Televangelists
"Televangelists embarrass me. Why does God allow them to exist?".
Okay. Fair question, given how some have failed in recent history.
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Let me break this equation into different parts,
because there are several parts to the televangelism issue.
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Here are the parts, as I see them:
1) Religious TV: There is absolutely nothing wrong with owning
or patronizing a religious TV channel.
With my wife being medically frail at this point in her life, this mostly how we do church now.
2) National religious TV has expenses, fees and wages to be paid, just like commercial TV.
However, in commercial TV, screen time is paid for by advertisers wanting to sell their product to the TV audience.
Religious TV has the same type of expenses as secular TV, but no fewer secular sponsors.
When someone buys time for a program on a Religious Network, there are fees to be paid
to that network, as well as in-house expenses.
America is used to free TV, so religious programs that directly ask for money
for expenses is a culture-shock for us.
That aspect aside,
I see three types of televangelism:
3a) Evangelists who occasionally use national TV as one way to reach the masses.
Billy Graham did this, with his in-person Crusades being his main focus.
3b) Local churches who buy TV time or use the internet to broadcast home-services.
3c) Those who, (no matter their original intention), now prey on gullible followers to give
money and devotion to the person on the screen.
Wherever there is something real, there will be a counterfeit.
When I first felt a hunger towards God as an adult in my 20s,
I watched religious programs on TV on Sunday morning.
I watched different speakers, some of who I wouldn't watch today,
but God is able to help us sort out the good from the bad.
Eventually, I began to attend church in-person and it grew from there.
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Conversely, I realize, those who hate God, will hate TV evangelism, and will speak ill against it,
so sort-out the complaints you hear, according to holiness of the person speaking them.
And also realize that before preachers used television, they used radio, and they still do.
There are many Christian radio stations, broadcasting from nearly every large city in the USA.
And before they used radio, they stood on soapboxes out on streetcorners.
I've seen streetcorner preachers in my lifetime. God bless them, according to their intent.
And I preach from my website. Thank you for reading me.
The Gospel and those who preach it, for good reasons or for selfish reasons.
have always worked outside the church building,
and that will continue until Jesus returns for His Church.
I hope that someday you become a part of that Church.