Spreading the Message: The Nature and Paradox of Christian Broadcasting :: Essays Papers

Spreading the Message The Nature and Paradox of Christian Broadcasting put down on any given Sunday morning, turn on your TV, and you are bound to happen upon a religious program of nearly sort. It was the 1980s that saw the powerful phenomenon of the religious programme emerge. No extended were game designates, soap operas, and Billboard Top 20 the biggest withdraw to the family television set and radio, but rather Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell. With their successful church choirs, clean-pressed preacher suits, and booming messages of hope, protection, and salvation, religious broadcasts of church-services, evangelism r wholeies, and other such events and programs became hot and powerful television and radio fare. Over 130 million hoi polloi were drawn to their radio and television sets, which together reached more people than all of the nations churches combined. This phenomenon continues today into the 21st Century, as the religious broadcast has come to find its stapl e and permanent place in two the consciousness and the home. The relationship between broadcasting and religion has become increasingly complex, and many books have been written on the subject. Media scholars such as turncock G. Horsfield and Quentin Schultze have dedicated their lives and careers to researching and understanding the religious broadcasting phenomenon, and there are other innumerable supporters and critics. While I am personally mostly supportive of religious broadcasting, there are some specific points and relationships with which I have come to be concerned intimately. In this essay I shall focus on the relationship between the religious television show and its presentation, both aesthetic and suggestive. From there I will also be asking some questions, such as, what is the nature of the religious broadcast in light of and in comparison to secular television? How does the entertainment chemical element affect the viewers drive and understanding? What secular connotations are suggested done religious broadcasting, and how do they affect the viewers religious experience? These questions and other will be addressed as I drudge into the complexity that is religious television. Many scholars, theorists, and clergymen are positive and optimistic about the current importance of religious broadcasting and what the future holds for this type of media. phantasmal broadcasting involves a new approach to a problem as old as the Bible, in that it is the revolutionary way in which to unveil un-reached individuals to the messages of redemption, hope, and salvation generously offered by a loving God.