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4. Though they hold distinct historical meanings, this paper uses the terms “evangelical” and “conservative evangelical” interchangeably to describe the larger historical movement known as Anglo-American Protestant evangelicalism, which originated in the American colonies during the Great Awakening of the late eighteenth century. Evangelicalism holds the following four core tenets: a high view of the Bible as the revelation of God, faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ as the sacrifice for sin, the need for individual conversion through the experience of personal faith, and a lifestyle of active evangelism.

The term “evangelical” is employed in this paper as a broad category that thus includes within its fold the narrower conservative reform movement in the United States known as Protestant Fundamentalism. Usage of the term in the paper also follows North American practice. Unlike the term evangelico used in the Latin American context, the paper thus places together all conservative Protestants who share common evangelically oriented beliefs, including Pentecostal groups.

Sources: Noll, Mark A., The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesleys (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2003)Google Scholar; and Bebbington, David W., Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 1–17.Google Scholar

5. Source: Sanneh, Lamin, “Pentecostalism,” Odyssey, Chicago Public Radio, 10 20, 2003Google Scholar; Barrett, David B., Johnson, Todd M., and Crossing, Peter F., “Status of Global Mission, 2005, in Context of Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 29 (01 2005), 29Google Scholar; David, Barrett, ed., World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).Google Scholar

6. For scholarly treatments of American international religious broadcasting, see Luben, Barnerd M., “The Development of Missionary Radio,” The Christian Broadcaster 13 07 1966): 10–14Google Scholar; Browne, Donald, The Limits of the Limitless Medium (New York: Praeger, 1982)Google Scholar; Fortner, Robert, “Saving the World? American Evangelicals and Transnational Broadcasting,” in American Evangelicals and the Mass Media, ed. Quentin, Schultze (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdman's, 1990)Google Scholar; Hadden, Jeffrey K., “The Globalization of American Televangelism,” in Religion and Global Order, ed. Roland, Robertson and Garrett, William R. (New York: Paragon House, 1991)Google Scholar; and Wood, James, History of International Broadcasting (London: Peter Peregrinus, 1998)Google Scholar, and History of international Broadcasting, Volume 2 (London: Institute of Electrical Engineers, 2000).Google Scholar

For celebratory accounts of the origins of “missionary radio” written by practitioners, see Jones, Clarence W., Radio: The New Missionary (Chicago: Moody, 1946)Google Scholar; Ledyard, Gleason, Sky Waves: The Incredible Far East Broadcasting Company Story (Chicago: Moody, 1963)Google Scholar; Reed, Jane and Grant, Jim, Voice under Every Palm: The Story of Radio Station ELWA (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1968)Google Scholar; Freed, Paul, Towers of Eternity: The Inspiring Story of Trans World Radio (Cary, N.C.: Trans World Radio, 1968)Google Scholar, and Let the Earth Hear (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 1980)Google Scholar; Neely, Lois, Come up to This Mountain: The Miracle of Clarence W. Jones and HCJB (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1980)Google Scholar; Cook, Frank S., Seeds in the Wind: The Story of the Voice of the Andes, Radio Station HCJB (Miami, Fla.: World Radio Missionary Fellowship, 1981)Google Scholar; Whitehead, Briar, Unhindered Power: 40 True Stories of God at Work around the World through Christian Radio (Chicago: Moody, 1990)Google Scholar; Bowman, Eleanor G., Eyes Beyond the Horizon (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 1991)Google Scholar; Nelson, Dean, Small, Medium, and Large Impact: The Miracle of World Mission Radio (Kansas City, Mo.: Nazarene, 1993)Google Scholar; and Ward, Mark Sr., Air of Salvation: The Story of Christian Broadcasting (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1994).Google Scholar

See also Lundgren, Manfred, Proclaiming Christ to His World: The Experience of the Radio Voice of the Gospel, 1957–1977 (Geneva: Lutheran World Federation, ca. 1983)Google Scholar; Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, Gray, Frances, contr., Radio in Mission: A Handbook on the Use of Radio in World Evangelization (Charlotte, N.C.: Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, 1989)Google Scholar; Moore, S. E., Warham, T., and Ritchie, P. I., “The Development of HCJB World Radio from 1931 to 1995,” 100 Years of Radio, September 5–7, 1995, Conference Publication 411 (London: Institute of Electrical Engineers, 1995)Google Scholar; and Loudot, Jacques, L'Aventure Radio Monte Carlo, ou un demi-siecle d'affaires d'etat(s) (Paris: Dreamland editeur, 2002).Google Scholar

7. Quoted in Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, Gray, Frances, contr., Radio in Mission, 7.Google Scholar

8. Fortner, Robert, “Saving the World? American Evangelicals and Transnational Broadcasting,” in Quentin, Schultze, ed., American Evangelicals and the Mass Media, 308 and 322.Google Scholar

9. Hadden, Jeffrey K., “The Globalization of American Televangelism,” in Roland, Robertson and Garrett, William R., ed., Religion and Global Order, 240.Google Scholar

In 2003, for example, the global giant Trans World Radio alone employed 13 super-power transmitter sites overseas, broadcasting 1,800 hours of gospel programs a week in 180 languages, more language services than the BBC, Voice of America (VOA), China Radio International, and Voice of Russia combined. Source: Trans World Radio, 2003 Annual Ministry Review, 24:3.

10. For an important discussion of the distinction between the terms “global Christianity” and “world Christianity,” see Johnson, Todd M. and Kim, Sandra S., “Describing the Worldwide Christian Phenomenon,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 29:1 (2005): 80–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. See Martin, David, Tongues of FireGoogle Scholar; Stoll, David, Is Latin America Turning Protestant? The Politics of Evangelical Growth (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990)Google Scholar; and Greenway, Roger S., “Protestant Mission Activity in Latin America,” in Coming of Age: Protestantism in Contemporary Latin America, ed. Miller, Daniel R. (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994).Google Scholar

12. Goffin, Alvin M., The Rise of Protestant Evangelism in Ecuador, 1895–1990 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994).Google Scholar

13. On the rise of evangelicalism in Latin America, see Montgomery, T. S., “Latin American Evangelicals: Oaxtepec and Beyond,” in Churches and Politics in Latin America, ed. Daniel, Levine (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1979)Google Scholar; Hvalkof, Soren and Aaby, Peter, Is God an American: An Anthropological Perspective on the Missionary Work of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (London: Survival International, 1981)Google Scholar; Swatos, William H. Jr., ed., Religion and Democracy in Latin America (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1995)Google Scholar; Christianity Today Institute, Andres, Tapia, contr., “Why is Latin America Turning Protestant?,” Christianity Today 6 (04 1992): 28–29Google Scholar; Miller, Daniel R., ed., Coming of AgeGoogle Scholar; Martin, David, Tongues of FireGoogle Scholar; Stoll, David, Is Latin America Turning Protestant?Google Scholar, and “A Protestant Reformation in Latin America?,” The Christian Century 107:2 (January 17, 1990): 44–48Google Scholar; Garrard Burnett, Virginia, “Protestantism in Latin America,” Latin American Research Review 27:1 (1992)Google Scholar; and Virginia, Garrard-Burnett, ed., On Earth As It Is in Heaven: Religion in Modern Latin America (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2000)Google Scholar; Stoll, David and Garrard-Burnett, Virginia, Rethinking Protestantism in Latin America (Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

14. The current paper defines “missionary radio” as stations owned and operated on a continual basis outside the continental United States by conservative Protestant groups for the primary purpose of disseminating the gospel message in vernacular languages to foreign audiences. Social scientists use two closely related terms to describe overseas religious broadcasting. “International religious broadcasting,” a term favored by sociologists, media studies scholars, and students of international broadcasting, is comparative and contains a contemporary timeframe; IRBs are often contrasted with other transnational broadcasters, principally official government services, such as the VOA and BBC. The term “missionary radio,” used by historians, includes a chronological dimension, linked to a specific phenomenon—the modern Protestant missionary movement, which began in the late eighteenth century. The term connotes the specific religious meaning and missionary purpose that conservative Protestant groups in the United States attached to the use of radio overseas.

15. Missions growth during the twentieth century has been fueled almost entirely by evangelical and conservative evangelical groups from the United States. In the 1930s, mainline Protestant denominations, which had fueled the initial expansion of modern missions during the nineteenth century, outnumbered their conservative counterparts overseas by as much as ten to one. By 1982, however, these figures were reversed; ten out of eleven North American Protestant career missionaries came from conservative agencies.

Source: Hutchison, William R., Errand to the World: American Protestant Thought and Foreign Missions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 177Google Scholar. Joel Carpenter disputes this data, arguing that by the mid-1930s, missionaries affiliated with conservative agencies already made up 40 percent of the overall missionary force. Carpenter, Joel A., “Appendix: The Evangelical Missionary Force in the 1930s,” in Earthen Vessels: American Evangelicals and Foreign Missions, 1880–1980, ed., Carpenter, Joel A. and Shenk, Wilbert R. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990).Google Scholar

16. Linke, Lilo, Ecuador: Country of Contrasts (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), 104.Google Scholar

17. Mecham, J. Lloyd, Church and State in Latin America: A History of Politico-Ecclesiastical Relations (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966), 139.Google Scholar

18. Linke, Lilo, Ecuador: Country of Contrasts, 107.Google Scholar

19. Mecham, J. Lloyd, Church and State in Latin America.Google Scholar

20. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, Hanratty, Dennis M., ed., Ecuador: A Country Study (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1991), 188.Google Scholar

21. Goffin, Alvin M., The Rise of Protestant Evangelism in Ecuador, 1895–1990, chap. 1.Google Scholar

22. Protestant missions in Latin America were overwhelmingly American in origin and conservative evangelical in outlook. Partly as a result, “Protestant churches in Latin America are among the most conservative in the world” with estimates that as many as 95 percent of Latin American Protestants are conservative evangelical (including Pentecostals): Kane, J. Herbert, A Concise History of the Christian World Mission (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1982), 148.Google Scholar

23. Goffin, Alvin M., The Rise of Protestant Evangelism in Ecuador, 1895–1990, 17.Google Scholar

24. Ibid.

25. Linke, Lilo, Ecuador: Country of Contrasts, 110.Google Scholar

26. Caldwell Thiessen, John, A Survey of World Missions (Chicago: Moody, 1961), 392.Google Scholar

27. On Rader's radio activities, see Hangen, Tona, Redeeming the Dial: Radio, Religion, and Popular Culture in America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).Google Scholar

28. Jones, Clarence W., “Questions Answered by Dr. C. W. Jones,” undated, file 417, HCJB Global Archives (hereafter HCJB), Colorado Springs, Colo., 23–25Google Scholar; Clarence W. Jones, interview with Nancy Woolnough, June 1966, file 355, HCJB; Frederick Swenson, Robert, “An Oral History of Dr. Clarence W. Jones,” February 21, 1977Google Scholar, folder 12, box 9, collection 349, Papers of Clarence Wesley Johnson, Billy Graham Center Archives (hereafter BGCA), Wheaton, Ill.

29. Jones, Clarence W., “Questions Answered by Dr. C. W. Jones,” 23–25.Google Scholar

30. [Decree] Number 183, Registro Oficial, Republic of Ecuador, number 406, August 25, 1930, collection 316, HCJB; “Radio Station HCJB Forges Ahead,” The Defender (March 1931), “Copies of Original HCJB Letters and Documents,” collection 407, HCJB; Time, February 9, 1931, 38Google Scholar; Frederick Swenson, Robert, “An Oral History of Dr. Clarence W. Jones.”Google Scholar

31. “Inaugural Souvenir program,” February 1940, folder 6, box 12, collection 349, BGCA.

32. Frederick Swenson, Robert, “An Oral History of Dr. Clarence W. Jones,” 46.Google Scholar

33. “Inaugural Souvenir program.”

34. Goffin, Alvin M., The Rise of Protestant Evangelism in Ecuador, 1895–1990.Google Scholar

35. HCJB would expand its activities in the following decade beyond broadcasting to include a receiver department (“Radio Circle”), sound bus (“Radio Rodante”), and radio Bible school (“Bible Institute of the Air”). In 1942, the WRMF opened its first U.S. office in New York to channel funds from program sponsors. In Easter 1944, the station began a regular publication, the Radio Missionary Log (later changed to Call of the Andes), which was designed to promote awareness of HCJB and raise support for the station. The postwar period witnessed the continued expansion of operations by WRMF. In 1949, HCJB's parent organization added a medical department, which would later include two hospitals. In 1953, WRMF started its first radio station outside Ecuador in partnership with the Latin American Mission—Station HOXO in Panama. In the 1960s, WRMF entered briefly into television production with HCJB–TV in Ecuador.

36. The station received most of its funds through a large number of small-sized donations. In 1943, for example, HCJB received 685 donations for a total of roughly $7,500. Gifts ranged in size from $0.25 to $350.00, with the average contribution just over $10.00 and more than half less than $5.00. The same year, gifts made up slightly more than half of all station receipts; the remaining income came from sponsored programs and retransmission of NBC broadcasts. Source: HCJB, Financial Statement, Second Quarter, 1943, cited in Blunden Buchanan, Osborne Jr., “A Study of The Pioneer Missionary Radio Station, HCJB” (master's thesis, The Kennedy School of Missions of the Hartford Seminary Foundation, 1962), 168.Google Scholar

37. Letter from Jones, Clarence to Edmann, Ray with attachments, “Celebrating South America Radio Week,” 3 February 1931Google Scholar, no file number, HCJB.

38. Jones attributed these two “cardinal principles” of HCJB to veteran CMA missionaries, with whom he conferred after arriving in Ecuador in 1930. Source: Jones, Clarence W., “Questions Answered by Dr. C. W. Jones”Google Scholar; and Clarence W. Jones, interview with Nancy Woolnough, 9.

39. Dr. Calisto, a former senator in Ecuador and the CMA's attorney, negotiated the station's initial contract. The CMA sponsored the first denominational broadcast on HCJB (Realidades), which it sustained for several years. Jones considered veteran CMA missionaries Larson, cousins D. S. and J. D. Clark, and Paul Young as four of the five “founding families” of HCJB. These men preached regularly on the station and provided HCJB with executive leadership over the station's first two decades.

Larson, Young, and the Clarks appear to have donated their time in the early years to HCJB, relying for their support on CMA funds. This arrangement apparently caused tensions with fellow CMA missionaries, as well as the CMA's head office in New York. By 1941, the success of HCJB's local ministries and the station's approach to indiginization had created further tensions with the CMA. Larson and D. S. Clark stopped receiving financial support from the agency in January 1946 and March 1948, respectively, thus terminating their formal relations with the organization.

Sources: Letters from D. S. Clark to A. C. Snead, 10 January 1946, and 21 May 1948, I.M. Personnel Files, D. S. Clark, Christian and Missionary Allicance Archives (hereafter CMA), Colorado Springs, Colo.; Letter from A. C. Snead to Reuben Larson and Clarence Jones, 15 December 1947, and letter from Reuben Larson to A. C. Snead, 23 January, 1948, I.M. Personnel Files, Rev. and Mrs. Reuben E. Larson, CMA; and “Memo for C” June 8, 1941, file 407, HCJB.

40. These six missionaries from Chicago included Clarence Jones, Jones's wife Katherine (described as a “studio artist”), Jones's brother Howard (acting as station manager), Eric Williams (a former CBS engineer), Williams's wife Ann, and Lillian Peterson, a pianist. Source: “Giving ‘Wings’ to the Gospel Story in South America,” undated brochure (ca. early 1931), collection 306, HCJB.

41. Clarence W. Jones, interview with Nancy Woolnough; “The Years,” file 344 (“Historical Paper—The Years, 1933–1971”), HCJB, 5; Timeline, file 321 (“New Transmitters: 1960, 1967, 1968”), HCJB; Clarence W. Jones, “Questions Answered by Dr. C. W. Jones.”

42. “HCJB Beginnings: CWJ Notes,” file 407, HCJB.

43. “The Years,” 5.

44. Frederick Swenson, Robert, “An Oral History of Dr. Clarence W. Jones,” 38.Google Scholar

45. According to Clarence Jones's account, Charles Fuller initially picked up HCJB in the United States in 1940 after the station increased its power to 10,000 watts. Upon hearing the station, Fuller allegedly decided upon HCJB as the first overseas outlet for his network broadcast, the Old-Fashioned Revival Hour. When Jones agreed to carry Fuller's programs, it was apparently for free; Fuller refused to accept Jones's offer unless he paid for the time. Fuller's purchase of airtime—the first use of sponsored American programming on missionary radio—thus appears to have developed spontaneously without planning aforethought. Source: Jones, Clarence W., “Radio Broadcasting—Share the Cost,” Oral History, February 1977, file 407, HCJBGoogle Scholar; also in Robert Frederick Swenson, “An Oral History of Dr. Clarence W. Jones.”

46. Batson, Lawrence D., “The Extent of the Development of Radio Over the World,” in “Radio,” ed. Irwin, Stewart, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 142 (March 1929): Supplement, 21–31, 26Google Scholar; and Batson, Lawrence D., comp., Radio Markets of the World, 1932, U.S. Department of Commerce (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1932).Google Scholar

47. Frederick Swenson, Robert, “An Oral History of Dr. Clarence W. Jones,” 27.Google Scholar

48. For comparison, in 1932 Argentinians owned 525,000 (52 sets/100 people); Brazil 250,000 (6.43/100); Chile 30,000 (7.62/100); Peru 18,000 (3.27/100); Uruguay 17,000 (10.01/100); Venezuela 2,000 (0.66/100); Paraguay 150 (0.18/100); Bolivia 25 (0.01/ 100); Colombia 22 (0.005/100). Source: Batson, Lawrence D., “The Extent of the Development of Radio Over the World,” in Irwin, Stewart, ed., “Radio,” 21–31, 25–26Google Scholar; Batson, Lawrence D., comp., Radio Markets of the World, 1932.Google Scholar

49. “Ecuador Contract with HCJB to Sell Radios 1933,” file 421, (original copy, “Ecuador Contract with HCJB to Sell Radios 1933”), HCJB.

50. Letter from Clarence Jones to Paul Rader, 8 May 1934, “Corr-CWJ and Rader-Eicher, 1932–34,” no file number, HCJB.

51. Frederick Swenson, Robert, “HCJB: A Descriptive Study of the History and Operation of the First Evangelical Missionary Radio Station” (master's thesis, University of Maryland, 1977), 138Google Scholar; Jones, Clarence, Radio, the New Missionary.Google Scholar

52. Thiessen, Abe, “A Radio Set in Every Village,” undated (ca. 1957)Google Scholar, folder 16, box 33, collection 86, BGCA.

For secondary literature, see Hangen, Tona, “Man of the Hour: Walter A. Maier and Religion by Radio on the Lutheran Hour,” in Radio Reader: Essays in the Cultural History of Radio, ed. Michele, Hilmes and Jason, Loviglio (London: Routledge, 2002)Google Scholar. Hangen provides slightly different figures for the Lutheran Hour's worldwide audience: 1,236 stations carried the radio show in 1949–50 (roughly half of which lay within the United States), while the program was broadcast in 12 languages in over 50 countries by 1953. Maier died on January 11, 1950. After his death, Dr. Oswald Hoffmann carried on the program until 1988. See Hangen and “The Lutheran Hour,” in Erickson, Hal, Religious Radio and Television in the United States, 1921–1991: The Programs and Personalities (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1992).Google Scholar

53. Jones, Clarence, “A Survey of Religious Broadcasting in the 20 Countries of Latin America,” February 15–July 8, 1945Google Scholar, “History—Organization (A12),” HCJB.

54. Anonymous, “Radio Circle Story,” 1962Google Scholar, file 396 (“Radio Circle Ministry”), HCJB.

55. Anonymous, “Baited with the Gospel,” Call of the Andes 7:3 (09 1950)Google Scholar, HCJB, 13.

56. World Radio Missionary Fellowship, Catch The Vision: The Story of HCJB—The Voice of the Andes (Miami, Fla.: World Radio Missionary Fellowship, 1989)Google Scholar, chap. 5; “Information Sheet for All WRMF Workers: Radio Circle,” file 396, HCJB; Letter from Henry Hungerpiller to H. M. Voss, 11 December 1953, folder 17, box 33, collection 86 (International Christian Broadcasters), BGCA.

57. Letter from Henry Hungerpiller to H. M. Voss.

58. World Radio Missionary Fellowship, Catch the Vision: The Story of HCJB—The Voice of the Andes, chap. 5.Google Scholar

59. In May 1955, one-third of HCJB's programs were in Spanish and 40 percent were in English. Source: HCJB, Publicity Release #6, May 6, 1955, file 353, HCJB.

60. Ibid.

61. By 1968, HCJB's Spanish programs solicited over 30,000 letters a year. Romero, Enrique, “Annual Report of the Spanish Division,” Departmental Reports of the World Radio Missionary Fellowship, Inc., Annual Members' Meeting,1968,HCJB.Google Scholar

62. These included “Southern Cross Salute” (Pacific Area), “Morning in the Mountains” (North and South America), “Quito Calling” (Europe), “Caribbean Call” (Caribbean), and “Ecuadoran Echoes” (North America). By 1962, staff programs made up more than 60 percent of the station's broadcast hours in English and received over 18,000 letters annually from listeners.

Sources: “HCJB Program Schedule (English),” July to December 1955, and “HCJB International Progam Schedule,” May–August 1964, both in folder 1, box 14, collection 349, BGCA; Osborne Blunden Buchanan, Jr., “A Study of The Pioneer Missionary Radio Station, HCJB,” 131–37.

63. Blunden Buchanan, Osborne Jr., “A Study of The Pioneer Missionary Radio Station, HCJB.”Google Scholar

64. In 1963, the station carried forty-one weekly “share-the-cost” programs in English and five in Spanish. Three-quarters of the sustaining programs originated from the United States, while the remainder came from Canada, New Zealand, and England. Sources: Radio Station HCJB, “Share-the-Cost Program,” March 1963, file 309, HCJB; and Osborne Blunden Buchanan, Jr., “A Study of The Pioneer Missionary Radio Station, HCJB,” 137.

65. Denominations which paid for regular broadcasts on HCJB included the Assemblies of God, Free Methodist, Lutheran, Christian Reformed, and Mennonite orders. Roughly one-quarter of HCJB's sponsored programs in 1961 came from individual congregations. The longest-standing church broadcast on HCJB was from Calvary Baptist Church in New York City.

Sources: Radio Station HCJB, “Questionnaire for Prospective Broadcasters of HCJB,” Share-the-Cost Program, July 1967, section 5, file 309, HCJBGoogle Scholar; and Osborne Blunden, Buchanan Jr., “A Study of The Pioneer Missionary Radio Station, HCJB,” 137–49.Google Scholar

66. The addition of sponsored programming enabled HCJB to broadcast 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the first time in 1956.

67. This figure includes some duplication, since sets were occasionally moved from one location to another. At the same time, the figure dramatically underrepresents the number of total listeners, since sets often served more than one family as well as multiple members of the same family. Source: Anonymous, “Radio Circle Story.”Google Scholar

68. Untitled document, Radio Circle set inventory, undated (ca. September 1954), file 396, HCJB.

69. Letter from Mrs. Kermit Beougher to Rev. A. G. Thiessen, 13 May 1958, folder 34, box 32, collection 86, BGCA.

70. Untitled document, Radio Circle set inventory, undated (ca. September 1954).

71. Ibid.

72. Letter from Kermit Beougher to Abe Thiessen, 19 May 1958, folder 34, box 32, collection 86, BGCA.

73. Anonymous, “Radio Circle Story.”Google Scholar

74. Jones, Clarence, “Memorandum of Various Important Items of Present and Future Status of Radio Station HCJB,” 11 30, 1943Google Scholar, attached to memorandum to the Trustees of the WRMF, “Plan for Prayer and Action: Looking Toward Building for a Better HCJB,” January 18, 1946, unfiled, “Material for Meetings” folder, brown box, HCJB.

75. Linke, Lilo, Ecuador: Country of Contrasts, 109.Google Scholar

76. Ibid.

77. Letter from Monsenor Maximiliano Spiller to the Apostolic Diocese of Napo-Tena, undated, attached to letter from Helen A. Cedar to A. C. Snead, 13 December 1949, “1948–55 Ecuador Chairman,” I.M. Field Files, CMA.

78. Letter from Helen A. Cedar to A. C. Snead.

79. Letter from Henry C. Miller to George C. Constance, 12 February 1958, “1956-JP Ecuador—Chairman,” I.M. Field Files, CMA.

80. Anonymous, “Radio Circle Story.”Google Scholar

81. By 1950, Ecuador had more than 50 government and commercial radio stations. By 1957, Guyaquil alone had 26 long-wave stations. Source: Clark, Robert, “Report to Panamerican Christian Network on All Ecuador Network,” The Echo 3:10 (10 1, 1957), HCJB, 2.Google Scholar

82. Anonymous, “Why Pre-Tuned Radios?,” undated, file 396, HCJB.Google Scholar

83. Anonymous, “Radio Circle Story.”Google Scholar

84. Anonymous, “Why Pre-Tuned Radios?”Google Scholar

85. Ibid.

86. Jones, Clarence W., “A Global Planning Project for Missionary Radio Stations,” undated (ca. November 1945)Google Scholar, folder 165, box 1, collection 349, BGCA.

87. Ibid.

88. “Ecuador” [publicity facts], file 396, HCJB.

89. Cook, Frank, Seeds in the Wind, 91.Google Scholar

90. Letter from Mrs. Kermit Beougher to Rev. A. G. Thiessen.

91. Anonymous, “Why Pre-Tuned Radios?”Google Scholar

92. Letter from Kermit Beougher to Abe Thiessen.

93. Letter from Mrs. Kermit Beougher to Rev. A. G. Thiessen.

94. Letter from Kermit Beougher to Abe Thiessen.

95. Ibid.

96. Anonymous, “Why Pre-Tuned Radios?”Google Scholar

97. Letter from Kermit Beougher to Abe Thiessen.

98. Cook, Frank, Seeds in the Wind.Google Scholar

99. Anonymous, “HCJB's Good Neighbor Policy?,” unfiled, HCJB.Google Scholar

100. In their study of fundamentalist broadcasting in Guatemala, the Latin American country with the highest proportion of evangelicals, Susan Rose and Quentin Schutze noted that radio and television during the 1980s comprised “important conduits for the transmission of fundamentalist values, beliefs, and practices throughout the country,” making it socially acceptable for Roman Catholics to jump faiths. Concluding a review of evangelical broadcasting in five Central American countries during the 1980s, Dennis Smith maintained that “media have increased the general public's awareness of evangelicalism, perhaps making it a more socially acceptable personal belief system.” Neither Rose and Schultze nor Smith cite direct evangelism per se as the most significant legacy of radio; instead, the authors rightly suggest that legitimization and pastoral care are far more relevant “impacts” of radio.

Sources: Rose, Susan and Schultze, Quentin, “Evangelical Awakening in Guatamela: Fundamentalist Impact on Education and Media,” in Fundamentalisms and Society, ed. Martin, Marty and Scott, Appleby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993)Google Scholar; and Smith, Dennis, “The Gospel According to the United States: Evangelical Broadcasting in Central America,” in American Evangelicals and the Mass Media, ed. Quentin, Schultze (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990)Google Scholar; and “The Impact of Religious Programming in the Electronic Media on the Active Christian Population in Central America,” Latin American Pastoral Issues 15:1 (July 1988): 67–84.Google Scholar

101. Anonymous, “Radio Circle Story”Google Scholar; and Anonymous, “The Volume Was Turned Up High,” file 342 (“History Paper Update after 1960”), HCJB.Google Scholar

102. Anonymous, “Radio Circle Story.”Google Scholar

103. As Jehu Hanciles has recently noted, scholars have yet to achieve consensus on how people change religious worldviews: “Among the most debated questions about conversion is whether it is an event or a process.” Lewis Rambo, a leading expert, favors a model of conversion as a multicausal, highly contextualized procedure that combines numerous psychological, social, cultural, and institutional elements in a cumulative and interactive manner over time. For Rambo, conversion is only rarely an “overnight, all-in-an-instant, wholesale transformation that is now and forever.” Instead, conversion is best seen as a “process over time, not a single event.” Viewing conversion as the product of a prolonged influence rather than a discrete occurrence thus squares both with the testimony of HCJB broadcasters as well as the theoretical conjectures of social scientists. Source: Handles, Jehu, “Conversion and Social Change: The ‘Unfinished Task’ in West Africa,” in Christianity Reborn: The Global Expansion of Evangelicalism in the Twentieth Century, ed. Donald, Lewis (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005), 159Google Scholar; Rambo, Lewis, Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993), 1, 5.Google Scholar

104. Anonymous, “Radio Circle Story.”Google Scholar

105. MrsBeougher, Kermit., “Harvest for Heaven—1957—Radio Circle” World Radio Missionary Fellowship, The Echo 3:10 (10 1, 1957), HCJB, 4.Google Scholar

106. Anonymous, “Radio Circle Story.”Google Scholar

107. Anonymous, “Why Pre-Tuned Radios?”Google Scholar

108. Letter from Mrs. Kermit Beougher to Rev. A. G. Thiessen.

109. Letter from Kermit Beougher to Abe Thiessen.

110. Such a sequence of events closely approximates the process of self-sustaining indigenous church growth that McGavran labels, Donald A. “People Movements to Christ.”Google Scholar See McGavran, Donald A., “The Bridges of God,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader, ed. Winter, Ralph D. and Hawthorne, Steven C. (Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library, 1992).Google Scholar

111. Linke, Lilo, Ecuador: Country of Contrasts, chap. 12.Google Scholar

112. Alfonso Beltran, Father, “Radio Station HCJB and the Future of Catholicism in the Republic of Ecuador,” November 1958, unfiled, “Summer” folder, brown box, HCJB.Google Scholar

113. Goodpasture, H. McKennie, Cross and Sword: An Eyewitness History of Christianity in Latin America (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1989).Google Scholar

114. Lilo, Linke, Ecuador: Country of Contrasts, 111.Google Scholar

115. Mecham, J. Lloyd, Church and State in Latin America, 159.Google Scholar

116. Savage, Robert C., “Radio Circle Department Report and Department of Evangelism,” Annual Meeting Report:1962,Google Scholar Radio Circle Minutes, HCJB.

117. Blunden Buchanan, Osborne, “A Study of the Pioneer Missionary Radio Station, HCJB,” 227.Google Scholar

118. Clark, John, Director, “Report of Radio Circle,” Annual Meeting:January 1963,Google Scholar Radio Circle Minutes, HCJB.

119. “Radio Circle: Report to Abe VanderPuy and Nancy Woolnough,” October 1963, file 396, HCJB.

120. Ibid.

121. Untitled brochure, , “Radios Vozandes de la HCJB,” undated, file 396, HCJB.Google Scholar

122. Minute 2397, “Re-Consideration of Radio Circle Ministry,” Board Minutes, January 1968, HCJB.

123. Memo from Douglas C. Peters to the Board of Trustees, November 21, 1967, “Backup Materials to Board Minutes,” HCJB.

124. International Congress on World Evangelization, “Status of Christianity Country Profile: Ecuador,” Lausanne, July 1974, file 317, HCJB.

125. Martin, David, Tongues of Fire, 88–89Google Scholar; Goodpasture, H. McKennie, Cross and Sword: An Eyewitness History of Christianity in Latin America, 229Google Scholar; Goffin, Alvin M., The Rise of Protestant Evangelism in Ecuador, 1895–1990, xx.Google Scholar

126. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, Hanratty, Dennis M., ed., Ecuador: A Country Study, 188.Google Scholar

127. International Congress on World Evangelization, “Status of Christianity Country Profile: Ecuador.”

128. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, ed. Hanratty, Dennis M., Ecuador: A Country Study, 188.Google Scholar

129. Goffin, Alvin M., The Rise of Protestant Evangelism in Ecuador, 1895–1990Google Scholar, appendix 1.

130. Table 7: Percentage of Protestants in Latin America, “Catholic Church in Latin America,” http://www.providence.edu/las/Statistics.htm, March 12, 2006.

131. According to Jeffrey Hadden, “just how much collective impact [IRBs] are having is unknown and probably unknowable by measures that would satisfy the criteria of social science inquiry”: Hadden, Jeffrey K., “The Globalization of American Televangelism,” in Roland, Robertson and Garrett, William R., ed., Religion and Global Order, 233.Google Scholar

For the same point with respect to religious broadcasting in the United States, see also Schultze, Quentin, “Religious Belief in a Technological World: The Implications of the Electronic Church,” in Communicating Faith in a Technological Age, ed. James, McDonnell and Frances, Trampiets (Middlegreen, U.K.: St. Paul, 1989), 113Google Scholar; and more fully in “Vindicating the Electronic Church? An Assessment of the Annenberg-Gallup Study,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 2 (September 1985): 283–90.Google Scholar