Religious Broadcasting and the Mobilization of the New Christian Right

Abstract

Evangelical religious broadcasters are amassing a power base which has the potential of changing American society in ways that are revolutionary in character. This address seeks to shed light on how this has happened. The argument which will be pursued can be succinctly summarized as follows: First, the charismatic leaders of religious broadcasting are the principle actors in a social movement of monumental importance in the late twentieth century. Second, the ideological origins of this social movement are deeply grounded in the long held view of America as a New Israel, a land providentially endowed by God with a special mission in world history. Third, the organization resources and managerial techniques of moder televangelism grew out of nineteenth century urban revivalism and they are now being applied to fuel a social movement. Fourth, by stereotyping fundamentalism as a backwater anti-intellectual reaction to the modern world, scholars and the mass media alike have seriously misunderstood the complexity, diversity, and strength of evangelical faith in America Fifth, the collapse of the liberal vision now provides the opportunity for evangelical Christians to reassert their influence and reshape American culture. Pursuit of this argument requires some minimal conceptual framework. I begin with a brief critique of secularization theory. This critique is necessary because secularization, the dominant social science theory of modern societies, offers a model of change which renders religion incapable of mustering sufficient strength to have revolutionary consequences in the modern world. The critique of secularization theory is followed by a piesentation of a few key concepts from the resource mobilization theory of social movements. Here I also offer a brief delineation of how my own work departs from the work of others who are utilizing this approach.1