Word: gospels
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...part political caucus, part camp meeting, part trade show--and all barn burner. As the crowds of 4,000 milled through the Sheraton Washington Hotel in the nation's capital last week, Gospel singers crooned, video- equipment salesmen hawked their wares, and media consultants prowled the meeting rooms for new talent. Dozens of Senators and Congressmen made it their business to turn out for the cameras and lights, cementing alliances and buffing up images. Jeane Kirkpatrick and Jesse Jackson were there. President Reagan, appropriately, sent a message on videotape...
Curious, and even worried, about the impact of Gospel TV, evangelists and mainline critics joined in a rare cooperative gesture in 1984, commissioning an extensive study by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communications and the Gallup organization. The three conclusions: surprisingly, although the evangelists raise their funds to reach the "lost," they mostly reinforce people already committed to evangelical religion. Contrary to understandable fears, Gospel TV does not undercut attendance and contributions at local churches. The competing church factions face a common, all-powerful enemy: secularized general...
...power of positive TV thinking is especially evident in the "faith message" or "prosperity Gospel," a major Pentecostal variant in the 1980s. Its chief exponent is Kenneth Copeland, 49, platform maestro of the bustling Eagle Mountain Chapel outside Fort Worth. Urging viewers to give a tenth of their income to the Lord, Copeland asks himself rhetorically, "Well, Brother Copeland, are you tithing to get?" His answer: "Yes, yes, yes! A thousand times yes! I want to get healed, I want to get well, I want to get money, I want to get prosperous!" Other advocates include Frederick Price...
...face of Gospel TV's theological simplifications and secular agendas, its sometimes overbearing personalities and unrelenting emphasis on money, should earnest Christians simply shun electronic religion altogether? To Hollywood's Ogilvie, that is not an option: "Otherwise we roll over and play dead." Jim Bakker sees video technology as the means to fulfill Jesus' 2,000- year-old injunction to reach out to the world and spread the Gospel. If Jesus were on earth today, Bakker asserts, "he'd have to be on TV. That would be the only way he could reach the people he loves...
...fact that a Robertson is even a potential candidate confirms the extraordinary power and influence amassed in the past decade by the shrewd, colorful headliners of Gospel TV. While impressing some as shallow and vulgar popularizers, they bring real inspiration and solace to others. Their past struggles in low-paid Gospel circuits bespeak a deep commitment, whatever skepticism might be aroused by their present enjoyment of stardom's rewards. They have changed the face of television; they may be gradually altering the very nature of American Christianity...