Televangelism In Religion

Religion is known to bring a community of people together who believe in the same values. Evangelicalism is a religion that participates in such worship of their God. However, it was certain evangelists that created a different way to join in on worshiping their god. Televangelism became such a popular culture item that people all over the globe could eventually tune in to watch evangelicals sermon their followers. This critical essay will briefly outline what televangelism is as well as how it became so popular. Furthermore, as other popular culture items have fallen under scrutiny, so has televangelism. Considerable examples dealing with the scandals of televangelism will be examined. Lastly this paper will argue that although there are immoral

With skeptics making it a mission to investigate the preachers behind the televisions. As it was discovered, several scandals came to light soon after the rise of televangelism. It was brought to the publics’ attention that these parachurches were asking for donations over their broadcasts to their viewers to help with the funds of the church. When certain preachers started becoming extremely wealthy skeptics began to wonder where the viewers donations were really going. It was found that “25% of the viewers of religious programs reported giving money to the electronic church, nearly one-third earned a salary of less than $15,000 a year” (Abelman, 1988, 261) It is apparent that living on $15,000 a year is well below an income that is able to afford the luxuries of donating money to organizations. These allegations report that these churches were taking money from people who did not have the money. Abelman was not the only person to find these results; John Oliver (2015) found some of the same results when he researched televangelism for over one year. Oliver (2015) also discovered how persistent a particular church was at receiving donations. In the case of _________, Oliver was continually being mailed letters containing one dollar asking for him to return the letter but with 50 dollars as a donation to the church. He claims that

What is making the headlines today appears to be that all televangelism is doing is taking money from low-income households and participating in deviant acts in the secret of the ministry. However, so much of what televangelism is is not displayed in the media. The donations that are given to the churches are used to help those in need, not just provide the ministers private bank accounts. The money went to set up services to help people who are in need of counseling. The churches “provide prayer and counseling services to viewers and non-viewers” (Bretthauer 1995, 77). The churches try to reach those who are in crises and helped connect people who were in need of shelters, food and financial resources (Bretthauer, 1995). However, this part of the electronic church was not brought to people’s attention when it was discovered that donations were not just going to the well being of the church. The churches did not just use television to reach their followers; they also used email, telephone, and paper mail, providing people with different platforms to get a hold of the people they watch preach to them on a daily basis (Bekkering 2011). When the scandal of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker broke, their reputations tarnished yet it was believed that Tammy Faye Bakker had no real clue of what her husband had been doing to their church. After the scandals