Rise of Televangelism Rise and its Influence - Essay Example

Spiritual leaders have explored several different options in trying to reach out to the world and spread the gospel to people spread across geographical, social, and political boundaries. One common option used by spiritual leaders and more so evangelists is through television evangelism Televangelism refers to any religious message transmitted through any recent form of communication but describes more specifically television and radio ministries.

A Roman Catholic archbishop, Fulton Sheen, was the pioneer television preacher and he successfully started televangelism in 1951. Fulton would win many awards for his program which was first aired in 1951 and featured dominantly on TV until the 1960s. Later, Oral Robert, another pioneer of television evangelism, was able to reach 80% of the potential television evangelism audience in 1957, which was the largest show of the time. The number of TV stations in the US had reached 48 by 1948 and media was widely deregulated by a government with regard to featuring spiritual programs in public media. Interest in televangelism grew so much that by 1955, approximately two-thirds of households in the nation had televisions.

These statistics continued to rise up to a point ninety-nine percent of the total households in the country possessed at least a TV; some households had two or even more. With time the new phenomenon began to spread to distant places as a direct result of the large number of people that we're able to buy the television set. Also, more people joined in the pool of those who volunteered to provide the necessary funding for the programs. This powerful medium drew the attention of the people soon after the Second World War.

The internationalization and globalization of broadcasting and communication networks have made it possible for televangelists to capture a wider audience. Two channels that have featured prominently in this respect include the God channel and the Trinity Broadcasting Networks. In Brazil and many African countries, domestic televangelism is on the rise.