Since the beginnings of commercial radio, evangelical Christians have recognized the effectiveness of the broadcast media as a vehicle for disseminating their faith. By enabling them to reach new audiences as well as committed believers, broadcasting has provided evangelists with a means of building large and widespread followings. As a result, religious broadcasters have continually taken advantage of new broadcast technologies, from local radio programs in the early 1920s to 24-hour cable television networks by the late 1970s. The use of television by evangelists as a medium for expressing their views proved to be an especially influential development during the last quarter of the twentieth century, as conflicts between religious conservatives and mainstream popular culture grew. In this context, the term "televangelism" became widely adopted to describe the use of broadcasting to promote not only evangelical Christian beliefs, but also a wide range of social and political views...