in the house is fast asleep, and uses headphones to make sure no one hears what he’s listening to in the family room. If he travels for his job and stays in motels, it will be even easier to just watch the Playboy Channel on the cable TV in his room, or order the latest X-rated film on Pay-Per-View. Even more conveniently—he can just download the most grotesque, raw porn from the Internet directly onto the hard drive of his own laptop computer, and view it anywhere, including at his office during work hours if he is daring enough.
What does this have to do with the Wild World of Religion of the 21st century?
Where were you in ‘62?
A book titled Faiths, Cults and Sects in America (later titled God is a Millionaire when it came out in paperback) hit the shelves of America’s bookstores in 1962. Authored by Newsweek reporter Richard Mathison, it promised to reveal “the strange beliefs, the swindles, the bizarre teachings and frequently erotic rituals into which millions of Americans pour their faith and money.” His book labeled some groups, such as Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and Unitarians, as “established cults.” Others were farther out on the fringe, such as the flying saucer cults popular at the time, Voodoo cults, and groups centered around some Hindu yogi. Mathison noted:
The National Council of Churches has announced that two thirds of the people in the U.S.—about 104 million in 268 recognized religious bodies—follow some creed or faith with reasonable persistence. Of these a fraction, an estimated six to seven million, belong to the cults and sects which include a wide variety of beliefs, but have in common a recognizable deviation from “normal” Protestantism or Catholicism. Some fundamentalists are assured the world will end any day and have a phrase in the Old Testament to prove it. Others are willing to test the solidity of their faith against the bite of a rattlesnake. Still others seek by ecstatic excitement the immediate, transforming religious experience that will give them a glimpse of True Reality. (p. 13)
All of this is still true. In the 21st Century there are many groups which “deviate from the norm,” many that embrace odd distinctives such as snake-handling or the prediction of imminent Armageddon. What is different now?
What is different is the numbers and distribution of the adherents of these groups of people. Yes, men may have been just as likely to be tempted by porn back in 1962 as in 2005. But the purveyors of porn in 1962 had very limited distribution channels for their wares. Likewise, many folks were susceptible to being attracted to unusual religious claims in 1962. But the purveyors of such claims didn’t have such easy access to potential converts as they do today. Most were limited by the technology of the time to placing an ad in the back of magazines such as Capper’s Farmer, sending out literature via the U.S. mail, and/or broadcasting for a half hour every night, or maybe even only once a week, on an obscure radio station. And these outlets were expensive for the individual just getting started in a ministry. Some relied for developing a following almost exclusively on word of mouth, such as in circles of bored California Society Matrons who were fascinated by the latest claims regarding the most fashionable Hindu yogis who allegedly were in contact with Ascended Masters. While such fellows and their promoters might get followers quickly in the Los Angeles suburbs, their effect on mid-America would be almost non-existent.
It wasn’t easy, prior to the 1970s, to attract a wide following of people for any new religious venture. And even those limited numbers attracted to a new religious novelty were limited in how easily they could feed their new interest. Their opportunities might consist of a booklet or two or newsletter a month sent out by their new teacher of choice, and a catalog of articles one could request. Most groups, even those that could afford to buy radio or TV time, or to produce a glossy monthly magazine to send out to supporters, grew slowly. Sunday morning slots on network stations were expensive or non-existent. Such slots on local channels were perhaps more available, but they reached only a limited audience.
It’s a new world out there now.
Brave New High-Tech World
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.
Do-it-yourself Church
In the 1950s, some local churches broadcast their worship services
