Читать книгу Field Guide to the Wild World of Religion: 2011 Edition - Pamela J.D. Dewey - Страница 13

It started slowly, with the invention of the personal audio tape player, which became widely available in the 1970s. Suddenly, just like the top-40 songs played on the radio, religious messages on the radio were no longer ephemeral, fading away by the next day after broadcast. They could be recorded straight from the airwaves by combination radio/tape recorders, and listened to over and over by hungry Bible students. Those who made such broadcasts could, for the first time, record an unlimited number of extra copies and make them available by mail to those hungry Bible students to listen to over and over. And those students could share the recordings with friends, thereby increasing the audience far beyond those who happened to tune in to late night radio.

This was followed by the personal video recorder in the 1980s. Now viewers were able to use their new recorders to capture forever the TV shows of their favorite teacher or preacher, to play over and over again. And those teachers and preachers could make video presentations available by mail to their supporters, frequently to be played to groups for “home Bible studies.”

Then came cable TV, which greatly increased the number of outlets for would-be preachers and teachers. No longer were they consigned to the Sunday morning church hour on the three networks, or the wee hours of the night on obscure local stations. They first had access to national cable channels such as TBS out of Atlanta and WGN out of Chicago. And, ultimately, they started getting their own “dedicated” religious networks such as Pat Robertson’s CBN and Jan and Paul Crouch’s TBN. By the 1990s, many cable lineups included several 24/7 religious channels—including, eventually, Mother Angelica’s EWTN Roman Catholic channel.

Add into the mix the explosion of shortwave radio, which provides wide coverage for dirt-cheap prices. The audience for shortwave stations might originally have been primarily limited to long-haul truckers who were kept awake late at night on the Interstates by everything from the bizarre antics of the purveyors of UFO encounters and various conspiracy theories, to the latest would-be end-time prophet. But the appeal has long since jumped to housewives doing dishes, businessmen commuting long distance to work everyday, and more. Thus many smaller ministries now choose to buy time on a shoestring on various shortwave channels, or even set up their own broadcast towers and blanket the airwaves with their own brand of theological novelties around the clock.

At the same time as the rise of these new media outlets came the development and proliferation of the desktop personal computer (PC). Prior to the 1970s, only the government and big corporations could afford to own the huge computers of the time. Even just maintaining a mailing list and generating mailing labels was a major production, and expensive. A ministry might rent time on a central computer somewhere in the city to handle these jobs. But with the advent of the PC, even the smallest ministry acquired the ability not only to maintain their own lists, but also to churn out “personalized” letters to supporters. The name of the potential donor, and personal information about him/her, could be sprinkled throughout the letter to make it appear as though the televangelist was taking a personal interest in the individual. “I was just kneeling by my bed, John, and God showed me a vision of you in your home there in Brown City, and put it on my heart to pray for the needs of you and your family.” A scanned graphic image of the televangelist’s signature could be added to the end of the letter, and printed in a different color ink, and it would appear that the man had personally signed this intimate correspondence! Although most people are sophisticated enough about computers now to realize this ruse, in the early days it was easy to fool the average donor. In fact, to this day many naïve supporters still believe that their favorite televangelist really does take a personal interest in them, and that such letters are crafted one by one.