Forum; The Electric Preacher Part 2

**s Hard Music** Thanks for watching, hope everything is fine!! From the Center for Telecommunication Services, the University of Texas at Austin, welcome to Forum. In this week's program, we present the conclusion of the Electric Preacher. Dr. William Martin, Professor of Sociology at Rice University, discusses these independent Evangelists who make wide use of television and radio in their ministries, coming up on forum.

In recent years, several evangelists have turned their attention to a fifth kind of ministry to one emphasizing material success and happiness. They promise better jobs, success in business, or in lieu of these simple windfalls. Basically, they are all pervading some form of positive thinking. One of the brightest and most sophisticated of the positive thinkers is Robert Schuler, whose hour of power television program originates from the Garden Grove Community Church, the Driving Church in Garden Grove, California. As you are perhaps aware, this church will soon be superseded by the glass cathedral designed by Philip Johnson, who did the Pinzoa Buildings in Houston. It's being touted as the most exciting example of church architecture in this century.

Certainly, it is pretty impressive. You've heard me talk about possibility thinking, but never before have I really told you the power behind it, underneath it, and above it, this morning I'll share the power with you. Good morning, and God is pouring spring into your life now. You can feel it. I know. You can sense it. I'm alerted by self. It is the very power of God that comes through the thoughts and the emotions that flow through us now, for we are in his positive, dynamic presence. Another well-known exponent of this approach, though many still associate him with healing, is Oral Roberts. Something good is going to happen to you. Let's stand together when you shake hands on both sides and say that to somebody near you.

And of course, something good has happened to Oral Roberts. His university features what is one of the most remarkable and inventive uses of audio visual resources of any university in the nation. Perhaps the most colorful figure in this field is the apostle of Green Power himself, Reverend Ike. A Reverend Ike not only tells his followers how to harness cosmic mind power, but he offers them a genuine alternative to the fundamentalist religion in which most of them have been reared. All right, we call our philosophy here the science of living. This church has no doctrine, no dogma, no religious slavery. We do not try to enslave your minds here with religious propaganda.

We try to bring you to an awareness of the truth of you, which makes you free. Here in this philosophy, salvation is knowing yourself, knowing the truth of yourself. The only salvation there is is self-knowledge, positive self-awareness. So also without apology, the science of living is self-image, psychology. There is no damn body up there listening to your prayer. I'm sorry, I have to tell you good religious people there. Isn't that a shame to tell these good church folks there? But there is no body up in the sky listening to you doing that all on, please Jesus. When I talk to people about evangelists, they almost invariably come around to the subject

of money. They really rake in the dough, don't they? Well, as a matter of fact, they do take in a great deal of money. Milligram or Roberts, the Christian broadcasting network, the Armstrongs, Jerry Falwell, all expected to take in over $50 million a piece this year. Several others take in an excess of $10 million. Now this of course in itself is not a sufficient basis for criticism. When people have something they believe to be of ultimate importance, it's commendable that they should want to share it with others. And if they're going to share it, then radio and television will almost certainly come to mind, and that means spending a great deal of money. A 15 minute daily program on 400 stations, which is not all that unusual a situation, will cost at least a million dollars a year in air time alone, say nothing of the production and shipping costs, the costs involved in processing, in answering hundreds of thousands of letters.

The Billigrams specials that are aired several times a year cost at least a million dollars a piece. Now there is a serious question that needs to be asked about whether this money is being spent effectively. But there's no question that a great deal of it is being spent on what it is assigned to and not going into the pockets of the evangelist. Most of them live well, but I think in criticizing that, it's important to recognize that most of them do not live as well as Christian layman who are at the head of multi-million dollar enterprises. And if we're going to expect one standard of living from the ministry and probably to be consistent, we ought to expect it of a laity as well. As universities depend on their alumni and their friends, churches depend on their members, so the radio and television ministries must depend on their radio and television audiences to provide the funds for their endeavors. Some of them, like Billigram, simply make a simple, straightforward, low-pressure request. And for all that right, we hope that you'll send a gift and an offering to help make

possible these telecasts. We purchase the time. We have to buy the advertising. We have to pay for the production. These telecasts are very expensive. We do not know how long we're going to be able to continue with the mounting cost and inflation that we're facing. But I hope that you will help the supporters at this particular time. We need your help. Just like the P.T.L. Club and Jim Baker jazz things up a bill. I'm holding in my hand a parker edition of the P.T.L. Counselor's Bible. This is a token of appreciation that Jim Baker wants to send to each of you will be a real friend to P.T.L. and will join the P.T.L. Club by pledging $15 a month or more. I'll give $15 every month to P.T.L. maybe $25 or $5 a month. Can.

In Canada, the number to call is 1-800-268-2751. Now, in addition to the P.T.L. Bible, you'll receive the subscription to the active magazine of P.T.L. membership card and your P.T.L. bill. Right, our call today is a real friend to P.T.L. God bless you. But by some going beyond this, like the late A.A. Allen, whom God called home through the agency of cirrhosis of the liver, really poured on both on their radio programs and in person. Here's a cut from an A.A. Allen service. Coming in the main entrance was a little white-headed woman with a white-headed man in the wheel chair, rolling it down to aisle toward the invalid section. When she saw me, she said, but the island remember us? Why, sir?

Of course I remember you. You were just in my tent meeting in Dallas and closed Sunday. If I said your husband wasn't in the wheel chair then, you both seemed to be strong and healthy. What happened? She said, can I make a pledge this morning? I said, what's your trouble? People get in trouble and fly from coast to coast to get into my meeting the first thing they ask. Can I make a pledge? I said, what's happened? What's going wrong? And then they begin to cry and ring the hands and say, God told me to do one thing and I did something else. And I've thrown them lost answers to Philadelphia from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco in order to try to get right with God and do what God told me to do earlier. I'm having trouble to tell me all their troubles. I tell you, it's a terrible thing to fall into the hands of an angry God. But she said, can I make a pledge? I said, why are you so anxious to make a pledge? She said, I want to tell you, said in the Dallas meeting, God told us to make a pledge.

We refused to do it. We came home and left your tent meeting without doing what God told us. The day we got home, it began to happen. I said, now is in this shape. I said, when the doctor told me never walk again, if ever got him around and moved again, I'd have to put him in a wheelchair. I said, I went downtown to the medical supply company, Shopping for a wheelchair. I picked one out. I told the lady, sales clerk, I'll take this one. She pulled the tag off and said, that'll be $19,000 and $95. She said, I began to pull the money out and count it, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, and I heard a boy speaking. God said, if you'd made that pledge in the Dallas meeting and paid it like I told you to,

you wouldn't be using the money now to buy a wheelchair with it. It's the judgment of God because it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a named regard, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a named regard. By far the most common means of raising money, however, is through the skill use of direct mail. At conventions of religious broadcasters, workshops and mass mailings are featured, companies offering to computerize and manage the entire mailing operations of ministries, hawk ware services. As in other fields of endeavor, there are FADs, FADs and fundraising letters here. Every year, evangelists will have their wives or their mothers or their daughters, send

letters, asking supporters to send along a special gift for the preacher's birthday or the anniversary of his ministry or just a surprise him when he comes back from his mission trip to the Philippines. Here's one from Reverend Al's wife, Sister Al, who wants us to surprise him because when he gets back home and finds out she's run up $28,000 on the postage meter, she's going to want something to come back for. One of the most effective letters, when you sparingly, has been the certified letter with the first class or air mail return stamp on the enclosure. This letter is designed to arrive at your home on Saturday when all members of the family are most likely to be home. You sign for a letter, you're likely to open it. If you open it and find that your evangelist not only has a severe need but has enclosed a stamped envelope, not just a guaranteed postage envelope for your use, then you're much more likely to return it than if it were just a routine piece of junk mail.

In a period of a little over a year, Rex Humbard bailed his ministry out of a critical financial difficulty by sending two such letters. One of these brought in over $4 million, the other brought in over $6 million. He needed all of this money badly. I'm not suggesting at all that he used any of it dishonestly. I am suggesting it's a pretty effective technique when used correctly. The most effective means of getting people to write and to send money is to offer them a premium of some sort. For most types of ministries, the usual premium is a book or a pamphlet, ordinarily written by the evangelist. And some, particularly those in the healing and prosperity ministries, offer an imaginative range of items to satisfy anyone with a talismanical urge. Probably the most common of these are prayer claws, touched and prayed over by the evangelist. Some of them have particular purposes.

For example, those on the top three are from all from the Reverend's face spencer, red cloth for devils and demons, white cloth for deliverance and healing, gold cloth for financial blessing. Some stand out because of special credentials. The one at the top is from Reverend E. Duncan. It's a cloth that laid in God's footsteps where God came to visit him at his headquarters in House Springs, Missouri. The one on the left is made of burlap and has a kind of sack cloth and ashes quality to it. The one in the lower right proves that there's no ultimate conflict between science and religions since this one is made of polyester double net. These two scraps of cloth are both from Brother Don Stewart's Miracle tent. I happen to be on Brother Stewart's mating list and a duplicate here and I trust that the piece of canvas at the top came from the sun side of the tent. I couldn't help noticing they were somewhat different shades. One eye will send you a success idea.

David Epley will send a spiritual horoscope. Other evangelists will send you crosses. There are two pins there at the bottom. They can't see one says, try God and the other says Jesus only or Jesus first. Yes, I knew that wasn't quite right, Jesus first. There are a variety of other items, an altar cloth, a button, a dime that have been, that I have sent to an evangelist and he has sent back to me after blessing them. Mustard seeds on the right, a possibility thinker's coin on the left, genuine imitation vinyl prosperity bill full with a money cloth in the center. Here is a red string from Reverend Spencer. You can take it and hang it on your, save Rayhab the harlot, her whole household can save you as well. You can take it and put it in your house, your home, your office, your place of business, tie to your automobile window or to the mirror and guarantee you not to have any accidents. There is a salt and pepper shaker from Brother Owl and on the left a gold nail that was given

to me by Sister Kathy Carver, a 23 year old spirit feel Baptist girl who is the God's wonder girl for the end time age. This nail can be used as a symbol to drive into the head of Satan, much like a jail the wife of Hebra the Kenite took a tent peg and drove it into a foreign general's head in the biblical story. Here is an interesting one. This is from a T. L. Osborne in Tulsa. This is a fragment you see. A man was raised from the dead in an African meeting and he has chopped up the flooring into little squares just about the size as if you had gotten them from a handy-danned piece of plywood facing and it's very convenient to be able to do it in that size to send around. There is water from the pool of saloam, oil and an alabaster bottle which can be used

to anoint this letter in the center. Here is another, many of the evangelists will use various techniques to try to get you to send something back to them. Here is a body chart from Reverend Owl. You can take and mark any part of your body that's ailing and then send it back to him for prayer. No part of the body is too low. Reverend Owl says that God can take your corns and bunions and tarred feet and massage him with his holy love and make him whale. But many of the evangelists, some of them use these items in a manner that it seems almost magical, but others emphasize that the items themselves have no special properties but simply serve as a point of contact between the faith of the evangelist and the faith of his followers and that their combined prayers will be more effective than just praying alone.

Now as I say, some have used this point of contact issue as a means of assuring a response. Here I am asked to place my hands upon this photograph of the hands of an evangelist and send back to him and he will, you know, our hands will have touched the same piece of paper and that's bound to make something happen. Reverend Owl Wyrick is a great one for having you do things to send back. Here is a piece of string that I'm supposed to wear around my wrist for a day and send it back to him and he will wear it around his wrist for a day. Here is a meal sack. I am to send him some meal. There is a candle I am to burn and send back to him, he has the other half of the heart when I have written my name on it and send it back, he will send it to me. But my favorite one here is the bar of soap at the top. Reverend Owl sent me a bar of soap, white king soap and I am to take a bath with it and send it back to him and he will take a bath with it. And this will bring us closer together.

One of the more ingenious devices is probably Rex Humbards Archives of Fate. For a hundred dollar donation, a person may have his or her religious testimony, copied on microfilm and placed in the Archives of Fate at the Cathedral of tomorrow in Cairo Gufalz, Ohio. Then when the rapture comes and the saved are caught into the clouds to be with Jesus, their unsafe friends and relatives can go to Ohio, read their testimony and thereby understand why they were taken and the relatives were taken and the lost were left. One hopes that this will spur them to convert during the period of tribulation. Now interestingly because the Humbards and the rest of the staff at the Cathedral of tomorrow expect to take the first cloud, the Archives are going to be left in the hands of a downtown bank in Akron whose administrators have apparently been judged as dependably unredeemable.

Ultimately, the hope of every evangelist is to develop a core of supporters who can be counted on to send the contribution every month. As the announcer for the PTO Club was saying to join the PTO Club and send $15 a month, the 700 Club got its name when Pat Robertson wanted 700 people who would pledge to send $10 a month to the support of his ministry. To facilitate this, many of the ministries utilize coupon books, much like auto payment books and they urge people to put them with their bills and to send their payments in and to encourage this, they have a prayer request on the back of the coupon. These prayers may well receive special treatment. Reverend Ike will place them in the east wall of the temple of prayer requests. Reverend Ile will pray for them on an altar of stones brought from the Holy Land. I often think about coming through customs with the he's oral Roberts will go into the

prayer tower at ORU on a certain day and on and on. Now to convince listeners and Mayo partners that they will do well to keep listening, keep writing, the evangelist tell of an unending stream of special projects that they're working all. And orphan home in Korea are Haiti, a new school in the Philippines, a tent to replace the one that burned down, a new hospital in Tulsa, this constant kind of new projects, new projects, they are much better, they find that money comes in much more easily for a specific kind of project than to say we need the money to pay our bill in Omaha for the television station. They also go beyond these projects to considerable links to establish themselves as authentic men of God, some by emphasizing the scope of their ministries as does Bert Clinton and from Beaumont.

But for just a gift of any size to help us with this radio ministry that's reaching one out of every two people on this earth, one out of every two people on this earth. Now as far as I'm able to determine that's probably one of the most influential ministries to have its headquarters in Beaumont. Very few reach one out of every two people on the earth. Some by recalling establish their authority and importance by recalling the visitation of angels of the Lord himself. The other day I was brought past and I actually felt the angels of God in my radio room and touched me on this show that I felt an angel touched me on this show that as I was brought past and up. Perhaps the most remarkable claim that I am aware of is one from a little known evangelist, one that I've enjoyed paying some attention to, E.E. Duncan, listen carefully at what brother Duncan claims.

When I went into the heavenly city and the holy angels carried me directly into the highest heaven and Jesus talked with me and I talked with him and Jesus placed on me a golden cryon and a golden curtle and then after I had talked with Jesus for some time, me and heaven in, in my own body just like I am now, Jesus asked me to come back to earth and tell the people on earth, many other things that he told me that was coming upon the world. But whatever the device, the electric preachers do their best to ensure that nobody forgets who it is that is speaking and how he can be reached by mail.

I have been listening to the reverend, E.E. Duncan, the reverend, E.E. Duncan has preached to peons of thousands in some of the who is now just peons, huge auditoriums, churches and on television and radio. Reverend Duncan has had a great supernatural miracle ministry for many years. Some of the meeting healing ministers have been healed as he has prayed the prayer of faith for them. Address Iron Maillom to reverend, E.E. Duncan has H-O-U-S-E, springs the very liquid 6351. The reverend E.E. Duncan has stated to have the greatest testimonies of healings and miracles of any man in the world. Address Iron Maillom to reverend, E.E. Duncan has H-O-U-S-E, springs the very liquid 6351. You will know where the answered.

This radio broadcast is sponsored by the Friends of God. If you love this broadcast to continue on this station, then please check our money order to Reverend E.E. Duncan has H-O-U-S-E, springs the very liquid 6351. And in that same spirit, I hope you will remember that. You have been listening to the Reverend Dr. William C. Mark, better known to dozens as Brother Bill. If you would like to help Brother Bill write a famous book, send any information or ideas you have about evangelists to William C. Mark, Rice University, Houston, Texas. These may be hypotheses you would like to share with him, or they may be stories of your personal experiences, or those of your friends or loved ones. Brother Bill would be glad to hear from you.

That address again is William C. Mark, Rice, R-I-C-E, Rice University, Houston, Texas. Zipcode 777001. That zip code once more is 777001. Thank you. Dr. William Martin, Professor of Sociology at Rice University, an author of the books, Christians in Conflict, These Were God's People, and soon to be released, The Electric Preacher. I'm Mary Sullivan, and you've been listening to Forum. Cousette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing, Forum, the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas, at Austin, 78712. That address again is Forum, the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas, at Austin, 78712.

Forum is produced at Public Station, KUT, and distributed by the Center for Telecommunication Services, all at the University of Texas at Austin. This is the Longhorn Radio Network.