• Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us
  • Shop
  • Newsletter
Faithfully Magazine
Tuesday, June 6, 2023
  • About
    • Staff and Advisors
    • Advertise With Us
    • Submissions
  • Q&As
    John Blake photo by John Nowak for CNN

    CNN Reporter Talks Race, Faith and Reconciliation in Powerful Memoir ‘More Than I Imagined’

    Brown Baby Jesus author Dorena Williamson

    Author Celebrates Jesus’ Messy, Multiethnic Family Tree in ‘Brown Baby Jesus’

    KevOnStage and MrsKevOnStage in an interview with Faithfully Magazine.

    Interview: KevOnStage and MrsKevOnStage Talk Sex, Therapy, and Why ‘Marriage Be Hard’ (Video)

    Christina Edmondson and Ekemini Uwan on Truth's Table book

    ‘Truth’s Table’ Authors Talk Early Beginnings, Centering Black Women, and Inspiring One Another

  • Exclusives
    Karen Abercrombie

    After Award-Winning Role in Top-Grossing Christian Movie, Karen Abercrombie Is Leading Change From Within

    black women group

    ‘Righteous and Ratchet’ Black Women of Faith Embraced on Jemele Hill’s ‘Sanctified’ Podcast

    Josh McDowell

    Apologist Josh McDowell Backtracks After Claiming Black Families Don’t Value Education

    Christian author and preacher Dr. Voddie Baucham

    ‘Fault Lines’ Author Voddie Baucham Confused or Making Things Up, Richard Delgado Says in Response to Misquote on ‘Righteous Actions’ of Whites

  • Profiled
    Chris Broussard

    Sports Analyst Chris Broussard Uses Hoops and Christianity to Address Needs of Young Men

    Bishop Noel Jones

    Bishop Noel Jones: Engagement, Life, Family and Ministry (Profiled)

    nadine raphael

    From Prison to the Pulpit: Nadine Raphael on God’s ‘Greater Plan’ for Her Life (Profiled)

    lisa sharon harper

    Lisa Sharon Harper Is Her ‘Ancestors’ Wildest Dreams’ (Profiled)

  • Remember
    Rev. Dr. William Hiram Bentley

    Black Evangelicalism and the Reforming Influence of William H. Bentley

    Marie Bassili Assaad and Mother Irene

    Knitting Together the Community of Love: Lessons From Marie Bassili Assaad and Mother Irene

    Rev. Sutton E. Griggs

    The Complex Legacy of Sutton E. Griggs: From Respected Leader to Race Traitor?

    fannie lou hamer

    Fannie Lou Hamer: Forerunner of Faith-Driven, Pro-Life Democrats (Remember)

  • Opinion & Analysis
    migrants

    When Faith Says to Help Migrants — and the Law Says Don’t

    couple with child

    Missionary System That Brought US Man Accused of Abusing African ‘Orphans’ Was Always Deeply Flawed

    Civil Rights March 1963

    The Women Who Stood With Martin Luther King Jr. and Sustained a Movement for Social Change

    pile of books

    In New Jersey, School Segregation Didn’t End; It Evolved

  • Specials
    • All
    • Growing a Green Church
    clean energy

    Can Money-Making Microgrids Empower Black Churches to Close the Clean Energy Gap?

    laudato trees earthbeat

    Laudato Trees Planting Program Enlists Catholic Properties to Help Increase DC’s Canopy

SUBSCRIBE
  • Login
  • Register
No Result
View All Result
Faithfully Magazine
No Result
View All Result

How White Evangelical Christian TV Is Shaping American Politics

FM Editors by FM Editors
May 26, 2018
Reading Time: 6 mins read
Pat Robertson

Pat Robertson (Photo: videograb)

45
SHARES
ShareTweetPin It

By Jason C. Bivins, North Carolina State University

For Americans growing up between the 1950s and the 1980s, religion was not a regular presence on television. Aside from Sunday morning shows or occasional commercials, religious programming issued end-time warnings, sought monetary contributions, or staged faith healings. But it did not cover news.

Today is different, however. Not only are there entire networks devoted to religious broadcasting,
but also Christian television has moved directly into covering news and politics, reaching millions of Americans daily with a conservative perspective on current events.

As a scholar of religion and politics in America, I believe it is important to understand the impact of the medium at this point of time as well as how it came to have such influence.

The growth of Christian media

American Christians have historically used new media to spread the gospel. In the 19th century, evangelicals used pamphlets and advertising techniques. The early 20th century produced a religious radio subculture that is still thriving in programs like the ones offered by Focus on the Family or Moody Radio.

By the early 1950s, preachers like Fulton Sheen, Robert Schuller or Billy Graham took to television.

RELATED POSTS

When Faith Says to Help Migrants — and the Law Says Don’t

Missionary System That Brought US Man Accused of Abusing African ‘Orphans’ Was Always Deeply Flawed

The Women Who Stood With Martin Luther King Jr. and Sustained a Movement for Social Change

While there was occasionally a political overtone to these programs, most of them refrained from explicit commentary. This changed beginning in the 1970s, in large part, because of two related political trends:

One, since the late 1970s, largely fundamentalist Protestant organizations like the Moral Majority took to popularizing Christian conservatism. These organizations rallied national support to influence politicians to oppose abortion rights and the Equal Rights Amendment, among other causes.

Two, around the same time, beginning with Ronald Reagan’s presidency, conservative politicians started to harness evangelicals as a voting bloc. As a result, many of these politicians began paying closer attention to Christian media for indications of this bloc’s concerns. This gave Christian media further influence in the political world.

The televangelists

The above political changes were reflected in the rapid growth of Christian shows on cable television.

Pat Robertson’s longstanding talk show “The 700 Club,” the end-times prophecy show “Jack Van Impe Presents” and others began to address what was happening in the news from a Biblical perspective. They claimed they were providing viewers with “real” explanations that media and liberal politicians covered up. These shows also reinforced conservative talking points as objective facts.

It is true that during this period, American “televangelists” experienced several withering scandals. Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, for example, was discovered with a prostitute, and televangelist Jim Bakker was convicted of fraud. This led some scholars to suggest that religious television “went underground” because of this disrepute.

On the contrary, as the data shows, religious broadcasting grew hugely in the 1990s and 2000s. Christian media increasingly commented on current events. And, critically, it began to have an influence on the wider culture.

For example, from the mid-1990s, popular films and novels like “Left Behind” suggested that viewers with the “wrong” religious or political beliefs would suffer damnation. Such films and literature attracted tens of millions of viewers and readers.

Furthermore, Christian media was used to advance conservative biases. Authors and advocates of textbooks and curricula, for example, downplayed the women’s movement in American history or referred to slavery as “involuntary immigration.” Such changes were adopted in some Christian schools and their authors were often featured in Christian media. Even when the influence was indirect, the media, schools and entertainment mutually reinforced each others’ ideas.

There is considerable evidence, then, of the connections between evangelical media broadly speaking, Christian news specifically, and a conservative Republican base that sought steady support and advocacy from it.

Why this matters

The power of these programs is more than simply the stories covered or guests interviewed – it is their social impact on religious beliefs.

Christian news is effective in conveying its views because it repeats claims that viewers already believe, and provides them with particular emotional experiences that are described as facts. This way of viewing the world has moved closer to the center of conservative politics since the 1980s, a period of time when the Christian right acquired more influence in American politics.

The themes central to Christian television were more consistently those of the Republican Party. Consider how in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan began to be depicted as God’s agent on Earth. In the 1990s, the growth of multinational corporations and trade deals was decried as part of a demonic “new world order.” And today, when Islamophobia is on the rise, Christian television channels depict and celebrate President Trump as the fighter-in-chief, who defends Christians despite his personal faults.

These attitudes are reflected in the contemporary news programs themselves.

For example, Robert Jeffress of Dallas’ First Baptist Church has called Islam a “false religion” that is demonically inspired. Such claims have been widespread since September 11, 2001, but on Jeffress’ “Pathway to Victory” program, with an audience estimated in the millions, they are given a vast reach without the facts of Islam ever being addressed.

Further, Christian Broadcasting Network news regularly features stories about Christians persecuted in Turkey or India. While such persecution clearly does occur in places across the world, it is often cited by CBN and other outlets to support the idea that American Christians are censored or otherwise embattled by liberalism or secularism.

Amplifying one view?

The growing regularity of such examples has significant implications for American politics.

First, assertions that religious liberty is being violated around the world are put out endlessly in what I call “the resonance chamber of American public life,” in which repetition, aided by social media, helps claims to achieve legitimacy. Second, stories on the Christian news channels are constantly tailored to the idea that viewers are being persecuted.

By presenting itself as authoritative, trustworthy journalism, Christian news reassures viewers that they do not need to consult mainstream media in order to be informed. More dangerously, it authorizes a particular, often conspiratorial way of viewing the world. It denounces neutrality or accountability to multiple constituencies as burdensome or even hostile to Christian faith.

The ConversationSadly, tens of millions of its viewers are left without a sense of two of democracy’s most necessary foundations: the value of multiple viewpoints and shared political participation.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.


Jason C. Bivins, Professor, North Carolina State University


Share This Post

Share via

Share This Post

  • Digg
  • Tumblr
  • Flipboard
  • SMS
More
  • Report
45
SHARES
ShareTweetPin It
Tags: Christian MediaEvangelicalsNewsPoliticsThe ConversationTV
FM Editors

FM Editors

Faithfully Magazine is a fresh, bold and exciting news and culture publication that covers issues, conversations and events impacting Christian communities of color.

Related Posts

Marquis “Mookie” Cook as LeBron James in Shooting Stars" on Peacock.
Unwind

LeBron James Peacock Movie ‘Shooting Stars’ at Its Best on the Court

June 2, 2023
clean energy
Growing a Green Church

Can Money-Making Microgrids Empower Black Churches to Close the Clean Energy Gap?

May 31, 2023

Recommended Stories

can christians get tattoos

Can Christians Get Tattoos? What Does the Bible Have to Say?

July 18, 2019
Bill O'Reilly Fox News

Fox to Fire Bill O’Reilly Amid Reports of Sex Harassment Settlements?

April 19, 2017
Joshua DuBois and Johnnie Moore

Joshua DuBois Slams Trump Adviser Johnnie Moore for Quickening Rise of Christian Nationalism

April 23, 2021

Popular Stories

  • stream movies laptop

    Free Christian Movies: How and Where to Watch Free Christian Movies Online

    464 shares
    Share 185 Tweet 116
  • Are Jesus and John the Baptist Cousins or Related in Anyway?

    417 shares
    Share 166 Tweet 104
  • Paige Hilken, Wife of North Coast Church Pastor Christopher Hilken, Dies by Suicide

    408 shares
    Share 163 Tweet 102
  • After 20 Years, Bishop Noel Jones Says He’s Finally Ready to Marry Partner Loretta Jones

    365 shares
    Share 146 Tweet 91
  • NYC Megachurch Pastor A.R. Bernard’s Son Dies After Losing Battle With Alcoholism

    286 shares
    Share 114 Tweet 71

Copyright © 2023 Faithfully Media, LLC. This website participates in affiliate programs.

No Result
View All Result
  • About
    • Staff and Advisors
    • Advertise With Us
    • Submissions
  • Q&As
  • Exclusives
  • Profiled
  • Remember
  • Opinion & Analysis
  • Specials

Copyright © 2023 Faithfully Media, LLC. This website participates in affiliate programs.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Share via

Share This Post

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Copy Link
  • Tumblr
  • Digg
  • Flipboard
  • SMS

Add New Playlist

Add to Collection

  • Public collection title

  • Private collection title

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.

Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?
Send this to a friend