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A content analysis was conducted of televangelists' Facebook and Twitter pages. Tweets and Facebook posts were coded for a period of two weeks. The posts/tweets were coded for a variety of categories including: dialogic features, content of the post, and theme. Televangelists tweet more often than they post to Facebook. Findings indicate most televangelists included links to their websites, an email address, links to other forms of social media, phone numbers, and additional content about their organizations. Only a third of the posts/tweets included a reference to the Lord/Jesus/Holy Spirit, and less than 90 percent of posts included specific scripture or Bible verses. Televangelists post different types of content on Facebook compared to Twitter. For example, it is more common for Christian leaders to include the terms Lord/God/Jesus in a tweet than a Facebook post. Tweets are more likely to contain an uplifting or inspirational message, promote an offer for a book/DVD produced by the televangelist, and include a stock photo with a message than Facebook posts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media as a new phenomenon has become a tool used by many televangelists and pastors all over the world. It is against this background that this research sought to explore the Facebook activities of some Ghanaian Pentecostal pastors from a missional perspective. The article deals with the concept of social media, Facebook and its potential for mission purposes, the Facebook phenomenon among Ghanaians and how Ghanaian Pentecostal Pastors are using Facebook for missional purposes, as well as some of concerns on the negative uses of social media. The study revealed that Ghanaian pastors are followed by people from different religious and societal backgrounds. It has also offered the pastors and their congregations the opportunity to form relationships with a wide and diverse range of people without being bound by geographical space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maher Fayez is arguably the most famous Christian televangelist in Egypt, appearing in a vibrant satellite and digital ministry online where he sings the popular genre of Coptic Christian songs, taratll. As his performances largely depend on the mediated and Auto-Tuned voice, I investigate how Fayez s use of an electronicized and cyber ministry merges both visual and auditory sensibilities to help his audiences attune to Christian and 'alternative m odernities'. How does his use of global neo-Pentecostal pedagogies and popular music technologies contest Coptic Orthodox Church authority? More importantly, how do they negotiate various modes of Egyptian Christian-belonging following the January 25, 2011 Uprising?. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pakistan's religious television programs have drawn significant attention in both academic and policy circles. However, there has been surprisingly little systematic analysis of their content and influence. This article shows that, although the televangelists featured on the Pakistani television channels present some of the most conservative views regarding the role of women and religious minorities in society and the role of Islam in governance, Pakistani television is an arena of contestation. The impact of the lively debates between televangelists on young viewers--over whom the ideological battles are being waged--is mixed. Findings from an original survey of Pakistani students and political activists suggest that young people in Pakistan watch religious shows only occasionally. Those that do, however, take them seriously. What leads young people to consume religion on television is a sense of social responsibility: that they are doing it not just for themselves, but also--and perhaps more importantly--for others, be it their families or communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges recent arguments that the Church of the SubGenius (COSG) is a ‘real’ religious organization, in that it purportedly provides a path to spiritual enlightenment. Besides downplaying the COSG’s comedic aspects, these essentialist approaches have largely ignored its historical development within the American ‘alternative’ underground of the 1980s and early-1990s. Drawing on interviews and the analysis of participatory media, this paper examines the COSG alongsideZontar, a stridently political zine named in honour of a B-movie monster that its founders claimed to worship. It is demonstrated that these interrelated, intentionally ‘fake’ religions emerged in the context of a turbulent American culture war, and confronted a conservative evangelicalism perceived to be a political threat. While the founders of the COSG andZontaraccordingly attacked and satirised politically engaged television preachers such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, their approaches to certain less explicitly political televangelists can be considered examples of ironic fandom, shot through with flashes of genuine admiration. In all of these activities, the founders of these fake faiths participated in a cultural discussion about authentic Christianity in America – playful religious work more indicative of the COSG’s cultural significance than its alleged status as an ‘authentic’ religion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Pastor Jay Bakker, son of televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye, has appeared on a number of television shows and has been written about in various publications. Yet his views could not be more different from those of his parents. Bakker's books and sermons reflect an affinity for Paul Tillich. This article argues that Bakker is attempting to establish a popular version of Tillich's theology, accessible to the masses, focusing on millennials, and attempts to map the contours of this new version of Christianity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instant healing, performance of miracles, public exorcism, supply of blessed objects for protection, and prophetic abilities are major religious practices that account for the popularity of certain Pentecostal leaders in contemporary Africa. Prophet T.B. Joshua, a renowned Nigerian televangelist, is one of them. Through his Emmanuel TV channel, he informs 'viewers all over the world' that invisible but influential evil forces are responsible for their daily challenges and that people can enjoy prosperity when they are purged of malevolent spirits. This article describes the practices and narratives of liberation from unknown bondage by Cameroonians who draw inspiration from T.B. Joshua's prophetic messages and displays. The aspects covered include the desire to embark on a pilgrimage to T.B. Joshua's church in Nigeria and actors' use of his blessed religious objects to neutralise, destroy, or fight off invisible evil forces suspected of halting their socioeconomic progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Listen to This Guy Why do we take these people seriously? you may ask--someone like televangelist Jonathan Shuttlesworth, for example. He's the cofounder of Revival Today TV, where he launched [...]

An interview with novelist Wiley Cash is presented. He says that the idea for the short story "A Land More Kind than Home" first came to him when he was in graduate school in Lafayette, Louisiana. He mentions that he grew up in the 1980s during the rise of the Christian televangelist. He also says that he was fond of finding snakes in the yard or in the woods as a kid.

In this paper, I apply the Discourse Historical Approach (DHA) (e.g. Wodak and Meyer 2009) to discourse on religion. Discourse on religion has been taken for granted (e.g. Chilton 2004: xi) and little is known about its characteristic discourse features. A few studies (e.g. Neuman et al 2001; Muchnik 2005) have explored discourse on religion, focusing on particular features (e.g. irony, and narratives). These studies, however, have overlooked the broader socio-political and historical contexts that intertwine with discourse. The present study aims to fill that gap by exploring processes of persuasion in one speech by the Muslim televangelist Hamza Yusuf. Two main processes will be explored: interdiscursivity and intertextuality. Interdiscursivity indicates that discourses can be linked to discourses on other topics or sub-topics; intertextuality refers to the link to other texts through invoking a topic, an event or a main actor (e.g. Richardson and Wodak 2009b:46). As I will show in the data analysis, the speaker invokes some discourses and dismisses others to serve his specific persuasive intentions. In addition, religious terms are recontextualised in contemporary contexts to link the speech to the religious realm and to present religion as a force of change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the myth that the U.S. was established as a Christian nation. It states that the counterfeit idea is one of the mantras of the Christian Right and a favorite topic for several group of people including born-again lobbyists, religious bloggers, and televangelists. It highlights a 2007 First Amendment Center survey, which reveals that 65 percent of U.S. people believe that the founders intended the nation to be a Christian one.

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience regarding the televangelists who are folding laundry and dropping towels in the living room with her mother.

The present study begins by recovering the origins of the terms 'televangelism' and 'televangelist.' 'Televangelism' first appeared in 1958 as the title of a proselytization project of the Southern Baptist Convention that combined dramatic television programs with efforts to engage viewers in person. 'Televangelist' was introduced in 1975 to describe an emerging type of American television preacher, the most successful of whom built powerful parachurch organizations. The neologism 'intervangelist' is then presented to label contemporary video preachers broadcasting online. A content analysis of video platforms on the site [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the life and works of Walter Vinson Grant, a Pentecostal faith healer. He opened a ministry in a poor area of Cincinnati, Ohio to take up faith healing. His legal issues took a toll on his ministry, forcing him to sell his Eagle's Nest Family Church facility to televangelist T. D. Jakes. He believes that God will solve anyone's problems through prayer.

Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) ranks among the largest television station conglomerates and the most longstanding televangelist programmers in America today. Since its founding in 1973, TBN has published promotional documents to "write its own history." These documents connect TBN's religious legitimacy to its success as a business and claim that the former causes the latter and that the latter is proof of the former. This study uses textual analysis to show that TBN represents itself as a divinely directed organization to earn its targeted viewers' trust and to help it to remain competitive as a modern media enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the exposure of televangelist Jimmy Swaggart's illicit rendezvous with a New Orleans prostitute, the Assemblies of God simultaneously orchestrated a massive attempt to silence those who would discuss the tryst and arranged the most widely publicized confession in American history theretofore. The coincidence of a “silence campaign” with the vast distribution of a public confession invites us to reconsider the nature of the public confession. For what place has a public confession, the discourse of disclosure par excellence, in a silence campaign? This question is best answered, I argue, if we understand public confession not as a stable a-historical form, but as a practice that is informed by multiple, competing traditions. I argue that by situating Swaggart's performance in a philosophically modern and secular tradition of public confession we can understand both its complicity in a silence campaign and, more generally, the political logic of the modern public confession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Christian televangelists in the United States have long sought overseas audiences for their religious broadcasts, though less notice has been taken of the geopolitical implications of that engagement. Drawing upon a review of evidence from academic literature, popular reporting, the religious press, government data, and first-hand interviews, this critical essay employs Joseph's Nye's concept of “soft power” and Monroe Price's “marketplace for loyalties” to explore relevant historical and contemporary examples, contexts, conflicts, and strategies of that global gospel. I advocate for a future research agenda that pursues more fully the consequences of that engagement from both a production and reception standpoint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the missionary activity in India brought about by satellite technology. There are four 24-hour Christian networks that feature televangelists in India. Ninety-five percent of all Indian televangelism programmes are based on genre of straight preaching, mainly 15-20 minutes sermons recorded during Church services or crusades and edited for television broadcast.