY.
FCC  FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSSION.
FCCC FEDERAL COUNCIL OF THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST IN THE USA, later NCCC.
FRC  FEDERAL RADIO COMMISSION.
IDF  ISRAELI DEFENCE FORCE.
HCJB Call-sign of Evangelical radio station in Equador.
KDKA Call-sign for Pittsburg radio station.
KFUO KEEP FORWARD,UPWARD, ONWARD; call-sign of the first Christian owned radio station, St. Louis, Missouri.
NBC  NATIONAL BROADCASTING COMPANY.
NCC  NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES USA.
NCCC NATIONAL COUNCIL OF THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST IN THE USA, formerly FCCC.
NRB  NATIONAL RELIGIOUS BROADCASTERS.
PTL  PEOPLE THAT LOVE/INSPIRATION NETWORK.
RTL  RADIO TELEVISION LUXEMBOURG.
TBN  TRINITY BROADCASTING NETWORK.
TWA  TRANS WORLD RADIO ASSOCIATION.
WCC  WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES

Bibliography:

Armstrong B.,"The Electric Church",Grand Rapids MI,1979.

Coronel S.,"Right-wing Religious Movements in the Philippines" Paper to the Faith and Development Conference, London, 26.-27.10.1989, organised by the Catholic Institute for International Relations and Christian Aid (In the following: Faith and Development Conference 1989, CIIR)

Diebner B.J., "Der 'erweckte Mensch' - Mensch ohne Vergangenheit. Erw„gungen zur evangelikal-erwecklichen Anthropologie" in Diskussions Beitr„ge zum erwecklichen Pietismus (DBEP), pp 71-100, Heidelberg, 1985.

Dodson M., "Failed Development and the Rise of Religious Fundamentalism in Central America", Faith and Development Conference 1989, CIIR.

Elvy P., "Buying Time. The foundations of the Electronic Church", Great Wakering, McCrimmon,1986.

Fore W.F., "Television and Religion, The Shaping of Faith, Values, and Culture", Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis MN, 1987.

Garrat Burnett V. ; "Mid Trial and Tribulation: Protestantism in Modern Guatemala", Faith and Development Conference 1989, CIIR.

Hoover St. M.,"Mass Media Religion, The Social Sources of the Electronic Church", Sage Publications, London,1988.

Horsefield P., "Religious Television-The American Experience", Longman Group, New York, 1983. 

Johnson D.L.,"Electronic Fundamentalism: Supply and Demand" in 'Christian Century' 99 , pp 606-7, 1980.

Jones R. ; Paper, no title, Faith and Development Conference 1989, CIIR.

Kahle R.,"Religion and Network television", MS thesis, Colombia  University, 1970.

Moyer J.,"A Study of Audience Reaction to Religious Television programs on the basis of Viewer's Socio-economic Status", M.A. thesis, Pennsylvania State University, 1966.


About the Author: Klaus-Dieter Stoll is a freelance lecturer on modern Church History, househusband and co-editor of the Windows on Theology bookseries.

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