Radio , one of the first ministers to use radio, beginning in 1923 Christianity has always emphasized
preaching the gospel to the whole world, taking as inspiration the
Great Commission. Historically, this was achieved by sending
missionaries, beginning with the
Dispersion of the Apostles, and later, after the invention of the
printing press, included the distribution of
Bibles and
religious tracts. Some Christians realized that the rapid uptake of
radio beginning in the 1920s, provided a powerful new tool for this task, and they were amongst the first producers of
radio programming. Radio broadcasts were seen as a complementary activity to traditional missionaries, enabling vast numbers to be reached at relatively low cost, but also enabling Christianity to be preached in countries where this was illegal and missionaries were banned. The aim of Christian radio was to both convert people to Christianity and to provide teaching and support to believers. These activities continue today, particularly in the developing world.
Shortwave radio stations with a Christian format broadcast worldwide, such as
HCJB in
Quito,
Ecuador,
Family Radio's
WYFR, and the
Bible Broadcasting Network (BBN), among others. One of the first ministers to use radio extensively was
S. Parkes Cadman, beginning in 1923. In 1923,
Calvary Baptist Church in
New York City was the first church to operate its own radio station."Tell It From Calvary" is a radio show that the church still produces weekly; it's heard on WMCA AM570. By 1928, Cadman had a weekly Sunday afternoon radio broadcast on the
NBC radio network, his powerful oratory reaching a nationwide audience of five million persons.
Aimee Semple McPherson was another pioneering tent-revivalist who soon turned to radio to reach a larger audience. Radio eventually gave her nationwide notoriety in the 1920s and 1930s, and she even built one of the earliest
Pentecostal megachurches. In the
U.S., the
Great Depression of the 1930s saw a resurgence of
revival-tent preaching in the
Midwest and
South, as itinerant traveling preachers drove from town to town, living off
donations. Several preachers began radio shows as a result of their popularity. In the 1930s, a famous radio evangelist of the period was
Roman Catholic priest Father
Charles Coughlin, whose strongly
anti-Communist and
antisemitic radio programs reached millions of listeners. Other early Christian radio programs broadcast nationwide in the U.S. beginning in the 1920s–1930s, include (years of radio broadcast shown):
Bob Jones, Sr. (1927–1962),
Ralph W. Sockman (1928–1962),
G. E. Lowman (1930–1965),
Music and the Spoken Word (1929–present),
The Lutheran Hour (1930–present), and
Charles E. Fuller (1937–1968).
Time magazine reported in 1946 that Rev. Ralph Sockman's
National Radio Pulpit on
NBC received 4,000 letters weekly and Roman Catholic archbishop
Fulton J. Sheen received between 3,000 and 6,000 letters weekly. The total radio audience for radio ministers in the U.S. that year was estimated to be 10 million listeners. An association of American
Evangelical Protestant religious broadcasters, the
National Religious Broadcasters, was founded in 1944.
Television , the first televangelist , founder of the
Christian Broadcasting Network Although
television also began in the 1930s, it was not used for religious purposes until the early 1950s.
Jack Wyrtzen and
Percy Crawford switched to TV broadcasting in the spring of 1949. Another television preacher of note was
Fulton J. Sheen, who successfully switched to television in 1951 after two decades of popular radio broadcasts, and whom
Time called "the first 'televangelist'". Sheen won numerous
Emmy Awards for his program, which ran from the early 1950s until the late 1960s. In 1951, producer Dick Ross and
Baptist evangelist
Billy Graham founded the film production company
World Wide Pictures, which made videos of his preaching and Christian films. After years of radio broadcasting, in 1952
Rex Humbard became the first to have a weekly church service broadcast on television. By 1980, the Rex Humbard programs spanned the globe with 695 stations in 91 languages, the largest coverage of any evangelistic program at the time. By 1957,
Oral Roberts's broadcast reached 80% of the possible television audience through 135 of the possible 500 stations. In Uruguay,
Channel 4 has been airing the Roman Catholic Church mass since 1961.
Christian Broadcasting Network, the first Christian channel, was founded in 1961 by
Baptist Pastor
Pat Robertson. Its show,
The 700 Club, is one of the oldest on the American television scene and was broadcast in 39 languages in 138 countries in 2016. The 1960s and early 1970s saw television replace radio as the primary home entertainment medium and also saw a further rise in
Evangelical Christianity, particularly through the international television and radio ministry of
Billy Graham. Many well-known televangelists began during this period, most notably
Oral Roberts,
Jimmy Swaggart,
Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker,
Jerry Falwell,
Jesse Duplantis and Pat Robertson. Most developed their own media networks, news exposure, and political influence. In the 21st century, some televised church services continue to attract large audiences. In the US, there are
Joel Osteen,
Joyce Meyer and
T. D. Jakes. In Nigeria, there are
Enoch Adeboye and
Chris Oyakhilome.
Trinity Broadcasting Network is the world's largest religious television network. == Controversies and criticism ==