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From the Word to the Televisual Image: The Televangelists and Pope John Paul II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Jacques Gutwirth
Jacques Gutwirth*
Affiliation:
CNRS France
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Until the beginning of the twentieth century Christianity, in order to proclaim its message, was based above all upon the word, the substance of prayer and preaching; certainly manuscripts, with the Scriptures and other fundamental texts, long secured the foundations of the faith, but before the advent of printing their diffusion and reception remained the prerogative of lettered elites, most often clerics such as the Benedictines (remember Umberto Eco's famous novel published in 1980, The Name of the Rose). Moreover, the Catholic Church made extensive use of the image in the Middle Ages, above all in the gothic period, and created remarkable visual splendour in its holy places. Stained glass windows and paintings and sculptures with subjects from the Old and New Testaments reinforced the devotion and faith of the illiterate. It was only after 1450, with Gutenberg's invention of printing - which, moreover, immediately disseminated bibles, missals and prayer-books - that the text became a major means of transmitting the Christian message. From the sixteenth century onwards Protestant Calvinists (but not Lutherans or Anglicans) rejected religious imagery - even the crucifix - as a means of devotion, for they were considered idolatrous; on the other hand, the reformers, more than the Catholic Church, laid stress on the reading of biblical texts by the faithful, especially the Old Testament, henceforth much more widely distributed, thanks expressly to printing. Admittedly the word did not lose its rights; like Catholicism in its churches and cathedrals, the Reformation preached the Good Word in its temples. Yet paradoxically, the present return of the religious image - this time televisual - was to be first of all a Protestant occurrence, principally in the United States.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 47 , Issue 187 , September 1999 , pp. 122 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 1999

References

Notes

1. On this subject, see Gregor T. Goethals, The Electronic Golden Calf: Images, Religion and the Making of Meaning (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), esp. pp. 33, 45.

2. Ibid. pp. 48-50.

3. Fundamentalism, a trans-confessional movement which appeared in c.1920, is characterized by its attach ment to a literal interpretation of the Scriptures; to which should be added an ethic markedly puritanical in inspiration and most frequently with very right-wing political ideas. ‘Evangelicalism', born after the Second World War, took over large portions of the theological and moral tenets of fundamentalism, but its supporters (who were very involved in missionary activities) challenged its sectarianism, dogmatism and political extremism. Pentecostalism, which was first manifest at the beginning of the twentieth century, also endeavoured to be fundamentalist but shared the less dogmatic ideas of the evangelicals; moreover, in their discourse Pertecostals emphasize intense religious experiences, such as ‘speaking in tongues' (glossolalia), miracles or a ‘personal relationship' with God.

4. These were essentially the Episcopalian, Presbyterian or even the Methodist and Lutheran denominations. Today (for this has not always been the case) all these denominations, taken as a whole, are moreover less ‘fundamentalist' than the Baptist or pentecostal Churches.

5. The figures for February 1980 are cited by Jeffrey K. Hadden and Charles E. Swann, in Prime Time Preachers: The Rising Power of Televangelism (Reading, Mass., 1981), p. 51. The figures for May 1996 are calculated from data in Religion and Media Quarterly, 1996, September, IV, 1 section 2, p. 2.

6. See the title of my book: L'Église électronique. La saga des télévangélistes (Paris, 1998).

7. The ‘Reformed Church in America' is a denomination that is Dutch in origin, formerly called the ‘Dutch Reformed Church', established at New Amsterdam in 1628, today the city of New York.

8. See Bruce Baron, The Health and Wealth Gospel (Downers Grove, Ill., 1987); Quentin J. Schultze, Televangelism and American Culture. The Business of Popular Religion (Grand Rapids, Mi., 1991), pp. 133-137.

9. Quentin Schulze, ‘TV and evangelism: unequally yoked?', in Michael Horton (ed.), The Agony of Deceit: What Some TV Preachers are Really Teaching (Chicago, 1990), pp. 187-188.

10. Thus Pat Robertson has developed a very ‘syncretic' theology, combining diverse elements often viewed as antithetical, such as baptism and charismatic beliefs. Some theologians accuse various televangelists of heresy: see Michael Horton (ed.), The Agony of Deceit, pp. 21-31, as well as various other authors in this volume.

11. See note 3 above.

12. At the party's head is President Bill Clinton, accused in 1998 by Congress (which ultimately acquitted him) for his marital infidelities and his lies under oath. In fact Clinton, although a staunch Baptist, personifies at the head of the state a perception antithetical to that of the majority of the televangelists, and more broadly to that of the religious right.

13. The latter moreover has directed an entirely religious cable channel, Trinity Broadcasting Network, for more than two decades.

14. According to some, the Sunday religious programmes play a part in turning the faithful away from a Sunday service in church; nevertheless, they also represent a positive contribution for all those who, for various reasons (sickness, age, etc.), are unable to get to a service. Finally, they can perhaps win for the faith an audience without religious affiliations.

15. See Thomas C. Bruneau, The Church in Brazil: The Politics of Religion (Austin, 1982), pp. 158-159.

16. Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Vers un nouveau christianisme? (Paris, 1986), p. 322; see also Bruneau, op. cit., p. 158.

17. Michel Bole-Richard, ‘Le pape appelle le continent américain à la "dignité" et à la défense des oppprimés', Le Monde, 26 January 1999, p. 3.

18. See Jean-Paul Willaime, ‘Jean Paul II en Alsace (octobre 1988): un rituel socio-religieux de la communica tion', in Nicole Belmont and Françoise Lautman (eds.), Ethnologie des faits religieux en Europe (Paris, 1993), p. 362.

19. Ibid., p. 363.

20. Danièle Hervieu-Léger, ‘C'est la première génération élevée sans contact avec les institutions religieuses' [entretien], Le Monde, 17-18 August 1998, p. 7.

21. The internet certainly appears to be another recent means of religious dissemination, used moreover by the Catholic Church and some televangelists, but the public using the internet remains currently much more restricted than that which can be reached by audio-visual media.