*** w86 11/15 p. 21 Insight on the News ***
TV Evangelism—God’s Way?
If Jesus Christ were on earth today, asserted TV evangelist Jim Bakker, “he’d have to be on TV.” Why television? Because, according to Bakker, “that would be the only way he could reach the people he loves.” Like Bakker, an increasing number of fundamentalist preachers in the United States feel that television is the best medium for spreading the Word of God. Yet, a 1984 study showed that, for the most part, TV evangelists “reinforce people already committed to evangelical religion.” ...
... If Jesus laid such emphasis on this method of preaching [going to people's homes] in order to make disciples, why do many evangelists prefer TV as their medium? The Courier-Mail of Brisbane, Australia, notes that TV evangelists “make up to $120 million a year selling salvation. They appear in a blaze of electrified power and glory on 300 TV stations, and are worshipped like pop idols. . . . For all their tactics, these men who claim to manipulate even God, come down in the end to a straight business deal. Send them $10 and they will send you to heaven.”