Truth Magazine

By Stephen P. Willis

(TV Evangelist): “God loves you, He really does I ” – I had a strong temptation to end this article here, leaving an empty page. When I was young, I saw a 400-page book entitled, Scriptural Arguments in Favor of Instrumental Music. The title was on the book’s spine. AD of the pages were BLANK. (The point: no scriptural arguments.) Most TV ministries go to great lengths to stress God’s love, which is great indeed – but leave the viewer with a big BLANK when it comes to God’s way of saving people.

“Turn your radio on. . . ” used to be the anthem for people to get in touch with God. Now there is another medium, television. We have had more than one generation raised on television. To them it is just as “natural” to watch the television as to listen to the radio. TV is taking over when it comes to communication between people. The use of satellites has given a large number of stations from which to choose attracting many faithful, charitable viewers. Air time is not cheap so “religious networks” are becoming more and more popular. This great expense is also the reason for many, many appeals for money. But wait, those appeals are at the end of the show. Let’s start from the beginning. . .

(Tympani drum-roll, start theme music, roll great computer graphics). An announcer welcomes the viewers, tells of all the guests, news blurbs, and finally introduces the “stars” of the show (applause, end theme music).

At this point there are many formats that the “ministries” follow. Some are: televised worship services, teaching sessions, news and commentary, instrumental music (with or without singing), politics, economics, health, movie/record reviews, cooking and household hints, interviews with politicians, performers, and preachers, and audience participation. Somewhere in all this we’ll see the testimonials (“witnessing”) of events in peoples’ lives bringing them to believe that they were saved or healed at a particular point in their fives.

Some of this can be entertaining or educational. Herein lies the danger, for at this time in the show we are to have had an emotional “connection” to someone or some event. Since we share in the human condition, we might have had similar trials, or even sinned in a similar manner. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Sin is the problem. Sin is the question. At this point we are anxiously waiting for the answer. What shall we do? What do most TV ministries tell us to do in order to be saved?

It is at this point in the show that the “host” will remind us of God’s gracious love. Perhaps, with Bible in hand he will tell of the sacrifice of Jesus, the Son of God, and that there is no other way to be right before God except in Jesus’ name. With Bible in hand he would guide us to say the “Sinner’s Prayer.” With Bible in hand . . . wait a minute! The “Sinner’s Prayer”? With Bible in hand please show us where the “Sinner’s Prayer” is recited by an apostle or one wanting to be a Christian! Here we would find, a big BLANK.

As interesting as the problem might seem, as likable as the host might be, as right as his teaching might be in some areas, how to be saved is a BLANK that needs to be filled with Scripture.

Salvation is based on the love and grace of God the Father and Jesus the Savior (Jn. 3:16; Acts 15:11). The gospel is God’s power for salvation (Rom. 1:16), and after hearing, the gospel, we must believe if we are to be saved (Eph. 1:13). Repentance and turning from sin is necessary also (Acts 3:19). Romans 10:10 says that confession results in salvation. Most ministries claiming to be “Christian” will include these things as needful for one to be saved. Some even have telephone numbers on the TV screen so one can call in to be encouraged to do these things, or so one who thinks himself saved can confess it. (One could also use one of these numbers to pledge financial contributions.) Let me add some “ministries” tell the respondent to find a local church. Some will send literature (with tides like ‘Now that I’m Saved’), or further requests for donations. Perhaps these points begin to fill in the BLANK a little, but if a person has done all these things, what is his condition before God? Where do the TV ministries leave the sinner? The answer: lost in sin! A penitent Saul of Tarsus still needed to “Arise, and be baptized (4mersed in water sw), and wash away your sins, calling on His name” (Acts 22:16). The same Saul (Paul) would tell the Romans that baptism puts one “into Christ” and that after baptism one begins “newness of life” (6:3,4). Even with God’s grace and the love of Jesus, a believing, repenting, confessing person is in his sins and outside Christ until he washes away his sins and appeals to God for a clean conscience. Peter said baptism saves; it is our appeal (1 Pet. 3:21).

Often the TV preachers will quote Romans 10:13: “for whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (NASB). I believe that this is probably their proof-text for the “Sinner’s Prayer,” prayer being our call to God. But let Scripture interpret Scripture. Paul was told that submitting to baptism was “calling on His name” and Peter said that baptism (which saves us) is our legal appeal to God. When the Ethiopian man in Acts 8 said, “Look! Water!. What prevents me from being baptized?”, he was asking, “What keeps me from calling on the name of the Lord?” The answer was based on his belief. Jesus said, “He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; he who has disbelieved shall be condemned” (Mk. 16:16). Only the believer can call. Baptism is how we call.

Whether they believe it or not, the denominational TV evangelists are like Job’s friends: “Sorry comforters are you all” (16:2); “You are all worthless physicians” (13:4). They are saying, “Peace, peace” when there is no peace (cf. Jer. 6:14). Oft times they bring sinners to understand the danger of sin, but teach a different gospel about the forgiveness of sins, leaving many comforted while still lost in their sins. The Bible says that if these preachers continue to teach and practice this “other” gospel they are “accursed” or “cut off” – “anathema” (Gal. 1:8,9); so are those who believe the false gospel. Remember, when the blind 4ead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch!

“Get in touch with God. . .” turn your television off. Open your Bible.

Guardian of Truth XXXI: 12, pp. 372-373
June 18, 1987

By Daniel W. Petty

Bakker was born in 1940, the son of a poor Muskegon, Michigan factory worker. In his autobiography, Move That Mountain (1976, 1985), Bakker tells of suffering from an inferiority complex as a child. He attributes his conversion to a tragic experience in high school at the age of eighteen. While playing hooky from school, he accidentally ran over a three-year old boy. The child lived, but because of the experience, Bakker made a commitment and began to take seriously his parents’ Pentecostal Assemblies of God religion.

Bakker entered the Pentecostal North Central Bible College to prepare for the ministry but dropped out during the second year to marry Tammy Fay LaValley. Bakker was ordained in his denomination, and the couple travelled as evangelists for several years. With a successful puppet show for children, they soon caught the attention of Pat Robertson, who asked them to join the staff of the fledgling Christian Broadcasting Network. While at CBN they stared in the “Jim and Tammy Show” and pioneered the 700 Club. After a short stay with the Trinity Broadcasting Company, they went to Charlotte, North Carolina in 1972 and founded the PTL Television Network, beginning in a furniture store building. The “PTL Club” began in 1974, and by 1980 commanded an audience of over 600,000, and was broadcast over more than 300 affiliate stations in 50 nations. Staged in Johnny Carson fashion, the talk show often had the Holy Spirit as its main topic. The show has witnessed tongue-speaking and emotional pleas for financial support.

Jim and Tammy Bakker’s career was often stormy. In 1979 the FCC began an investigation into the Bakker’s use of solicited funds. In March 1987, Jim Bakker stepped down from PTL leadership and withdrew from the denomination, admitting to sexual misconduct and payment of hush money. The fate of PTL and of TV evangelists generally as a result of the scandal have not yet been determined.

Guardian of Truth XXXI: 12, p. 363
June 18, 1987

By Daniel W. Petty

Alpha Rex Humbard, born in 1919 in Little Rock, Arkansas, and raised mostly in Hot Springs, grew up in a family of itinerant Pentecostal evangelists. As a child, Rex traveled regularly with the family, singing and playing the guitar in the family’s evangelistic performances. After graduation from high school, Rex joined his father’s team, promoting their tent meetings from radio stations along the revival circuit. When his son Rex, Jr. was apparently healed in an early Oral Roberts campaign in Mobile, Alabama, Humbard bought an old Roberts tent to launch his own ministry. According to his autobiography, Miracles in My Life (Revell, 197 1), he had experienced a conversion experience at age fourteen, and one day shortly thereafter had watched the “big top” of a Ringling Brothers’ circus go up in Hot Springs, thus receiving his inspiration some day to get a big tent like that for preaching the gospel.

In 1952 Humbard decided to base his ministry in Akron, Ohio, establishing the Calvary Temple in a former theater. While televising Sunday services, Humbard worked toward a larger ministry. The Cathedral of Tomorrow, completed in 1958, is a futuristic edifice with glass and marble walls and domed roof, designed with TV in mind. By 1970, Sunday services were carried on 225 stations nationwide. By 1980, his show commanded an audience of over 2.4 million. The program has been broadcast in at least seven languages in 18 foreign countries, through some 400 TV and shortwave radio stations. In 1973, the Humbard ministry faced extreme financial difficulties, but by the end of the 70’s had weathered the storm.

Humbard was raised Pentecostal, but his ministry has consistently been nondenominational. Lacking any formal education, Rex was ordained by his father and licensed by the International Ministerial Federation. He believes in the regeneration of the Holy Spirit and divine healing. His program includes testimony to the healing powers of Humbard, given through the reading of letters from viewers. Humbard’s appeal is to the common man, and he is not one given to deep theology or controversy.

In addition to Humbard’s autobiography, information on Humbard can be found in Prime Time Preachers, by Jeffrey K. Hadden and Charles E. Swann (1981); and David Edwin Harrell, All Things Are Possible (1975).

Guardian of Truth XXXI: 12, p. 366
June 18, 1987

By Steve Wolfgang

The fastest-growing “televangelism ministry” in the United States today belongs to Jimmy Swaggart. His 270-acre complex in Baton Rouge, LA, includes his million-dollar home, a 7,000-seat church, a state-of-the art television production studio, a 15,000-square-foot printing/mailing operation employing more than 1,000 people, and a 1000-student which will Bible college (which received 18,000 applications for the initial class of 400 students). According to Arbitron,

“The Jimmy Swaggart Hour” TV program reaches more than 2 million households; Newsweek recently reported his 1986 revenues at $142 million.

Not bad for a small-town boy (born in the one stoplight hamlet of Ferriday, LA). That Swaggart has sold more than 15 million “gospel” record albums is not surprising, since he grew up with his cousins, rock ‘n’ roller Jerry Lee Lewis and country singer Mickey Gilley.

Swaggart, like Jim Bakker, is a member of the “Assemblies of God,” supposedly the fastest-growing American religious denomination. In fact, it was evidently Swaggart who first called attention to Bakker’s adultery with Jessica Hahn which has been so widely-reported in the news media recently. The Assemblies of God, with headquarters, publishing enterprises, and a seminary all located in Springfield, MO, consist of 10,866 congregatoins; during the last decade, they averaged 332 new congregations each year, but that growth has produced some internal tensions.

According to Martin E. Marty, church historian from the University of Chicago, there are “two separate movements” within the Assemblies of God, which have typically been handled by often having two congregations in the same town. “In one, there are pickup trucks in the parking lot and handbills advertising square dances on the bulletin board,” says Marty; “At the other, there are Oldsmobiles and the people go to weekend retreats on how to make money.” Observers of both Swaggart and Bakker can easily tell who might appeal to which subgroup. As anyone who has observed both can verify, “they appeal to very different segments within that denomination” (as sociologist of religion Jeffrey K. Hadden of the University of Virginia recently commented).

Doctrinally, the Assemblies affirm sixteen “fundamental truths” in their creed, including “Unity of One Being in Father Son, and Holy Ghost,” “Water Baptism,” “Baptism in the Holy Ghost,” “Sanctification,” “Divine Healing,” and “The Millennial Reign of Christ” (an earthly reign following the “rapture” which will “bring the salvation of national Israel”).

Swaggart began as a street preacher in Mangham, Louisiana at age 19 (a passing patrolman commented, “Son, you’ve got the fire”). He soon moved into small Pentecostal churches; after about twelve years he began to conduct his “crusades” in the city-wide auditoriums of large, metropolitan areas. His first radio broadcast on an Atlanta station in January 1969 launched his entry into media evangelism. The growth of his organization was accompanied by the production of a slick, fullcolor 36-page monthly magazine, The Evangelist, sent into about 700,000 homes. The Swaggart organization has spread to include overseas branch offices in Brazil, Chile, Central America, Australia, the Philippines, Japan, and Hong Kong.

Swaggart’s main growth, however, has been through television. In his own words, “That’s when it exploded… some people say that Jimmy Swaggart and television were made for each other.” Whether that is true or not, there is no doubting sociologist Hadden’s assessment that “Swaggart has the fastest growing audience of them all this past decade.” Swaggart’s aggressive attacks on immorality and his willingness to take unpopular positions have no doubt contributed to his distinctive message in a vast sea of health-and-wealth hucksters preaching a gospel of prosperity. Truly, he would appear to the “rising star” of television evangelists.

Sources

David Edwin Harrell, AM Things Are Possible., The Healing and Charismatic Revivals in Modern America (1975); The Evangelist: Voice of the Jimmy Swaggart Ministries 13:9 (September, 1981; “Special 25th Anniversary Edition”); William W. Menzies, Anointed To Serve. The Story of The Assemblies of God (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1971); issues of Time, Newsweek, and US News for April 6, 1987.

Guardian of Truth XXXI: 12, p. 361
June 18, 1987