Colored Television : American Religion Gone Global [1 ed.] 9780804797009, 9780804796989

Citation preview

COLO R E D TE LEVISION

John L. Jackson Jr., David Kyuman Kim, Editors

COLORED TELEVISION AMERIC AN RELIGION GONE GL OB AL

MARL A F. F REDERICK

S TA N F O R D U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S   •   S TA N F O R D, C A L I F O R N I A

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2016 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request. isbn 978-0-8047-9094-9 (cloth) isbn 978-0-8047-9698-9 (paper) isbn 978-0-8047-9700-9 (electronic) Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in 10/14 Minion Pro

To the memory of all the missionaries, church mothers and fathers, philanthropists and trailblazers who sacrificed their time and financial resources to build Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), to educate generations of America’s “young, gifted and black.”

CONTE NTS



Preface: Why Colored Television?



Acknowledgments

Introduction

ix xiii 1

1 “Jamaica, Land We Love”

15

2 Religious Dandyism: Prosperity and Performance in Black Televangelism

31

3 Relative Prosperity: Lived Religion in the “Dying Field”

61

4 Female Televangelists and the Gospel of Sexual Redemption

87

5 Redeeming Sexuality

115

6 Distributing the Message: Globalization and the Spread of Black Televangelism

133

Conclusion: Voices of the Next Generation

165



Notes

175



Bibliography

205



Index

225

PR E FACE Why Colored Television?

People of color have been involved in religious broadcasting from early ­twentieth-century race records and live radio broadcasts to contemporary television shows and Internet podcasts. In the past two decades, however, African American religious broadcasters have become central to the making of religion in America and throughout the world. Black American televangelists such as T. D. Jakes and Creflo Dollar, with their savvy media ministries, sprawling congregations, and charismatic genius, have become household names, especially among Pentecostals and Charismatics across the global North and South. And while Juanita Bynum no longer enjoys the prominence she once had, her being the first African American female televangelist to garner national and international attention is significant. In addition to these evangelists, people of African, Latin American, and Asian descent have worldwide followings as pastors and television personalities. Nigeria’s Enoch Adejare Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), William Kumuyi of Deeper Life Bible Church, and David Oyedepo of Winners’ Chapel (Living Faith Church Worldwide), as well as Ghana’s Mensa Otabil of the International Central Gospel Church and N. Duncan Williams of Action Chapel International, pastor five of the largest churches in Africa and have regularly broadcast television programs. Chris Oyakhilome, pastor of Believers’ LoveWorld Ministries (a.k.a. Christ Embassy), is also among the most popular televised ministers in Nigeria. He owns LoveWorld TV Network, which is reportedly the first Christian network in Africa to offer twenty-fourhour broadcasting to the rest of the world.1 In Seoul, South Korea, David Yonggi Cho serves as pastor emeritus of the largest church in the world, Yoido Full Gospel Church, with over one million members. A television studio was built in 1981 to help expand his ministry. Bishop Edir Macedo of the Universal Church in Brazil owns not only

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PR E FACE : W H Y C OLO RED TE LEVISIO N

a church with branches in Latin America, Africa, and Asia but also a media conglomerate that runs Brazil’s second-largest television network, Rede Record de Televisão, placing him on a list of Forbes magazine’s billionaires.2 Religious broadcasting has thus changed dramatically from the days of white American Protestant male predominance.3 While the list of televangelists reflects one type of diversity, the increased presence of non-Western distributors of religious broadcasting, such as LOVE TV and Mercy and Truth Ministries in Jamaica and View Africa Network in South Africa, reflect another shift in the history of religious broadcasting. As scholars have well documented, the rise in Christian influence is coming from beyond the West.4 Colored Television presents this change as a context for taking seriously the influence that African American televangelists have within and outside the United States, particularly in the Caribbean. The word “colored” harks back to a period in America’s history when signs placed above bathroom doors and water fountains signaled the social exclusion of an entire population of Americans. “Colored” speaks of a time when black people en masse were hindered in the pursuit of wealth and not allowed the dignity of full citizenship that make for the American dream. And it calls attention to the images of black people on television as maids, cooks, and farmhands, people all too often poor, uneducated, and excluded from the social mainstream. I want to build on readers’ discomfort with the terminology to explain how “colored” also signals something new in a multicultural and aggressively global society. In this iteration of “colored,” therefore, I offer the old as a way of looking at, deciphering, and interpreting the new. I employ “colored” as a way of signaling the dramatic changes that have taken place in the United States over the past forty years, changes that have significantly altered the experiences of viewing and producing television—the triumphs of the civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement, and the opening up of international borders to steady immigration flows. The rapidity of globalization and free-market capitalism have forever unsettled any sense of stasis and familiarity. The predominance of neoliberal discourses, the immediacy of the markets, the split-second transmission of satellite broadcasting, and the realities of what David Harvey astutely theorizes as “time-space compression” have each contributed to the emergence of this new “colored” that I explore. Colored Television: American Religion Gone Global is an attempt to make sense of a phenomenon that has emerged amid the predominantly white male



PR E FACE : W H Y C OLO RED TE LE V ISIO N 

xi

voices of traditional religious broadcasting. Colored Television moves us from static conversations about the benefits and problems of religious broadcasting to a more nuanced discussion of the ways in which black Christian faith is made and unmade both in front of and behind the cameras. I think of “colored” here as it relates to this present moment on four ­levels. “Colored” is first about the people, the ways in which African Americans and other people in the African Diaspora have become both producers and consumers of religious broadcasting. It is a corrective in many ways to the expansive literature that addresses predominantly white religious broadcasters and audiences. It is not only about the rise in African American male voices but also about the ways in which black and white women are speaking to the concerns of people of African descent—how the gendered power centers in religious broadcasting are shifting. Who would have guessed thirty years ago that the success of a white female evangelist would be based on the entrée given her by a black male televangelist, one to whom she pays public homage as her “father” in ministry? What does this say about the new politics of race and gender in religious broadcasting in the much ballyhooed postracial age of Obama? How does religious broadcasting effectively shift our understanding of what is meant by “black religion”? Second, “colored” signifies the flamboyance and colorful style of the religious personalities who inhabit the media. At one time dominated by the overwhelmingly drab and structured rituals of mainline Protestantism, religious broadcasting today, black or white, is largely dominated by Pentecostal, Charismatic, Evangelical, and Word of Faith religious communities whose flare for the dramatic make the show as entertaining as it is informative. Furthermore, the historically flamboyant dress style of the televangelists, along with their elaborate stage designs, reframe the sometimes bland and austere style found in more formal religious settings. Third, “colored” refers simply to progress in the broader world of electronic media, particularly television. From black-and-white pictures in knob-­controlled, antenna-directed, bulky square boxes to sleek, flat-paneled, satellite-transmitted, digitally colored pictures, contemporary television has changed dramatically in both style and quality. And with the emergence of the Internet—YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Streaming Faith—religious broadcasting has also undergone dramatic changes in the twenty-first century. Finally, and most important, “colored” refers to the competing and complementary interests that make up religious broadcasting. Colored Television

x i i

PR E FACE : W H Y C OLO RED TE LEVISIO N

is about the rainbow of interests, personalities, agendas, and outcomes that constitute religious broadcasting in this new multicultural world. It examines markets as competing, even among Christian programmers, as they attempt to expand globally while touting the benefits of localism. Beyond mere audience or content analysis, Colored Television takes a look at the triangulated nature of religious broadcasting, noting the intricate patterns and ruptures found in its making, selling, and consumption. Colored Television takes us through the complex, changing world of contemporary religious broadcasting. It explores the movement and meaning of American televangelism beyond the United States, where it has experienced some of its greatest growth and most unsettling paradoxes but steady influence. It examines the global influence of women and people of color, as religious leaders and everyday believers, in the making of the contemporary religious world.

ACKNOWLE D G M E NTS

Any research project that extends over a period of years accumulates countless debts of gratitude. This project is no different. It has benefited from the wisdom and insight of those who nurtured it in its nascent days to its most formative stages. To all of these copious readers, named and unnamed, thank you! I am appreciative of the friends and colleagues who read and offered comments on drafts of this project in whole or in part—John L. Jackson, Carolyn Rouse, Jonathan Walton, Wendy Cadge, Peter Cahn, R. Marie Griffith, David Hall, Robin Bernstein, Malika Zeghal, Judith Weisenfeld, and Monica C ­ oleman. Your sharp critiques have given life to this work. In addition, the biweekly community of scholars gathered for the North American Religions Colloquium at Harvard Divinity School provided meaningful feedback during a critical period of this project’s development. An invitation from Judith C ­ asselberry to keynote a conference on women and Pentecostalism figured centrally in my thinking on how to frame the conversation on gender in this book. In the spring of 2014 Jacob Olupona, Simon Coleman, Birgit Meyer, Brian Goldstone, and Jean ­Comaroff offered useful feedback as respondents and participants in a colloquium on religion and media coordinated by Annalisa Butticci, then a visiting fellow at Harvard Divinity School. Faculty colleagues at Harvard University both in African and African American Studies and the Committee on the Study of Religion consistently create a vibrant scholarly community that sharpens my thinking on all things religious, African American, and Diasporic. In addition, colleagues at Northwestern University, where I spent a rewarding semester as visiting faculty in the Department of African American Studies, embraced my work and helped me push forward new ideas on this subject. A special thanks to Darlene Clark Hine, Robert Orsi, and Larry Murphy. I received further feedback while participating in various conferences and serving as a visiting lecturer on many different college campuses. I would like

x i v ACKNOW LE D G ME NT S

to especially thank R. Drew Smith and the Transatlantic Roundtable on Race and Religion for allowing me to participate in such a vibrant community of scholars linking, both theoretically and practically, the concerns of black religionists across the Diaspora. I am grateful to all of the university sponsors who invited me to share my research in the United States, the Caribbean, China, and Ghana, especially my alma maters, Spelman College and Duke University, among numerous others. On each occasion questions from the faculty and students pushed me closer to a final project. Truly, the devil is in the details, and a small cadre of current and former graduate students have helped iron out these details either through transcribing interviews, finding citations, clarifying footnotes, and/or offering editorial advice. To Monique Callahan, Tyler Zoanni, Kera Street, Charrise Barron, and Helen Jin Kim belong countless hugs of gratitude. I look forward to one day reading your own published volumes! Institutional sponsors funded the travel and research portion of this work and helped provide extended writing opportunities. I am grateful for support from the Louisville Institute, the Milton Fund, the Center for the Study of World Religions, and the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University. Life happens while writing a book, and my life is no exception. In my darkest hours, great friends stood beside me and encouraged me to continue. I am eternally grateful to my dinner crew, who supported me, “ideally” reading through various versions of earlier drafts as my soul healed. This circle of friends included Bill Banfield, Krystal Banfield, Atu White, Yolanda Lenzy White, Jeanette Callahan, and Melinda Weekes-Laidlow. You all are true blue! And to the one who really did the reading for all of our dinner discussions, Allen Callahan, words cannot express my sincerest gratitude. Your keen insights, editorial remarks, and poignant critiques have enhanced this project beyond measure. Two of the world’s greatest pastors help me keep my heart, mind, and soul above the waters—Drs. Ray and Gloria White-Hammond, you are one of a kind and you pastor a special community of believers at Bethel AME Church. I could not have completed this project without the faithful assistance of Alice Pink of the Jamaica Theological Seminary as she guided me through the many conditions of conducting research in Jamaica. Her friendship and thoughtful advice made my time in Jamaica both extremely productive and enjoyable. I am also thankful to the pastors, media industry leaders, and laypersons across Kingston who agreed to sit and talk with me for hours about their

ACKNOWLE D G ME NTS  xv

work, personal lives, and experiences of faith. I am tremendously indebted furthermore to the pioneering American televangelists Bishop Carlton Pearson and the late Rev. Frederick Eikerenkoetter for their willingness to speak with me and offer their unique insights into this world. At long last, this book is in print because of the editors at Stanford University Press. Thanks especially to John L. Jackson and David Kim, who believed that this book would make a valuable contribution to their new series ­RaceReligion, and to Emily-Jane Cohen for signing off on the deal. Your insight and support are deeply treasured. A final note of profound gratitude belongs to my family and friends—all the usual extraordinary cheerleaders as well as the new ones, Eric and Miles. Your love and support—a breath of life.

COLO R E D TE LEVISION

INTRO D U CTION

We lowered our voices to a whisper as we dined in Island Grill, a local fast-food restaurant serving on-the-go jerk and curried chicken in the heart of Half Way Tree in Kingston, Jamaica. Bustling with strip malls offering clothing, electronics, and beauty supply stores along with bookstores, restaurants, and other retail establishments, Half Way Tree is marked by a constant flow of people and traffic. Small, white city “buses”—which look more like minivans—­continuously passed along the road packed with people. I usually walked the roughly onemile jaunt along the busy thoroughfare in the heat up to the plaza—past the one-armed, one-legged homeless man with mangled locks who was obviously undernourished. He seemed to make his living asking for food, money, or other items to sustain him under his cardboard shelter—his presence a nagging reminder of Jamaica’s dramatic needs. Today, however, my friend, Eva, joined me for lunch, so we called a cab to ensure her speedy return to work, where administrative responsibilities demanded her attention. There were only a few cab drivers in Eva’s address book whom she trusted. She always called one of these, never taking the risk of hailing an unknown driver. As we talked in Island Grill, it became clear that Eva, whose assertive yet friendly Pentecostal affect seems to take over any room she enters, was always strangely cautious during certain public conversations.1 We could talk out loud about the debts she owes for school and for other “lickle” things, she would say with her mixed Jamaican-English accent. We could talk about the concerns she had with her local church, even her failed marriage and the reasons for it.

2 INTR OD UCTION

But there were certain other conversations she preferred to hold behind closed doors—such as those about politics in Jamaica and community violence. She was concerned about patrons overhearing our discussion of the week’s events. Just nights before, on October 5, 2005, around 3:00 a.m., approximately forty gunmen had surrounded and firebombed the home of Gerald and ­Dorcas Brown, killing them, their granddaughter Sasha, and Sasha’s aunt Michelle Brown. The local paper reported that Sasha, the youngest victim at age ten, stood in the windows in the wee hours of the morning screaming out the names of neighbors she could see, begging them to save her.2 The memory of her calling out for help left neighbors consumed with grief. Nobody came to her rescue. The gunmen had formed a circle around the perimeter of the house, shooting at anyone who dared to save her and anyone brazen enough to try to escape. For those inside theirs was a certain death. Newspaper reports failed to capture the brutality of the murder. Eva and I pieced together what people in the community were saying. It was revenge for the indiscretion of Sasha’s mother reporting a crime to the police. Apparently the mother filed a complaint with local authorities, and before she could return home, someone inside the precinct had notified the gunmen. Community rumors painted a disturbing liaison between street thugs and local authorities. Even if false, the lurid narrative itself reflects the distrust bubbling beneath the surface of everyday life, preventing standard law and order. The local newspaper sketched a much less inflammatory narrative. Regardless of the details, a young girl, her grandparents, and aunt were all dead, victims of what locals consider a completely out-of-control system of crime and violence dominating Kingston’s inner city. Dealing with the cloud of fear over Kingston has become the work and responsibility of faith communities. Addressing the problem of Jamaica’s social, political, and economic troubles falls to those who meet weekly for prayer meetings, Bible study, and worship services.3 In these houses of faith pastors, ministry leaders, and laypeople are expected to pray and fast, invoking God continuously about the troubles confronting contemporary Jamaica and its people. I came to Jamaica after studying with a group of African American women in the US South. There the community seemed smaller, less harried, and more connected socially than in Jamaica’s urban center. Although there was less violence in Halifax’s small rural community, the need for social change was as palpable, and people called upon their faith to help find answers to social issues.

INTR OD UCTION 3

Eva was no different. Repeatedly, while talking about violence in Jamaica, she insisted that “God has a word” for the country in the midst of its social crisis. Others, like Bishop Harold Blair, island pastor and government ombudsman, responded bluntly when asked about Jamaica’s greatest needs: “Jamaica needs God!” I was not taken aback by their insistence but instead related it more generally to a growing Pentecostal sentiment worldwide and more intimately to the convictions of the women with whom I had just spoken in the United States.4 While political intervention and economic strategy are viewed as important, the greatest and most crucial asset to effective change for many is God. Yet, as Ruth Marshall in her study of Nigerian Pentecostalism so eloquently explains, If we invoke situations of material crisis—poverty, social exclusion, failure of modernization and development, demise of forms of sociability and itineraries of social mobility, “confusion” engendered by processes of globalization, neoliberal capitalist relations—in order to explain the rise of religion, then we tacitly see these movements in terms of their functionality: as modes of accumulation, socialization, or political combat, or as languages that translate the real and help to understand it. While religious movements can indeed fulfill these functions, nevertheless, as an explanation for both the current religious effervescence and its political signification, they are both circular and inadequate.5

In Jamaica the palpable faith expressed certainly meets certain social, political, and economic objectives, yet just as for the women in Halifax, faith cannot be reduced to its function. It speaks to ethereal concerns and passions that social scientists have yet to measure. Nevertheless, in the study of religion and media, or religion as mediated, religion is often performed, packaged, and distributed in its capacity to meet the materialist needs of viewers. While function alone cannot be used to explain the rise of religion, mediated faith often is reduced to its function—whether in the promotion of books, CDs, conferences, or a host of other commodities. Often in mediated faith, God (for numerous reasons) functions as benefactor of gifts, a celestial philanthropist. It is with this latter emphasis that I am most concerned here. My earlier research in Between Sundays shows how faith informs the every­day lives of women that I came to know, their commitments to social engagement as well as their individual transformations. I learned quickly that twenty-first-century faith is not the same as twentieth-century faith. Women were not influenced only by the preacher to whom they listen every Sunday

4 INTR OD UCTION

at church or by their weekly Bible study classes, but they were participants in a larger and seemingly limitless twenty-four-hour world of religious media. They were not registered members of these media churches, but many of them were faithful viewers. Some were also faithful financial contributors to this network of televangelists as they partnered with them in faith for answers to prayers. For these believers, God’s direct intervention into their daily lives is anticipated. This type of evangelical faith sees God not as a distant observer of the lives of individuals or a scornful spectator of the challenges facing nationstates, but as a dependably engaged actor in life’s circumstances. Little seemed to change as I traveled from the US South across the Caribbean Sea to Jamaica. People were invested in the work of faith as one means of transforming their circumstances, and some also trusted that particular televangelists could speak specifically to their situations. Research over the past two decades into the transnational flows of religious broadcasting, and Pentecostalism specifically, has expanded, and this particular case in the Caribbean made me curious.6 Given the social relevance of African American religion—its penchant toward liberation, soulful theodicy, and complementary and contradictory sets of racial commitments—I began to wonder about the influence of African American religious broadcasting on the faith and religious sensibilities of people of color outside the United States. Because the study of white televangelists and accompanying missionary efforts has ­fueled a wealth of research on American evangelicalism, how might we come to understand the complicated meting out of messages by those who have experienced a different racialized American reality? Were black televangelists preaching a gospel capable of transforming the people and situations facing Jamaica, as viewers hoped? What type of liberating gospel were they preaching? Given the much-maligned preaching of the gospel of prosperity, what effect might such a message have on the people of Jamaica? And beyond the consumers and producers of religious broadcasting, how are the loyalties and expectations of media network owners informing the types of messages that penetrate the airwaves? In other words, what is at stake for everyone involved—those who consume, those who produce, and those who distribute religious media? Is the “black church” itself undergoing a particular type of metamorphosis given the demands inherent in the business of broadcasting? This book offers a sort of contemporary history that allows us to explore not only the relevance of religious broadcasting but also the hopes and intentions of its global theater. What made a host of televangelists, including T. D. Jakes, Juanita Bynum,

INTR OD UCTION 5

­ reflo Dollar, Joyce Meyer, and Paula White, so wildly popular at the beginning C of the twenty-first century? In contemplating these questions, I must articulate clearly what I mean by an “American religion” that has “gone global.” American religion has been global since the earliest days of US missionary work to foreign lands. Missionaries carried with them various forms of media—printed Bibles, leaflets, and eventually utilized electronic means for spreading the gospel through phonograph and radio. However, drawing attention to American religion invites us to engage in the ongoing work of reconfiguring the category. As historian Charles Long has noted, “A great many of the writings and discussions on the topic of American religion have been consciously or unconsciously ideological, serving to enhance, justify and render sacred the history of European immigrants in this land.”7 Too often white religious practice by default has been categorized as “American religion,” while the study of African American religious practitioners sits solely under the category “black religious studies.” Furthermore, scholars writing about white religious subjects often express little concern about needing to specify that they are referencing white American religion when speaking of the Quakers, Puritans, Protestants, or Catholics in US history. Whiteness in the study of American religion has operated as a normative category. However, edited works by scholars such as Harry S. Stout, D. G. Hart, Catherine Brekus, W. Clark Gilpin, and Stephen J. Stein, as well as several ­single-authored texts, have worked to disrupt this long-standing history by indexing black religion.8 “American religion gone global” is thus ironic because American religion is already global. “Going global” is new in regard to religion’s hypermediated capacities and novel in its focus on the global distribution and appeal of black and female televangelists. A deeper irony is that while the American religious subjects in this context are Black, the religion that travels with them is as much “American” as it is “black,” if not more so. The most popular mediated versions of black American religion often draw more theologically on the presuppositions of traditional American Christian ideals than on the long history of critique and protest often central to the work of canonical black religion and black theology. Black religion, after all, from the days of Gayraud Wilmore’s Black Religion and Black Radicalism and James Cone’s A Black Theology of Liberation has been most prominently categorized as “protest religion.” Yet “black televangelism” as defined in Jonathan Walton’s Watch This! is far from the practice of protest. Affirming the Americanness of this study is thus an epistemological ­pronouncement.

6 INTR OD UCTION

Black ­religion in its multiple forms—from protest to accommodation and every point in ­between—is central to any and all understandings of American religion. Furthermore, in discussing this form of black American religion as central to the making of American religion rather than as a subcategory, I recognize the criticism of scholars who point out that the phrase “black religion” has been assumed to be the province of black Christian faith. In light of this critique there is increasing attention paid to how black religionists have entreated the Divine across multiple religious landscapes, including Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and African traditional religions like Vodou, Santeria, Candomblé, and Yoruba.9 In this text I affirm that I am reflecting on merely one aspect of black religion, Christianity. Furthermore, when referring to black religious practices in black churches, it is important to fully appreciate and then push past the operational definition of the black church rendered by Lincoln and Mamiya: “those independent, historic, and totally black controlled denominations, which were founded after the free African Society of 1787 and which constituted the core of black Christians.” They acknowledge that such a framework for the sake of their study largely excludes “predominantly black local churches in white denominations such as the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church, and the Roman Catholic Church, among others.”10 As this study notes, such a framework largely leaves unanswered the question of whether black religion is being practiced when the primary adherents are Black and the leader/evangelist is White or of another race. Anthony Pinn begs precisely this question in his work on Peoples Temple, the story of Jim Jones and his followers: “What and where is the black in black religion?”11 Criticism by scholars such as Charles Long and Victor Anderson push further by challenging even the very essentialist notions of race in affirming a black religious practice or way of being in the world.12 When white female televangelist Paula White addresses a gathering of black South Africans upon the invitation of Bishop T. D. Jakes for his MegaFest International conference, is that “black religion”? If so, what are the parameters of such a designation: the preacher, the theology, the history, the aesthetics of the service, or the constitution of the congregation? As several scholars have noted, within the larger corpus of black church studies, we researchers often operate with a bias toward black “progressive” religion, the tradition of sit-ins, boycotts, and struggles for justice. Recognizing this, historian Barbara Savage explains that the presumptions of a monolithic black church are misleading at best: “[The black church] is an illusion and a

INTR OD UCTION 7

metaphor that has taken on a life of its own . . . a political, intellectual, and theological construction that symbolizes unity and homogeneity while masking the enormous diversity and independence among African American religious institutions and believers.”13 Ethicist Jonathan Walton explains that while scholars in the twentieth century have had a tendency “to portray black liberal Protestantism and progressive political action as embodying ‘true’ black religion,” other religious forms “such as Pentecostal and Holiness traditions, which have disproportionately embraced the mass media, have not been given the same breadth of coverage.”14 Walton thus offers one of the first monographs focused on black religious broadcasting, providing insight into the history and ethical considerations latent in the genre. It is this version of black American religion with which I am most concerned. Sociologists such as Omar McRoberts, Shayne Lee, and Milmon Harrison; political scientist Tamelyn Tucker-Worgs; historians Wallace Best, Anthea Butler, and Scott Billingsley; and ethicists Monique Moultrie and Debra Mumford have offered further compelling insights into the growth and development of contemporary African American Pentecostal and Word of Faith movements.15 Their work complements earlier texts by articulating a more nuanced picture of the various aspects that make up black religious experience. As an ethnography, Colored Television is distinct from these works in that it explores these aspects on the ground, as they are meted out in the lives of everyday people. Thus, Colored Television explores African American televangelism with its Pentecostal and Word of Faith inflections and its influence on Jamaican society. In this way the work is concerned with the movement of black American religion beyond US borders. The focus is on Jamaica as an engaged people or landscape for understanding the fluid movement of African American religion. The theologies that travel as well as the mechanisms that aid their travel are as important in this discussion as the people who receive, remix, and appropriate the messages. Why not simply focus on Jamaican televangelists? I considered this question but also noticed that the vast majority of televangelists capturing the attention of Jamaican viewers are from the United States. The larger questions thus seem to be, Why are American televangelists dominating the airwaves in Jamaica? If people are in crisis and they believe they need a word from God, why is this “word” coming from the United States? What does this importation mean? Religious broadcasting in this context holds particular sway among those trying to make sense of their spiritual ideals in light of their social realities. How these messages are received and promulgated in local communities is as much

8 INTR OD UCTION

about religious sensibilities as about the strivings of people in a market-driven globalized society rankled by social unrest and inequality. Thus, this book makes three specific theoretical contributions. First, it insists that the web of religious broadcasting cannot be understood without a full appreciation of the aims, motivations, and desires of all those involved—­ producers, consumers, and distributors. Second, in taking seriously the concerns that emerge around the issues of race, class, and gender, this book explores how these issues coalesce in the existential practice of religious life. In focusing on the prosperity gospel and increasingly important discourses around sexuality, one central contention is that it is impossible to understand or appreciate the rise in prosperity gospels without fully appreciating the rise in sexuality discourses. The relationship between the two is in many ways symbiotic, and the reluctance of scholars to address women televangelists hinders their ability to appreciate this dynamic. Finally, while not reducing religion solely to market forces, this work does argue that the business of broadcasting fundamentally alters religion and the experiences of the faithful.

A Note on Methods For the past several years of studying media, I have been haunted by George Marcus’s proclamation that we as anthropologists should “follow the thing”— see where it is, what it is doing, the different forms it takes, the various ways people interact with it, the kinds of circumstances it creates, and (for religious broadcasting) the new theologies and musical styles it inspires or represses.16 Taking up Marcus’s call to follow commodities, Lila Abu-Lughod challenges ethnographers to produce thick descriptions of television through multisited ethnographies.17 As John Jackson rightly critiques the notion of “thick description” in our hypermediated age where there are thin lines between ethnographer and the ethnographized, the challenge to at least attempt a multisited understanding of a phenomenon adds important dimensions to our knowledge.18 So I have developed such an ethnography that reflects in large part my obsession with “following the thing.” This preoccupation has required a lot of traveling to conferences and communities both within and outside the United States to appreciate the global influence of this medium. It has required listening to countless stories about both the benefits and banes of religious broadcasting. And it has required sitting in front of religious television programming for hours. It has also entailed numerous conversations with people who also

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sit in front of religious television for hours, as well as those in studios and churches who sit behind and in front of the camera. According to Faye Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod, and Brian Larkin, “Such strategies help us see not only how media are embedded in people’s quotidian lives but also how consumers and producers are themselves imbricated in discursive universes, political situations, economic circumstances, national settings, historical moments, and transnational flows, to name only a few relevant contexts.”19 I have decided that it is nearly impossible to attain a definitive word on the genre because each time I think I have mastered “the thing,” it morphs into something new. A television show goes on the Internet, a station buys out another station, or a congregation takes a cue from television and changes its format to something more contemporary. This, too, is a story, an insight into the medium. The supposedly static thing doesn’t remain static at all. So, C ­ olored Television is a narrative as much about change in religious media as about the thing of religious media. In 2005 I visited both Baptist and Pentecostal churches in Jamaica. From these multiple sites the dynamic influence of religious broadcasting was clear: this was not a genre limited to the sensibilities of Pentecostal or Charismatic churches. With the decline in denominational loyalties, there is no hard-andfast rule governing who watches religious broadcasting. Like the practice of speaking in tongues and other ecstatic worship practices now found in mainline churches, religious broadcasting has been embraced by contemporary Christians from a variety of religious backgrounds. I focus on members of Pentecostal churches in Jamaica not because of their greater penchant for watching religious broadcasting but because of the access that I had to several such communities. One was within walking distance from my residence, and the other two were sites where I instantly met comrades. The members were excited about my project and willing to speak with me. Pastors at the churches also graciously accommodated my presence and inquiries. Though I located informants through the church and attended the churches weekly for Sunday services, Bible studies, women’s meetings, and young people’s programs, this ethnography is not about the churches per se. As in Between Sundays, I want to decentralize the church service as the only site of spiritual activity to look at another site of spiritual investment: the time believers spend watching religious broadcasting. Beyond spending time in communities of people who watch religious broadcasting, I interviewed those who produce and distribute it. In the United States I spoke with media leaders at Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) and

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the Inspiration Network (INSP). I visited their studios and watched the live recording from TBN’s set during one of Tammy Faye Bakker’s last appearances before her death. In Jamaica I visited the studios of LOVE Television and Mercy and Truth Network (MTM), the primary religious broadcasters in the Kingston area, and interviewed the head of LOVE Television and the owner and producer of MTM. I also talked with local pastors and their media ministry directors. In the United States I attended the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, the overarching meeting under which most US religious media operatives work. Each year thousands of religious media makers, ranging from television producers to radio and television station owners, camera equipment salespersons, marketing specialists, and book distributors, converge at a Gaylord Resort location to discuss varying dynamics of media ministries. Founded in 1944, the National Religious Broadcasters Association is the largest organization of Christian broadcasters in the world. My attendance there gave me insight into both the religious sensibilities of religious media makers and the dominating political loyalties of such producers, given the overwhelming appeal for Israel at the conference through plenary speeches and a “Celebrate Israel Breakfast” hosted by conference organizers and the Israel Ministry of Tourism as well as the appearance of President George W. Bush at the 2008 meetings in Nashville. In 2008 this project took me briefly to Johannesburg, South Africa, to witness Bishop Jakes’s very first MegaFest International. As nothing else, the South African venue of MegaFest seemed to solidify the international impact of black American religious broadcasting. My account of these converging interests presents a more nuanced picture of religious broadcasting than what might be gained in an exclusive focus on producers, consumers, or distributors. By offering a triangulated approach to the study of religious broadcasting, I mark the ways in which complementary and competing interests between producers, consumers, and distributors inform what actually appears on air and the ways in which meaning is constructed in local contexts. Christian religious media making is as much about sharing the testimony of the death, burial, and resurrection of a Galilean carpenter as it is about the social, political, and economic considerations of the people who make, distribute, and consume religious broadcasting. Black religious media makers have appropriated this testimony in a way that speaks to the concerns of people often struggling under the weight of poverty or newly minted into middle-class lifestyles and trying to make peace with their abundance as an indication of God’s blessings.



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Organization of the Book Chapter 1 frames the discussion in terms of globalization and the history of American religious media. The remaining chapters form a conversation of sorts between producers, consumers, and distributors around two themes that emerge consistently in their preaching—financial prosperity and marriage/­sexuality. Chapters 2 and 3 alternate between the producers’ discussions of prosperity and the consumers’ understanding of prosperity messages. Chapter 2 is thus framed by interviews with two pioneering figures in African American religious broadcasting, Rev. Frederick Eikerenkoetter (Reverend Ike) and Bishop Carlton Pearson. Given the emergence of popular images of televangelists as wealthy, status-driven media personalities who embody the prototypical, rags-to-riches American success story, I explore the history of the emergence of African Americans among these flamboyant personalities. I argue that race and the history of American racism played as much a part in the development of these character types as Pentecostal or Word of Faith theologies. In many ways the presentation of Americanness through the acquisition of the American dream—fine cars, tailored suits, lavish lifestyles—provided an image of racial uplift that was missing from black protest religion. The stories of Reverend Ike and other leading black televangelists contextualize the ways in which the flamboyant dress style, or “religious dandyism” as I term it, was as much about creating a narrative of possibility for colored people as it was about the fashion and egoism of the preacher. Chapter 3 explores how American theologies of prosperity are appropriated by viewers in Jamaica. As neoliberalism exports the ideal of “free markets,” developing countries with populations of African descent are still confined by the realities of their local markets. To make sense of imported gospels of prosperity, those in the viewing audience who receive messages of health and wealth in the face of poverty and affliction often develop more complicated, relative understandings of the nature of prosperity. Chapters 4 and 5 center around what I consider “gospels of sexual redemption.” Shifting from a focus on male producers of religious broadcasting, predominant in many texts on televangelism, Chapter 4 looks at the influence of women televangelists. It explores the ways in which particular constructions of gender become central to the success of American female televangelists. I argue that women’s ascendance in religious broadcasting is often predicated upon sharing personal testimonies of sexual trauma and/or abuse and God’s power to redeem and restore their lives. Their stories of rape, incest, early preg-

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nancy, divorce, and sexual promiscuity open up a limited discursive space for the discussion of sexuality among religious conservatives. Such narratives are also contextualized by America’s reliance on the self-help industry and its penchant for reality television. I discuss evangelists Paula White and Joyce Meyer, offering particular emphasis on the influence of Juanita Bynum, an African American woman whose testimony of abuse and sexual promiscuity garnered her tremendous popularity in the United States and abroad. Given the popularity of these messages, in Chapter 5 I point out that in some instances the social and economic conditions in which Jamaican women find themselves inform their experiences of sexuality. These experiences in turn influence how they relate to the messages of sexual redemption preached by televangelists. I argue that while religious broadcasting offers a conservative approach to the practice of sexuality, confining sexual activity to marriage and offering a masculinist narrative of female submission to male authority, it also offers women an opportunity to redefine their sexual histories and make sense of personal tragedy. For women from traditional religious backgrounds, the personal theodicies of women evangelists who share their stories of abuse, out-of-wedlock childbirth, and sexual promiscuity offer viewers opportunities to recast their sexual histories in light of redemptive narratives. In communities where discussions of sexual violence are often taboo, the sexual narratives of religious broadcasting open up spaces for discourses that may contribute to the social and emotional well-being of abused women in those communities. Chapters 6 and the Conclusion shift the discussion to the power of distributors and meanings of race in the global market. Visiting with major distributors of religious broadcasting in the United States and the Caribbean, I interrogate in Chapter 6 how distributors of religious broadcasting create and disseminate their messages. Scholars of religious broadcasting have long focused on the politically and theologically conservative TBN, the largest religious cable network in the world. The emergence of black-owned networks and networks that cater to urban African American markets, such as TV One and the Word Network in the United States and MTM and LOVE Television in Jamaica, make room for a different kind of religious broadcasting format, presumably informed by different social commitments. This alternative broadcasting affords spaces in which prosperity theology, along with certain types of conservative theologies, is both proclaimed and critiqued. This chapter explores how these new outlets for religious broadcasting negotiate the demands of the neoliberal marketplace and attempt to create an alternative vision of the intersection of religion and



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the market in a post–civil rights, post-apartheid, post-colonialist historical moment. To what extent, then, does attention to black audiences specifically (if not black-owned stations in general) shape the future of black religious broadcasting? How, then, are race and politics in religious broadcasting renegotiated based on the power centers for distribution? The Conclusion focuses on the increasing influence of the Internet in relation to religious television broadcasting. Here questions are raised about how the emergence of the Internet, like the shift to paid-time broadcasting in the 1960s, might ultimately reshape religious broadcasting. Focused on the success of a ministry in Atlanta, Georgia, that has grown largely through Internet broadcasting, the Conclusion addresses whether the contours of what we have come to understand as popular religion will eventually shift to something that moves beyond prosperity messages and self-help proclamations. As the democratization of religious media through the Internet and social media takes full shape, it is likely that popular religious media narratives will be disrupted by new ideas from people across the globe and the theological spectrum, not just those savvy and wealthy enough to survive on religious television.

1 “JAMAI CA , L AN D WE LOVE”

Eternal Father, Bless our Land, Guard us with thy mighty hand, Keep us free from evil powers, Be our light through countless hours, To our leaders, great defender, Grant true wisdom from above, Justice, truth be ours forever, Jamaica, land we love, Jamaica, Jamaica, Jamaica, land we love.

The words to the national anthem/national prayer came forth full-throated and passionately as folks stood for the opening of the pastors’ and leaders’ conference shortly after the death of the Brown family. There was urgency in the air. I sat in the bleachers, listening attentively. The opening ceremony painted a picture of the change these faith leaders envisioned for their country. As the conference commenced, a stunning cascade of bodies waving gold, green, and black sheets moved seamlessly through the aisles toward center stage of the auditorium. Intertwining the cloth into the most exquisite formations symbolizing a strong and unified Jamaica, the dancers glided rhythmically with the music. Love of Jamaica, dedication to Jamaica, and a fierce loyalty to the faith of the Christians gathered set the tone for the opening ceremony. This conference was billed as a coming together of faith communities to intercede on behalf of

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their troubled land, asking God to help them. Toward the end of the opening performance, attendees sang the second stanza: Teach us true respect for all Stir response to duty’s call Strengthen us the weak to cherish Give us vision lest we perish Knowledge send us, Heavenly Father, Grant true wisdom from above Justice, truth be ours forever Jamaica, land we love Jamaica, Jamaica, Jamaica, land we love.

It wasn’t the first time that I had heard the song, nor would it be the last. Jamaicans across the island prayed for God to intervene on behalf of what the speakers that day described as a country losing touch with its roots. The growing tide of violence, an escalating population of single mothers, lack of economic resources, and a government at odds with one another and the community served to complicate the work of faith leaders. Ministers and state officials rue the irony of the popular report that Jamaica has both the highest number of churches per capita of any country in the world and the highest murder rate per capita of any country not at war. Such a dubious distinction was only exacerbated by the repeated mantra that the country also has the highest number of out-of-wedlock births at roughly 90 percent of the population, 95 percent in Kingston alone. The reasons for these striking statistics are debated. Structural reasons include the rise and fall of socialist leadership in the twentieth century; the overpopulation of the cities and resultant unemployment as rural migrants relocated for work during the postwar era; the struggling democratic process with ongoing political violence and intimidation from the two leading political parties, the People’s National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP); and the economic policies in the late twentieth century that left Jamaica, like other Caribbean nations, indebted to organizations like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) through heavy interest-bearing loans. More conservative voices fault a decline in moral leadership; cultures of corruption in politics and business; and a move away from God’s laws. To address such concerns, Rev. Al Miller, pastor of one of the largest Pentecostal churches in Kingston and organizer of the conference, brought in two international speakers, Dr. Sunday Adelaja and the late Dr. Myles Munroe,



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whose private plane crashed in the Bahamas in the fall of 2014, killing him, his wife, and seven other passengers. Munroe was president/CEO/chairman of Bahamas Faith Ministries International, a nonprofit organization that serves as a “Christian Growth and Resource Centre, a charismatic teaching fellowship, and an International Outreach Centre.”1 Like a number of leading televangelists today, Munroe was trained under the preeminent televangelist Oral Roberts at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There, he grew close to the school’s founder: “Papa Roberts,” as Munroe called his former mentor, gave him his first television appearance.2 After his training in the United States, Munroe became one of the, if not the most popular, religious voices from the Caribbean. Sunday Adelaja is the Nigerian-born founding pastor of the Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations in Kyiv, Ukraine, which claims to be the largest Charismatic church in Eastern Europe, reporting more than one hundred thousand members.3 While both Pentecostal ministers have been influential in their own right as religious leaders in their respective countries, they gained international recognition as a result of their large and everexpanding media ministries. During the opening ceremony, each man spoke passionately about what is required for Jamaica to succeed and experience God’s promise for the country. One of the first limitations that believers needed to conquer was their own fear. Drawing on their own experiences of divine favor, the pastors encouraged audience members to be bold and courageous in their fight for Jamaica. Only then could they implement an agenda that would set the stage for the return of Jamaica’s greatness. Thus, Munroe and Adelaja tasked their listeners with ambitious programs of social change, insisting that the ministers present must, in Munroe’s words, “lead the way in bringing a reconstruction and a renewal to the great nation of Jamaica.” To that end, both pastors suggested that the challenge for audience members was to ensure that “church” transcended ­Sunday-morning worship spaces to encompass the bar, the mall, and the grocery store. Their preaching emphasized human problems and human solutions: they located the cause of social disorder in faithlessness rather than demonic activity and called for solutions that relied on the resolve and initiative of the men and women gathered at the conference. Munroe began by praising Jamaica’s natural richness—its beautiful mountains, rivers, and beaches—and by challenging listeners to remember that Jamaica was a product of divine providence. He asked those present to lead Jamaica to live up to its providential origins by educating the country’s citizens about the

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word of God: “Our purpose in this country as the church is to turn the entire country into a classroom, and we are the teacher.” He argued that God was not after a church but a nation and Christians must accordingly draw upon God’s instructions “for nation building” and scripture, which he argued contained penal codes, social norms, standards of hygiene, and property laws—in short, “everything to run a country.” Munroe’s rousing remarks repeatedly struck a positive note: he radiated confidence that Jamaican believers could renew their nation in the light of God’s will. Yet implicit in Munroe’s narrative about Jamaica’s bright future was a clear subtext that all was not well in the Jamaican present. Sunday Adelaja developed this subtext at length. Unlike Munroe, Adelaja repeatedly referenced crime, violence, and political instability in Jamaica. And the “state of the church” on the island, Adelaja bluntly asserted, was one of “groping in darkness,” of attempting to move forward while believers’ “eyes are closed.” Yet ­Adelaja also voiced conviction that Jamaicans could find the light, in this case by cultivating a religious commitment that transcended personal piety and political quietism: “Nobody has a calling to sit in pews and in church. We all have a calling to change the world.” Thus, Adelaja called on listeners to transform themselves in order to transform Jamaican society: “What we pastors are supposed to be doing is raisin’ up people that God could trust with Jamaica.” By converting believers from “children of God” into “sons of God,” the pastors present could claim the masculinist authority necessary to end violence, crime, and other features of moral and political disorder.4 As evidence for the efficacy of this kind of transformation, Adelaja spoke of the accomplishments of his church in the Ukraine. He detailed how all individual members were responsible for an “area of life they are claiming back for God,” be it art, sports, education, business, or politics. And referring to larger signs of the times, Adelaja discerned in the triumph of democracy over communism evidence that God indeed was working on behalf of the Ukrainian people. Not only were they now able to vote, participate in public decisions, and freely worship God without fear of retaliation, but they were also able to enjoy the fruits of hard labor offered by the entrepreneurial spirit of capitalism. In his church an entrepreneur’s ministry had started and was now thriving as Christians used their ostensibly God-inspired drives to create capital for the families and communities that had struggled under communism. Jamaicans needed this emboldened spirit of purpose and destiny, he declared. They simply needed to seize the many opportunities that God was opening up to them.



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Months earlier, at another event, Pastor Robb of New Life Assemblies of God church in Kingston brought in a speaker from abroad to address the concerns of Jamaicans. Streamed in via live satellite broadcast, the famed African American televangelist Bishop T. D. Jakes spoke to a crowd of thousands outside Robb’s church. Touted by Time magazine as possibly the “next Billy Graham,” Jakes is the pastor of Potter’s House in Dallas, Texas, with a congregation of more than thirty thousand.5 He has drawn hundreds of thousands to his “Woman Thou Art Loosed,” “Man Power,” and “MegaFest” conferences. In 1999 his first MegaFest conference drew more than 560,000 people over a four-day period to the Atlanta Convention Center. By 2005, Jakes’s website claims, the same event was broadcast live via satellite to over 350 US prisons and more than two-thirds of the world’s population.6 Sitting both on the ground and in the chairs provided, the crowd gathered at Robb’s church watched one of T. D. Jakes’s penultimate MegaFest gatherings in the United States before making its first international appearance in South Africa in 2008. (The conference returned to the States shortly thereafter.) The open-air gathering in Kingston was not simply for pastors and leaders but also for the larger community. People came from across Kingston and the surrounding area. Jakes’s message that day, though directed at the people in the United States gathered in the Atlanta Dome, served as a message equally relevant to the people in Jamaica. At times Jakes broke from his scheduled program and addressed those viewing via satellite from church communities in Australia, ­Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean. Instantaneously, his message, understood by his followers to be one of hope and possibility, became a message for the world.

Religion, Globalization, and Market Logics These moments dramatically suggest the extent to which local religious communities have become global. Such moments mark the sharing of “religious” ideas as well as the exchange of ideas about how religious communities should engage society in response to issues such as political unrest, economic instability, gender, sexuality, and consumerism. When religious figures speak, they pass along a set of social and cultural values along with spiritual values. While religious messages in the Christian tradition have historically crossed borders primarily through missionary efforts across Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, this new moment marks an extraordinary expansion of these efforts. Pastors Munroe and Adelaja spoke in Kingston not only about

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“accepting Jesus” but also about confronting the powers of government, responding to the conditions of poverty, and amassing courage to engage the current of violence sweeping Jamaica. When Jakes broadcast his message, he was already well known across Jamaica for his discourses on how to “heal” broken and disempowered women.7 These ideas about social, political, and economic transformation travel as quickly as messages of salvation, eternal life, and sanctification. The messages of contemporary evangelists are as much about how to overcome abuse, get out of debt, and secure a home as they are about how to reach heaven. If nothing else, these messages demonstrate the porous borders between the “sacred” and “profane.” Under democratic liberalism, theologies like the Trinity pass as fluidly over borders as ideologies like American capitalism. Conversations between religious communities across the African Diaspora are not new. This is keenly highlighted in Randy Matory’s Black Atlantic Religions and plays out more assiduously for the purposes of this text in the context of Christian missions. In his compelling critique of transnationalism, Matory argues that all religions are integrally transnational; thus, the new focus on globalization and transnationalism in the social sciences indicates a quantitative rather than qualitative difference in practice.8 Matory contends that the focus on “Abrahamic” traditions causes scholars to privilege analysis from a nation-state, territorialized perspective without considering the ways in which “spirit possession” traditions, like Yoruba, have always embodied translocal flows. In Three Eyes for the Journey: African Dimensions of the Jamaican Religious Experience, Dianne Stewart offers an important rendering of these types of flows as they relate specifically to religious life in Jamaica.9 Further demonstrating that these conversations are not new, the contemporary study of global Christianity, especially among people in the African Diaspora, draws heavily on a history of missions. Black religion in the United States, for example, has historically been engaged in international dialogue with religious leaders and laypersons throughout West Africa, South Africa, Europe, India, and Latin America. Well-established mission work by black Baptists through organizations such as the Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention and the women’s missionary association of the Methodist Church helped black Christians set sail to spread the gospel, particularly to African countries like Liberia. Individual missionaries, such as Betsey Stockton, Lucy Henry Coles, Jane Sharp, Harriette Presley, Julia Smith, Nancy Jones, Henriette Ousley, Mrs. M. H. Garnett Barboza, Nora



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Gordon, Clara Howard, Anna E. Hall, Dr. Francis Davis, and Susan Collins, were some of the first black women missionaries sent to Africa from the United States. Historian Bettye Collier-Thomas contends that even while encumbered by their own ethnocentrism, the two primary concerns of the black missionary boards were “the need for uplifting and improving the status of Africans in the motherland, and countering a white Protestant missionary theology emphasizing paternalism and racial superiority.”10 Long-standing debates about religion and how to best uplift the race have been carried out in legendary Pan-African dialogues and dialogues between African Americans such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary McLeod Bethune, ­Benjamin Elijah Mays, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Howard Thurman, and international leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, Marcus Garvey, and Mohandas Gandhi. In discussing the life of Benjamin Elijah Mays, historian Randal Jelks opines that “arguably, the black religious diaspora has lasted longer than many other social networks described by scholars between black Americans and those in Africa and Latin America. Though black internationalism had roots in Protestant missions, it has received far less scholarly attention than the diasporic links rooted in political radicalism.”11 Embedded in these conversations have been broad questions about the role of Christianity in the social and economic plight of a people, the possibilities for strategic ecumenical alliances, and the potential for peaceful civil disobedience. The history of America as a Christian nation built on the economic exploitation and enslavement of African Americans long served as a critique of American Christianity from the time of the earliest enslaved people, to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century black religious leaders and abolitionists, to twentieth- and twenty-first-century civil rights leaders. Given the predominance of Christianity in the United States and the brutal exploitation of Blacks under slavery and Jim Crow, the questions these leaders posed forced them to consider how race and economic privilege operated together to form what Cornel West more recently and quite aptly calls “Constantinian Christianity,” an unholy alliance of religious interests with state and economic interests.12 These international dialogues reflect a history in which religion was critical of the expansions and abuses of the market even as, historian Albert Raboteau points out, it was at times implicated: for example, when black emigrationists weighed the noble cause of returning to Africa to offer missionary-type assistance with the opportunities that such a return might yield in economic gain through the opening up of new markets.13

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Today, however, given the freedoms associated with the passage of US civil rights legislation, the post-colonial changes across the Caribbean and West Africa, and the end of apartheid in South Africa, presumptions about the need for such stringent criticism of the government and its markets have been overwhelmed by an increasingly market-driven religious ethos. The rise of this type of popular religion through electronic media is rapidly informing the religious life, and with it the social expectations, of communities of color globally. Jamaica itself has a long history of religious crossover both through on-the-ground missions and especially through religious broadcasting in the latter half of the twentieth century. Jamaica opened its doors to televangelism in the 1970s, on the heels of an extensive period of religious radio broadcasting, and since then has seen an increased audience for the genre as well as increased avenues of content and distribution. Religious broadcasting is as much about the expansion of the religious market as about the globalization of cultural ideas. By globalization I do not mean the wholesale exportation of American religious media and its simple absorption by Jamaicans. Rather, I take seriously the work of anthropologists who have critiqued the processes of globalization and attempted to make sense of how local communities around the world engage the flow of “capital, people, commodities, images, and ideologies” in an era in which both time and space have been seemingly compressed.14 Working against totalizing assumptions of globalization as “cultural hegemony” or “cultural imperialism,” Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo present culture as “de/territorialized.” This proposition offers ways for understanding how a “weakening of ties” between places occurs simultaneously with how culture is “reinscrib[ed] in new time-space contexts.”15 Globalization does not simply concern how Western markets, ideologies, and ways of being dominate the world. Instead, when considered at the microlevel, globalization pertains to how other countries are influencing Western countries, how countries on the periphery are influencing one another, and how local communities actively remake the images received from Western countries.16 Furthermore, scholars of religion like Jacob Olupona demonstrate that under globalization Western ideals are not just traveling east, but countries from within Africa are sending missionaries to the United States in a process described as “reverse missions.”17 Globalization is ultimately a complex, uneven process. It is with this understanding of globalization that I explore the trends associated with the exportation of black religious broadcasting to the Caribbean. Colored Television appropriates this more nuanced understanding of global-



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ization and applies it to our understanding of the flows of religious symbols, ideologies, personalities, and practices during the first half of the twenty-first century. I wrestle with questions of how religion operates on the ground. It is easy to watch televised messages of Myles Munroe or T. D. Jakes but difficult to ascertain the importance of these messages for Jamaicans.18 In bringing together the notions of religion and globalization, Thomas J. Csordas suggests there is an important distinction between discussing “globalization and religion” and “globalization of religion.”19 The first leads to a privileging of the term “globalization,” particularly economic globalization. The danger in this approach, he argues, is that “religion will be considered [only] insofar as it is a reaction to global economics rather than as one of two domains that constitute equivalent or equipotent loci of social and cultural forces. . . . From this [latter] standpoint,” he asserts, “global religious activity is neither determined by economic globalization nor describable on the model of economic decision making.”20 Such an approach opens up the necessary room to talk about religion, media, and the market without, as Marshall also warns, reducing religious motivation and engagement to mere market logics. This type of approach is a critique of increasingly popular sociological models of religious engagement that hinge on a market-driven analysis of religion.21 It explains the growth or decline of religion according to market logics alone. These distinctions are critical in considering the expansion of religious media, an inherently market-oriented religious form. While not reducing religion to economic logics, it is important to point out that much of the rise in religious broadcasting during the 1980s and 1990s has been associated with neoliberalism, the economic logic accompanying globalization. Such logic has expedited the interconnections of religion and the market. David Harvey has presented an extended definition of neoliberalism: Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices. . . . State interventions in markets (once created) must be kept to a bare minimum because, according to the theory, the state cannot possibly possess enough information to second-guess market signals (prices) and because powerful interest groups will inevitably distort and bias state interventions (particularly in democracies) for their own benefit.22

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While neoliberal economic policy experienced a severe blow in 2008 with the crashing of globally linked capitalist markets, the infrastructure and culture created by the market logics persists. It appears that the meltdown changed very few people’s minds about the rational and ethical allure of unrestrained capitalism. In recent years a growing number of scholars have begun to note how the rise in Pentecostalism works in tandem with neoliberalism—because of either their mutual emphasis on individualism or their reliance on the freedom of the market. Some of these studies have focused on the rise of Pentecostalism and the expansion of neoliberalism in Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the United States.23 These linkages between Pentecostalism and neoliberalism inform my analysis in this book. Nothing, after all, happens in a vacuum—not even the seemingly innocuous “movement of the Holy Spirit.” Movements, both fiscal and spiritual, occur within specific social, historical, political, and economic moments. Many have theorized Pentecostalism as a type of modernist religious movement capable of adapting to contemporary advances in market logics and technology.24 These studies have been central to my understanding of religion and how it flows globally through the use of media technologies and an ever-more aggressive market culture.

History of Religious Broadcasting The centrality of the market in the history of religious television broadcasting cannot be underestimated. The move toward commercial religion is rooted specifically in the industry’s move from sustaining-time to paid-time programming in 1960. The history of televangelism begins with the official launch of religious television on Easter Sunday 1940 in New York City.25 The growth of evangelical television is a story of survival, revival, and transformation. While evangelical Protestantism had experienced unprecedented growth during the Great Awakening of the nineteenth century, the Scopes trial of the 1920s, the expansion of American modernism, and the influx of Catholic immigrants forced evangelicalism to the fringes of American culture.26 The Federal Council of Churches (later the National Council of Churches), an ecumenical organization representing more than twenty Protestant denominations, dominated religious airwaves with the expansion of radio in the 1920s. The emergence of religious television in the 1940s allowed the liberal Federal Council of Churches, along with other mainstream religious groups, to enjoy the benefits of technological progress and widespread popular and financial support.



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The Communications Act of 1934 brought “indiscriminate use of the airwaves” to a halt, insisting that “broadcasters operate ‘in the public interest, convenience and necessity.’”27 This ruling secured the place of the Federal Council of Churches in broadcasting decisions. After that time, religious television programs fell into two main groups: “sustaining-time programs, where the network or local station meets all or part of the costs of producing and broadcasting the program; and paid-time programs, where the broadcaster himself meets all the costs of producing and broadcasting the program, mainly by raising money from viewers.”28 The Federal Council of Churches enjoyed the lion’s share of the sustaining-time programs because major radio and television stations were comfortable with the “well-organized” and “predictable” efforts of mainline churches. Other prominent groups, such as the US Catholic Conference, the New York Board of Rabbis, and the Southern Baptist Convention, later enjoyed the perquisites of sustaining-time programs.29 Feeling shut out of broadcasting efforts, a group of evangelicals organized the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in 1942 and the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) in 1944. The NRB was formed from the NAE as a separate association charged with investigating the possibilities for evangelical broadcasting. In 1946 this group drew clear lines between it and the Federal Council of Churches with a resolution sent to radio and television broadcasters throughout the country: “One misconception is that American Protestantism is one unified religious group, whereas in fact there are two distinct kinds of Protestants in America today. Each adheres to a particular form of ­teaching—the one the antithesis of the other. One group believes the Bible to be the infallible rule for belief and conduct whereas the other does not.”30 The NAE encouraged evangelicals to purchase airtime in furtherance of the gospel and as a means of asserting its version of biblical truth on the airwaves. Audience reception and support of paid-time religious television increased so much that the Federal Communications Commission reconsidered the allotment of religion-based sustaining-time programs. In 1960 it decided to end the distinction between sustaining-time and paid-time religious broadcasting, arguing that “there is no public interest basis” for such a distinction. Stations could both meet the public interest and earn a profit. This decision saw an effective decline in sustaining-time programming from 47 percent in 1959 to a mere 8 percent in 1977,31 ushering in the new wave of paid-time religious programming and the beginning of the “electronic church” phenomenon. “By 1977, 92 percent of all programming was paid time.”32

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During the 1980s, according to Mimi White, “the most visible religious programs that emerged on American television in this context did not represent mainstream Protestant religious practice; instead they featured evangelical Protestantism with a fundamentalist or Pentecostal emphasis. In this sense, the conservative religious doctrine purveyed by the programs embraces a popular, conservative religious subculture.”33 Given the rise of evangelical and Charismatic programming, scholars have focused on the intersection of politics and religious media, especially as a result of the rise of the Christian Right in the 1980s during the presidential candidacies of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.34 In question has been the political influence of such men as Pat Robertson, who ran for president during the 1980s, and Jerry Falwell, who organized the Moral Majority, a conservative political action group that has garnered some credit for the national success of the Republican Party in the 1980s.35 These men and their organizations stuck to a pro-life and family values campaign, but they also championed Republican economic values related to deregulation and economic liberalism. Because so much attention has been paid to these individuals and movements, what scholars have only recently begun to acknowledge is the growing influence of women and African American religious broadcasters in the spread of religious messages.36 These figures have reshaped historical understandings of religious broadcasting and dramatically altered how people in local communities interpret their religious faith. Long before televangelists like T. D. Jakes and Creflo Dollar assumed positions of influence within popular religious broadcasting, Rev. Frederick Eikerenkoetter was the most widely known African American minister broadcasting on television.37 Walton’s work on black televangelists has brought attention to the history and significance of Reverend Ike, whereas most such studies fail to mention his pioneering influence or that of other early African American broadcasters.38 The broader history of televangelism then sets the stage for understanding the racial implications of the rise of religious broadcasting among African Americans. While battles ensued among white televangelists over the extent to which Charismatic versus mainline and later Charismatic versus evangelical forms of religious broadcasting should be on air, African Americans struggled over what image of blackness and what message of black religion should inform African American communities. These concerns not withstanding, in the past twenty years, twenty-fourhour Christian programming, with its stunning array of religious producers,



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has increased its airtime, and its viewership now reaches from the United States to South America, Africa, Europe, and beyond.39 The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), founded in 1960 by Pat Robertson, and Paul and Jan Crouch’s TBN, founded in 1973, have become world-famous satellite-transmitted programs.40 In addition to these stations, INSP, the Word Network, TV One, Daystar, and Black Entertainment Television (BET) have been host to a number of ministers who seek out technology as a means of sharing the gospel with the world. In recent years the development of black-owned sites of distribution, such as MTM in Jamaica and View Africa Network in South Africa, have also influenced how the messages of black religious producers make their way to the market. In Jamaica religious broadcasting brought evangelical preaching to the heart of urban (and many rural) areas. Contemporary Jamaicans tune in to a dizzying array of religious programming. Radio, television, and Internet content ranges from typical Sunday-morning services to spectacular revivals to Christian talk shows and newsmagazine programs.41 Historically, the twin goals of nation building and modernization were at the heart of the expansion of the government-controlled national media during British rule, as well as in the first decades after Jamaica’s independence in 1962.42 Then as now, however, much of what circulated over the airwaves, both religious and secular, has come from the United States, Great Britain, and elsewhere in the Caribbean. Thus, the early 1950s saw the creation of a handful of locally produced religious radio programs like The Master’s Time. Also prominent were US-based programs like The Lutheran Hour and the nondenominational Back to the Bible.43 Within one year after independence, the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation created the country’s first television station, which carried among its other programs Rejoice in the Lord, a fifteen-minute devotional segment every Sunday evening. Until very recently, the vast majority of Jamaica’s televised religious programming has come from outside the island.44 In particular, the 1980s saw the rising prominence of American televangelists in Jamaica, such as Jimmy Swaggart. One cab driver in Kingston referenced his affection for earlier broadcasts by reminiscing about his devotion to watching Jimmy Swaggart. Swaggart, so beloved and revered in some areas of the Caribbean, was forever etched in the region’s cultural memory through the creation of a song about his fall from grace, which became widely popular. The song, “Innocent Jimmy,” by a Caribbean artist narrates in jest and metaphor the great sexual temptation that overtook Swaggart. Relentlessly mocking the

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minister’s public expression of remorse rendered through a flood of tears after his liaison with a prostitute was uncovered, the song seems to paint Swaggart as a regular man and deride the veneer of sainthood that comes with the pastorate. Jimmy Swaggart is an innocent man. He never touch me kankalaa. He wouldn’t watch me kankalaa . . . When I asked him why, Jimmy started to cry, cry, cry, cry. “I bless you woman with a gift of love. My gift comes from above. I, Reverend, bless you with love.” I turn and ask him, “Pastor, what you cryin’ for?” He said it hurt him how he has to break the law Chorus: You? not you!. . . . But, I tell him still, the scripture must be fulfilled; it’s not you alone. He without sin cast the first stone. Refrain: He never touch me kankalaa. He wouldn’t watch me kankalaa. “I did not touch her! I BLESS her! [imitating Swaggart crying].” [Repeat]45

In the song the soloist imitates Swaggart, saying that he only wanted to “bless” the woman, but the refrain makes clear that the scriptures must be fulfilled and Swaggart is not alone. After all, he who is without sin should be the first to cast a stone. The song shot to the top of the charts across the Caribbean. The people, attentive to religious broadcasting in the 1970s and 1980s, still pay attention to the narratives of faith and redemption offered from abroad. Jamaicans, like many African American viewers, follow televangelists often regardless of race and increasingly regardless of gender. More so than social standing, they discriminate among televangelists based on their satisfaction with “the Word” that is preached. The expansion of American religious broadcasting to countries outside the United States (as well as an increase in religious broadcasting to the United States) raises questions about how diverse audiences receive and appropriate these messages. Scholars examining the impact of globalization have long worried about the power of elite corporations and governments to overrun the economies and cultures of local communities. In talking to and investigating the life views of people about the influence of religious broadcasting in their



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communities, I take seriously how they understand and respond to the messages presented by religious broadcasters. For example, I want to understand how women in communities outside the United States interpret the religious narratives of women broadcasters from the United States. How are women employing the mediated messages around abuse, sexual violence, and sexual promiscuity? Furthermore, how do people of African descent, who have traditionally been at the bottom of economic development, construe logics of prosperity and the free market emerging from the United States?

Conclusion The questions taken up in this book that center on religion, prosperity, and sexuality are not the only or necessarily the driving narratives of religious broadcasting. Religious viewers are consistently and purportedly concerned with God and Jesus and their relationship to the Divine. At the same time, talk about sex and money reflects in some greater or lesser extent the relationship of the individual to the Divine, not by a priori right but by the constructions that religionists have given to faith over the years. “Where your money is, there too is your heart,” one Jamaican minister asserted after asking his congregation about what they loved the most. If God and family and community are the primary loves of their lives, then their finances should line up with the proclamation. “Where then do you spend your money?” he continued. How do you allocate your resources? Talk of God and mammon are not uncommon to people of faith; they are indeed central. The scriptures themselves suggest that it is impossible to “love God and mammon”: “you will hate one and love the other.” In this way talk of money and God is not strange in the Jamaican context or in most other iterations of contemporary Charismatic religion. It is instead a central discourse important to this discussion of religious broadcasting. In the next chapter thoughts about money are discussed in relationship to the prevailing prosperity doctrine that informs much of religious broadcasting. I begin with an origin story. Coming on the heels of an industrial revolution, prosperity theologies were preached by many poor white men helping the less fortunate understand that God had a better, more prosperous, plan for their lives if they would just exercise remarkable faith. Such theologies took particular form among African American religious preachers and broadcasters who were working against both the challenges of race and class disenfranchisement. The overarching concerns of people of color in the United States have

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historically inspired the growth of countless religious personalities beyond the mainstream—figures like Father Divine, Daddy Grace, Elijah Muhammad, Mother Lucy Smith—identified by Arthur Fauset as “black gods of the metropolis.” What might the story of Reverend Ike and Carlton Pearson tell us about the contemporary prominence of religious broadcasting in underserved communities? What might the expansion of these ministries tell us about contemporary society, politics, and economics? How does their story inform the debates about the nature of prosperity gospels that are taking place in locales like Jamaica? What started in the United States as an “uplift” theology is being replicated around the world. Sow seeds, have faith, and be blessed.

2 R E LI G IO US DAN DYISM Prosperity and Performance in Black Televangelism

My journey on the morning of May 12, 2005, to the home of Rev. Frederick ­Eikerenkoetter was an elegant ride along one of Bal Harbour’s main roads. Lined with palm trees, dark asphalt streets, white sidewalks, and well-manicured lawns, this section of town was different from Miami, where I was staying. Both are positioned along the Atlantic Ocean, but Bal Harbour prides itself on its elegant shops, subtle marquees, and more streamlined signs (“It’s where the Jews live,” Reverend Ike had proudly told me), whereas Miami, just south of Bal Harbour, is loud, bright, and untamed. Reverend Ike lived in a high-rise luxury condominium, where I was greeted by a courteous doorman and made my way through a marble-lined hallway to a private penthouse elevator. The elevator doors opened directly into the penthouse of a living legend. Reverend Ike’s assistant immediately showed me around the living room area where the interview would take place. The room’s decor, an accumulation of Reverend Ike’s memories and travel, held extraordinary potential yet seemed hopelessly trapped in a time capsule. Through the windows was a panoramic view of the Atlantic Ocean below, with the sun brightly reflecting off its surface. From any room in the house, you could see the expanse of the Florida coastline. Reverend Ike had clearly reached the pinnacle of the prosperity he avidly preached.1 I had interviewed Bishop Carlton Pearson a few days earlier, and the contrast was striking.2 A shadow of its former glory, Bishop Pearson’s church stood quietly along a well-traveled road in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the birthplace of Oral Roberts University and seemingly all things televangelical.3 Prior to

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our interview, Bishop Pearson’s assistant took me on a tour of their church. The vast building held little more than reminders of the throngs of people that once flocked the hallways, overcrowded the sanctuary, and filled the bookstore.4 The children’s Sunday school classroom displayed drawings seemingly abandoned, like many other fixtures around the church. Leaders of the church now barely held on to the title of the property. The number in the congregation had dropped by thousands as members left the church in rejection of their senior pastor’s new theology, one that cast aside centuries-old doctrines held sacred by Protestants and Catholics alike. Bishop Pearson was preaching something new, which had cost him dearly. His message was of inclusion, not hellfire and brimstone. Indeed, there was no hell. And any and everybody could and would go to heaven. All were saved; they just didn’t know it. Jesus had died once and for all for everybody, period: no need for repentance; no need for confession; no need for a mourners’ bench. All were entering and traveling effortlessly along the path once marked “straight and narrow.” It was now broad and welcoming.5 Time spent with these two luminaries in the field of black religious broadcasting opens up avenues for interpreting the current state of religious broadcast­ing as well as the legacy of race in the industry. Reverend Ike had been the leading figure in religious broadcasting among black preachers; Carlton P ­ earson was in many ways a product of Reverend Ike’s efforts. Pearson held strongly to his Pentecostal upbringing, while Reverend Ike leaned more heavily into his New Thought teachings. The lessons regarding performance, prosperity, and the power of the media are illuminating. Both figures serve, I argue, as “religious dandies” whose quests for upward mobility through the power of faith offer us a path for interpreting contemporary black televangelists. The shifts in performance styles and messages over the years reflect changes in the ministry as well as transformations in American society and the power of the media. The spread of prosperity gospels throughout the African Diaspora is often linked to its rise in the United States. As commonly understood, the prosperity gospel promises that beyond eternal riches, the affirmation of faith guarantees material wealth and health in this life.6 Scholars suggest that the doctrines developed in the United States under free-market capitalism reached beyond American borders to places like Jamaica, West Africa, and South America in the aftermath of World War II. Given the increased US global influence, the successful anticolonialist movements abroad, and the eventual Cold War–era demise of communism, along with advances in media communication tech-



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nology, new opportunities for the rapid spread of American-based religious messages grew. The leadership of this expansion is often attributed to white Charismatic figures who broadcast their services and traveled to various countries to hold international revivals. Jonathan Walton, however, points out the seminal efforts of black media personalities such as Reverend Ike in popularizing the prosperity gospel.7 Furthermore, recent work by historian Lerone Martin mentions the earliest uses of media in the form of phonographic recordings by black ministers whose audiences grew exponentially.8 I here take up the question of prosperity gospels by considering the actual performative significance of black religious bodies on television. I examine how the message and performance of the message spoke to economic disenfranchisement (as it historically appealed to large numbers of Whites and Blacks) and how its affirmations spoke to the burning issues of race in America. I tie prosperity messages to a history of economic disenfranchisement and more intimately to a history of racial oppression and competing narratives of racial uplift. I argue that these figures were selling not only novel ideas about monetary wealth but also complicated notions of racial uplift. The religious dandy is considered an analytic tool for interpreting the performative significance of black religious broadcasters against negative modifiers of race and religious provincialism. Based on interviews with Reverend Ike and Carlton Pearson, I argue that the dandy figure stood as an important, though controversial, symbol for racial uplift in the 1970s and 1980s. Both these men were embodiments of a rejected, though resilient, black aesthetic. Reverend Ike’s message of prosperity and Pearson’s embrace of an unrefined Pentecostalism reflect classic moments in which the medium of television operated as a disciplining mechanism for non-mainstream black bodies. Both producers were challenged to rescript for the purposes of mass distribution an acceptable black body. Finally, the work of these early dandies during a particular racial moment is read against the work of contemporary religious broadcasters like T. D. Jakes and Creflo Dollar. Can they also be considered religious dandies, avant-garde figures in American religious broadcasting? If we are living in a different historical moment with heterogeneous and successful pictures of black subjectivity already affixed in the public imaginary (e.g., President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, Harry Belafonte, Oprah Winfrey, Venus and Serena Williams, Colin Powell), are those same performances still necessary, or have they merely become reflections of the American mainstream? In other words, if

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we accept on its face Reverend Ike’s proposition that his extravagant dress and elaborate aesthetic performances were meant to critique white American expectations of black subjectivity and to catalyze a more robust sense of blackness among African Americans, then what purpose do these performances serve today? What role do marketing and the demands of satellite television play in the mainstreaming of these figures? How might these figures redefine a sense of black religiosity? Ultimately, what is the influence of this contemporary aesthetic abroad in places like Jamaica in the twenty-first century?

The Religious Dandy The melding of voice and video imaging to create television effectively altered the transmission of religious messages. No longer were audiences simply hearing the voice of the preacher on the radio, but they were able to see him onscreen, and the picture in this case was literally worth “a thousand words.” Early white pioneers in religious broadcasting such as Rex Humbard, Oral Roberts, and Robert Schuller, leaders of a burgeoning prosperity theology, no longer simply articulated the message of possibility; they could materialize it onstage.9 Emerging from New Thought teachings of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, their message promised health and wealth to the believer in this life if she or he just demonstrated enough faith.10 Proponents of this theology, such as Oral Roberts, Kathryn Kuhlman, and T. L. Osborn, were always a part of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements; however, denominational Pentecostals became “increasingly critical of the evangelists’ methods (particularly their fundraising) and often lavish lifestyles.”11 What was strikingly different among this new group of Pentecostals was the emphasis on this-worldly material gains. Classical Pentecostals focused largely on the merits of spiritual riches, often shunning earthly possessions as distractions from total devotion to God. These Pentecostals typically stood outside mainstream American society. Even within the black community, Pentecostalism was associated with those on the economic margins of society and characterized, in contrast to Baptist and Methodist traditions, as “low church” because of its high emotionalism and the clergy’s lack of professional training. Cheryl Sanders, however, argues in her work that black Pentecostals were in some ways more revolutionary than members of black middle-class churches in that they worked and lived among the poor that they tried to help and were willing to celebrate ecstatic worship as a legitimate form of worship, appropri-



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ating “Africanisms,” when black middle-class Baptist and Methodist churches often shunned such expression.12 Nevertheless, the blossoming of the Charismatic Renewal movement of the 1960s and 1970s, combined with the mounting influence of Charismatic preachers on television, reflected the rising influence of Pentecostal expression. Studies analyzing the growth of Pentecostalism note both a growing Charismatic movement and a neo-Pentecostal movement, often using the terms interchangeably—focusing loosely on the use of spiritual gifts (like glossolalia and faith healing), deemphasis of denomination, and a burgeoning theology around self-actualization and prosperity. As this movement grew, with its mixture of classical Pentecostalism and New Thought ideology, television opened up an alternative means for communicating the promises associated with the confession of faith. The ascendance of these particular forms of black religiosity on religious television served to both “uplift” the race and complicate the vision of respectability so assiduously carved out by members of black mainstream and middle-class churches.13 Steeped in the Word of Faith movement with its emphasis on monetary wealth, early televangelists’ performances on the broadcasting stage are reflective in many ways of what Susan Fillin-Yeh describes as “dandyism,” an extravagant performance of class status in the face of social marginality.14 For Fillin-Yeh, dandies embody “cosmopolitanism, presentation and spectacle” and are engaged in “the passionate pursuit of an original selfhood that makes its own rules.”15 Theories of performance, performativity, dandyism, pastiche, and drag provide ways of interpreting the layers of meaning in televangelists’ and adherents’ attempts to navigate various class boundaries.16 Contemporary theories that rely on notions of performance underscore the tenuousness and fluidity of the subject. Dandyism thus conveys the ways in which historic figures perform class and social mobility through dress, revealing how these personalities are “‘betwixt and between’ clearly defined social statuses and spaces.”17 The late twentieth-century version of what I call the “religious dandy” gained particular momentum with the advancement of electronic media. This dandy is reflected in both white and black, male and female televangelists like Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and Creflo and Taffi Dollar. Tammy Faye Bakker, for example, was known throughout the country for her outlandish makeup and eccentric dress.18 The gendered particularities of the religious dandy are crucial since women’s hair, makeup, hats, shoes, and accessories have been associated with their femininity and potential (or lack thereof)

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for ministry. Women in religious television, for example, have been hyper-­ feminized in a way that necessarily associates them with a male husband figure. This serves as a particularly interesting contrast to black women preachers, who have historically been encouraged to preach in deeper tones and appear with less makeup and adornment in order to be perceived as spiritually authoritative and legitimate—some would argue more “masculine.” “‘The Spirit of the Holy Ghost,’” after all, “‘is a Male Spirit,’” as historian Wallace Best reminds us.19 The dandy’s influence expanded across gender and race lines, holding particular sway for African American dandies as a result of the history of US race and racism. Black religious dandies coupled their notions of uplift with religious narratives and stratagems against racism in society. Contrary to popular images, Blacks could be wealthy in the United States, and the dandy aimed to demonstrate it. As religious television scholar Razelle Frankl notes, televangelists “appear, at least in the image conveyed by press and television reports, as affluent corporate chiefs—wearing custom-made suits, traveling in personal jet planes, and living in comfortable and well-furnished homes.”20 Affluence for these ministers is a sign of success. Often they performed wealth in the face of traditional Pentecostalism’s rejection of all outward signs of “worldliness.” Some scholars have noted the excessive dress and style of religious figures as an analysis of class issues without considering the racial impetus. The performance of religious dandyism among African American televangelists provided a means of aesthetically affirming black uplift and social mobility, while simultaneously critiquing perceived notions of black religious complacency to the economic status quo. Art historian Richard J. Powell, paraphrasing Amiri Baraka, argues that “an analysis of a particular political, economic and social class of people includes an analysis of their outward expressive, aesthetic selves.” For Powell, black dandies included men of the nineteenth century who were “the occasionally dressed-up and highly visible common laborers, domestics and unskilled workers in the free, urban underclass.” Often mocked by those who thought the extraordinarily colorful suits and posh shoes were outrageous, these men demonstrated a level of pride that flew in the face of critics. The work of the dandy disrupted social expectations. “In a society that sought comfort in clearly defined social roles and a spatially predictable landscape (despite idealistic claims of a broad-based democracy and upward social mobility), the black dandy’s striking, audacious appearance on America’s street corners disrupted the white majority’s false notions of social order, racial homogeneity, and cultural superiority.”21 Black



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dandies insisted on their right to exist in a world that would prefer their invisibility and docility. One can trace the emergence of black religious dandies of the twentieth century through the course of industrialization and urbanization. Monica Miller builds on Powell’s use of the black dandy, stating that she reads black dandyism and the politics of its performativity as an index of the formation of this blackness—as a sign of the conceptualization of early Afro-diasporic identity, as part of a negotiation of the transition from slavery to freedom in America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as an evaluation of the fact of blackness within modernism, and as an Afro-cosmopolitan critique of national identity in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first.22

The emergence of what Fauset described as the “black gods of the metropolis” in many ways embodies what I consider black religious dandies.23 The aesthetic sensibilities of men like Father Divine and Daddy Grace, along with their theologies of economic possibility, crafted a narrative counter to the message of gradualism and survival heard in many early twentieth-century black churches. Furthermore, preachers like Prophet Jones, who is reported to also prefer the title “His Holiness the Right Rev. Dr. James F. Jones, D.D., Universal Dominion Ruler, Internationally Known as Prophet Jones,” affirmed in their titles as well as their attire what they imagined to be the grandiose possibilities of black bodies.24 At the same time, black religious dandies have not only disrupted social expectations based on race; they have also disrupted long-standing religious expectations that valorize poverty. These dandies have three major characteristics. First, and most important, the religious dandy insists that his rewards of wealth are gifts from God directly or indirectly. They are not bequeathed from the world or worldly strategies. Often they are discussed as the “harvest” reaped after diligently sowing “seeds.” These seeds are most often described as financial gifts to ministry efforts, but they can also include seeds of worship and service. Attributing their wealth to God’s beneficence or the power of determined faith allows them an unapologetic demeanor in the face of critics who challenge their exorbitant wealth (whether real or merely performed). Second, the religious dandy performs this wealth outwardly either through verbal testimony or the aesthetics of elaborate dress and expensive lifestyle. Certain elements of success can and should be measured through the accumulation of fine earthly possessions rather than wait for the prom-

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ised rewards of the afterlife. Third, the religious dandy offers a narrative of struggle and redemption. Either triumphantly emerging from meager beginnings, a dysfunctional home, an abusive relationship, a sickly past, or a history of racial and/or economic oppression, the religious dandy is an “overcomer.” This narrative of victory is central to the dandy’s ability to connect with a broader audience. Attempting to undo centuries-long assumptions about the role of black religion and the low social status of the black worshipper, religious dandies transformed the language of scripture as well as the image of the minister in order to invoke a socially regenerative view of the true “child of God.” Instead of equating poverty with godliness, religious dandies reinterpreted religious language and expectation by asserting that prosperity is associated with godliness. Reworking antiquated theologies taught by slave masters and black ministers alike about the intangible rewards of servitude and the immaterial benefits of religious asceticism, religious dandies insisted on the work of faith manifesting both comfort and material wealth in the present. Similar to black working-class dandies whose attire often outpaced their income, religious dandies performed wealth as both materialized and in-­waiting. “Name it and claim it” theologies—more pejoratively titled “Fake it ’til you make it” theologies—abounded among new advocates of religious prosperity. Reverend Ike, one of the most popular progenitors of this message of prosperity among black ministers, began his ministry as an attempt at rewriting the religious narratives of Blacks that held them captive to poverty. Through his preaching and his dress, his work in ministry was to convince Blacks that they, too, could be prosperous. The mere presence of Blacks on television combined with the expressivity of black Pentecostalism created a complicated narrative of black upward mobility. Wearing fine clothes and performing expressive religiosity have served both to advance the race and to challenge conventional religious expression.

Reverend Ike: From Radio Voice to Religious Dandy Scholars, industry leaders, and news pundits alike have memorialized ­twentieth-century media mogul John H. Johnson as one of the world’s greatest publishers. Reverend Ike, however, in our conversation described the eminent writer, humanitarian, leader, and entrepreneur as black America’s “first prosperity preacher.” The cues Reverend Ike received from Johnson’s weekly Jet



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and monthly Ebony magazines had nurtured his vision of prosperity and abundance. He considered that the beneficiaries of Johnson’s visionary leadership were not only black Americans but Blacks throughout the African Diaspora “as far away as South Africa.” They were inspired to believe that they, too, could be prosperous, that despite poor living conditions and the immediate pain of disenfranchisement, poverty and lack were not their inherent destiny. While there were certainly other publications before Ebony and Jet aimed toward black audiences, Reverend Ike remembered Johnson as the tone setter for his generation. Johnson had carried the images of beauty queens, business leaders, recording artists, and other members of America’s black elite prominently on the cover of his magazines. Johnson’s publications had set a new standard, establishing creative space for Blacks to imagine that they, too, despite the lasting consequences of slavery, colonialism, and post-coloniality, could be beautiful and successful, with fine clothes, fashionable cars, and elegant mansions. According to Reverend Ike, the work of transforming the psychology of former slaves, sharecroppers, and city dwellers was profoundly influenced by the pacesetting vision of Johnson’s publishing company. Reverend Ike thus translated his vision of prosperity into a reality when he broadcast live from Madison Square Garden just before Labor Day on September 5, 1971. Reverend Ike became the first black minister to launch a nationally televised religious broadcast, turning his radio message of personal empowerment into a visible image of prosperity for hundreds of thousands in the viewing audience. According to Walton, “Rev. Ike stands in the history of African American religious broadcasting as a connectional figure. He links the converging religio-cultural practices of the first half of the twentieth century with the social and technological advances utilized by African Americans in the post-civil rights era. . . . Rev. Ike is not only a connectional figure but a pivotal figure.”25 In contrast to the normative white racial positions of people like Oral Roberts, Kenneth Hagin, and Kenneth Copeland, Reverend Ike’s history in religious television offers a narrative both of religious engagement and racial uplift fraught with racial conflict. His presence sparked debate among black religious leaders and laypeople alike over what it meant to be black, religious, and successful. Coming-of-age in Ridgeland, South Carolina, during the late 1930s and early 1940s, a period marked by overt racism and spontaneous violence across the country, Reverend Ike experienced firsthand not only the harshness of the South’s racial caste system but also his community’s response to the prob-

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lems of race.26 While a number of black churches were activist, the reality of southern life meant that many Blacks, like Reverend Ike, grew up in churches staunchly opposed to social transformation through civil disobedience and protest. Instead of protest, they encouraged their congregants with messages of mere survival, not necessarily thriving in society.27 Reverend Ike’s earliest memories of faith were nurtured in this type of church, where the preaching moment encouraged poor black folks to make peace with eventual death rather than reawaken expectations for an abundant life. Baptized at his home church at the age of nine in a creek “full of snakes,” the young boy listened attentively to the preacher whose words, he suggests, “were getting us ready to die and not to live.” As the sermon continued, he saw “people getting so happy and shouting over the fact that by and by, after a while, it [would] all be over

F I G U R E 1 . Rev. Frederick Eikerenkoetter, ca. 1973. Neil Selkirk.



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for them.” The preaching and singing both evoked a sense that freedom would come at some point in the hereafter, not during this life. I remember one of the old spiritual, gospel songs that said, “Oh, oh, freedom, ohh freedom, ohh freedom over me. And before I be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be saved.” And, and I think you young people today, of all races and cultures, need to understand how serious this was, that . . . the ultimate deliverance and freedom for colored people, as they were called, Negroes, “Nigras” if the Southern white people were trying to be polite. [laughs] But that final freedom and deliverance was death . . . and going to heaven.

According to Reverend Ike, the mainline church’s philosophy of survival and freedom through death changed his thinking about what type of theology he would eventually espouse. By the age of fourteen he was preaching, and like numerous other Blacks of his generation, by the age of seventeen he had left the South of his upbringing and headed to New York to attain a better life.28 The move to New York proved fruitful for his vision, reinforcing his desire to change how black folks looked at themselves and experienced religion. Black people, many of the masses of colored people, also did not believe that they should be anything, do anything, or have anything. God forbid money; money was evil. . . . And then this Reverend Ike comes along, because, you see, the Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil. This Reverend Ike comes along and gets right into people’s faces on radio and television and in these big meetings and says, “No.” It’s not the love of money that’s the root of all evil; it’s the lack of money that’s the root of all evil. . . . I’d begin my radio broadcast saying, “You can be what you want to be; you can do what you want to do; you can have what you want to have, if you believe in the God in you.”

Ike’s retelling of the narrative of his move toward prosperity in the 1970s reads more like religious revolution than charlatanism. While others have lamented his accumulation of Rolls-Royces, flashy jewels, and oceanfront properties as an affront to the very poor people he professed to empower, Ike narrated his legacy differently. According to Ike, his true purpose was to dramatically alter black people’s minds about their human potential in the face of white racism. In a story he cited frequently, his public relations director received a call from a reporter asking, “Why does Reverend Ike tell those people that they can have these things when he knows that they can’t?” His response to his assistant is curt: “Call that reporter back and tell him I said, ‘Who in the hell does he

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think he is to decide that those people can’t have these things?!’” Reverend Ike’s efforts were, according to him, ultimately about the people and racial uplift, not exclusively personal gain. Selling prayer clothes, healing oils, and other income-generating faith gadgets, he actively peddled his new “science of mind” philosophy to those in the listening audience. This latter emphasis on mind science, however, exposed him to criticism that his ministry had become heretical. He had gradually eased out of the fundamental teachings of his Pentecostal upbringing and eased into the New Thought ideologies of his contemporary mentors on faith. Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking and Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich had become an increasingly significant part of his spiritual diet. These ideologies stressed the power of mind over matter, often decentering the role of the Divine in human activity. “The God in You” invoked terminology that placed the individual rather than God at the center of agentive action. God wanted folks rich, and the power to make it happen lay in how they thought about money. “When I came out preaching on the radio, with unremitting bombardment all over the Americas . . . telling people, ‘Money is good!,’ oh my God, that was heretical. . . . God wants you to have money. Oh, that was blasphemy.” Reverend Ike found himself in a zeitgeist governed by civil rights engagement, not prosperity faith. When his television program The Joy of Living finally reached Jackson, Mississippi, the local station informed him that they were getting messages from local black leaders insisting that “we don’t want that kind of projection of black image down here.” They effectively had his program removed from the airwaves. When I asked what type of image they were responding to, Reverend Ike quickly snapped back, “Oh, it was this image of . . . a wealthy preacher and, obviously, well-to-do colored people.” For Reverend Ike, it was as much his image of prosperity as his message that infuriated Blacks and Whites alike. “Negroes were poor, beat down. This is a different image. That was too much for the black leaders in Mississippi.” Male civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy were known for simple, respectable black suits. They could identify with common people who worked hard all week and on Sunday put on their respectable Sunday attire. Their message was one of political freedom and social justice, not monetary increase through individual transformation.29 While Reverend Ike viewed his own message as one of racial uplift, more often than not he was not the vision deemed acceptable by black establishment leaders of a religious figure who would uplift the race. His type of religious



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dandy­ism invoked notions of low-class showmanship and even hucksterism. The overwhelming view of him was that he exploited the masses for personal gain.30 While Reverend Ike amassed material wealth, the preponderance of his audiences never experienced such opulence in their own lives. Even critics overseas commented on his flamboyance. When a German newspaper printed a picture of him seated at his Louis XIV antique desk in his office with the caption “The Rich Nigger in the U.S.A.,” Reverend Ike’s response was simple. “Of course, I didn’t object to that as long as they put ‘Rich’ in front of it.” For him, the politics of race were not about language and rights as much as money and an abundance of it. As a religious dandy he dismissed objections to his performance of wealth because he believed it to be an entitlement from God. Dressed in expensive suits, adorned in precious stones, and surrounded by all the trappings of the good life, Reverend Ike repeatedly modeled for his viewers his ideal of true wealth. While there are many reasons for the discontent of critics—his “heretical” teachings on prosperity, his emphasis on New Thought, his flashy attire, and the charge that he personally benefited from the sacrifice of poor Blacks who naïvely donated to his ministry—Reverend Ike’s image struck a chord among his viewers, both black and white, who wanted to experience the abundant life Ike preached. Unapologetic to the end, Reverend Ike defended his work into his later years. The medium of television had given him a secure platform on which to display his dandyism. “Television, of course, is visual. . . . And if you’re going to be visual, people might as well have something good to look at. . . . And if you’re going to teach prosperity, you might as well look like you are prosperous.” As did that of the earlier “black gods” of the African American urban religious experience, Reverend Ike’s theology reveled in a flamboyant appeal to wealth. Protest-oriented narratives of black engagement found such personifications wanting.31 Such messages of prosperity as preached by Reverend Ike were strongly critiqued by mainstream black ministers and scholars who saw the extravagance and tactics as a betrayal of the black church’s historic commitments to justice and community development.32 Conspicuous consumption was seen as a means of exploiting rather than uplifting the community. Reverend Ike’s image of the religious dandy, one imbued by the power of God with extraordinary wealth, has come to inform later generations of television ministers. In 2005, four years before his death, Reverend Ike took tremendous pride in what he saw as his crowning victory. Turning to the back cover of a Christian magazine, he pointed out the advertisement for a conference on

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prosperity sponsored by no less than an upstanding African Methodist Episcopal church. “See,” he said to me, “they [mainline churches] ridiculed me for talking about prosperity, and now everyone’s doing it. Even the AMEs!”

Carlton Pearson: Television’s “Shouting” Dandy Although Reverend Ike was the first nationally broadcast African American televangelist, he would not remain the only one for long. Numerous black ministers drew attention as religious television personalities, including Frederick Price, Ben Kinchlow, E. V. Hill, Gilbert E. Patterson, and later Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, and T. D. Jakes.33 They each held varying relationships to what has become known as the prosperity gospel—some embracing it and others outright rejecting it. Furthermore, their denominational/ecclesiastical commitments varied between Pentecostal, Baptist, Word of Faith, and Evangelical Fundamentalist. Juanita Bynum, however, remains virtually the only black female televangelist to reach national and international prominence. In addition to these figures the work of much of religious broadcasting in the 1980s was being nurtured in the conscience of a young, black, classical Pentecostal named Carlton Pearson. A fourth-generation Pentecostal preacher, reared in the oldest Pentecostal denomination in the country, the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), and trained at Oral Roberts University (ORU), Pearson learned the ropes of televangelism through his college mentor, Oral R ­ oberts.34 As a singer in the musical group that traveled with the senior Roberts to revivals and prayer meetings, Pearson was adopted as a “son in ­ministry.” Although there were a number of Blacks at ORU, many who came from the Caribbean for education and would return one day, like televangelist Myles Munroe, Pearson stood close to Roberts. Like others trained at ORU, Pearson adopted the type of possibility message presented by Roberts, who was long a leading figure in the health and wealth gospel. Faithful to this theology, Pearson, when narrating a story about  his grandfather’s tenure as pastor of a Church of God in Christ, intimated that his  grandfather, a black farmer, struggled with tremendous financial challenges. When asked for greater detail, he implicated his grandfather’s faith for his lack of material wealth. “He just didn’t know to believe God like that.” Rather than fully indict the constraints and pressures placed on his grandfather as a black man trying to make a living while dealing with turn-of-the-century racism, Pearson reasoned that his grandfather simply did not fully know the



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principles of faith—the “seed-faith” giving model taught to Pearson by Roberts, which was framed by the expectation that God indeed intended for him to have financial blessings. For Pearson and other faith proponents the individual with enough faith is never fully subject to any system of oppression. As a religious dandy, Carlton Pearson disrupted two presumptions about African Americans in general and African American religiosity in particular— first, that Blacks were poor; and second, that Pentecostal expressivity should remain marginal to the mainstream. Pearson married wealth to Pentecostal expressions and placed them together onstage. Pearson was an astute student

F I G U R E 2 . Bishop Carlton D. Pearson. Courtesy of Bishop Carlton D. Pearson.

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of Roberts and deployed his evolving theology and penchant for Pentecostal expressivity onto the national stage. Unlike the New Thought and Science of Mind theology associated with Reverend Ike, the Pentecostal background of Pearson warmed him to Roberts and gave him a different kind of “edge” in regard to singing at worship services. He had been trained in the COGIC spirit-filled, emotive singing, dancing, and hand-clapping tradition. Fully informed by the free gifts of the Spirit—­ speaking in tongues, prophecy, and healings— Pearson was able to fit comfortably into the Charismatic world of his mentor. With his vocal ability and penchant for engaging preaching, he soon became one of the favorites of Roberts’s ministry. This expressivity of worship, however, became the tool through which his image was controlled. The emotive Pentecostal expression of Carlton Pearson had to be regulated and his performance adjusted for him to be well received on television by both white and black audiences. Moving from the black church in which he was raised to the white, often Charismatic, audience in front of whom he now ministered reminded Pearson that the Pentecostalism of his youth was not quite ready for prime time. As he advanced in television, eventually becoming one of the first black hosts for TBN, Pearson recalls the early days of working on the show and his struggle to mesh his Pentecostalism with the world of religious broadcasting: I was trying to get Blacks on that network [TBN] years ago. . . . In fact, this is the truth, Marla, every place I went I was primarily the only Black there, and the white churches were happy with that. They didn’t want any more Blacks. ’Cause I fit their mold. You know I toned some things down. I could get tuned up when they wanted me to. I could shout; I could sing; I could lead the [choir]—whatever they needed me to do.

His willingness to get tuned up as well as tone things down signals the ways in which his Pentecostalism was adjusted for the viewing audience. Acknowledging his own performative ability, Pearson did not underestimate the workings of race in the media at the time. Considerate of white benefactors, he tempered his style to be more palatable. His form of dandyism, imbued no less with a similar penchant toward prosperity, had a heavy Pentecostalist edge, which raised concern about displays of wealth and articulations of what was presumed to be the exclusive characteristic of black religiosity, emotionalism. As the only African American on TBN, he tried to include other Blacks in his programming. Pearson’s annual Azusa conference, a nondenominational



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gathering of Christians at ORU, kept him in communication with a steady stream of gifted young black ministers and musicians like Marvin Winans, Donnie McClurkin, Deion Sanders, and T. D. Jakes. These efforts initially met with resistance from station owners because, unlike Pearson, other black preachers and musicians would not always operate under standard regulatory patterns. At times they even fell short of the phenotypic expectations of owners and their audiences. Pearson’s caramel-colored complexion, curly hair, and sharp facial features fit the mold of what was acceptable to white audiences. Speaking of his initial introduction of Jakes and others at TBN, he explains, I put them on my national TV program because I wanted the world to know there are a lot of charming, anointed, gifted black preachers. And eventually I got them on the show, some of them. . . . But, see they didn’t want—they thought Jakes’s clothes were too bright and he was too fat and he was too black and he was too this, even after I put him on my show. . . . [But] he started pulling the crowds. Paul loved him. Paul Crouch loved him, his message. And the world started getting fascinated with him. Black people were uncomfortable with, aahhhh . . . you know—us screamin’ and sweatin’ and hollerin’.

For Pearson the complications of race were as much about emotional expression as physical presence. Whites, he intimates, were at times uncomfortable with the emotional expression of Blacks as well as the physical features of some black ministers. Being “too black” reflected the audiences’ temperament at the time regarding the presence of Blacks whose bloodlines were not properly miscegenated into the white American mainstream.35 Not that Whites at the time did not often abhor miscegenation, but they preferred its results to pure-blood blackness. Whites wanted someone with whom they were “­comfortable.” These audiences as well as station owners demonstrated a level of racism of which Pearson believes they were completely unaware. “The white man still controls a lot of everything, even in the Christian television world. And they’re prejudiced and don’t know it. They’re bigoted and don’t know it. They’re discriminatory and don’t know it.” While some might question the level of naïveté present in discriminatory practices, the results were the same. Blacks could appear on white-dominated religious broadcasting networks as long as they fit a particular mold. Interestingly, this same trend was found in religious radio. White radio station owners were resistant to placing black preachers on the radio for fear of losing their audiences. Dr. Tony Evans, one of the leading black evangelical preachers in

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the country, had a difficult entrée to the world of radio. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, had to send out letters to station owners across the country vouching for him as a black minister and asking them to offer Evans an opportunity to broadcast on their stations before they conceded airtime.36 Although Pearson understood the racial politics of white media benefactors, he never was publicly critical and rarely aired grievances privately. For him, this was part of his calling—to work within the system, gain access, and eventually earn the right to request whom he wanted on air. My black friends were calling me a “Tom,” and the white folks said that he [Pearson] was too black to be white and too white to be black. “He doesn’t speak black.” So, I just, I was careful. I just rolled with the punches, took the insults, like I’m taking now. . . . But I had an agenda. I knew I could not expose my people to that movement and that movement to my people and integrate the churches unless I was quiet and earned the right and gained some influence, and once I did, when I did, I could pretty much say, call into California and say, “Jan [Crouch], I’ve got . . . Deion [Sanders] here. He’s in the studio or Emmit Smith’s here. I want him on the show tonight. Or I’ve got somebody that’s singing; do you mind if I bring this person on?” You know. They pretty much let me call some shots at the end.

His peculiar public position kept him in constant tension not only working to appease the white audiences and benefactors who were watching but also ensuring that he did not make a mockery of or insult black audiences. Black audiences were preoccupied with the style of preaching that was presented to the world. They were uncomfortable, Pearson contends, with “us screamin’ and sweatin’ and hollerin.’” Respectability and representation have long been concerns of black church worshippers.37 W. E. B. Du Bois’s articulation of the “preacher, the choir and the frenzy” remains an ominous reminder of the ways in which black religious life has been both an expression of freedom and an Achilles heel for those trying to move into the white American mainstream and those who view such expressivity as disconnected from an engaged intellectualism. Barbara Savage explains that women like Mary Church Terrell, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, and Anna Julia Cooper in the early twentieth century were critical of the emotionalism they saw among black women worshippers. Terrell found it “discouraging and shocking to see how some of the women shout, holler and dance during the services.” Dunbar-Nelson, according to Savage, “chided those who participated for reinforcing negative stereotypes of



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black women as primitive.” Women’s criticisms, she concludes, were more nuanced than those of men like Du Bois and Kelly Miller. Women were “criticizing an excessive reliance on emotionalism in the absence of any meaningful social program or leadership.”38 With the advance of television in the twentieth century many Blacks wanted a minister on television who would present a respectable image to the world. The traditional African American Pentecostal preacher fell short of that expectation. Pentecostalism has only recently eased away from its marginalized position within the world of black religious expression. When Pearson visited the home of friends who were professors at the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C., he was reminded that his image was not merely a representation of his own religious view. Given the limited images of Blacks on television at the time, his presence on TBN in the early 1980s said something more profound about African Americans in general. His friends told him, “When you came on PTL [the Praise the Lord segment of TBN], everybody would rush around the television to watch you. . . . My children were fascinated with what you were saying. My husband and I were fascinated with how you were saying it.” According to Pearson, that one comment communicated to him the “prophetic significance” of his time on TBN: The younger generation was listening to the content. The older generation was listening to the presentation, to [my] articulation as a black man. . . . A certain generation will listen to [what I say], and the others will be interested in the way I say it. Whether I say AAAAAYYY [singing-preaching riff] . . . or, whether I just . . . do the Fred Price teaching thing. . . . And I prayed about it. I said, “Should I do his [teaching method]?” Because I’m not sure they can take a Hammond B-3, with a Leslie speaker and a sweatin’ preacher. And the Holy Ghost said, “Well, you can do both, and I want you to do both. I want you to bring the organ and legitimize that genre. That’s a cultural genre. And I want you to legitimize it.” So I did. And Azusa did the same thing. That’s why these preachers can get by with screamin’ and shoutin’ and hollerin’ [laughter].

This latter attention to the expressivity of Pentecostalism is what made Pearson both appealing and threatening. That he felt compelled to “legitimize” a genre that has now gone public attests to the power of television broadcasting to influence the expressions of religious worship. While other Pentecostals have voiced a similar need to alter the image of Pentecostalism for the airwaves, the stakes for Blacks were even higher. Similar to concerns outlined by historian

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Judith Weisenfeld in her work on the nature of black religious life in film in the early twentieth century, television presentations carried with them deep anxieties about portrayals of Blacks. According to Weisenfeld, discussing Hallelujah, a 1929 film by King Vidor, “all of the black press coverage during the production period made clear the tremendous hope of many African Americans that the film might reshape screen images of Blacks and thereby influence their social and political possibilities, indicating a profound faith and investment in visual culture despite the history of uses of film in support of white supremacy.”39 The charge often levied against Blacks conformed to a larger historical narrative about the innate emotionality of black believers. Historian Curtis Evans offers a compelling analysis of what is termed the “burden” of black religion. Such a tradition, he argues, “groaned” beneath “a multiplicity of interpreters’ demands ranging from uplift of the race to bringing an ambiguous quality of ‘spiritual softness’ to a materialistic and racist white culture.”40 This “spiritual softness” was in effect the combined qualities of emotionality, submission, and humility. It is this element of an emotive and humble spirituality that stood in for the presumed intellectual inferiority of Blacks during much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This presumption of an innate, emotive spirituality (as separate and distinct from an engaged intellectualism) in part certainly informed the concerns Blacks expressed regarding how Pearson and other Blacks represented them on television. The respectability sought in the quest for racial uplift was balanced against the pejorative interpretations of Blacks at large and black religiosity in particular. Nevertheless, Pentecostal and Charismatic religious broadcasts came to dominate the airwaves during the transition to paid-time religious broadcasting because of their very ability to hold the audience captive to the television. Unlike leaders of mainline churches, whose worship services did not have the same type of enthusiasm and excitement, Pentecostal worship leaders could both teach and entertain. Yet for some African Americans, placing religious expression in the context of “entertainment” for mass consumption was troublesome at best.

From Religious Dandy to Mainstream Mogul Both the struggle to gain access to the airwaves and the debate over the proper image to present dominated early discussions of Blacks in religious broadcasting. While these Evangelists wrestled with issues related to emotionalism and



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extravagant presentations of wealth, contemporary religious broadcasters have made even further concessions to fit into the mainstream and gain the respect (and along with it airtime and review ratings) of their audiences. Eventually, the wedding of Ike’s prosperity and Pearson’s Pentecostalism could be seen in the burgeoning neo-Pentecostal movement. Even more cosmopolitan than Ike or Pearson, these neo-Pentecostals often blend a tempered Pentecostalist affect and New Thought directives into a seamless theology and presentation of personal power and economic wealth. Their notions of uplift are steeped in the belief that a comfortable middle-class lifestyle is attainable for all, whether in the United States, Jamaica, or South Africa. While earlier performances of wealth by televangelists featured the bright suits and flamboyant hairstyles of less refined tastes, recent images of televangelists tend to demonstrate the high end of fashion. Such evangelists invest large amounts of money into their wardrobes as well as their bodily appearance. As attire sells, so does physique. Media personalities—even ministers—reconstitute themselves to appear desirable for the viewing audience. According to sociologist Shayne Lee, “In 1997 [televangelist T. D.] Jakes celebrated his fortieth birthday by purchasing a new blue convertible BMW. Deciding he was too valuable a marketing commodity to remain plump, Jakes shed almost a hundred pounds to match his new flamboyant attire.”41 The overweight Jakes reflected lower-class, nonmainstream standing, while the trimmer Jakes commanded middle-class respectability. Similarly Joyce Meyer, one of the most popular white female televangelists, announced to her traveling congregation that she endured a face-lift in order to remain attractive to her audiences, once stating jokingly that her audiences didn’t want to see a “drooping Joyce” walking around onstage.42 Her desire to enhance her physical appearance through surgery reinforces the need to perform a “biblically sanctioned” type of middle-class image to appeal to the mainstream market. Televangelists Juanita Bynum and Paula White have also undergone plastic surgery.43 These physical changes are telling considering the Charismatic and Pentecostal backgrounds of the hosts, traditions that usually frown on outward physical adornment, arguing that the inner person is most important. Certain Pentecostals, like those associated with the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World (PAW), still ban jewelry (except a wedding band), makeup, and pierced ears and do not allow women to wear pants. This type of adornment is considered far too worldly and secular; furthermore, it distracts from perfecting the inner person. Anthropologist John Burdick argues that it is precisely this lack of attention to physical beauty that has served to disrupt the system of racial hierarchy

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in Brazil.44 Not restricted to society’s definitions of beauty, Pentecostals marry across the spectrum of race because they profess to see the inner beauty of their mates rather than the outer.45 The irony in contemporary televangelists’ work to appeal to the audience is that the compelling countercultural and even potentially subversive edge of Pentecostalism has been that Pentecostals didn’t care about what other people thought of them. They were anointed and appointed by God, and that was all the authority they needed. With their theological commitments to modest adornment traditional Pentecostals were not concerned about appealing to people outside their contingent of the saved. Now, onstage and in front of the camera, these considerations loom ever present. In addition to making physical alterations to their bodies, contemporary televangelists enhance their titles as a means of securing prominence and establishing authority among mainstream audiences. Since their initial launch into the world of televangelism, both Juanita Bynum and Paula White have added “PhD” to their names. Paula White’s broadcast now introduces her as “Dr. Paula White” without an indication of the history of her PhD. Similarly, the original cover of Juanita Bynum’s book Matters of the Heart recognizes her as “Juanita Bynum, Ph.D.” Online sites now offer quick, non-accredited degrees for Christian leaders seeking to boost their educational status and their value in the market.46 One does not necessarily have to participate in the traditional educational process. The presentation of religious personalities in televangelism allows religious leaders to perform a type of class distinction that reflects postmodern image making. The image of “Dr.” presented at the beginning of a telecast establishes for the viewing audience the authority of the minister. The history and substance of these letters are of little consequence. Male (not female) religious personalities have more liberally adopted the title of “Bishop” as their status marker. In this way they not only attain the cultural capital associated with the physical acquisition of wealth, but they also acquire a level of spiritual capital based on the presumption of their more highly advanced level of faith, spiritual discernment, and spiritual gifts.47 By appropriating various class markers (e.g., dress, bodily appearance, social titles), televangelists are able to convey to their audiences a type of class status that emanates authority and respect. They are able to transcend the presumed class limitations of their denominational history. No longer burdened by the image of Pentecostalism as a repressive faith, contemporary Pentecostals have appropriated the values of the market as a means of securing their footing in an increasingly global and diverse marketplace. Their positions and presen-



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tations of themselves make them attractive American models for emulation that resonate with everyday audiences. The narratives of success of these contemporary religious dandies are as important as their physical presentations of success. Such “rags-to-riches” stories are quintessentially American. Religious dandies come from a history of struggle. While they have become a part of the mainstream and even exceeded it financially, they remind their audiences of their journey. As Paula White answered Larry King’s questions about her exceptional wealth and plastic surgery on an evening exposé following her public divorce announcement, she reminded him that “when you go back and look at all of the glory, you have to go back to the story.” At heart she’s just a “messed up Mississippi Girl.”48

Conflict The contemporary black religious broadcaster’s capture of the mainstream market ironically raises questions about his or her ability to remain countercultural or even subversive—an idea central to the dandy figure described by Fillin-Yeh and Powell. Interestingly, while the historic black religious dandy disrupted stereo­types, the contemporary dandy must work to fulfill them. Television audiences are accustomed to the idea of wealth, and mainstream America regardless of income level, already presupposes itself middle class. Indeed, one might argue that the contemporary religious broadcaster is no dandy at all. Having come from a history of performances centered on sending a countercultural model of upward mobility to all, the contemporary religious figure fits securely within the American mainstream—black, white, and multiracial. Beholden to the power of the media that has created their public personas, contemporary religious broadcasters must continue to market their wealth as a means of strategically winning the audience to their success story. Once a potentially countercultural model of religious performance, the religious dandy has fully morphed into an executive businessperson with an industry to manage. For most religious broadcasters, airing their shows on satellite cable networks greatly increases the cost of production: videographers, editors, marketers, and high-tech cameras that meet proper codes for effective national and international cable broadcasting. TBN, the Word Network, and other large religious broadcasting companies charge evangelists based on the length of their production, the time of day of their broadcast, and the number of times they are aired. These costs can easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars per month. Thus, hidden

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behind the promise of greater blessing and abundance in the life of the believer is the stinging reality of the market—the costs passed along to the viewer. Tapes, books, and conferences all generate profits, the kind needed to remain viable on television. These demands shape the theology of the dandy as much as personal history and social context. Now fully embraced as an icon of status and celebrity, a multimillionaire who can presumably lead tens thousands of people to economic prosperity, today’s religious broadcaster also spends enormous amounts of money attempting to live up to the image. According to Carlton Pearson, the cost of remaining on air is all consuming. In his heyday as a religious broadcaster, Jan and Paul Crouch threatened his show with cancellation if he did not come up with the ninety thousand dollars necessary to cover his monthly bills. Although two supporters, a star athlete and a fellow television broadcaster, eventually came to his aid, he had already canceled his contract. Pearson claimed repeatedly that television broadcasters struggle to meet the demands of their airtime costs. Many of Pearson’s current criticisms of religious media do not lie in the fallacy of the prosperity gospel per se but rather in the encroachment of the corporate environment on religious broadcasting. Massive buildings, overhead costs, airtime costs, and the accoutrements of success are the blessings and strangleholds of ministries. While he still extols the value of prosperous living, Pearson makes clear the struggles of independent broadcasters attempting to remain on air: We have raised the standard so high as far as crowds, conference size, mailing list size, building size, building project, program size, multi-million-dollar, not just buying of a little storefront building. These guys are on blocks! Christian television should inspire, but it also can insult. . . . The little guy goes, “Man, I ain’t doing nothin’!” . . . Now, the trend is, you should have at least a couple or three thousand people or a building that seats that. You should be into multiple services. You should either charter or own a jet. You should be on nationwide television or at least local television. So all these unspoken standards are there.

These standards and the costs of maintaining them are draining the budgets of ministries aiming to be on national television and those already there. As churches expand their ministry, emphasis changes. And much of it, for Pearson, centers on the dandy, the charismatic figure of success and possibility that



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emerges onstage. The irony, however, is that many broadcasters struggle to remain on top. Now, a lot of the guys, most of the people that are on television, they’re not paying for it. They’re going in the hole every month. . . . It’s an expense they’re willing to make because it still advertises their church. It gives them some popularity. It gives them some prestige, and it may give them some invitations to come and preach at conferences. So ministry is driven by a lot of ego. And . . . the pure purpose or the purity of purpose really is contaminated now. It’s sad to say. But it’s almost impossible to avoid it because when you turn on these bombastic ministries—they set a standard. . . . It’s not popular to be poor or small.

Some might take Pearson’s proclamations as the cant of a sore loser, one who has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars of support and virtually all of his following, but his concerns ring true for many preachers struggling to reach “the next level” in ministry. In interviews with pastors and ministerial assistants in the United States, they note that the cost of reaching up to the “next level” has been exorbitant and taxing on their parishioners.49 When asked whether the cost demands were affecting all ministries or just the smaller ones, Pearson was clear that even the largest ones struggle. Creflo [Dollar, the leading Word of Faith teacher] just stated on television that he’s not paying his bills. Creflo’s on sooo many stations. He pays millions of dollars on television. He’s on all day every day somewhere, more than any other preacher out there. . . . I heard him say on television last week, he was looking at his TV bills and he didn’t have the money to pay his bills. And he said, “This is the last time,” and he said that as a way of faith, and when you say that on television, your partners start writing checks.

Dollar’s statement is either manipulative or true. Given the millions of dollars that highly popular pastors bring in through books, conferences, speaking engagements, and text-messaging systems, the troubling part of the appeal is that listeners never know what the actual need is. Accountability standards are lax. Whether money raised is understood as personal or ministry income has given rise to the “born-again telescandals” of the 1980s and has led to congressional investigations into present-day television ministries.50 Dollar’s request for funds nevertheless demonstrates the centrality of private donations in paying for airtime. Unlike regular cable television, which is sup-

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ported by advertising dollars, religious broadcasting is completely paid time. In this way religious television maintains its freedom of speech and autonomy from outside social pressure. The thousands of dollars needed for broadcasting are transferred to the viewer through solicitations. According to Pearson, this is arduous work: These guys, they make a lot of money, but they also make sacrifices. . . . It’s costly. You should know that a lot of these guys are struggling. It’s like owning a wild animal park. There are some alligators out there with huge appetites, so you’ve got to get that letter out on the first or fifteenth or both. You have to get on the road and hold crusades and raise money. You have to establish relationships with your partners, and you’ve got to make appeals. You’ve got to pull that money in order to feed that monster every day, every month.

Comparing the pressure to pay bills to owning a “wild animal park,” Pearson tried to convey the stress under which many broadcasters live, making clear the correlation between financial appeals and the payment of bills. More often than not these appeals are made in the context of the prosperity gospel, promising God’s blessing in the lives of viewers if they but sow a seed. Paying for airtime and the appearance of success that then inspires audiences to give more is what drives much of the prosperity message. Evangelists must sell possibility and hope even when they themselves (or more likely, their ministries) are not experiencing it. The very message of possibility is what draws viewers. Producers, consumers, and distributors are in a cyclical relationship. When asked about the motivation for ministry, given the shadow of business and money that hovers, Pearson proposed that it was a “complexity of things.” (I include the extended comment here to reflect Pearson’s own emphasis on the unending demands.) First the person generally feels called, almost from childhood. They’re humble and they cry and they fast and they seek God and they’re nobody and they have nothing and they trust God and they do that for years. And then someday they wake up and they’re like, “Dang, here I am, well done, full adult. I’ve got a ministry with respect. I’ve got a crowd following me, money coming in, and I’ve expanded the ministry. I’m on television; I’m on radio. I need a bigger building. I need property. I need television equipment. I need a jet. I need work staff.” . . . So, it’s like, is the glass half empty or half full? You don’t know. You grow so you need more things to accommodate your growth, to maintain the



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growth, and to manage the growth. That’s expensive. If you have a jet, the kind of jets that we need, you’ve got to have two pilots, a pilot and a co-pilot. You’ve got to pay them one hundred thousand dollars or so a year. And you’ve got to maintain the jet. If one of the engines goes out, that’s four hundred thousand dollars. Fuel is phenomenal. And you’ve got to have secretaries. Your secretaries have to have secretaries or administrative assistants. You have other pastors; you have to have a youth pastor, or children’s pastor or visitation pastor, women’s work. You hire all of these people, and then they need assistants. And they need administrators, and they need budgets. They have to have their computers and their phone systems and an operating budget. So, it gets into . . . the preacher doesn’t just fast and pray and seek the face of God. He has to manage. He becomes an employer and an administrator. And he generally has to be entrepreneurial to think of ways to make money. So he wears a lot of hats. Plus, he’s still a husband; he’s still a father. Or she’s still a wife and a mother. He still has all of those responsibilities. Then, you’ve got to be political, work with the denomination that you’re working with. So it’s stressful. These guys are up under a lot of stress. So if they can get on a plane and fly to Maui or Cancún or the south of France, rest a week. They need it, or they will explode. A lot of them have high blood pressure; a lot of them have migraines, have heart trouble. They don’t eat right—colon infections and bladder and liver and all kinds of stuff. And sometimes they have a kid that’s off or a wife that’s depressed. Or some of them have someone that’s caught in some kind of alcoholism or drug addiction. You know, dentists get cavities. And mechanics’ cars break down too. So no one really expects that of preachers, and no one really suspects. The masses think they’ve got it going on. But most of those guys are living through hell every day . . . every day. And a lot of them don’t sleep well. So much. God is stretching, but the people will stress you! And it’s hard to know when you’re stretched and when you’re stressed. . . . And I feel sorry for a lot of these guys.

Conclusion At one time racial uplift was ostentatiously reflected in the images and expectations of success made popular by religious producers. With religious broadcasters donning tailored suits, driving expensive cars, and buying extravagant homes, a novel image of black religiosity was proffered in the United States and around the world. Set against a historic backdrop of black poverty, overt

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white racism, and social unrest, these images redefined black possibility. Such performances of prosperity, uniquely understood by their creators as divinely generated and sanctioned, form what I call “religious dandyism.” This dandyism spoke against prevailing attitudes marking austerity and poverty as signs of God’s blessing and instead named prosperity a fundamental right of all believers—even black ones. According to its advocates, prosperity theology proffered for some Blacks in particular a new vision and sense of entitlement to upward mobility. This dandy’s adaptation to television broadcasting served to further his power and influence. While some saw the religious dandy’s extraordinary flare for the dramatic as a brazen mockery of true faith, the religious dandy believed his presentation a divine mandate from God. Skeptics criticized the religious dandy in the same way as the smart-dressing urban dandy—calling him outrageous and egotistical. Everyday ministers often thought people like Reverend Ike were bad witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ; their penchant for extracting funds from followers made them little more than sanctified hustlers rather than anointed preachers. Transformed over the years by the swelling demands of the television market and conflicts over his expressive Pentecostalism, the contemporary dandy is at times a shadow of his former self. In many ways this potentially countercultural figure has been altered in order to succeed on mainstream television broadcasts. Again, one questions whether the term “dandy” even suits more contemporary models of religious broadcasters. Now the “religious dandy” is part and parcel of the American televangelist mainstream. If the black dandy in Richard Powell’s assessment was supposed to stand as a countercultural reflection of society’s expectations, then the contemporary religious broadcaster falls far short of standing counter to the culture. As American religious life has taken on decidedly more materialist expressions, in many ways contemporary religious broadcasters embody and reflect the culture. That such broadcasters at times work against being perceived as “prosperity preachers” further indicates how the religious dandyism of Reverend Ike’s day has undergone considerable transformation. Whether because of the ongoing media exposés of preachers who have fallen victim to the accoutrements of success and greed; the federal government’s investigation into the spending habits of the ministries of Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Creflo and Taffi Dollar, Randy and Paula White, and Eddie Long; or the ongoing criticism of everyday parishioners whose lot falls below the ex-



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pectations of prosperity preached, the discourse on prosperity, as equated with purely financial blessing, has been tempered greatly.51 Contemporary religious broadcasters speak more often today of a type of “relative prosperity,” one not hinged on financial windfalls, elaborate houses, or expensive cars. Not that they have completely sacrificed these badges of success; instead, they have added greater nuance to their measure of prosperity. Creflo Dollar, for example has emphasized in more of his sermons that prosperity isn’t just about money. T. D. Jakes has been noted to indicate that he is “not a prosperity preacher.”52 Such claims belie their sometimes aggressive appeals for financial support based on the promise of returned blessings. Walton suggests that each of these ministries is different, even though they largely emphasize a prosperity message, and must be evaluated on their theology, history, and politics.53 All too often, black religious leaders in particular are not permitted nuance and variation. To pigeonhole all black religious broadcasters into a category that assumes their homogeneity distorts reality and relies on racial stereotyping. That contemporary preachers often speak more of a type of relative prosperity reflects how the genre itself is changing, as well as how the people are receiving the messages. In Jamaica, American broadcasters brought into the homes through cable television since the days of Jimmy Swaggart have preached a message of prosperity and possibility. The relative ways in which people interpret the prosperity gospel today attests to its sustainability. These theologies have been globalized by being remade and adapted both in their countries of origin and outside these borders. The prosperity gospel moves across various terrains, inviting dynamic and uneven transformation. In this instance it offers a remake of what might be considered a hegemonic message of prosperity, illsuited for poor communities of color. Looking at the contemporary prosperity gospels in Jamaica helps us understand how the seemingly irrelevant discourse of prosperity becomes relevant in one of the poorest regions of the world.

3 R E L ATIVE PROSPE R IT Y Lived Religion in the “Dying Field” When I see those ministers preaching about prosperity . . . it teaches me that you will be victorious. David, Reedstown resident

We traveled to Reedstown in separate cars. William, our host, had plans of heading home immediately following our time together; my research assistant, Allison, and I would head back north toward campus. We tagged closely behind in a rented compact car, trying to negotiate the twists and turns of the road while I simultaneously adjusted to steering from the right-hand side of the car. When we entered the neighborhood (if one chooses to call it that given that the “neighborliness” of the community seemed to have long since departed), we immediately noticed that the houses stood bare, drab, as if lifeless. Windows were open; iron grills, locked. Dry dust colored the few signs of laughter and life we spotted as kids played down the street with sticks and rocks in an abandoned ditch. A graffiti-covered, blue-tented stone wall reminded passersby of Bob Marley’s commendation that we share “one love.” The reverse side displayed King’s caustic reminder, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” As we passed street after street blockaded by tree trunks and other large, obtrusive items strewn across the road, it appeared as if local support services had offered no public assistance in this seemingly abandoned but densely populated area. While other upscale neighborhoods and downtown regions of Kingston also have noticeable potholes, these obstructions reflected more than the regular wear and tear of city streets. They marked the near-complete neglect of this area by government and law enforcement agencies. As we turned off the main road toward the church, the stench of trash smoldering in the

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heat and strewn along the gravel path disrupted my concentration on William’s narrative of the place. When we finally reached our destination—a deserted grassy field about a quarter of a mile from the local prison, a “no-man’s land,” a literal “dying field” because of the number of people whose lifeless bodies have been left here—William explained to me that our journey had been circuitous because local residents had placed tree trunks in the road for protection. Attempting to reduce the number of drive-by shootings in the area, they reasoned that if gunmen cannnot make it down the street quickly and without detection, then they are less likely to wage warfare in the streets with automatic weapons. I was staying just a few miles from here, and Allison had warned me repeatedly against wandering too far. Not even local churches wanted to set up in this area of the city.1 We came on this particular day to meet members of William’s tent church, Praise City, which he and other people from his home church had set up despite the real safety concerns of his pastor. Their Pentecostal zeal and willingness to engage in spiritual warfare against “the enemy” in this part of the city were either a brazen act of spiritual muscle or a foolish wish for death. The worship style and dedicated presence in the community drew a small crowd each Sunday. Though William insists that they are an amalgamation of Christian practices, not truly Pentecostal or Baptist, their worship service distinctly resembles that of more Charismatic traditions.2 Even their ecclesiastical structure, consisting of a bishop and several ministers, is reminiscent of Pentecostal hierarchical structures. On this particular day eight of us sat on makeshift benches beneath a tin roof, talking about experiences of faith in Reedstown and the sources of inspiration. Those who came were Kingston’s “truly disadvantaged.”3 With virtually no means of economic mobility and little chance for a reprieve from their situation, they looked for hope under William’s tent. Strangely enough, the “dying field” is here the space of “lived religion.” Beyond the stained-glass windows and vaulted ceilings of established churches, religion, as David Hall reminds us, takes place in the cracks and crevices of society—in the places made for worship and the places where worship simply happens.4 Lived religion frames the daily lives of individuals who often think of themselves as more than temporal beings, those limited by the constraints of time and the fixtures of place. In Reedstown lived religion makes us ask what “life” actually derives from religion, when the spaces so often inhabited by it are places of desolation and despair. I wrestle here with the liminal space created between poverty and prosperity, between promise and possession, “seed time” and “harvest”—the space that



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faith alone fills, the lived experience of sacred devotion. As people apply faith to their goal of prosperity, often sowing seeds, engaging in elaborate prayer rituals, and “speaking the word in their lives,” how do they make sense of the time—the days, months, and years—that fills their waiting? How do notions of prosperity become entwined with lives so densely informed by poverty and violence? I argue in part that adherents’ adaptation of a “relative prosperity” accounts for the longevity and sustainability of prosperity ideologies throughout economic fortune and misfortune. While some among Jamaica’s middle class over the past forty years have been able to survive in spite of the country’s struggling economy, the poor and lower classes have felt the brunt of the region’s stifled development. Urbanization in the 1940s and 1950s brought large numbers of rural dwellers into the cities as a result of the “‘push’ of rural poverty and the ‘pull’ of socio-economic opportunities in the urban arena—both real and perceived.”5 The rapid increase of people in Kingston’s urban areas strained the potential not only for work but also for housing and services. Locating to the cities to secure jobs promised by expanding industries—a phenomenon reminiscent of the great migrations north in the United States—poor farmworkers came to urban regions by the hundreds, leaving the land and the skills of agricultural labor. These hopes dashed by limited growth, many remained in the cities, working menial jobs in the service industry or developing their own small entrepreneurial ventures on the sidewalks of Kingston’s downtown and other scattered enclaves.6 Important works by anthropologists like A. Lynne Bolles, Faye V. Harrison, and Gina A. Ulysse discuss the significance of women to the labor market in Jamaica and the ways in which they have created livelihoods for themselves and their families throughout tumultuous periods of economic development.7 While some women have been able to find and/or produce work for themselves in the formal sectors of the economy, others have felt forced to participate in the city’s underworld of drugs and violence, where women and their young daughters often engage in sex in exchange for food, shelter, and clothing. This history of economic misfortune is not the subject of tourist brochures and cruise line television ads. The depiction for the outside world of crisp, clean beaches in Jamaica’s Ocho Rios and Montego Bay areas belies the real struggles faced by inhabitants in the cities beyond the mountain views and sky-blue ocean. Like many areas of the Caribbean basin, Jamaica has struggled to make sense of its growing economic inequalities. While Jamaica’s economy grew in the 1960s, the gross domestic product and the per capita income peaked in the

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1970s.8 A series of decisions by ruling authorities along with changing relationships with multinational corporations initiated a period of debt for ­Jamaica from which the country has yet to recover. The country’s debt to the IMF increased from $124 million in 1972 to $489 million in 1976. A later series of ­international crises, multinational market ventures, and misguided government initiatives increased the debt to $3.4 billion by the year 2000. Under this burden “the country’s external debt of $3.4 billion equaled 50 percent of gross domestic product and 75 percent of the nation’s total export of goods and services, while debt service (paying off the interest) was $477 million a year.”9 This liability has left little room for public services and the building up of industry within ­Jamaica itself. Tourism, reliant on blue seas, white sand, and beautiful coral reefs, is strained by the constant extraction of natural resources from the country to service the country’s debts, resulting in far fewer coral reefs for people to visit. Coupled with this economic strain is the cycle of violence that seems to dominate Kingston. Competition between the PNP and JLP over the direction of the country post-1962 emancipation fueled ongoing political violence and economic struggle. As anthropologist Deborah Thomas laments, “The region as a whole has a murder rate higher than any other in the world and instances of assault throughout the Caribbean are significantly above the world’s average.”10 Thomas’s Exceptional Violence documents this history well, while taking to task Western governments and imperialist processes of state making in the Caribbean that facilitated much of the historic violence in the region. Political violence over the years has caused a significant number of the country’s deaths. Scholars attempting to understand the relationship between violence and economic growth suggest that without curbing the tide of violence, the economy cannot successfully grow. Anthony Harriott, stating it more starkly, insists that Jamaica must deal with its crime problem because it is now developing a “parasitic relationship” with business: “The growth of the economy, the creation of opportunities for the unemployed, may also lead to the creation of greater opportunities for organized crime.”11 The nexus between the economy, crime, and politics creates a dizzying set of dynamics that all too often reinforces a downward cycle of change. The complexities of Jamaica’s crime problem are historically connected to the experience of colonialism and the rise of contentious party politics. Political violence increased in the 1960s and 1970s with the formation of garrison communities, regions with strong-armed loyalty to certain political parties, coupled with the introduction of guns that replaced knives and machetes. 12



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This violence escalated as political leaders operated on a patronage system, offering jobs and services to local “dons” or underworld neighborhood leaders and their communities when they delivered political victories. “For the urban poor, the dons act as important brokers who can connect them to economic and political resources. The dons’ gatekeeper position allows them to exact resources or services from state actors, who will strategically turn a blind eye towards illegal activities. . . . Dons often provide services such as financial support, employment, and security—sometimes by linking to formal state actors and sometimes by replacing them.” 13 This relationship has fueled a cycle of physical violence and death and places a severe strain on true democracy. In his study of what he considers the “social power of the urban poor” in the relationship between political leaders and local gunmen, Obika Gray suggests, The predicament of the predatory Jamaican state is that the measures that secure its dominance and sustain the cohesion of the society—clientelist party rule, punitive violence and elite unity—become the very sources that threaten the erosion of its power. As the parasitic state and its agents move into the shadow economy, violate democratic practices with impunity, protect fearsome gunmen, and foment a crucifying political violence in which the poor become ­cannon-fodder and the well-to-do fear for their physical safety, a legitimation crisis ensues and the hold on power by state agents becomes increasingly tenuous.14

This blending of state power with local leadership and crime overwhelms attempts of poor Jamaicans to escape the destructive and dehumanizing conditions of the inner city. Reedstown is all too central to this drama. The issues of poverty, violence, and fear that dominate life in Kingston’s inner city raise questions about the possibilities of religious hope in this broken community. Although few missions make their home here, William’s church, along with the electronic church that allows American and a few Jamaican ministers to present their messages via satellite, undistracted by safety concerns, offers for some residents prescriptions for life, joy, peace, and abundance. Here in Reedstown, one of the main garrison communities, random passersby make their way through the field to this unlikely oasis. On weekday mornings William’s church members set up breakfast for local schoolchildren in the rusted mobile home that serves as a kitchen at one end and sleeping quarters at the other. On Sundays folks gather for service under the open-air tent. Their adaptations of contemporary prosperity gospels raise questions about the meaning

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of prosperity, the power of global media in identity formation, and the possibilities for personal and social transformation. Along with those living on the margins of society in the favelas (slums) of Brazil, the shantytowns of South Africa, and the inner cities of the United States, the people of Reedstown are those whose life circumstances indicate anything but prosperity. Like other inner-city communities around the world, Reedstown is the place least likely to experience the type of abundance espoused by wealthy American television preachers who have been the predominant architects of the theology of prosperity. Nevertheless, the prosperity gospel consistently informs at least some of the religious ideation of the community’s Christian population. The appropriation of the prosperity gospel in severely depressed communities is complicated. Myles Munroe, Sunday Adelaja, and T. D. Jakes have all spoken to these communities with their varied messages of prosperity and hope. According to these televangelists, Jamaica does not have to look like this; the people do not have to suffer like this; and the community does not have to endure the weight of poverty. Hope and possibility exist, the preachers say. Adelaja had seen it in the Ukraine, and the people of Jamaica could see it, too, if they would just exercise their faith and change their practices. Adapted from early twentieth-century discussions of New Thought, the contemporary prosperity gospel consists of an assortment of theological teachings suggesting that God indeed intends for all to have a life of physical health and financial wealth.15 With the rise of religious broadcasting and prominence of prosperity gospels on cable television over the past three decades, this theology has become increasingly popular. Ethnographic research among members of William’s church in Reedstown and two other Pentecostal churches in Kingston affirm the importance of media in the spreading of this message. Yet, in a place like Reedstown, weighted down by perpetual poverty, one wonders how such a message might thrive. Amid severe economic regression often brought on by failed attempts at neoliberal economic reform, how does a message of health and wealth thrive in this region of the Caribbean? How do prosperity believers reconcile their life circumstances with the theology of prosperity? With little more than the clothes on their backs and the shoes on their feet, men and women of Reedstown sat with me and told me that they were, among other things, “prosperous.” Their use of this language led me to reconsider how people appropriate the narratives of blessing and favor that constantly pour forth from religious broadcasting. While it is important to try to extrapolate the



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details of preachers’ messages, it is equally important to understand how these messages of prosperity translate in communities beyond the confines of suburban and solidly middle-class America or relatively middle-class areas of Jamaica, Ghana, Nigeria, or Rio de Janeiro. Certainly middle-class members of some of Jamaica’s larger, more popular churches tune in to hear T. D. Jakes, Creflo Dollar, and other noted televangelists. I talked with several m ­ iddle-class, college-educated people in Kingston who tune into TBN as a regular part of their spiritual diet. Some scholars attribute the appeal of the message to these viewers to their need for affirmation. God, Himself, the argument goes, places His seal of approval on their upward economic mobility. Thus, while prosperity gospels are also popular among middle- and ­working-class people, how does the message of prosperity resonate in the midst of economic regression and stagnation among the world’s poorest citizens? As the gap between the rich and poor continues to broaden under neoliberal economic reform,16 and as books by leading American televangelists like T. D. Jakes, Paula White, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, and Creflo Dollar saturate bookstores and other media outlets (e.g., webcasts and podcasts) in global urban centers like Kingston, how are their messages being adopted by people living in a country whose economic system struggles to stay afloat amid transnational economic shifts? What influence does a prosperity gospel have on the everyday life experiences of people laboring under the burdens of poverty? The rise in prosperity gospels, according to anthropologists John and Jean Comaroff, exemplifies the global rise in what they term “occult economies.” “These economies,” they suggest, “have two dimensions: a material aspect founded on the effort to conjure wealth—or to account for its accumulation—by appeal to techniques that defy explanation in the conventional terms of practical reason; and an ethical aspect grounded in the moral discourses and (re)actions sparked by the real or imagined production of value through such ‘magical’ means.” Along with the dramatic rise in casinos around the world, these types of economies attempt to create wealth by unconventional means because under “millennial capital,” global economic policies tend to transfer significant financial resources to the wealthiest rather than the poorest citizens as companies remain in constant search for the cheapest labor. Discussing evangelical prosperity gospels and other forms of occult economies, the Comaroffs conclude that “these alchemic techniques defy reason in promising unnaturally large ­profits—to yield wealth without production, value without effort. Here, again, is the specter, the distinctive spirit, of neoliberal capitalism in its triumphal hour.”17

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According to the Comaroffs’ analysis, the decline of market opportunities of production in distressed communities has led to an increased opportunity for these alternative economies to proliferate. A number of scholars have begun to wrestle with the implication of the growing influence of prosperity theologies for communities both within and outside the United States. The work of prosperity gospels has been the subject of study in Nigeria, Ghana, Brazil, and parts of Europe and Asia. From plush urban settings of Los Angeles, London, and Johannesburg to the favelas and paradise isles of Brazil, viewers of Pentecostal and Charismatic religious broadcasting are giving increasing attention to theologies that promise prosperity in this present age. In light of these emerging trends scholars have contributed greatly to our knowledge of the history of these theologies and the social, political, and even ethical questions they inspire. Anthropologists and sociologists concerned with the social import of these theologies have situated their studies within specific communities to explore how they influence people within particular historic, geographic, and political contexts.18 Many case studies suggest that prosperity gospels act as welcomed facilitators of modernity or at least help individuals navigate the challenges of modernity. However, individuals and communities are at times hostile to the message of the prosperity gospel. Daniel Smith argues that in one instance the individualistic framework of the prosperity gospel in Nigeria came into conflict with the communalistic traditions of Nigerian society. Such rampant individualism, he argues, sparked the Oweri riots, which resulted in the burning down of a large prosperity gospel church. Residents presumed the individualism and material showmanship of members of the prosperity-driven church were actually manifestations of the occult.19 Other studies have examined the modernist impulse that prosperity theologies offer, often linking up-and-coming middle-class worshippers with a theology that facilitates and supports their movement into the middle class through professional networks and access to technological innovation.20 Rosalind Hackett, for example, suggests that even though ministries of the prosperity gospel in Nigeria are an “obvious draw in hard times,” “the benefits of the organizational skills they impart and the social networks they offer should not be downplayed. Their progressive, goal-oriented attitudes attract the youth, disillusioned with the empty moral claims of their elders and leaders.”21 Similarly, Marleen de Witte suggests that such ministries in Ghana offer a “message of self-making cast in the rhetoric of individual success that seems to attract



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so many young people to the possibilities of modern capitalism.”22 Attending relatively large churches with media ministries, praise and worship bands, and opportunities for mingling with other individuals aiming for middle-class life affirms for these young people the value of the prosperity gospel. Furthermore, by offering members a “complete break from the past,” as Birgit Meyer contends, Pentecostalism aids believers in adjusting psychologically to the demands of modernity.23 Such ruptures facilitate the construction of identities more suited to neoliberal market demands for entrepreneurs or other capitalist laborers malleable to unstructured and unregimented economic climates. Gerardo Marti, for example, argues that among members of a Los Angeles church, the prosperity gospel aids in the process of “individualization.” Since religious orientations help create identities, the prosperity gospel, he suggests, is a “powerful resource for discovering the self-enlightenment and self-liberation demanded by modern workers.”24 As in the case of the Heavenly Touch Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, Sung-Gun Kim contends that the prosperity gospel and its “positive thinking” message “may ‘empower’ people who feel financially or even culturally marginalized to think they should do and be more.”25 Sociologist Milmon Harrison similarly suggests that such ministries, as witnessed in the United States, focus on economic possibility by countering narratives of racial limitations—emphasizing the sense of open possibility that members of African American Word of Faith churches experience. This contrasts with their experiences in mainline black churches, which they believe have historically focused more on the problems and challenges of racism in America than on contemporary possibilities.26 Beyond the self-making modes of the prosperity gospel, scholars attend to the ways in which such teachings, applied in different contexts, have the potential to extend social welfare—a view quite contrary to the overarching critique of the prosperity gospel as individualistic and consumption oriented. Compelled to set his own biases aside, Devaka Premawardhana explains that the prosperity gospel among immigrants in a community in Boston has enabled members of one church to adjust to their new surroundings. As people give to the church and to others in sacrificial seed-faith rituals, giving generously to others from their limited resources, they move from “beneficiary” to “­benefactor,” aiding one another through the challenging process of establishing roots in a new location. Such assistance can be of particular benefit to women, who often make up the majority of adherents in these communities, as discussed in studies of the prosperity gospel in Mozambique and Fiji.27 Naomi

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Haynes similarly concludes that in the Zambian Copperbelt, while “economic differentiation is a central component of prosperity,” followers of the teachings rely on this differentiation to create embedded social relations where those who have are able to give to those without. Furthermore, “Nsofu believers have expanded the definition of prosperity to include intangible blessings; qualified it with caveats about the speed with which blessing can be expected; and . . . staggered through expectations of prosperity along a continuum of material advancement.”28 At the same time, if the prosperity gospel, as traditionally defined, promises instant wealth and health, then why do those who do not experience instant gratification continue to participate? As demonstrated in the emerging literature, the inclination to believe that people are simply “duped” by charismatic preachers is an easy yet insufficient explanation, because it is an analysis rooted in bounded questions of political economy. The idea that God is a lottery machine and that people expect the Divine to drop down heavenly houses, cars, and clothes to satisfy their temporal cravings falls short of a sophisticated understanding of what offers ongoing motivation for seed-faith giving and deepseated beliefs in prosperity. The Comaroffs provide a useful and illuminating explanation for how such theologies emerge at this particular millennial moment. But how might we account for their longevity?29 Surely after seed-faith giving over a decade or more, many might lose heart and depart from the teachings (and some have), but many remain. Studies of burgeoning middleclass churches where prosperity theology is alive and well present a compelling case for why prosperity theologies work among the up-and-­coming. Yet, this does not help us interpret the work of prosperity gospels among those whose life circumstances offer a rather bleak picture of prosperity. Many such studies demonstrate the inherent flexibility of the theology of prosperity. Katherine Attanasi speaks of the very multiplicity of types of Pentecostalisms and prosperity theologies with which scholars must contend.30 This notion of flexibility and change grounds my understanding of the doctrine’s appeal and my understanding of its longevity even during economic downturns like the 2008 global economic recession. One way of approaching the question of longevity during economic recession is to rethink what prosperity really means for people who appropriate its narratives. While it is commonplace to speak of the prosperity gospel, presuming agreement on what it means—instantaneous supernatural returns for financial gifts “sewn” into a ministry—it is important that we take cues



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from scholars like Attanasi and Haynes. Marti even suggests that prosperity gospels offer “less a promise of prosperity than an expectation that working diligently to exercise one’s talents creates the condition for success in secular careers.”31 Marti believes, as Tomas Drønen does, that contemporary prosperity gospel preachers do not even emphasize the miraculous as much as Weberian i­ deals of hard work and discipline.32 In each of these iterations prosperity is not a single, unchanging idea. Ultimately, the prosperity theology or prosperity gospel is no single entity at all; it has various meanings and interpretations in different contexts. Are people ever convinced to give extraordinary amounts of money, believing they will receive great financial rewards in return? ­Absolutely. Is that the main or predominant message and interpretation that is received around the world? Jamaicans’ varying understandings of prosperity suggest—possibly not. Prosperity, as constructed in the minds of most believers, is not a fixed and absolute condition, based solely in the acquisition of material goods. Its meaning is neither static nor stationary. Thus, there is a social logic among followers of the prosperity gospel that causes the theology to hold saliency in people’s lives even as the reality of social stagnation sets in. Prosperity’s condition as a “moving target” allows for this type of commitment. What do people actually mean when they say that they are “prosperous” or “prospering” or “looking to prosper”? Contrary to the image presented by prosperity ministers with elaborate facilities and fashionable clothes, the ultimate goal for adherents often is not found solely in the acquisition of material goods. “Relative prosperity,” I suggest, blends the material, spiritual, and social motivations and outcomes of giving in a way that allows the giver to consistently offer his or her seed-faith gifts amid incongruent social realities. The instability and malleability of the concept of prosperity is central to its longevity. Without this fluidity of meaning, such a theology could not sustain itself. I noticed three ways in which prosperity manifests itself as relative in the lives of believers. First, prosperity is constitutionally relative. It consists of much more than the physical health and wealth concerns popularly attributed to prosperity teachings. It often includes much less tangible things like peace of mind, joy, family harmony and growth, a relationship with God, and good marital relationships. As the teachings themselves have grown to include issues beyond health and wealth, practitioners have likewise grown to have expectations beyond material abundance. Second, prosperity is temporally relative. It is based on an individual’s understanding of his or her past and present or

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future circumstances. Moving from being both homeless and physically ill to eventually having restored health might suggest to some that they are indeed prospering even if they remain homeless. Over time they are moving from one condition to another. Others may not see it as a dramatic improvement; nonetheless, it is a sign that things are “getting better.” Finally, notions of prosperity are spatially relative, because they are situated within particular community and geographic contexts. Individual prosperity is often understood as relative to the conditions of others in the community. One’s benchmark for prosperity, thus, is not necessarily the performer that one sees onstage or the preacher that one sees on television. Poor residents might be poor to an outsider, but within the community, individuals might actually experience a level of prosperity that places them at a material advantage over other members of the community. The three notions of relative prosperity can be applied to the Jamaican context.

Prosperity as Constitutionally Relative Sitting under the wood and aluminum tent put together by William’s missionary group, we began our discussion of religious broadcasting by talking with Samantha, Diana, Daniel, Elizabeth, and Shaunie about their own religious commitments and how they had come to worship at Praise City. The conversation was an extension of conversations I had begun with other Kingstonians. At the heart of my inquiry was the question, What does prosperity mean amid economic lack? Just as we were about to launch into our discussion, one of the women rose abruptly from the group and walked away. Seeming a bit unsettled, she had been fidgeting with her shirt from the time we assembled. White, half-torn, exposing the strap of her bra, the shirt was fully worn-out. From the bench we could see her rearranging clothes that were hung out to dry on a line running between the trailer and the tent. When I asked what was wrong, William explained that she was embarrassed by her clothes and didn’t want to remain in the group. I hesitated to continue, but the remainder of the group seemed fully interested in what had brought me to Reedstown in the middle of the week on this hot, sunny day to talk with them. Though most of the visitors to William’s church were unemployed, they spoke candidly and enthusiastically about prosperity. But it wasn’t the performed prosperity of television stars. It was something much simpler and less dependent on absolute economic variables, though they certainly considered economic advancement. As I asked how they make ends meet in Reed-



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stown given their own unemployment, Elizabeth simply explained, “Well, it is tough, but more times than not, the Lord provides.” This provision came through siblings, church members, family, and strangers.33 Shaunie interjected that her sister in America helps her out. Her story was reminiscent of other cases I heard in which friends and family send remittances to Jamaica on a regular basis. Such gifts now topped the list of “foreign exchange inflows into Jamaica,” amounting to a flow of cash larger than from tourism and the extraction of bauxite/alumina.34 Shaunie was just one of those fortunate enough to have someone in another country able to help her out. As we continued to talk, it became evident that definitions of prosperity for those in William’s church, much like those of members of other churches, are in flux. Our conversation halted momentarily as we watched a group of men in the distance cross the field behind us. The group, William later explained, were probably men who had been rounded up the night before and held at the local prison for interrogation. Having been released, they were now heading back to their respective homes. David, unaffected by the passersby, continued, “Prosperity is when you can achieve your ultimate goal, whether that is spiritual or financial. It is when you reach the top of your climb.” This climb for David seems to typify most characterizations of life in inner-city Kingston. At least for Selena, David’s explanation found resonance. “Prosperity means to me that a light will shine on you when you are doing good. When I don’t feel down, that is when I know I am doing good.” Even though she was just twentytwo years old, her words reflected the mature concerns of one burdened by the need to find employment. For quite some time she had been having trouble finding work that would pay her bills and allow her the security to cover the needs of her family. The emotional strain of unemployment was met by the hope provided in prosperity. This type of emotional respite was a repeated refrain issued by women who, against a backdrop of economic instability, struggled to meet their own needs and their dependent children’s needs. The pastors and leaders conference earlier that month made note of the issue, but the reality of the day-to-day struggles of women raising children in the inner city formed the crux of William’s ministry. These women were the prey of the dons. On one trip to Praise City, William explained that the majority of the church members are unemployed single mothers. He witnesses firsthand their stories about the dangers awaiting them and the predatory nature of the dons in providing for women. Everything comes at a price. Several people had already told me about teenage girls who exchanged their virginity for food and clothing.

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Dons operated as providers for their community, but always in exchange for something more valuable. Bishops in the area tried to meet with several dons to broker a deal to have the dons surrender their control over the community. William was outraged: “We’re spending too much money to try to foster meetings with these dons. They will not change! Because what we want to do is eradicate the working of donship; we want to get that out, because once the dons are there, the people will look to them. I don’t want them there, you understand?” William believes that once the dons are gone, he can get the people to once again seek God for provision. This plan has been his work at Praise City.35 The church helps provide food and clothing for those in need. The earlymorning breakfast for schoolkids is just one more way of letting women in particular know that they do not have to rely on the dons for provision. As I observed the surroundings one morning before service, the disproportionate number of women and children was evident. Little ones walked up and down the aisle and meandered around the edges of the tent waiting for the service to begin. One tiny boy climbed into my lap and sat there as I took notes on the Sunday school lesson. When he was contented, he jumped down just as whimsically as he had climbed up and continued his morning play with the other children. The lightheartedness of the children at play was offset by the weight of their mothers’ worship during service and the power of their prayers for hope, healing, and deliverance. Women were not the only members. Men were present but in fewer numbers, as in most churches. All played key roles in the service—pastor, keyboardist, drummer. They set up equipment before the service and broke everything down afterward. Just a few were ordinary worshippers, not assuming key roles. William’s church had been an oasis in the middle of this desert. It was a place where community members might find inspiration and assistance. Yet it wasn’t just the spiritual zeal, affirmation of scripture, and healing services on Sunday morning that offered support; it was also the ministry of televangelists. According to David, watching televangelists is a constant source of spiritual affirmation: “We are churchgoers and all of that. We all also watch religious programming. It is like the ‘in’ thing in the community.” Since conversion (and sometimes prior to accepting Christ into their lives and joining the church) they all watch American televangelists such as T. D. Jakes, Juanita Bynum, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, and John Hagee. These ministers, declared David, preach “with power.” “When I see those ministers preaching about prosperity, it makes me stronger in Christ.



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It teaches me that whatever you are going through in life, if you stand fast in God and focus on him, you will be victorious.” Interestingly, for David, the first benefit of prosperity is not material. Prosperity ministries make him “stronger in Christ.” A sense of being in direct relationship with God is often the first and most important benefit found in following prosperity gospels. The ability to communicate directly to a God that responds immediately is the reward of faith.36 With this relationship comes a sense of power, and with this power, pending financial victory. The ever-present provision of God even in the midst of economic turmoil steadied the voices of William’s members, producing calm rather than despair. Blending the conviction of biblical authority found in traditional Pentecostalism with the this-worldly promise of abundance generated by popular prosperity gospels, they were not as anxious about the future as their circumstances seem to warrant, or at least they did not communicate anxiety. The language of prosperity refuses defeat. It is always one day away from victory. Jakes’s commonly referenced “get ready, get ready, get ready” refrain marks the very anticipation that accompanies prosperity. It is always expectant, and so, too, were the believers with whom I spoke. Because the people had given up on the government’s ability to solve the problem of violence in the community and were resigned to having their physical needs met by the beneficent hand of God, prosperity theology offered the promise of a certain return on their investment of faith. The discourse of prosperity responds to both spiritual and physical needs. Spiritually, it offers hope, peace, and a sense of moral value to individual lives. One’s life did not have to waste away in a nihilism nurtured by unrelenting poverty and violence. Members were not looking through rose-colored glasses, but in the midst of struggle they enjoyed the fruits of prosperity so far—greater faith, renewed joy, patience on the journey, and a life of holiness. Nevertheless, members were also expecting God both to provide their daily sustenance and to end the community’s violence. For them this, too, was prosperity. Little in their voices indicated anything but hope as they watched the ministries of televangelists. These evangelists, it turns out, seemed to answer many of life’s questions. God would rectify the violence pervading the community. As Diane explained to the nods of her fellow believers, “No politician can stop it! Only God alone can stop it! Only prayer can get you out of the violence.” Although they often have had trouble trying to call ministries in the United States with prayer requests because of the cost of making an international call

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and their limited resources, they still pray with the ministers on television, ­believing they will get answers. Whether concerns are related to salvation or self-esteem, the televangelists offer more than means to material gain. Like the members of William’s tent church, other Pentecostal worshippers in Kingston were expectant. Because of economic recession, ministers and laypersons alike were hesitant to talk about a single form of prosperity that hinged strictly on the acquisition of material wealth. The presumption of material gain alone proved for some a fallacy in “biblical teachings.” A member of a growing Pentecostal church in Kingston, Carla Jones was one whose understanding of prosperity reached far beyond what televangelists assert. Miles away from William’s tent church, Carla and I sat to talk one day in my apartment, which was at the rear of the campus among trees at a local seminary. She was a friend of a friend, training for ministry—making her way through the course program at the school. Convinced of the value of prosperity teachings, but frustrated with the way they came across from the United States, she found trouble in the cultural transmission. Prosperity, indeed, but not the way Americans preach it. Prosperity is not only money; it’s life, it’s health, so when I spoke about prosperity gospel [earlier], when I spoke about prosperity gospel . . . in a negative sense, it was because they were making prosperity look as if prosperity is only money; and a lot of people believe that prosperity is only money; for a Christian, for me, it’s health and, and, and, well-being and, and having my family connected together in Christ, spiritually my family they’re advancing in Christ, so prosperity is to me holistic. . . . It’s having your needs taken care of by God, being supplied and, like I said, your family doing well not just financially but spiritually and health-wise. So prosperity in Christ is more than money, and that’s what I don’t like about some televangelists making prosperity just about having a big car . . . whole heap of money, house, and that kind of thing. . . . God . . . says I’m supplying your need according to my riches in glory. . . . And God didn’t tell you that it was going to be financial need only; it was, He was generalizing; He was talking about “all that you need, I’m going to provide.” And if He think[s] that your need is for a husband, bless you Allison [she smiled at my research assistant], if your need is for a wife, if your need is for children, family, grandchildren, God is going to supply your need. If your need is to advance in Christ and to become an apologist for Christ and . . . that’s your desire, God is going to supply that, right? If your need is to open a shelter, you know, so that you can take care of some persons . . . God is going to supply that; you know



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if your need is to have money to be able to live comfortable, God can supply that too because it belongs to Him.

Carla’s definition of prosperity was broad and encompassing—life, health, spiritual growth, a husband (for Allison), family connection in Christ, and personal needs met, even becoming an “apologist for Christ.” The reinterpretation of the prosperity gospel by people in Jamaica offers a telling critique of both the theology and its origins. Those who believed in prosperity theology interpreted it as promising rewards beyond health and wealth. Yes, they expected God to honor God’s commitment; but the terms of that commitment were broad. The presumption that prosperity is primarily monetary is a distortion, many believe, created by American television preachers. Preoccupation with wealth and possessions reflected an encroachment of American values. Community leaders that I spoke with had already suggested as much. Bishop Harold Blair, who serves as ombudsman for Jamaica, a position he described as a “referee” of sorts between the political parties, was clear. “Polarization in Jamaica has been so grave . . . that when politicians say things or do things . . . I am called in to be a referee.” Serving also as a Pentecostal pastor who broadcasts his church services on one of Jamaica’s local channels, LOVE TV, he lamented, “Most of the broadcasters from abroad are seen as people who are in for self-aggrandizement.” I had met the bishop only once, but I had seen him on television several times. His is a very familiar face in Jamaica. During our interview he spoke in a deep voice and seemed genuinely interested in my work. His personality fit what I had envisioned, straightforward and to the point. “They are . . . after filthy lucre because . . . if you watch the programs that come from North America, most of them, probably one-fifth of the time is spent in . . . pleading for money. And so you . . . rob people of the opportunity of hearing more of the gospel . . . and many, many people in Jamaica take offense to that.” In Blair’s indictment of preachers is his emphasis on North American ministers. They were all implicated, regardless of theological orientation, race, or denomination. Most Jamaicans with whom I spoke tended to lump all American televangelists together. “Colored” in this instance highlights the precarious process by which nationality often trumps the US internal politics of race as media goes global. Seen as primarily “American” and secondarily as “black” or “white” American, the many differences that make up US televangelists seem to boil down to one common denominator—American—once ministries cross into other countries. In this way the “American religion” that televangelists,

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regardless of race, export reflects the concerns that scholars have long had over American religious broadcasting. Media scholar Quentin Schultze argues that televangelism in taking on the characteristics of American television ­culture— its high focus on individualism, its flare for the dramatic, its quick and easy appeal—gradually merges biblical faith with American culture, creating a Christendom uniquely suited to the American Christian and often categorically different from the Christianity of early church leaders.37 Bishop Blair and I talked about politics, Jamaica, and religion, yet before the interview concluded, he asked me about my background, my family in the States, and how I came to this research project. He was most interested to know if I was a Christian and offered to pray with me for my safe return home and for my general well-being. I accepted his offer. Pastoral sentiments ever present, however, Bishop Blair’s objections to the ways of American televangelists and his insight into how some Jamaicans take exception to the influx of American culture were clear. My friend Kelvin Garvey was a case in point. A computer technician in the upstairs office of the library where I spent some time conducting research, he often stopped me to ask about my research project. With Rastafarian roots, a genealogical relationship to Marcus Garvey, and a deep commitment to the Christian faith, he held strong opinions about nearly everything, especially television preachers. Fascinated that I was studying religious broadcasting, he offered me an earful. TBN, now, is good. I love TBN, but I really don’t like how they sort of make the gospel look as if it’s for sale. Miracles for sale, you know? . . . I mean, I believe in the law of reciprocity, that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap, and if you . . . continuously give to God you’re gonna get good measure, pressed down, shaken together.

But there was a problem. To Kelvin’s mind other matters, “like living holy, ­living clean, reading the Bible every day, getting to know Christ,” have been set aside. An avid watcher of TBN, he still has reservations: “I think, for a large part, TBN sorta gets, gets people to know God’s hand but not His face.” Kelvin’s criticism of America’s influence on the gospel noted that prosperity was something of value, but not in the way it comes across to him from American broadcasters. The theology was inclusive of much more than money. As many people I spoke with in Jamaica interpret it, prosperity theology offers a fluidity that allows people to see themselves as prosperous in spite of situations



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contrary to expectations. This is often the exercise of faith practiced by everyday citizens. While some ministers continue to preach the staples of prosperity, health, and wealth, community members adapt the message to meet their own needs. Carla used to “eat, drink, and sleep TBN.” Now she watches the ministries sporadically. “I think too much prosperity gospel is being preached and too much faith in faith.” The transition from constantly consuming religious broadcasting to more sporadic appropriations of the messages was occurring among many women who had watched televangelism over the past five years or so. Prosperity needed to take on a different meaning in order for them to continue believing. While it may have started out as a focus on wealth and health, its continuity is built on its ability to transcend the limited spheres of money and physical well-being. Adherents do not necessarily discard the theology; they augment it to meet their contemporary social circumstances. Such augmentation is as much a phenomenon among the people who watch as it is among the televangelists who preach the doctrine. Deciding whose reinterpretation came first is difficult at best. For adherents redefining the message may be empowering; however, for pastors to redirect the message could be seen as an effort at audience manipulation. Inspired by Hagin, when Frederick K. C. Price, Creflo Dollar, and Kenneth Copeland first began to preach prosperity, they taught the theology primarily in terms of health and wealth. One might speculate whether disappointed viewers or a reevaluation of the theology spurred change, but one certainly sees a broader interpretation of prosperity emerging from most of their teachings—even as they maintain the seed-faith component. Allison has noticed a difference in Creflo Dollar’s teachings, which are explicitly marked by promises of abundant wealth and health. When Creflo [speaks] about prosperity . . . In his early talk about prosperity it was all to do about money, but recently about last month, about two months ago he started, he spoke about prosperity, and he spoke about it in a more broader sense that salvation includes prosperity, peace, stability, serenity, healing, and all of it, so he, he really went broader to me, which to me is sober; so, it’s not just about money, ’cause money doesn’t mean that you’re prosperous; a relationship with God and doing His will and living in purpose, that’s prosperity.

Her acknowledgment that Dollar has moved beyond earlier discussions of prosperity as primarily related to money points to his evolving teachings as well as those in the broader Faith Movement. When Frederick K. C. Price, an African American minister whose ministry grew through close connection to faith

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teachers Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland, first began his Word of Faith ministry, he says that he was surprised that God wanted him to be wealthy. Having grown up in a traditional black church, he thought that his life was supposed to be defined by financial struggle. The Word of Faith message convinced him that he, indeed, could be financially prosperous.38 These days, however, he, like Dollar, has moved to emphasize more than financial blessing and physical healing in his definitions of prosperity.

Prosperity as Temporally Relative Prosperity is also based on an individual’s understanding of past and present circumstances as he or she moves over time from one set of circumstances to another. The passing of time itself operates as a metric for prosperity, encouraging one to measure changes over a given period. When Melanie spoke of her stint in a US prison for drug trafficking charges, it was the ministry of T. D. Jakes that encouraged her. At the time she knew little of God. Facing the possibility of five more years in prison, she fell into deep depression as she awaited the birth of her third child. Someone encouraged her to watch Jakes, and she says that her life instantly changed. She accepted Christ and began to fast and pray that her circumstances might be altered. At the end of her three-day fast period, she learned that her deportation orders had been expedited and she would be heading home to Jamaica shortly. Now, nearly ten years after her experience, when asked whether she is prosperous, Melanie hesitates: “Prosperity, it can mean in a sense, in a spiritual [sense], from one stage to the next. . . . Not now. But I know God will one day.” With these statements Melanie initially suggests that increases in her prosperity are incremental but goes on to convey reservations about her own prosperity, only to reconsider her position a few moments later. When prodded about why she doesn’t feel prosperous, she explains: Well, I can say yes, because I am prospering. I wasn’t the same as I used to be a couple years ago. At least I can buy my food, so God is prospering me. I must say that. Forgive me for that. I can wear clothes. I used to wear one dress. I can change my clothes now, so I can say yes, God is prospering me. Because I can eat food, I never go to my bed hungry one day, so I can say yes. I mean I have it, if I want to have it. But you know, when I look back, I say I’m different from then. So, I can say yes, God is prospering me.



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By material measures, Melanie may not be prosperous. She even hesitates to think of herself as such. Yet, in using the present tense, she marks time, traveling on a trajectory defined by positive change: although gradual and incomplete, it is consistent. In juxtaposing her past with her present, she recognizes transitions that place her at a relative distance from the pain and devastation of poverty and the subsequent dependence on drug trafficking to make ends meet. Her use of the term “prospering” suggests the fluidity of the concept of prosperity. In this sense, time, as it relates to notions of physical prosperity, signifies distance from a difficult or unwanted past to a better present. Often prosperity proponents construct this distance between the past and present as a distance that reflects both spiritual and physical progress. Much like their favored pastors marking historic moments of lack—Jakes as a poor preacher from West Virginia, Paula White as a “messed-up Mississippi girl”—adherents of the prosperity gospel use history as a critical marker for affirming the validity of the gospel. Just weeks before I was to leave Jamaica, Hanna asked me for money to help purchase a refrigerator for her home. Always a little disheveled, Hanna had returned home to Jamaica after years of being in New York. Although we never discussed the details of her immigration, it seemed as though things had not gone so well abroad. Now clearly struggling to make ends meet, she came to church week after week—consistently present for eleven o’clock morning services, which inevitably dismissed four hours later at three o’clock in the afternoon. She also attended Wednesday-evening Bible study, Friday-night services, and often was present on Thursdays for the church’s weekly distribution of free food and clothing. She sat outside among the members and passersby who came looking for food to carry them over. Hanna was faithful. For the past several years she has been catching a cab or walking to the market several days a week to purchase meat for her home. Without a refrigerator to store it, she spends a lot of time and money heading back and forth to the market. Though I responded to her request, I left before knowing if she was indeed able to buy it. We knew each other only in passing—our conversations held mainly after church or after a women’s Bible study at New Life, Hanna’s church. Once when we sat down and talked in more detail, she discussed her future with great optimism. When I eventually got around to asking if she considered herself prosperous, without hesitation she said yes. When I asked why, she was graceful and assured of her answer: “Because when I look back to where I come from, and where I am today, I think I’m highly favored . . . mentally and physically.”

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“Highly favored” is not the traditional measure of prosperity one would ascribe to someone who takes the overcrowded taxis to and from the market repeatedly throughout the week just to have meat in the house. Hanna’s clothes, always an amalgam of colors and patterns, are worn with pride. Her excessive makeup—bright red lips, heavy rouge against smooth dark skin—accentuate unkempt blond braids. “I think I’m one of those chosen ones in the Lord.” Her appearance belied her conviction; yet her zeal was unwavering. “God has blessed me . . . even though a lot of things sometimes doesn’t seem like it’s gonna work. But then when you have faith, faith conquer everything. Faith move mountains; you know what I’m saying? You just have to know how to call on Him.” Donald Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori write about the power of Pentecostal conversion to restore self-esteem. They discuss how in the poorest communities, where mainline churches have failed, Pentecostal churches have thrived in part because they affirm the intrinsic value of people regardless of socio­ economic circumstances.39 This is not a new concept. When Cheryl Sanders wrote about the Sanctified tradition in African American churches, she spoke of how Pentecostal and Holiness churches loved and cared for people with whom no one else wanted to interact.40 These were the churches of the “lower class,” affirming the dignity of human life. In much the same way, when Hanna speaks of being “blessed and highly favored” over the trajectory of her life, she speaks of finding the value in her life. Without a refrigerator and with just enough to make ends meet, she describes herself as “one of those chosen ones in the Lord.” The theology of prosperity, beyond money and fine cars, offers people a new way of thinking about their own human value in this life. While Hanna’s material conditions may not have changed, her sense of personal value has been tremendously altered over time. That sense of personal value was her benchmark for interpreting prosperity.

Prosperity as Spatially Relative Notions of prosperity are situated within particular communal and geographic contexts. Individual prosperity is often understood as relative to the conditions of others in the community. One’s point of reference for prosperity, thus, is not necessarily the preacher that one sees on television. Poor residents might be poor to an outsider, but within the community, an individual might actually experience a level of prosperity that reflects a material advantage over others in the community.



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When Doris picked me up for a concert one night at New Life, I knew that the church had been preparing for weeks and that everyone, especially the youth, were excited about the citywide gospel fest. I had grown accustomed to hearing the songs of American praise and worship coming from the halls of the church at least as often as local interpretations of Christian songs; the music often had a Jamaican rhythm, while the lyrics remained the same. Standing in front of a banner with bold letters declaring, “Thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory,” the visiting praise and worship leader, the daughter of Bishop Blair, seemed to bring the place to life with her energy and exhortations to worship. Open and welcoming to the audience, she encouraged the young children to come down to the front to dance and sing along with her. The children moved with excitement. At the intermission, we were immediately given instructions about how to assemble to bring our offerings to the altar. The offering was a simple plea for those present to give. Folks processed around the church during offering time, giving JA$60, JA$100, JA$500.41 From the side of the pulpit, I could see the bills and coins placed on the altar. Some of the money was dropped into a large basket positioned on the second of six redcarpeted, stage-length steps leading to the podium. After a while, a disheveled, dark-skinned, middle-aged woman walked around from the back of the church and quickly yet discreetly placed another offering on the table. This time it was not the crumpled JA$100 or the coins tossed in by children. Instead, it was a large pillow and comforter set, with a dusty blue floral pattern, much like the ones sold on street corners. It was an awkward gift. A few more minutes passed, punctuated by constant exhortations to give. Shortly thereafter, the offering moment came to a close with a few more people coming forth to lay down their final gifts. The praise and worship leader took the microphone and began an explanation. “I know that some of you,” seemingly speaking to visitors, “may not understand the gift that has just come.” The audience became silent with only the instruments playing in the background, “but some people give out of their abundance, while others give out of their own need.” She went on to say that while the woman may not have had money to give, she had something to give that might bless somebody else. And this, she insisted, is what matters. You give whatever you have so that you might be a blessing to someone else. Under these circumstances, even a poor Jamaican woman without monetary resources could be a blessing for someone in need. At offering time, even the poorest of the poor can become benefactors.

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This type of giving has become commonplace not only in Jamaica but also in the United States and in places influenced by this growing Pentecostalism. When Prophetess Juanita Bynum preached in Kenya, she challenged the thousands present to give whatever they had—shoes, coats, bags, whatever was in their possession as an offering to the Lord—a demonstration that they were willing to sacrifice and, despite their need, they were already blessed. People took off their shoes and placed them on the altar as Bynum promised them God’s heavenly blessings in response to their faith.42 The woman’s gift that night was testimony not only to her willingness to sacrifice but also to her own sense of beatitude. The vast majority of religious and other cable television programming in Jamaica comes from the United States. Nevertheless, within one’s own community, regardless of how outsiders might define poverty and lack, people in these Jamaican faith communities maintain their own sense of prosperity. As demonstrated by the woman’s unusual offering at the concert, even those who have very little are capable of significant gifting. As Daniel summed up for me that day while sitting under William’s tent: Am I prosperous? I am not. But I am prosperous spiritually, because God provides for me. . . . Financially, I can’t write a check right now. It may bounce; actually, it will bounce. But to me, I am prosperous, because I can share what I have with other people. I am not rich, but I am prosperous.

The ability to share even limited resources is a demonstration of prosperity. This frequently overlooked emphasis of the prosperity gospel—the requirement to bless others—is what animates the gospel, adding another layer of complexity to what could easily be defined as a materialistic gospel of self-indulgence spurred on by a neoliberal turn toward the market, individual gain, and limited government. It is also the element that changes some would-be victims into victors, the needy into benefactors. In giving to another what has been given by God, there, one might opine, is true prosperity.

Conclusion This type of giving is common in Jamaica and other locales where prosperity gospels are popular. In prosperity gospels, the exhortation to see yourself as “able to give,” even when it appears that you are not, is a way of affirming one’s prosperity even when it is not fully manifest. For pastors around the world who



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amass great wealth preaching prosperity to their followers, their oft-stated defense is that they are generous with what they have. This relative prosperity certainly invites several social, theological, and ethical questions. Who benefits most from prosperity gospels—preachers or parishioners? Are prosperity gospels merely camouflaging the real issues of social and economic inequality and injustice? Would it not be more beneficial for people to engage in organized challenges to unjust political and economic structures that impede their progress? These questions are certainly important, yet they do not begin with where people are. With their perspective in mind, we might ask different questions. How are practitioners themselves making sense of prosperity gospels? To what use are they putting them in their daily lives? What benefit are they gaining such that they continue to participate, even when their seed-faith giving does not result in large financial rewards? In considering the radical growth of prosperity theologies in poor communities throughout the world, relative prosperity helps us see such commitments of faith through the eyes of the believer. An examination of lived religion aids us in understanding the seemingly contradictory and conflicting commitments of faith that people make daily. It opens our eyes to the multiple forms of meaning generated by theology and ritual practice. And “lived religion” forces us, as social scientists, to think even beyond the boundaries of political and economic analysis to consider the less obvious motivations governing the lives of people.

4 F E MALE TE LE VAN G E LISTS AN D TH E G OSPE L O F SE XUAL R E D E M P TI ON And the devil is a liar! I’m able to walk with my head up high because I don’t belong to anybody. Pieces of me [are] not all over America! The Lord has collected all of my body parts. He’s given me back my body. He’s put me back together. My breast is not in Texas, and my vagina in Europe, and my behind in California! I’ve got my body back!!! I’ve got it back!!! Wherever your body parts are, start calling them right now. God brought you in here to put you back together. He brought you in here so you can take the authority that was taken from you back! Prophetess Juanita Bynum, “No More Sheets” sermon, 1997

Powerful, bold, and unapologetic, Juanita Bynum preached what has become one of the most widely circulated sermons in the world about women, faith, and sexuality. Her forceful and at times tearful testimony of sexual promiscuity and pain has often served as the rallying cry for women around the world to renegotiate their relational commitments. In the United States, the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, and Europe, Bynum’s testimony has been the impetus for countless “No More Sheets” parties, informal gatherings of women friends to view and discuss the videotaped message of sexual redemption. Since the debut of her sermon, Bynum herself has traveled widely across continents, preaching to audiences with the power of her personal narrative of sexual indulgence and spiritual redemption. Evoking images of sexual exploitation and bondage, Juanita Bynum “called back” her body parts at the conclusion of the hour-long sermon under what she described as God’s mandate. In some ways her imagery evokes the nineteenth-century South African figure Sarah Bartman, whose body was placed on display at various carnivals around the world for the exploitation by European conquerors. Like Bartman, Bynum possessed little ownership and agency

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over her own body and its parts; however, unlike Bartman, Bynum was not the captured property of any man, let alone European conquerors. Instead, she described herself as a victim of her own disempowered need for emotional validation and desire for economic stability. Bynum’s sermon stands as part of a larger canon of popular conservative religious texts on sexuality that have emerged in recent decades.1 Countless books and tapes are sold in local Christian bookstores, the “religion” sections of big-box stores, and online. They offer readers a road map to spiritual redemption through the practice of sexual purity.2 Taking note of this trend, communications scholar Christine Gardner argues that “evangelicals are using sex to ‘sell’ abstinence, shifting from a negative focus on ‘just say no’ to sex before marriage to a positive focus on ‘just say yes’ to great sex within marriage. Sex— along with marriage—is presented as the reward for abstinence.”3 However, these texts are often not personal testimonials of sin and indulgence. Instead, they are pristinely crafted prescriptions for a life of sexual pleasure that advocate sexual restraint before marriage and sexual indulgence afterward. Bynum’s pioneering sermon was just one of scant detailed personal testimonies within this discourse of sin and redemption. Her testimony, understood by those in the viewing audience as real and transparent, breaks with long-held assumptions about the power of “respectable” discourse in the advancement of church women’s social and political status. In this context it is actually the “disreputable” naming of sexual indulgence and explication of personal pain that have brought professed liberation to thousands in the viewing audience. Like the rise of therapeutic television, such discourses employ the market as a means of spreading a message of personal empowerment. How these same market forces sell “authenticity” while simultaneously unmaking the authentic raises questions about the intersection of religion and the market in the public sphere and about what viewers mean when they describe televangelists as “real.” In many ways women televangelists, as their numbers have increased over the past two decades, have been in the forefront of these changes. Adding to the earlier presence of Tammy Faye Bakker, Gloria Copeland, and Marilyn Hickey in the 1970s and 1980s, women like Joyce Meyer, Paula White, and Juanita Bynum have enjoyed growing religious media attention.4 Like their male counterparts, they invoke biblical authority as the basis of their teachings on doctrinal issues related to salvation, grace, and sin, as well as everyday concerns like marriage, happiness, and work. These women preach reformulated versions of the prosperity gospel made famous by old-school evangelists, of-



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fering what I term a “gospel of sexual redemption” through narratives about sexual abuse and sexual indulgence. In this gospel, or good news declaration, female televangelists narrate extraordinary detail about sexual encounters fraught with abuse, guilt, and/or immense psychological suffering coupled with a triumphant narrative of God’s extraordinary power to heal a person who has endured the most horrific and/or demeaning experiences. Their narratives of redemption especially work to ameliorate the heavy weight of shame too often accompanying such experiences. In light of the burgeoning gospels of prosperity, such gospels of sexual redemption must be considered integral to the appeal of neo-Pentecostal theology at the turn of the century. They are in many ways gospels that constitute different sides of the same coin—economic struggles all too often exposing the social and sexual vulnerabilities of women. For both the prosperity gospel and the gospel of sexual redemption, individual motivation and effort toward transformation are key to change. And the viewer’s seemingly mimetic capacity to see in the Evangelist’s struggle and triumph the inspiration for her own grants the testimonies of these women tremendous power.5 Because of the increasing influence of media on religious discourses, traditional Protestant commitments to concepts like “respectability” and “sinless perfection” are giving way to human testimonials of “realness.” In many ways the expansion of religious media has made room for discourses in the church that are disrupting time-honored Victorian ideals of chaste purity, sexual repression, and nondisclosure. I discuss the historical significance of Protestant articulations of respectability and sinless perfection as they relate to the silencing of women of color about issues of sexuality. I then explore how female televangelists disrupt these traditions by offering a testimony that calls into question the church’s resistance to public discussions of sexuality. However, I ask what it means for female televangelists like Bynum to articulate a gospel of sexual redemption through masculinist prescriptions of purity. And how does the lure of the market challenge the authenticity/sincerity of the very “real” testimonies offered by broadcasters?

Respectable, Sinless Sexuality To speak of one’s sexual past in detail in public is as much a reflection of twentyfirst-century mores as it is an anomaly of the nineteenth century, when strong appeals to respectability closeted youthful passions, ill-conceived actions, as well as some of the grossest crimes. Historical accounts of black Protestantism

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have focused on the ways in which black women’s service to the community and maintenance of the domestic sphere garnered them respectability among both Blacks and Whites. Much of this focus emerged from mainstream Protestantism and its insistence on the need of women to uphold standards of social decorum through their roles as wives, mothers, and social servants. Adopted from discourses of white Protestant missionaries of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, black Protestant ideals of respectability expressed a standard of feminine decorum thought consistent with Christian ideals and white Victorian ideals of etiquette and purity. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham aptly describes how discourses around respectability governed the rhetorics and practices of nineteenth- and twentiethcentury black Baptist women leaders and their followers.6 Aware of the critical gaze of white Americans, black women promoted a discourse and social posture that affirmed their personhood through right living. Such discourses of respectability often frowned upon sexual engagements outside marriage and placed a cloud of shame over those who fell beneath its standards. Speaking against the backdrop of a charged history of racial and sexual constructivist projects that worked to subjugate black people, women race leaders adamantly promoted the ideals of sexual purity and restraint. “Respectability,” Higginbotham asserts, “demanded that every individual in the black community assume responsibility for behavioral self-regulation and self improvement along moral, educational, and economic lines. The goal was to distance oneself as far as possible from images perpetuated by racist stereotypes.” 7 Emblazoned in the minds of Whites were images of black women as “Jezebels,” women for whom sex was an uncontrollable urge. Sociologist Patricia Hill Collins suggests that “Western religion, science, and media took over 350 years to manufacture an ideology of Black sexuality that assigned (heterosexual) promiscuity to Black people and then used it to justify racial discrimination.”8 Anthropologist Leith Mullings explains that during slavery “representations of the libidinous, sexually aggressive African American woman sanctioned rape and sexual exploitation by arguing that the enslaved women were the initiators, that their sexuality elicited a ‘natural’ response in Euro-American men.”9 Such racist constructions of social difference are what black church women ardently fought against. Respectability thus “assumed a political dimension” in that it promoted a social code that would disrupt such stereotypes, garner Blacks reputable status in the sight of white society, and make negotiating for political and economic advancement more



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viable. For Christian women in mainstream as well as Pentecostal religious communities, deviation from the sexual norm of heterosexual, marital, monogamous sex generated a culture of silence about activities taking place outside this mainstream. Even when the subject was rape, black women, as victims, were often expected to maintain a code of silence given the violent history of racial terror visited upon the entire community. Historian Darlene Clark Hine has long observed that “one of the most remarked upon but least analyzed themes in Black women’s history deals with Black women’s sexual vulnerability and powerlessness as victims of rape and domestic violence.”10 The twentieth-century legacy of this silence is examined more recently by Danielle McGuire, who argues that many of the battles of the civil rights movement are “rooted in African-­ American women’s long struggle against sexual violence.”11 Seeking justice, however, often brought retribution. As a result, Hine observes, we know very little of these histories because of the very culture of silence that led women to take their secrets to their graves. This type of “dissemblance” was evident in “the behavior and attitudes of Black women that created the appearance of openness and disclosure but actually shielded the truth of their inner lives and selves from their oppressors.”12 The process of self-silencing and social conditioning served dual purposes of maintaining safety and even advancing, intended or not, the very demands of respectability. While mainline Protestant expectations of respectability and black church women’s attempts to counter dehumanizing racialized stereotypes sufficiently influenced women’s practices of respectability, more strikingly rigid and influential were early Pentecostal expectations for personal purity. Such expectations emerged largely out of Pentecostalism’s roots in the nineteenth-century Holiness movement, which popularized doctrines of “sinless perfection” or “­entire sanctification.”13 The phrase “entire sanctification” is derived from 1 Thessalonians 5:23: “May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”14 Such doctrines held that the presence of the Holy Spirit perfects or sanctifies the believer, enabling her to live a life free from sin. Thus, Holiness adherents asserted that the truly faithful must go beyond the “first work” of repenting of individual sins and confessing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.15 The necessary “second work,” such believers argued, was sanctification, the process of being made sinless through baptism in the Holy Spirit.16 At the outset of the twentieth century, early Pentecostals augmented these Holiness demands. They

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maintained that sanctification must be demonstrated in outward signs of holiness, such as simple dress and other demonstrations of modesty and probity, and through the practice of glossolalia, or speaking in tongues.17 Many Holiness adherents stressed the idea of instantaneous perfection in baptism in the Holy Spirit.18 At the same time, however, the rise of the norm of perfection created an exacting personal morality for Holiness and Pentecostal women, who were expected to meet and enforce stringent prohibitions against alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, extramarital sex, gambling, and dancing.19 The demands of perfection made the very possibility of imperfection a serious concern. Holiness and Pentecostal women were thus confronted with the ever-present danger of “backsliding,” the threat that one might lose one’s sanctified state as well as the assurance of salvation as a result of even a single fleshly indiscretion.20 Studying the lives of Pentecostal women in the Church of God in Christ in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, historian Anthea Butler underscores the significance of respectability but argues, contrary to Higginbotham, that its origins were not necessarily or primarily political. She suggests that God’s gaze, rather than white society’s gaze, is what bolstered many women’s adherence to codes of conduct that rendered them respectable. Christianity gave church members a reason to promote temperance, sexual purity, and cleanliness, but the central purpose of the politics of respectability, Higginbotham argues, was to “bridge the divide between Black and white women, helping them to come together to defeat Jim Crow.” While Christian principles of piety and purity could be and were put to use in political ways, for many Baptist and COGIC women alike, devotion to the tenets of the “Bible, Bath, and Broom” seems not to have been primarily about the politics of respectability but largely about serving God.21

The tension between whether women adhered to codes of conduct out of concern over society’s gaze or God’s gaze highlights the extent to which ideas about sexual propriety dominated women’s sexual experiences and presentations of self. This is an important distinction in contemporary debates because it addresses the long-standing criticism that appeals to personal piety are nonpolitical—that they address personal rather than public or structural change. Whether for largely sociopolitical or religious reasons, the silence created by women’s attempts at maintaining a public posture of respectability have shaped the tone and content of the black church’s attitude toward sexuality. According to some scholars, rigid definitions of appropriate sexuality have significantly



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influenced the church’s silence on practices that may take place outside the bounds of marriage.22 At the dawning of the twenty-first century, challenges to heteronormativity and increased religious pluralism have called into question notions of respectability and sinless perfection along with their undergirding logic of absolute truth. The unraveling of such positions on the heels of the civil rights and women’s rights movements and the sexual revolution of the latter part of the twentieth century serve as the backdrop for new approaches to sexuality both within and outside the church. Moreover, the dramatic expansion of media through television, radio, and Internet technologies has exported new and diverse logics globally in a fraction of the time. All of these changes have shifted how churches engage the subject of sexuality. As religious communities explore opportunities to share their messages on television with a public increasingly informed by alternative constructions of sexuality, rigid expectations of sexual purity have given way to testimonies of personal struggle and triumph. Revisionist forms of Pentecostalism, like that seen in the ministry of Juanita Bynum and popularly described as neo-Pentecostalism, often eschew traditional condemnations of hellfire and brimstone as punishment for sin and instead proffer uplifting, positive messages touting the rewards for right living. Neo-Pentecostals are often seen as more urbane, chic, and secular in outlook than classical Pentecostals and willing to negotiate with the tenets of worldly beauty and success. Unlike their predecessors, such Pentecostals wear makeup, don expensive dresses and suits, and consider economic prosperity to be a sign of God’s blessing. These Pentecostals also are more open to the frailties of the flesh. They talk about it more and express past struggles more openly. Neo-Pentecostals, across the racial spectrum, are fluidly connected to traditional Pentecostal denominational structures, often having been raised in them or having leaders who were influenced by them, and bring their spirited worship and openness to God’s presence to mainline religious communities. As it turns out, neo-Pentecostals’ ideas concerning prosperity and sexuality have become more malleable.

The Redemption Narratives of Paula White and Joyce Meyer When Juanita Bynum emerged on the national scene in 1997, she quickly became the most famous black female televangelist in the United States.23 Throngs of black women poured into arenas around the country to hear her passionate

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articulations of sexual redemption through her narratives of self-disclosure. Without question she, along with white female televangelists Paula White and Joyce Meyer, has focused on religious dialogue about sexuality and abuse. With their messages of tragedy and triumph White and Meyer, like other white evangelists, have garnered the support and dedication of both black and white followers. Bynum maintains a primarily African American following. To include White and Meyer in a discussion centered on black televangelism is to mark how dramatically popular their messages are among scores of women of African descent both within the United States and abroad, thus highlighting the porous boundaries of “black” televangelism. Their inclusion marks the extent to which both women have garnered attention from these audiences by their regular appearances at T. D. Jakes’s “Woman Thou Art Loosed” conference, a setting in which Paula White consistently pays homage to Jakes as her “Father in Ministry,” at times using the more endearing term “Daddy.” The very use of this terminology at once reflects her sense of Jakes as a spiritual mentor and plays into the paternalistic history/culture of ministry that allows her to traverse racial divides by accessing the discourse of spiritual lineage. When asked about her appeal to African American women during an interview on November 26, 2007, with television host Larry King, Paula White spoke about her ability to reach women across economic lines. KING: Now, what about the appeal to black Americans? What do you think that is? I mean you look—that was black preaching there. (showing a clip of White preaching) P. WHITE: Well, I go back to your history. [It] tells a lot about your destiny. And one of the things is that I’ve been very comfortable in every situation starting ministry in the inner city and ministering in places—­ Washington, D.C., feeding the homeless, the hurting, going to broken boys and girls. So culturally I understood all different aspects of life— from extremely wealthy to extreme poverty, socioeconomic differences, ethnic differences. And the appeal, I always say, you’re going to have to ask someone else, but I believe the purpose is to stand as a reconciler, a bridge builder.

Evading the question of race to talk about the politics of class alienation, White demonstrates the ways in which race and class are often conflated in the work of televangelists as they address issues of economic struggle, often to the exclusion of race.24 With her Barbie-esque appearance—blonde hair,



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sharp features, and tiny waist—White effectively “cross[es] racial lines on a class ticket.”25 Her up-from-poverty and sexual abuse stories render her narrative both palatable and desirable to throngs of people regardless of race. And she maintains this ambiguous position in part by staying out of partisan politics. When asked in a televised interview about whom she supported for the highly contested 2008 presidential election between Barack Obama, the favored candidate of most African Americans, and John McCain, the favored candidate of white evangelicals, she indicated to Larry King, “I have my own personal opinions, but they’re just that. I stay in my lane of assignment and do what I’m supposed to do in life.”26 With that response, she never indicated a preferred candidate or set of political issues to support. Similarly, Joyce Meyer, her earlier connections to the Christian Coalition and conservative Republican politics seemingly muted, speaks today mostly of her ministry’s outreach helping poor people in struggling countries.27 Her website no longer includes a list of conservative judges or conservative political issues to support. Like other televangelists,

F I G U R E 3 . Pastor Paula White. MegaFest International, Johannesburg, South Africa,

October 2008. Photo courtesy of the author.

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Meyer often ignores the subject of race, speaking primarily about the power of the gospel for personal transformation, ensuring greater market viability for audiences, black and white.28 Their ability to connect with black female audiences while maintaining ties to more socially and politically conservative white evangelicals is thus often predicated on their evasion of challenging discussions about politics and race in America. Furthermore, the historic imbalance of white leaders speaking to black audiences when reciprocal arrangements have been far less common makes their appearances less questioned. Meyer’s history of abuse and economic struggle makes her testimony one of the most riveting narratives of redemption shared by televangelists. Widely viewed both nationally and internationally, Meyer’s ministry has a broadcast audience of an estimated 4.5 billion people, nearly two-thirds of the world’s population.29 Anthropologist Robert Priest, in a study of world Christianity, surveyed Christians in Kenya, Angola, and the Central African Republic to find out the most widely read authors, Christian or non-Christian. In Kenya Meyer ranked number 6, above T. D. Jakes at number 8, and she placed number 17 in Angola.30 These rankings were the same even when accounting for the higherranked required reading in schools and universities. According to at least one Indian pastor, Meyer is the most watched televangelist in India. While each of the women televangelists’ stories differs in experiences of abuse, exploitation, and indulgence, their narratives all move from a place of self-expressed victimhood to victor. And most important, their narratives progress from a space of either abused female sexuality, as in the testimonies of White and Meyer, or profligate sexuality, as in the case of Bynum, to restored, respectable, monogamous sexuality. At the age of five White’s family was plunged into poverty following the suicide of her father. As she explains, “From the time I was six years old until I was thirteen years old, I was sexually and physically abused numerous times in horrific ways. Psychiatrists and psychologists have told me that given what happened to me in those early years of my childhood, I should have been institutionalized for the rest of my life—I should never have been able to cope with what happened to me, much less be healed of it.” Her writing and preaching reference the past as a source of encouragement and direction for those with similar experiences. In this way her own testimony becomes a guide for others seeking freedom from past abuse. She continues matter-of-factly in her assessment of her experience, emphasizing that she cannot change the past. “I chose to move forward. And if I could make that choice, you can, too!”31



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Meyer, likewise, endured emotional and sexual abuse, having been molested by her father repeatedly throughout her childhood. “When he came home from the war, he was bitter, angry, and addicted to alcohol, which left our family with painful memories. I endured nearly fifteen years of sexual abuse from him.”32 In a television segment filmed in the United States, now broadcast worldwide via her website, Meyers directly takes up the abuse by telling of her firsthand experience with the trauma of incest. “My father did many perverted things . . . and you can believe me today when I tell you that I’m only going to tell you a few. . . . There are some that would be way to distasteful for me to try to talk about in a crowd like this.” Speaking plainly, standing behind a clear glass podium on a stage in front of thousands, she offers her testimony with little emotion. Dressed in a royal blue, white, and black jacket with her hair and makeup arranged to give a professional look, she occasionally reads from her text and explains that many in the audience and those listening may have been “sexually, emotionally, mentally or physically abused but all types of abuse are damaging.” She then tells the story of her father’s ongoing manipulation and constant fondling. “My mother went to the grocery store every Friday morning and I so desperately wanted to go with her and he would make me beg to stay home or make an excuse about why I couldn’t go and then while she was gone, he would rape me.” Whether swimming or simply at play with friends, “there was no place where I ever felt safe when I was growing up.” She was ashamed of her father, her family and herself, living in constant fear of what he might do. “You never knew.”33 As the broadcast segues to a one-on-one interview with Meyer, she explains to the female interviewer that “one of the reasons I am so open . . . maybe it’s just God’s gift of freedom to me that I don’t have to pretend anymore. I can be open and honest and try to tell people the truth.” As it transitions back to her stage message, she says, “I had to keep lots of secrets. . . . It became my ‘burden’ not to cause any ‘problems’ in the family because of my pain.” If one wonders why her mother never left her father, Meyer’s body was traded for her family’s economic security. Her parents married when her mom was seventeen. Meyer’s explanation of her mom’s decision to stay rings disappointingly hollow for the listener and presumably for Meyer: “She came from a farm. . . . She didn’t really know how to take care of herself.” As she steps away from her script and moves across the stage, she gestures to the audience, imploring them to address the areas of their lives where they, too, may be in pain. She recounts her story didactically, lamenting that the culture has become anesthetized to rape and sexual abuse. She chooses the word “rape” purposely.

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“He raped me [italics mine], and he did it every week, at least once a week, until the time I was eighteen. I did a little bit of math and realized that, my father whom I was suppose to be able to trust, who was supposed to keep me safe, raped me a minimum of two hundred times before I became eighteen.” As the camera pans the audience and focuses on an African American woman who has tears streaming down her face, Meyer asks, “Now, how could that have happened to me and me stand here before you today in the condition that I’m in today, if God is not alive and well on planet earth? How is that possible without God?” As the audience erupts into spontaneous applause, a long, gradual, standing ovation ensues as she affirms the triumphant power of God to redeem anyone’s life from the trauma of abuse. The biggest black eye you can give the devil is to give God your pain and let him turn it into gain, to give God your mess and let it become your message. Because, see, when I tell you that I know what it’s like to hurt, you believe me. And when I tell you my testimony and I tell you that I am healed and whole and sane and well and I’ve got a great marriage of forty-three years and four kids that are serving God and ten grandchildren and that I love my life and I think I’m being a value to the Kingdom of God, then that gives you hope. That gives you hope that God will do it for you. Amen. And that’s why I’m doing this because I want people to know how good God is. And that your struggle is worth it. Your journey is worth it. Don’t give up. Don’t give up.

Like White, Meyer presents openly the most intimate details of her personal life as a way of offering encouragement to others. Meyer’s openness—whether related to her failed first marriage, the sexual abuse by her father, or the challenges she experienced sexually with her current husband as a result of her abuse—endears her to audiences. As transparent witness to some of their own deep, unspoken experiences, she communicates reality about life long silenced, especially for female viewers. Her message of sexual redemption is palpable and believable. Within a global media culture, such messages resonate with women in the United States and throughout the world. Bookstores in Jamaica carried as many, if not more, books and tapes by Joyce Meyer, Paula White, and Juanita Bynum as by Jamaican authors. In some ways one might read the early success of Bynum’s ministry and others as a critique of mainline Protestantism’s silence on issues related to both sex and gender. In ministering to the concerns of women, female televangelists like Bynum move past social expectations of



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respectability and theological presumptions of sinless perfectionism to name their abuses as well as their own fleshly indulgences.

Juanita Bynum An Evangelist in the Church of God in Christ, Bynum in her “No More Sheets” message narrates a testimony of her life as a single woman that sent waves throughout the religious community both in the United States and abroad. Standing before a crowd of thousands of mostly African American women in a Dallas arena, she broke with any Protestant commitments to respectability or Pentecostal notions of sinless perfection. Dressed in a fuchsia suit with a skirt that reached down to her ankles, a style consistent with Pentecostal codes for modesty, in storied detail she wove a phenomenal tale of sexual promiscuity and vulnerability, sleeping with various men in order for them to pay her rent and furnish her apartment. Although this dynamic can be considered a form of exploitation, she does not couch her story in terms of abuse. She rails against her own choices, not her circumstances. Some men also offered her validation. For Bynum her story was simply a representative story of countless women involved in sexual relationships for pragmatic purposes—shelter, food, and emotional and physical comfort. Identifying with the “Jezebel figure” in the public imagination, Juanita Bynum stood outside perceived norms and expectations of sexual propriety, rescripting the narrative of women’s silence and “dissemblance” and eschewing any presumption of a white gaze that might call on her for “respectable” ­behavior. As she recounted sleeping with men for financial benefit, she became the church’s “blues” woman, bringing into sacred space the narratives traditionally proffered only in nightclubs and juke joints.34 Without note card or prompt, she laid out the details of her fleeting passion, stunted pleasure, and years of regret. In fact, Bynum has insisted that the honest and real telling of her story was precisely the impetus for her liberation. As she walked back and forth across the stage, she asserted that her “preference” was “to hear ‘hold on’ from somebody who knows my struggle,” giving entrée to her own capacity to lend voice to the women’s trials. Bynum’s testimony in “No More Sheets” is a wrenching tale of moral failure and redemption. Her story begins with a critique of the posture of respectability promulgated by pastors and leaders who are married yet preach to singles the expectations of sexual purity. “I find it very difficult,” she asserts, “to listen to

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anybody preach to me about being single when they’ve got a pair of thighs in their bed every night.” For Bynum, married ministers’ prescriptions for sexual purity ring hollow since they do not have to engage in the same battle that she does daily as a single woman. With this declaration Bynum validates her own voice as the voice of authenticity. Her struggle “of the flesh,” so poignantly outlined, however, was ultimately unsuccessful. Both the economic demands of singleness in American society and the desire for companionship propelled her into one relationship after another. After her sexual encounters, she said that God told her that she should stop thinking about getting married, because God needed to “start taking off layers.” He needed to “purge” her of the sexual experiences in her past. As she spoke, she began untying the hotel sheets that she had secured around her waist to symbolize years of sexual promiscuity. “One man it took me about maybe a year and a half of consecration.” Injecting her own response to the audience’s anticipated surprise, she immediately replied, “Y’all ain’t. You know what, it’s so real. It’s so real, Bishop,” speaking to T. D. Jakes, who was seated behind her along with other platform guests. “It took about a year and a half before all the dreams. And you know it didn’t last but about five or ten minutes, but the devil will play it like it’s an hour. You know most of us ain’t had but a ‘five minute man.’” Using a combination of humor, colloquial jesting, and striking transparency, she alluded to the need for the church to be “real” in talking about the sexual experiences of parishioners. Coming out of the sheets was tantamount to escaping a “trap” set by the enemy. Her ministry was to help other women find their way out of the trap laid not by post-colonial powers, men in general, or society at large, but by a spiritual enemy, the devil. The gradual removal of the sheets served as a visual illustration of what it means to come out of illicit sexual relationships and to dismantle the mask of respectability. She was demonstrating onstage before thousands how to remove the layers of “cover up” and live a real and transparent spirituality. For nearly an hour she preached a sermon of sexual transformation, moving fluidly between her narrative of promiscuity and holiness. Having discarded the final sheet, she narrated her fall once again into the cycle of bondage. Holy and set apart, she found herself in another sexual liaison. This time she needed economic security and material accoutrements. Her lover bought her a car, five hundred–dollar Gucci boots, and silk blouses. ­Although she worked, she rarely had to cash her paychecks because he was more than willing to cover her daily needs. Yet one day the “Holy Ghost began



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to do surgery on the inside of me.” And from that day forward she began to rid her home of his belongings. She gave away shoes, jewelry, clothes, everything that she could think of that he had purchased for her. She didn’t want any of “the devil’s” stuff anymore. The economic hold of the relationship kept her in the sheets. The need and/ or quest for things in a commercial society caused her to entrust her body to a man who comfortably satisfied her cravings for more. At some point, however, she intimates that her heart shifted. She no longer wanted to pay the physical and sexual price for her personal comfort. Excruciatingly transparent before an audience of single women (potential co-victims), she dismissed the shame of her experience to lay bare her struggle to come out of what she described as sexual bondage. The rejection of her sexual contract plunged her into poverty. Bishop, I got poor. Five years ago I had holes in my shoes. I had to go through McDonald’s drive-through to get a soda and ask for extra napkins so that I could have toilet paper. I used toilet paper for that time of the month. I’m telling y’all the truth. I lived in the projects and I suffered, because I was determined . . . [breaking down in tears] I was determined. I got tired of people kissing on me. I got tired of people with their hands in my underwear. It was too expensive!

Videographers captured the pain in her expression and the shared grief of those in the audience who were sobbing with her. She wanted to be “beautiful again.” She wanted men—in the church—to not talk behind her back about “how she was in bed.” She wanted people to see her “heart.” In the end she was willing to “become poor . . . shaking roaches out of her clothes before she put them on,” so that she could receive the Lord’s blessing. The blessing came in the growth of her ministry and the accompanied financial success. “And right now,” she chided, as if awakening to a new day and looking sternly at the audience, Some of you may look at me now, and I have Versace shoes and Gucci shoes and Gucci purses and all of that. And the reason why I walk so proud [is] because I didn’t have to sleep with anybody to get shoes. . . . Nobody had to feel on me for the suit I got on. . . . Y’all ain’t saying nothing. All I paid was CASH for it! Y’all ain’t saying nothing. There’s a game to it. You buy me a purse; you can feel my chest. You buy me some shoes; I’ll let you rub on my behind. You give me this; I’ll give you this.

Imploring the women to be honest about their own experiences, with the affective zeal of a Pentecostal evangelist, she remarks, “Ahh, come on somebody.

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You give me all of this; I’ll give you all of this,” referencing her entire body as part of her commodity of exchange. According to Bynum, far too many women have their body parts up for sale because of the necessity of economic stability and the desire for material possessions. Bynum’s attempt to navigate her sexuality in the context of the West’s consumer-oriented society informs questions about the relationship between female sexuality and capitalism. Bynum’s narrative of sexual bartering— “you give me this; I’ll give you this”—speaks not only to a history of female sexual commodification but to its contemporary reality, even in the church. Bynum’s discourse intimates that people within the church feel the same economic strains as those outside its inner sanctum. While it is important to critique how the church has structured women’s sexuality through expectations of purity and monogamy, it is also important to think about how economies of exchange influence women’s sexual practices and the possibilities for personal agency. That Bynum surrendered the “respectable” discourse of church leaders is a powerful statement of her ability to connect with everyday women and engage their fears, sexual pressures, and spiritual aspirations in a way that affirms their actual experiences rather than their ideals. The final plea of Bynum to recall her body parts, and for the women in the room, collectively, to recall their body parts, was about their assuming agency—against a backdrop of emotional need, sexual desire, and economic restraint—determining with whom, when, and how their bodies would be engaged. It was a reflection of their struggle to own their pain and name it so they might narrate an alternative future for themselves. Bynum’s struggle was a testimony of personal tragedy and triumph. Theirs would be as well. Deleted from the neatly packaged video for the mass market is the long period of “restoration” that comes at the very end of Bynum’s sermon. What was striking about the culmination of the sermon was how Bynum connected women’s healing to their economic freedom, this freedom through giving— spontaneous, generous, enthusiastic giving. As in other conferences, where she is known as a preacher who can “raise an offering,” she called women forward to give one thousand or five hundred dollars or other amounts. Translating their emotive response into an offering appeal, Bynum linked the challenges of sexuality to the limitations of economic viability. Giving would instigate blessings, both financial and sexual/relational. If you want to be blessed, then give.



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Sex, Gender, and the Market As Bynum challenges the church’s silence on issues related to sex, she articulates the tension between holiness and legitimate sexual fulfillment through the framework of monogamous, heterosexual marriage. The journey to that point for black women in the United States and increasingly for women abroad, however, is often through years of extended singleness. Because of the increasing social ambivalence toward marriage, the opening up of educational and career opportunities for women; the incarceration, unemployment, and alternative lifestyle realities of black men; and the history of racism that makes interracial marriages less likely (though increasingly common), the age at which young black women marry has dramatically increased just over the past two decades. The battle as an aging single woman to remain celibate, committed to the doctrines of the church, kept her in constant need for sanctification. Sociologist Shayne Lee contends that Bynum and black evangelists Ty Adams and Susan Newman “create new and intriguing spaces in Christendom for sexual discourse, challenging the politics of silence by hook or by crook.” These “erotic revolutionaries,” he terms them, despite their varying commitments to conservative interpretations of the Bible’s mandates on sex, “introduce sacred space to discursive strategies that depict the vibrancy of female sexuality and help women negotiate erotic desires with spiritual ideals.” The fact that such women are ministers further offers reason for commendation for Lee against the grain of their churches’ and at times their own “regressive politics.” “Black female clergy invading sacred space with sexual discourse is in itself a political act against male domination.”35 Lee’s call for attention to the ways that black women evangelists like Bynum open spaces for the positive reclamation of sexuality follows in the wake of pioneering scholarship that takes seriously black women’s cultural production. Beginning in the 1970s, an emerging community of black feminists approached novels, poetry, and other forms of expressive culture as critical lenses on black women’s lives and struggles. Black women’s literature, argued feminists like Barbara Smith and Deborah E. McDowell, exposes the cross-cutting injuries of sexism, racism, and economic exploitation in the daily lives of African American women while sketching new visions of possible selves and lives.36 As sociologist Patricia Hill Collins notes, “Historically, literature by U.S. Black women writers provides one comprehensive view of Black women’s struggles to form positive self-definitions in the face of derogated images of Black ­womanhood.”37

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Moreover, building on this initial emphasis on literature by black women, scholarship from the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s extends feminist analyses to African American popular and material cultures as well as mass media more generally, examining forms of cultural production, including television, film, music, spoken word, food, and quilting.38 At the same time, the wide influence of televangelists like Bynum demands that serious engagement with black women’s cultural production consider religious as well as secular media. In this respect, as Lee suggests, Bynum indeed articulates and performs an agentive vision of black women’s lives with regard to issues of sexuality. Yet here as in other media, the liberatory potentiality remains fraught and ambiguous, as much contemporary feminist cultural critique suggests.39 In Bynum’s case, the kind of empowerment on view is grounded in what individual women can do to transform themselves. To the extent that Bynum diagnoses a condition of spiritual, sexual, and economic bondage, she prescribes as cure a woman’s reclamation of personal responsibility. Implicitly, then, Bynum’s message generally downplays questions about how larger social, political, and economic realities inform and exacerbate the struggles of individual black women. Thus, her message reflects one rendition of empowerment manifest in contemporary American popular culture more generally. Cultural critic Susan J. Douglas points to the rise of a distinct figure of African American woman in television and film: exemplified by the comedian Wanda Sykes, Queen Latifah’s portrayal of Mama Morton in the musical Chicago, and Chandra Wilson’s character Dr. Bailey in the television series Grey’s Anatomy, this figure is strong, successful, tough, outspoken against sexism, and frequently frank about sex and intimacy. While these on-screen performances offer relatively positive portrayals of African American women in the face of long-standing, derogating images, Douglas suggests they also function to more insidious ends. Characters like Dr. Bailey imply the on-screen liberation of black women without challenging the persistently harsh realities of many black women’s lives: “at the same time that the smart-mouthed black woman gives so many of us vicarious pleasure and access to core truths about women’s ongoing fury about sexism, her presence serves as absolute evidence that women’s equality has been achieved.”40 Media maintains the ambiguous potential to relay multiple meanings and produce varying effects. Thus, while we acknowledge the increase in discourses around sexuality in religious broadcasting, it is also crucial to make cautionary note of the politics surrounding the testimonies of female religious leaders.



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Unlike that of their male counterparts, the phenomenal rise of female religious broadcasters like Juanita Bynum, Paula White, and Joyce Meyer in this age is often predicated on their sharing personal testimonies of sexual abuse trauma and struggles with various forms of sexual indulgence. Through their testimonies, in accounting for missing the mark of purity, they validate the mark as legitimate in ways that male ministers and parishioners rarely need to. ­Critiquing the very ways in which Bynum’s austere appearance in the No More Sheets video sublimates her sexuality, ethicist Monique Moultrie suggests that the “language of ‘crucifying the flesh’ is abundant in the sermons and materials of female televangelists because the decision to be one with Christ simultaneously requires that one speak against the body and its dangers.”41 What is most striking about these televangelists’ narratives of personal transformation is that they are rooted in Judeo-Christian doctrines of ­purity. As they liberate, they confine. The parameters of women’s sexuality have already been set. How women have engaged God about their sexuality— how they have prayed, fasted, meditated, been slain in the spirit, cried, laid ­prostrate—through the centuries has been set by masculine notions of female purity. I speak here of masculinist notions of purity (rather than simply biblical notions of purity) because the biblical passages about purity have largely been applied to regulating female sexuality. It is women preachers, not male, who recant years of lascivious living. Male televangelists rarely if ever publicly recant over the sins of sexual indulgence, except when they are caught in adulterous affairs and at risk of losing their ministries. Unfortunately, the examples are abundant: for example, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Earl Paulk, Ted Haggard, and Jamal Bryant.42 While Eddie Long never conceded guilt, he agreed to an undisclosed settlement for allegations of sexual impropriety made against him by four former male mentees. Gospel artists like Kirk Franklin and Donnie McClurkin add some nuance to male ministers and open confessions of sexual shortcomings, as they shared their struggles with pornography and homosexuality, respectively, on the Oprah Winfrey Show.43 Theologically conservative male ministries like Man Power and Promise Keepers have focused primarily on encouraging married men to remain faithful to their wives (avoiding extramarital affairs and pornography), not on single men remaining celibate until marriage. Expectations and teachings on “male purity” are virtually absent in Christian churches and communities. Bynum had felt belittled because men in the church were laughing together, talking with one another about “how [she] was in bed.” The greatest weight and

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expectation of purity in the church lay at the feet of women, not men. Church men in Bynum’s story were free to discuss their sexual exploits even among one another, while she experienced the shame and dissemblance of being the subject of their jesting. Reinforcing such a double standard plays a dual role in the church, by silencing the trauma and pain of women who tend to be the primary objects of such escapades and by protecting philandering men. Bynum’s and other female televangelists’ predominant message of purity reinforces the expectations of female purity, often leaving biblical mandates for male purity unaddressed. Such lamentations fail to call into question the cultural climate that makes for their success in a market responsive to women who have fallen short of the mark. The extent to which such a market is tapped for sales raises further questions about the use of personal testimony for ministering and marketing to women. The relationship of White and Bynum to Jakes as their “Father in Ministry” carries with it both the presumed benefit of spiritual guidance and the ongoing financial benefit from their preaching opportunities. That Jakes selects these women to keynote his conferences with their wrenching narratives of abuse tells something of his business acumen, since they have high audience appeal (particularly before his initial fallout with Bynum), and his own theological investment in transparency in discussions of sexuality. The question of Jakes’s “feminism” on this score has opened space for scholarly debate since the nation’s very first introduction to Jakes was through his “Woman Thou Art Loosed” sermon, which opens with him imploring women to “take off their masks.” I walked into the room today and saw all these women, and the first thing I prayed was “God don’t let me waste their time.” . . . And I am going to challenge you not to waste mine. The only way you could waste my time is to come in here and be a phony. To be a hypocrite. “Hypocrite” is reminiscent of a term applied to an actor who said their lines behind a mask. And the problem with ministering to people is that it’s very difficult to get them to take their mask off.

In the sermon Jakes moves poetically through a litany of roles and responsibilities that churchwomen maintain to sustain the image of respectability. He beckons them, instead, toward transparency. His first lines address the challenges of performance in the church. He compares women’s practices in the church to “role” playing, being a “hypocrite.” Likening such a term to one who is onstage wearing a mask, he suggests that this indeed is how women operate in the church. Weighed down by deep and abiding troubles, they are unable



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to adequately address them because of the expectation of perfection and the silence that masks failure. In this way the church conspires against women to keep them beholden to an impossible standard. Given his call for transparency, it is thus not a surprise that two of the women whose ministries he has most bolstered are like those whom he first implored toward self-disclosure. Both Bynum and Jakes speak emphatically about the “unmentionables” that exist in churches. The physical abuse of women is rarely addressed by male clergy; the sexual lives of unmarried men and women remain conversations to be held beyond the walls of the sanctuary; and the frustrations and trials of marital coitus remain taboo topics. Ministries like these have given voice to the abuses that women experience at the hands of men, the longing for personal validation, and the possibilities of restoration. This type of preaching has propelled a new generation of popular women evangelists forward. Despite the merits of transparent testimony, critics of T. D. Jakes wonder to what extent he exploits women’s pain for the sake of profit. While cynical at heart, the question is important given the tremendous amount of money gen-

F I G U R E 4 . Bishop T. D. Jakes. MegaFest International, Johannesburg, South Africa,

October 2008. Photo courtesy of the author.

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erated through successful media ministries. Joyce Meyer’s ministry is one of the most profitable ministries in the country, bringing in an estimated ninety-five million dollars per year from as early as 2004 according to evangelical news outlet Christianity Today.44 Furthermore, the context in which tell-all narratives of religious redemption emerge says something about this contemporary moment. Reality television shows dominate mainstream television, where viewers are able to serve as weekly voyeurs into the personal lives and bedrooms of everyday people at great financial gain to networks and often show participants. Survivor, Big Brother, The Real Housewives of Atlanta (New York, L.A.), ­Braxton Family Values, and Keeping Up with the Kardashians, along with shows like Hoarding: Buried Alive, 16 and Pregnant, and My 600-lb Life are all versions of the same voyeuristic impulse. To the extent that religious testimony on air is encouraged for the sake of money and publicity, televangelists walk a fine line between evangelism and profiteering. This line eventually led to the unraveling of Juanita Bynum’s relationship with Jakes. Shayne Lee’s characterization of the “legal quarrel” and relatively public fallout between Bynum and Jakes over royalties from her “No More Sheets” message speaks to the thin line between religious testimony and “tell all” for profit. In a seemingly spontaneous, dramatic manner, Bynum humbly apologized to Jakes at the Woman Thou Art Loosed 2003 conference, where she got down on her knees and pleaded for his forgiveness in front of tens of thousands of women in Houston’s Reliant Stadium. She gave a passionate apology, claiming that God blocked opportunities for her to preach at prominent churches in order to rid her of pride; in fact, it was more likely that Jakes’ blacklisting efforts produced her lesson in humility.45

Her long ban from his conferences was evident as Paula White stepped in to headline more and more “Woman Thou Art Loosed” events. Lee’s account communicates the callousness of the process at best—the picture of Bynum “crawling back” into the graces of Jakes, apologizing on all four limbs before an auditorium packed with people, as penance for ever bucking the reward system makes clear the ways in which her body, at once reclaimed from sexual exploitation, was again the site of monetary exchange as she crawled her way back into his good ministry/business graces. Although Juanita Bynum no longer serves as a headliner for Jakes’s conferences, women with powerful testimonies of sexual redemption still resonate with female worshippers and animate that space. In 2013 at his MegaFest con-



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ference held in Dallas, Texas, Dr. Jasmin Sculark graced the stage to encourage the women during the WTAL sessions to give “birth” to their destinies, especially through the pain of their lives. Reframing the meaning of pain and relaying it to the process of childbirth, she implored the women to appreciate that “your pain has purpose.” “Pain is not over what you lost; it’s about what you’re about to gain.” With audience members rising to their feet as her Charismatic message evoked greater applause, she communicated to the auditorium full of women that she knows that they are “survivors,” whether it is chemotherapy, cancer, the loss of a child, or divorce. Throughout the many different turns of her sermon, she continued to relay the message of pain, struggle, and triumph until she reached her closing words—her testimony. “They got me out of Trinidad,” she revealed, “but before they got me out, they did rape me. They did molest me.” Her story is told with tearful pauses. The memories, she revealed, flooded back to her while she was in an airport restroom, traveling from one destination to another. The palpable nature of her memory made it all the more powerful for the women gathered. As she recalled “scream[ing]” in the airport, she implored the women to join with her in calling, screaming out the name of Jesus from where they stood. The pain relayed more and more emphatically, she walked back and forth across the front of the podium. Her dramatic rendition of her experience left women wailing in the aisles as they cried for her and with her. “God bless you. . . . Somebody scream like you lost your [mind]!” she implored. As she remembered her assault, they remembered theirs. “I remember . . . ’cause for forty years I didn’t want to remember. I remember his touch. I remember his scent. I remember how I felt. I remember as if it was yesterday.” The sounds of the women weeping in the audience as piercing as the message she relayed, Sculark continued, “I remember I was too ashamed to tell anybody. I remember I felt unworthy. I remember the only way I could get ice for my mother is I had to let him do stuff to me.” Young, poor, female, and in Trinidad, she struggled against the unwanted advances of grown men. Now, standing before an auditorium of WTAL conferees, in a striking blue suit, hair cut just so, with a dynamic and flourishing ministry in the states, she implored the women to believe that their stories, too, could be redeemed. She was living proof. The testimonies of Juanita Bynum, Paula White, Joyce Meyer, and Jasmin Sculark are indeed real. The challenge of expressing religion on television, however, comes in maintaining the very realness that women seek, even when ministering around issues as intimate as sexuality. Reflecting on Quentin Schultze’s

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observation that the key to televangelism is appearing “to tell the truth, all the while hiding the real truth, that there is no relationship with the viewer,” ­Moultrie contends that Bynum’s success emerges from her ability to “present her testimony to the audience packaged in a language that is easy to relate to and similar to many of their own stories.”46 Media’s demand for an ever-­ growing audience in order to ensure ratings, which then undergird production and distribution costs, requires a type of entertainment that blurs the lines between realness and performativity. As Simon Coleman notes in his discussion of mimesis, “‘Great’ preachers mediate in an amplified fashion between the everyday and the impossible, between social distance and spiritual intimacy, between the necessary structures of human organization and their transgression.”47 In the hypermediated space of religious television, the temptation to exploit personal pain for profit thus looms large. This issue became clear upon the unraveling of Bynum’s storybook marriage. After delivering her “No More Sheets” message and becoming a household name as a tell-it-like-it-is single Christian woman, Bynum dated and married Bishop Thomas Weeks in 2002. Their extravagant wedding—complete with an eighty-plus person wedding party, one thousand guests, a twelve-piece orchestra, a 7.76-carat diamond ring, and a hand-beaded gown with Swarovski crystals—was videotaped, shown on TBN, and packaged for retail sale. The new couple traveled together, offering sermons and lectures on marriage, and authored a book on marriage and intimacy, Teach Me How to Love You: Communication and Intimacy in Marriage, the Beginnings, for which Bynum wrote the introduction.48 Their marriage, however, ended abruptly. In 2007 both Juanita Bynum and Paula White filed for divorce from their husbands within months of each another. While White remained relatively silent about the details of her breakup, Bynum’s breakup became a source of public spectacle because of a public altercation between her and Weeks at an Atlanta hotel. Although Bynum and Weeks told conflicting accounts of the evening’s events, ultimately Weeks pleaded guilty to assault and battery, and they parted ways. The media frenzy around her experience, including a prominent story in the New York Times online, facilitated her public declaration that she had become the “new face of domestic violence to the world.”49 With that she implored supporters and visitors to her website to pour money into her coffers so that she might build a quarter-of-a-million-dollar “threshing floor” at her home where she could pray for the concerns of abused women everywhere. She eventually ended the request, presumably after public outrage, but later made a guest



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­appearance on Divorce Court as a “consultant” for abuse cases and told/sold her story to Essence magazine for two cover stories. Months later in 2008 she opened up an option on her website for visitors to pay $9.99 per month to read her personal diary, a book whose symbolic value is tied to notions of female transparency and vulnerability. With a picture of Bynum dressed in angel white in front of a sea-blue background, the website welcomes visitors to explore “behind the scenes videos,” to “read Dr. Bynum’s online Diary,” and to read her “personal memoir” in her “Dear Daddy” blog. Without a hint of the irony involved in paying to read someone’s presumed private thoughts, the site gives viewers twenty-four-hour access for just $1.99. Marketed as economical, the low-rate access to her deepest thoughts is presented as ministry. The testimony for sale is in some ways less discreet than a tell-all book or the onstage retelling of personal trauma. The Internet allows individuals to sell their wares without censorship or accountability. Placing a price tag on access to what is marketed as authentically private thoughts and experiences demonstrates the extent to which realness might be co-opted by the market. As discussed in the next chapter, Bynum’s followers tune in to her message precisely because she is “real.” They value the fact that she offers them courtside seats to her life’s story. Such realness, however, is open for negotiation within the market. And it is precisely this union with the m ­ arket

F I G U R E 5 . In 2008 Evangelist Juanita Bynum invited viewers to purchase access to her

online diary.

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that makes religious media so powerful. In many ways Bynum has become the product. As Kathryn Lofton writes of Oprah, “Oprah is the product that sells a self in order to surpass its singularity and enter, repetitiously, the marketplace of products.” In creating the web diary, writing her books, selling her wedding video, Bynum, like other televangelists, has effectively become the product— the line between ministry and profit ever looming at $9.99 for thirty-day access. However, as Lofton warns, “Reducing Winfrey to a profit grab misses an opportunity to observe the symphonic way in which consumption and religion are categories not in opposition to each other but rather in collaboration.”50 In the work of televangelists this observation is pronounced in the constant need to market and steadily develop a financially supportive audience. The intersection of religion and broadcast media is a union of religion and the market, but a type of union, “aesthetic formation,” Birgit Meyer asserts, that has always existed.51 Bynum and other Evangelists’ entry into the fray is but a reflection of our modern hypercapitalist moment. In 2010 Juanita Bynum released one of several media projects developed after her divorce. This time the album, The Diary of Juanita Bynum: Soul Cry, resonated again with the persona of transparency that she has crafted. The subtitle tilts a hat once again to the idea that listeners will be able to purchase access to Bynum’s “diary” where her innermost secrets are kept. The confluence of these events suggests that the quest for realness initially intimated in “No More Sheets” has been confounded by the pull of Western capitalist impulses, acknowledgment of the triumphant reign of neoliberalist logics. Everything in the end can be sold, even authenticity. And in the hypermediated world that is religious broadcasting, this has become the end game. Everything, even one’s testimony, is (and for many televangelists should be) sold for the spread of gospels of prosperity, sexual redemption, and even, or especially, salvation.

Conclusion: What Has Changed? The shift in Protestant discourse around sexuality from respectability and sinless perfection to an emphasis on “real,” transparent testimonies of sexual redemption has occurred largely under the rubric of neo-Pentecostalism and alongside three major changes in American society. First, the significance and meaning of “white gaze” has changed. If the presence of the white gaze during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was central to black women’s articula-



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tions of respectability, the shifting of such a gaze in the twenty-first century is central to women’s truth telling. To suggest that it is decentered is not to suggest that there are not still deadly consequences to the presumptions too often endemic to the white gaze—for example, the tragic deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Renisha McBride, John Crawford, Jonathan Ferrell, and o ­ thers. Instead, it is to acknowledge how in twenty-first-century America, relentless worry around Whites’ interpretations of the black body has become less salient in how people construct their everyday lives. With the acknowledgment of white social and familial forms of dysfunction through talk shows such as The Dr. Phil Show, The Maury Povich Show, and The Jerry Springer Show, along with movies like American Pie and television shows like Modern Family, the media have shattered previous depictions of white society as stable, functional, and ideal. Gone are the serene and pristine communities found in Leave It to Beaver, The Waltons, and The Andy Griffith Show. Again, this is not to suggest that race no longer holds sway in the public imaginary, but ideal notions of white racial perfectionism postured by the media have been significantly challenged. The growth of the field of “white studies” has further worked to deconstruct taken-for-granted notions of racial purity and explore how white racial assumptions are constructed. And the presumption that Blacks must live up to these ideal norms to be accepted as equals is at least deconstructed, if not destroyed. Second, the nature of black social protest and the expectations of respectability have changed as a result of the defeat of legalized racial forms of exclusion and the sexual revolution of the 1970s. At the same time that opportunities have opened for black bodies to inhabit elite institutions of government, business, and education, the emergence of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) advocacy initiatives has restructured the terms of civil rights discourse. Given increased political demands for same-sex marriage across the nation, black bodies no longer are seen as the primary victims of social isolation but rather bodies who have not conformed to the expectations of heterosexuality. In this way heteronormative sexualities, married and unmarried, have been legitimized in the public imaginary to the exclusion of LGBT bodies. In some ways, the discourse around respectability and its attainment has shifted from heterosexual relationships, regardless of marital status, to LGBT relationships. These types of transitions have certainly influenced the church’s discussion of sexuality. No longer are church leaders primarily concerned with whether men and women are having sex before marriage but with whether men and women

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are having sex with each other at all. Current heated debates in the United States, Jamaica, and other countries suggest that the issue of same-sex marriage is forcing dialogues on sexuality and sexualities that would remain otherwise muted. Finally, the growth of the self-help industry has dramatically influenced how people think about issues from personal finances and depression to weight loss and sex. American talk shows are now overrun with discussions of sexuality. Book and magazine articles abound with suggestions for frequency, quality, and health risks regarding sexual activity. Everyday public life in America in many ways is saturated by discussions of the topic. The expansion of this end of the industry has created a space wherein religious leaders have chosen to either respond negatively to secular accounts of sexuality or provide their own version of “sanctified” sex-help books. The proliferation of Christian media (­videos, tapes, music, podcasts) addressing this issue over the past two decades is a clear indication of the church’s move toward greater openness in discussions of sex. The rise of televangelists like Juanita Bynum, Paula White, and Joyce Meyer and their explicit testimonies of sexual trauma and redemption reflect these fundamental shifts in American society. Yet their raw, painful testimonies are groundbreaking for the church. They have forced open conversations too long silenced in churches about sexuality, violence, and women’s bodies. Their presence on US religious broadcasting stations has translated into their popularity outside the United States, via distribution networks like TBN, INSP, BET, and Daystar. Bynum’s popularity in Jamaica, for example, was almost instantaneous with her rise to stardom in the United States. And her influence worldwide mimicked that impact. According to her website, in 2005 more than 750,000 Kenyans attended a gathering held by Bynum, making it “the largest recorded event hosted by a female minister.” These gatherings of women raise important questions about the ways in which their personal testimonies translate among women listening from the church pews or, better still, from their living room chairs around the world.

5 R E D E E MIN G SE XUALIT Y

On March 25, 2013, the New York Times published “The Rise in Egypt Sex Assaults Sets Off Clash over Blame.” One leader in Cairo, described by the Times as a “police general, lawmaker and ultraconservative Islamist,” had this to say: “Sometimes a girl contributes 100 percent to her own raping when she puts herself in these conditions.”1 Just weeks earlier, news stories of the horrific gang rape and murder of a young woman on a bus in India set off a firestorm of protests and demands for women’s rights in India. And in April 2014, more than 250 young girls were kidnapped from a school in Nigeria by members of Boko Haram and presumably sold into slavery, marked by some as “child brides,” or better-stated, child sex slaves. Islamic- and Hindu-dominated countries, however, are not the only countries with a rape crisis. War-torn areas like the Sudan and urban areas like South Africa and Kingston also face the challenges of sexual assault against women. In the United States President Barack Obama’s administration announced a task force established in 2014 to examine the occurrence of rape on college campuses across the country and help ameliorate the problem. Assaults on women’s bodies are thus not relegated to particular countries, certain socioeconomic backgrounds, or religious communities. Nevertheless, the ubiquitous occurrence of rape and sexual assault across cultures raises important concerns about women, religion, and discourses on sexuality. Given the burgeoning influence of female televangelists and their discourses on sexual redemption, how might we better understand how American religious broadcasting speaks to

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these types of concerns? What does it mean for religious discourse to place as much value on female bodies as on male bodies when the very sacred texts on which religious traditions are built have so often been used as tools for the oppression and subjugation of female bodies? I examine here how American religious television discourses on sex and sexuality translate outside the United States and are appropriated by women in Kingston. All too often faith in the inner city of Kingston, like other urban areas, is about coming to terms with violence, death, poverty, and heartbreak. The responses to these situations are influenced by the realities of work, family, sociality, and commitments of faith. Even though violent crime decreased in 2012, the numbers still remain troubling for an island the size of Jamaica. According to the US Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), “There were 1,083 murders, 1,218 shootings, 763 carnal abuse, 833 rape, 2,679 robberies, 3,094 breakins, 691 larceny cases recorded in 2012. With a population of approximately 2.7 million people, the number of murders and other violence places Jamaica in the top five tiers of the highest per capita homicide rates in the world.”2 In October 2005, during my initial research trip to Kingston, the cover story of the Sunday edition of the Jamaica Gleaner highlighted in shocking red images one of these realities—the trauma of women violated by rape. So far that year 606 reported cases of rape were documented; there were 860 in 2004 and 931 in 2003.3 The inside stories were gloom-filled accounts of women tortured, raped, and sometimes murdered in random acts of violence and in what were being called gang-related “reprisal rapes.” These rapes were assaults on the loved ones, including girlfriends and family members, of opposing gang members. According to some studies, because of the inefficiencies of the criminal justice system, many rapists remain on the streets, and those captured tend to serve abbreviated sentences. The result is social havoc. Speaking to the pain of those affected by sexual trauma is often the work of religious leaders. As we sat in Bible study one Friday night near the heart of Kingston’s Halfway Tree area, a group of women prayed for victims of abuse and rape. The speaker that evening, after sharing her own story of abuse, held up a picture from the newspaper concerning the increase in assaults against women and girls. She then led those gathered in a time of travailing prayer—the particular form of fervently entreating the Divine in and about times of great struggle. I sat feverishly taking notes from near the rear of the gathering, attempting to interpret as the speaker moved seamlessly between English and Jamaican Patois, assailing the Divine even more fervently in Patois. One of my friends in .



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the group leaned over my shoulder periodically to help me fill in the language gaps. In love with their country for its beauty, warmth, and friendly people, the women prayed for a return to the times in Jamaica where perennial violence was not the norm. At Calvary Pentecostal Church, the answer for the approximately seventy-five women gathered was a lamentation for God’s supernatural intervention. The administrators of government had all failed. The women’s only hope lay in the hands of a God who they believe actively hears every single one of their prayers.4 These women believe that prayer, as documented in prayers of other neoPentecostals, actively changes people and circumstances. Their intimacy with God is akin to that described by T. M. Luhrmann in When God Talks Back: “What we have seen in the last four or five decades is the democratization of God—I and thou into you and me—and the democratization of intense spiritual experience, arguably more deeply than ever before in our country’s history.”5 The lamentation for God’s supernatural intervention is predicated on the idea that individual believers, as Kevin O’Neill describes in postwar Guatemala City, have “already changed (through salvation) and that the country will continue to change through the work that each person does to himself or herself.” Absent for him in these new self-focused, neo-Pentecostal campaigns for social transformation are relevant ties to history that explain current conditions: “no specific mention of colonialism or the politics of postcolonialism, of liberalization of neoliberalism, or of the country’s thirty-six year genocidal civil conflict and postwar context.” Having conceded the inefficacy of state intervention, Guatemalan Pentecostals now believe that hope lies between the individual and God. In Guatemala, “with no arrests in 97 percent of the cases of violence against girls or women and more than 70 percent of all cases involving girls or women having not even been investigated, reality forces many to think that if the government will not act, then each citizen must.”6 Televangelists like Juanita Bynum, Paula White, and Joyce Meyer offer tangible witness to the intervening power of a God who responds to individuals’ desperate situations. Women televangelists have gained tremendous national and international followings by sharing their experiences of trauma and redemption. The rise in the prosperity gospel parallels the rise in televangelistic gospels of sexual redemption. The relationship between the simultaneous emergence of these two discourses is not inconsequential. Urbanization and its related decline in job opportunities wreak havoc on the social and sexual lives of women. As ethicist Keri Day explains, regarding conditions even in the United States,

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“Black women (and women in general) experience poverty in qualitatively different ways than black men do” because of their role as caregivers for children.7 This is not to say that sexual trauma and other forms of sexual abuse were not present prior to urbanization, just that there is a dramatic increase in the issues arising from the confluence of urbanization and economic strain. Diane Austin-Broos, in describing the “sweetheart life” in Jamaica, notes that women have often partnered with older, sometimes married, men to sustain themselves in difficult economic times. In Jamaica the transition from country living to city dwelling under neoliberal reform opened the city as the place to secure jobs. The massive influx of laborers into the city was often met, however, with the disappointment of slow economic growth and insufficient employment opportunities in the formal sectors of the economy. In response, women have at times turned to more financially stable men for support.8 Studies of sexuality in the Caribbean have generally focused such women’s liaisons with men under discussions of marriage and family, but increasingly issues of sexuality have been discussed in relation to the rise in sex tourism. According to anthropologist Denise Brennan, the increase in Western tourism in the Caribbean, as well as the economic need of the area, has contributed to its development into a “sexscape,” where a “global economy of commercialized sexual transactions” exists.9 Such a transformation exemplifies developments occurring both locally and globally, linking sex practices to economic instability. As Jenny Sharpe and Samantha Pinto observe, “Globalization has involved not only an economic restructuring of the world but a sexual one as well.”10 Studies of women’s lives in other developing areas have also made the connection between increased globalization and urbanization and new configurations of sexuality. Women in South Africa, for example, according to sociologist Maria Frahm-Arp, find in the aftermath of apartheid both great opportunities for economic advancement and great disappointment. These women, who also travel to the cities en masse from the country, often struggle to make ends meet. “The sex-for-goods industry . . . where young women were in quasi mistress type relationships with older men, has been one of the unforeseen phenomena to emerge since the end of apartheid.” “Sociologists,” she contends, “had expected the politics of race, gender and inequality to be dominant features of the New South Africa, but the politics of sexuality was unpredicted.”11 This sex-for-goods industry that influences the material wellbeing of a number of young women informs in many ways the growing appeal of Pentecostal-type doctrines of sexual abstinence and restraint as people look



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for new, clear boundaries at a time when sexual standards have been disrupted by economic uncertainty.12 I argue that women followers of religious broadcasting often use televangelists’ testimonies of sexual trauma and redemption as inspiration for navigating and reclaiming their own lives. I am interested in the significance of such discourses during a period of late capitalism and their influence in promoting agency among Christian women who are attempting to carve their way both economically and socially in a world where their existence has often been marginal. Ultimately, I am interested in how black female bodies have become sites of personal agency in the social, political, and economic climate of twenty-first-century industrialized and developing nations. I further contend that it is difficult to appreciate the rise of the prosperity gospel without simultaneously giving weight to the rise of what I term “gospels of sexual redemption.” They mutually inform and propel one another. Lack of attention to the latter, however, can be attributed to scholars of religious media privileging the voices of male televangelists to the near exclusion of female televangelists. However, female televangelists help give meaning to the increasing appeal of televangelism in the global North and South in this period of late capitalism. Scholars have debated the meaning of prosperity gospels and the reasons for their rise within global Christianity, but similar types of research on the meaning of gospels of sexual redemption are needed. Women find in the Pentecostalist doctrines of the church a way of reclaiming their sense of sexual boundaries. Ironically, the near inability of women to live up to the sexual mores prescribed by the church, given the instability and uncertainty of marriage, creates a constant cycle of sexual and hence spiritual failure and redemption as women map new paths for themselves. Evangelists from North America speak directly to these concerns—not disrupting the standard but offering transparent, “real” testimony as a way of identifying with women’s ongoing struggles. While I was sitting in Kingston, talking with Valencia, it became evident that Juanita Bynum’s admonition to “call back” one’s body parts had penetrated the hearts and minds of women who live far beyond Dallas, Texas. When I met Valencia, she had recently been elected president of the women’s ministry at Calvary Pentecostal Church. Every second Friday the women here come together for the service, a mixture of Pentecostal praise and worship and a word of encouragement from a guest minister. After the message, they share testimonies of deliverance and make petitions for healing and offerings of thanksgiving. ­Ushers cover the legs of those slain in spirit with cloth to offer

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discretion. Captivated by the openness of the women to discuss some of their trials, I asked Valencia if we could talk about how the ministry developed. She obliged, explaining that she was compelled to help women because of the enormous amount of pain that she experienced in her own life. The encouragement she received from the ministries of T. D. Jakes and Juanita Bynum was central to her healing. The call to personal empowerment offered by evangelists like Bynum and Jakes through prayer, fasting, sowing seeds, and ultimately taking control of one’s destiny offers those in the audience hope that despite institutional barriers to success, their personal circumstances can change. Research on the rise of global Pentecostalism discusses how these narratives of personal transformation have effected change in local communities by offering conservative discourses of personal responsibility that advocate pietistic living. Male followers, for example, recant lives of womanizing and gambling and eschew their penchant for drug and alcohol abuse.13 Such narratives are generally not about political organizing or structural change, but they offer individuals a possibility of changing their individual lives.14

Valencia As we sat in the car and talked outside the church, Valencia, who has followed Bynum and Jakes faithfully, explained that both televangelists’ ministries have “enlightened” her life. Although the service had ended, teenagers hung around playing on drums and singing as children wandered around outside. Valencia’s short, stout frame, adorned in stylish summer colors, and her upbeat personality belied the heartwrenching narrative that she would tell. Jakes, she said, didn’t allow her to simply throw a “pity party” for herself but instead insisted that she find her purpose. Because of the unique trials she has experienced and the pain she has witnessed among other women in her small Jamaican community, she felt that Jakes had “opened up a path for women who have been downtrodden.” She had never found that in her local church. T. D. Jakes and Juanita Bynum . . . have a great effect on my life—in the way I study the Bible, in the way I see myself as a woman—because even being a Christian, there was still hurt, and I never knew how to deal with it. But after watching T. D. Jakes, that really had an impact on my life. . . . Juanita Bynum has a tape that says, “No More Sheets.” That means, I saw myself in Juanita Bynum.



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The calls to personal empowerment through the renunciation of sexual sin, the acknowledgment of sexual vulnerability, and the open profession of victory are what move Valencia and other women viewers to see hope in their situations. I was curious about how Valencia saw herself in Juanita Bynum: “Juanita Bynum. Being on the street, being rejected, hurt, you know. . . . I have been through a bad marriage, rejected, growing up in my childhood and never really knowing love. . . . I never knew how to leave my past behind.” Like too many women growing up in poor and underserved communities in Jamaica’s urban center, Valencia experienced the terror of unrestricted male aggression. As she narrates, the issues of rape and violence immediately surface. She tells her story matter-of-factly, without emotion, and clear about how television ministries have played a part in her own healing. My sister was about fourteen, and I was about twenty-eight. We were coming from a party. We decided to walk home. Then, a gunman came out from behind a gate and a column, and he stuck us up. He wanted to take my sister. I said, “No! It is better that you rape me than take my sister!” And he said, “No.” I said, “Rape me or do whatever you want to do, but don’t touch my sister!” He raped me and left. I reported it to the police, but nothing was done. . . . I went home, but I didn’t tell anybody. I could not sleep. My sister kept crying about it. We didn’t tell anybody. I bathed, I bathed, I bathed, I bathed. It took a toll on my life. That is about the third time I was raped at gunpoint. This shattered me, and I hated myself. I hated myself. I hated everything about me, and I hated everybody. I thought I was guilty, and I lived with that for years.

The brutality of the encounter was magnified by the shame created by being raped in front of her sister. The type of bargain described was the negotiation point that framed not her first experience of rape, but her third. In a strange way the negotiation with the gunman over her body signals both a deep and abiding love for her sister and the way she had come to devalue herself, trading her already assaulted body for the innocence of her sister’s. Trying to get clean after the rape, she bathed repeatedly, all the while erecting a shelter of silence that facilitated the internalization of her pain. Against the reality of Jamaica’s out-of-control system of violence, V ­ alencia found solace in the mediated American-based ministry of Juanita Bynum. While their experiences of sex differed, the scars and silences surrounding any discussion of sexuality remained. The strength and triumph Valencia distilled from Bynum’s tale of personal struggle and eventual triumph were precisely

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what Valencia needed to move from a place of self-hatred. While the offenders were never caught and brought to justice, she was able to regain control of her own life. Ironically, her first time ever hearing anyone speak publicly about rape was while watching the Oprah Winfrey Show, and subsequent to that a television sermon by T. D. Jakes. Since then she has been an avid follower of his ministry. “Jakes’, Woman Thou Art Loosed, that helped me,” she insisted. “The way he teaches. . . . He gives you something to go on when you think you are nobody.” Nevertheless, it is the candid and transparent ministry of Juanita Bynum that truly speaks to her. Juanita, there is just something that makes her the top. Many times, you want to emulate somebody, but you never hear their story. But she shares her life story. She doesn’t mince words. She doesn’t hide anything. This is a woman who tells you where she is coming from. She tells you. I say, “If she has been there, and the Lord has raised her up from there, then why not me?” When she says, “No more sheets,” it means that for too long, she had been hiding. And I have lived that kind of life too. I was hiding from my past, because I had been raped, molested, abused, and rejected. Because of all of that, I had a very low self-esteem. These television people, they comfort me.

The idea that Bynum does not “mince words” or “hide anything” factors into Bynum’s appeal. The sense of comfort Valencia receives in relating to Bynum is also the message that she wants to convey to the women who gather for women’s ministry meetings on Friday evenings at the church. They testify in less candid detail than Bynum, but they nevertheless convey their own stories of struggle and triumph. It is in these testimonies that some women find solace from lives of turmoil while others simply find affirmation for their spiritual journeys as single or married women. Although such sermons do not preach the need to organize against an inefficient criminal justice system or global media culture that celebrates the objectification of women’s bodies, such ministries have challenged the church’s own silence on matters of sexuality. Women’s reasons for watching Juanita Bynum, Paula White, Joyce Meyer, and other women televangelists often center around the idea that what the evangelists share is real. The ability to sit in one’s living room and consume the personal narrative of an evangelist whose life of struggle resembles one’s own is a powerful draw for women in the viewing audience. Often, and regardless of whether the incidents are identical, the very fact that these women televangelists have experienced pain and are willing to talk openly about it offers a level



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of comfort to the viewer. Scholars examining the rise of the self-help industry and television shows like Oprah explain the effect these shows can have on the viewing audience.15 Sujata Moorti suggests that Oprah’s episodes on rape create a “protofeminist discursive space” where voice is given to the experiences of women who are victims of abuse. “The act of giving voice to pain,” she suggests, contains “the potential to transform these television programs into cathartic events for the participants.” Simultaneously, such moments create an “emancipated public sphere that highlights marginalized women’s voices.”16 While these viewers are consumers of other people’s pain, they are invited to join those on the air in seeking communal healing. The end of the sermon is an explicit invitation to join in prayer with the minister for the spiritual and physical transformation of the individual.

Marissa Like Valencia, Marissa struggled with a history of economic restraints and sexual trauma in her life. One of the women gathered for the prayer meeting, she offered a story that captured everyone’s heart. She and I later talked for hours about how she ended up at Calvary Pentecostal. Hers was a circuitous route through drug abuse and trafficking, imprisonment in the United States, and deportation back to Jamaica. Barely five feet tall, slender, dark skinned, with high cheekbones and a stylish asymmetrical haircut, Marissa talked with a sense of joy and relief about the transformation that her life has undergone. It was the ministry of televangelists that helped rescue her while she was serving time in prison. “I was in my dorm one day, and my friend Sabrina she helped me to read a scripture. . . . She said to me, ‘You know God love you, Marissa.” . . . That’s the girl who was on death row, and she told me about God.” The “dorm” room she described was the cellblock that she had come to call home. Spending most of her time there, depressed because of her situation, Marissa thought little of herself or her future. Meeting with Sabrina changed her life. Sabrina challenged her to think once again about the God that she had come to know as a child while periodically attending church. This God had long since departed, once she decided to enter the drug trade to help make ends meet for her two young children. But drug trafficking proved less than helpful in her quest for a better life; it virtually destroyed her along with her hope for the future. She was serving eight years in prison away from her children (and pregnant with her third) because she had agreed to be a “mule”

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for her boyfriend’s drug operation. All she had to do was get the drugs into Florida. Apprehended, imprisoned, and alone, she tried everything she knew to abort the baby. One day after her meeting with Sabrina, she came upon a tape by T. D. Jakes: I saw this CD with T. D. Jakes, Woman Thou Art Loosed, and I decided to listen to it and I cried, you know, to what I hear, and from then I said Lord . . . it’s all about You. Help me to know You. Help me to know how You feel about me. Even though I’m messed up, even though I am nothing. . . . You know I messed up. . . . Tell me how to build up that confidence within me.

Jakes’s message was the response to her prayer. It answered her questions and offered her the opportunity to begin addressing her own personal struggles with men and sex and poverty. The stress of being in prison, alone and without support, fed her desire to terminate her pregnancy. “I do all sorta things just to lose the child you know. I said I can’t have a child in this.” Because of her refusal to eat, the guards sent her to the hospital twice, pleading with her, “You gotta eat!” But her spirit was broken. And she didn’t want her child’s life to mirror her own. When her time came, Hanna was born weighing 7.5 pounds, a true miracle, she declares. But, looking back on her life, she connected the dots that brought her to this place. When my childhood come up, I was abused by friends of my mother; I was abused by my cousins. . . . I was sexually abused by him [her mother’s boyfriend]. I wish I pray to God to see that man every day. I don’t know if he’s better or whatever, but at the time I was about eleven. It don’t even insert, but . . . it was painful, and that man was so abusive. . . . I had to see his penis, and every time I think about it, that is what I see. And I wish and I pray to God I wish I could see him. Everything, my mother don’t know. My mother’s in Canada, and I said when she come home, I will sit her down one day, and I will let her know how I was hurt by one of her friends. I was abused by two of my cousins; she didn’t know.

Silence about the experience dominated Marissa’s life. For over thirty years she had been quiet about her experience, never letting her mother or anyone else know what had happened. After the death of her father, her mother had to raise nine children on her own. The daily struggle of survival prevented her from truly dealing with her own pain. Her mother’s life reflected the struggles of other single parents who had to rely on others in raising their children.



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­ arissa never blamed her mother; she only wishes that she had said something M sooner. Now, listening to Jakes, she has found her voice. Yeah, at the time we have recall, so at recall we have to be in our bed, but I make sure to open the door and then I turn on the TV to that station, and I always listen to him. Yeah, I always listen to him. I remember when I would listen to him, he would say loose from your infirmity, loose from your pain, loose from your anger, loose from this, loose from that, and I was listening and I cried; I listened to that cassette, and I went to Longwood the next day, and I cried and I cried unto God, “I know you’re talking to me through this cassette.”

Like other women in Valencia’s ministry, Marissa has found the confidence to stand up and make known her story. She listens to Jakes and finds in his ministry the confidence to address the pain of her past. She testifies with other women at Valencia’s church to God’s deliverance during women’s ministry nights. Beyond reaching people in the comfort of their homes, Jakes’s ministry has focused on getting his messages into prisons around the country.

Keeping It “Real”: Women’s Responses The creation of an authentic self, one not masked by social and religious expectations of perfection, is what attracts women to someone like Juanita Bynum. Even their attraction to evangelists Paula White and Joyce Meyer is based on the idea that they speak the truth. They offer a presentation of self in which the performance of authenticity is foregrounded. Speaking openly about their experiences of rape and abuse, Meyer and White, like Bynum, bring to light the hidden experiences of church women in first-person narrative. The call of women for ministers to present what is “real” is the single greatest concern that women watching religious broadcasting conveyed. Often working class and Pentecostal, the women I spoke with reflected an array of personal challenges through marriage, divorce, abuse, and sexual disappointment. The issue they related to most was televangelists’ focus on what’s “real.” Their transparent testimonies of sexual indulgence or abuse were one of their strongest appeals. Such televangelists play an important role in affirming the realness of women’s situations—ones marked by contradictions, disappointments, hopes dashed, and hopes reborn. Amid a cacophony of politicians, would-be politicians, leaders, preachers, experts, and radio newscasters constantly mapping what should be, ought to be, or will be in Jamaica, female televangelists in

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women’s eyes state simply what is. Often lamenting the church’s unwillingness to discuss such issues as sexual abuse, sexual indulgence, and even sexual longing, women celebrated Bynum’s openness. Women found comfort, I discovered, not in the deconstruction of ideals of purity and sanctification but in their disruption. Women are not looking for the ideals to change but for the acknowledgment that the standards are virtually impossible to uphold in the social and economic climate of the twentyfirst century. To be real is to acknowledge this dissonance. Their sexuality is so interlaced with their spirituality that undoing one is tantamount to undoing the other, even though the ideals of sexual purity remain elusive and almost exclusively related to the disciplining of female bodies. Several women with whom I spoke indicated that it was the realness of the messages of female televangelists that drew their attention. For Joyce, a ­middle-aged divorcee who attends a Pentecostal church and lives at home with her parents to help make ends meet, the most important aspect of watching Bynum and White is that they have real-life issues. Without hesitation she named Paula White, Juanita Bynum, and T. D. Jakes as the televangelists that she faithfully watches. They all speak to issues, real-life issues—hurting, pain, destruction, disappointment—all of them speak to that, and all of them are very real. If one thing that would attract me to a minister is your candidness, your transparency, because as far as I’m concerned . . . if you ain’t gone through nothin’, you really can’t help me. . . . So I gravitate towards persons who have been through something.

Other women also indicated without hesitation that it was the transparency of televangelists that drew them. While trying to manage her bustling household, Felicia listens to the messages of Bynum and White because “they speak to the real issue, the real. Hey, we’re facing these things; let’s get real.” For Felicia these issues were illustrated best in the message of Bynum. “One of the things I can remember from one of Juanita Bynum’s messages was, the ‘No More Sheets’ one, . . . hey, we . . . have struggles, we have everyday sexual struggles, mind struggles. . . . You know that sort of thing, so it’s the real issues, the real human issues that we face.” While she didn’t expand on her own personal struggle, she was clear that the significance of Bynum, along with White and others, is the extent to which they share what is real. Celeste described it differently. Instead of using the term “real,” she suggested that Bynum’s ministry focuses on “cleaning.” “I recognize that her min-



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istry is what I call, I personally call it a cleaning ministry; she’s called to clean the Body of Christ. That is my take on her.” For Celeste the different ministries serve different purposes in the body of Christ. So, you find that her [Bynum’s] ministry is about what’s going on in churches, so she come to tell you, “Live right!” So, that’s her ministry. Paula has a ministry where she’s an encourager. . . . That’s her ministry to encourage you that a better day is coming. She always, she uses her life a lot. I admire that; she’s not afraid to tell you where she’s been, to bring out, “Look at me; now God can do the same for you,” so that’s her ministry.

Hearing another’s testimony is a way of identifying eventual triumph. Married and in ministry herself, Sharon simply confirmed that she watches the ministry of Jakes and Bynum because they are practical. “I love how they are practical, very practical about the Word. . . . They use illustrations. . . . Sometimes you might be going through some struggles or, you know, have some concerns, and you’re in need for change, and that came across as the way home.” Marissa appreciated that Bynum is someone who actually struggled almost to the point of death, yet preaches now with great power and authority. For her Bynum is “a very powerful woman of God, and she’s coming from very far; she could have died, lost her mind; God gave her back her mind.” Caroline, too, appreciates the personal narratives of televangelists. The realness and the willingness to perform normalcy even while in ministry leave a lasting impression for her. What I believe in with Joyce and Paula and Juanita, they speak of their experiences. You can identify with them and the Word. I think Joyce is a real, real person. She doesn’t cover it. She doesn’t say, “Because I’m a pastor, I can’t get mad,” or, “Because I’m a pastor, I don’t like that.” I guess she captures a lot of people in Jamaica. . . . She is real. She speaks about what you are experiencing.

Consistently women point out that televangelists like Bynum speak “about what you are experiencing.” In other words, they are real and are unafraid to use their own life stories as a means of communicating a message. Their willingness to bare all gives those in the viewing audience someone with whom they can identify and strive to emulate. They can connect. Anthropologist John Jackson argues that the quest for realness in analyzing something as precarious as race is mapped through the tension between

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authenticity and sincerity. Sincerity, he suggests, implies “social interlocutors who presume one another’s humanity, interiority, and subjectivity.” Indeed, in communicating their own faults, shortcomings, and abuses, women televangelists offer to their audiences a candid sense of their interior lives. The quest for sincerity here is different from the quest for authenticity, as Jackson might suggest. “Authenticity presupposes a relation between subjects and objects,” whereas “sincerity presumes a liaison between subjects.”17 Measuring authenticity is akin to assessing the value of products (e.g., an “authentic Gucci bag”), something that can be influenced by markets—thus judging female televangelists based on their positions as objects/brands, their identities linked with the media empires they have created through books, CDs, videos, and podcasts. Yet, as Kathryn Lofton warns, such an assumption misses the opportunity to explore the ways in which religion and consumption have for some time been in collaboration.18 Debates about authenticity or inauthenticity presuppose that female televangelists are interested in the subject/object relationship, disclosing all as a means of selling more products and earning greater market share. Sincerity as a marker of being real, conversely, allows the viewer to presume from the speaker a high level of emotional ties and conviction—that he or she is most concerned about the people in the audience, not their buying power, the subject-to-subject relationship. As Jackson tries to “disentangle sincerity from authenticity’s sticky webs,” he argues that racialized discourses of authenticity should be reframed under a discursive examination of “sincerity” because quests for racialized authenticity are inherently flawed by the very fact of the construction of race.19 People can be sincere about their racialized commitments, but identifying authentic racial identities is cumbersome, inaccurate, fluid, and nearly impossible. Since the audience seeks realness from televangelists, one wonders whether the quest for authenticity in religious broadcasting, too, is a hollow pursuit given the coupling of religion with the market and media, a form of communication based largely on image and performance. Sincerity, instead, looks to intention and motivation, initial intention/motivation, linked to the subject/evangelist herself and her relationship with her audience, not her relationship with the market, the distributors, the video editors, or even the evangelists’ debts and expenses. In identifying the realness of televangelists, audiences often unconsciously or voluntarily look past the other objects that produce the medium in order to establish connection with the speaker herself. And this ultimately is the power of the medium, as Patrick Eisenlohr



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reminds us—the ability to make us forget the medium (and all that went into its production) even as we watch.20 Thus, it is women’s sense of the real, the sincere, that matters most in their transformation.

Moving Toward Agency Historically seen as operating under the rubrics of respectability and sanctification, religious narratives around sexuality found in religious broadcasting explode such expectations by speaking in real, transparent terms about the experiences and consequences of sex. Too often relegated to positions of silence and invisibility within male-dominated church narratives, women can name and address their pain through the neo-Pentecostal-styled messages of televangelists. While much of the rhetoric shies away from engagement in the political and social amelioration of these problems, the work of personal salvation and restoration proffered by religious broadcasters has interestingly undergirded the personal triumphs of women seeking to overcome painful periods in their pasts.21 Counseling women through abuse and helping them navigate sexual relationships, these broadcasts have in surprising ways helped women, like Valencia and Marissa, think of themselves as agentive subjects in a social context that often works against their own articulations of self. The influence of such conservative forms of religion has been the subject of a growing body of literature in religious studies, sociology, and anthropology.22 These texts seek to examine the notion of “agency,” given the growing influence of conservative religion on individual lives. Saba Mahmood’s engaging work on the lives of Muslim women in Egypt, for example, suggests that some of the work of religious ritual belies conventional understandings of public, political engagement. Unfortunately, progressive social scientists have for too long wed notions of agency with progressive politics. In order to truly understand how pious women might experience their own agency, one must decouple these notions and read them within their own cultural and historical contexts.23 In this way we might read agency in the church as the very presence of personal testimonies of sexual indulgence and redemption or sexual abuse and recovery in light of the church’s long-held silences on these issues. If the ability to effect change in the world and in oneself is historically and culturally specific (both in terms of what constitutes “change” and the means by

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which it is effected), then the meaning and sense of agency cannot be fixed in advance, but must emerge through an analysis of the particular concepts that enable specific modes of being, responsibility and effectivity. Viewed in this way, what may appear to be a case of deplorable passivity and docility from a progressivist point of view may actually be a form of agency—but one that can be understood only from within the discourses and structures of subordination that create the conditions of its enactment. In this sense, agentival capacity is entailed not only in those acts that resist norms but also in the multiple ways in which one inhabits norms.24

Such intervention in the scholarship on agency and women’s lives is invaluable for interpreting how media forms such as religious broadcasting influence Christian women’s religious worlds. The very individualist currents that undergird neo-Pentecostal movements of the twenty-first century are the impulses that give women the freedom to focus on their own healing, by naming their experience, testifying about it to others, and confronting the silence that would rob them of their dignity in a male-centered society. As more and more communities adopt religious ideologies that are historically connected to politically and socially conservative ways of making sense of Christian theology, it becomes increasingly important to understand how women are employing these messages.

Conclusion As their messages reverberate around the world to women in the Caribbean, South Africa, West Africa, Europe, Latin America, and Australia, Americanbased televangelists have as much influence outside as within the United States. Like women in the Caribbean with whom I spoke, women in the United States have appropriated the narratives of televangelists like Bynum, White, and Meyer as a way of claiming their voice and naming their personal struggles.25 But neither the message nor its effect changes much as it traverses continents. Women experiencing economic shifts in the United States, Jamaica, and South Africa have in various ways used these messages as a resource for articulating past hurts, finding purpose in their lives, and crafting a better future for themselves and their children. These transformations are rarely about a change in political and economic structures. Rather, women latch on to these narratives of realness and sincerity to help construct their personal models of transformation.



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The women with whom I worked placed high value on the sincerity of the speakers. The ability to identify hurt for hurt, pain for pain, is for many viewers the epitome of what it means to be real. In this sense real is more often than not equated with struggle, while the absence of struggle is taken for superficiality. This same dynamic emerges among rap music loyalists who identify real with a life of drugs, women, and violence in the streets. For a more sanitized version of rap to exist is for some a sign that the music, the product, has lost its authenticity. As I spoke to a gathering of high school students at a Catholic girls’ school in Jamaica at the invitation of their teacher, the test of realness was involved in my own communication with the students. The teacher wanted me to inspire the students with a narrative about my own journey to the professorate, the things I’ve learned along the way. Noting the heavy influence of American cable television in Jamaica, I “waxed eloquent,” warning them to be leery of many of the messages coming from the United States. Fast money, fast life, easy sex—I encouraged them to focus on their school work, and when the time was right, preferably after they are married, to engage in sexual activity. I pointed to alarming statistics and suggested that one of their greatest treasures is their body. I recall meandering through the discussion, as if one walking on eggshells. I knew my personal convictions; I knew the convictions of the pastor’s wife and teacher who invited me, and I presumed the varied perspectives of my audience. Nevertheless, I pressed on with my remarks. At the end of my talk, hands went up. One asked about my educational background, another my experience in Jamaica thus far, while another quite pointedly remarked, “Why do adults ask us to wait until marriage to have sex when they didn’t?” “Ummmmmmm.” Great question. I paused, thought, and suggested the following. “Maybe it’s because we’re trying to protect you from some of the pitfalls we’ve experienced.” I was indicted. I had not bared open my soul, told of sin indulged, guilty prayers offered, wrenching tears cried, abandoning selfindulgent lovers. I had only lectured them on what not to do, why not to do it, and the statistical consequences of ill-conceived actions. I had told them of their potential, how they needed to invest in themselves. I had not “testified” to their liking, though, or more important, to their point of transformation. I failed as an evangelist. But the questions continued. One student indicated that the issue was not necessarily about giving up one’s virginity with boys but in engaging in sexual liaisons with other girls on campus. We were entering new territory. Elise, the daughter of the pastor of another local church, spoke of her

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commitment to remain sexually pure until marriage—a theme more up the alley of my remarks. The class ended, a hodgepodge of responses, experiences, and thoughts. I wondered how the conversation went over. Moments passed as I stood talking with Elise and her friends about why they were committing to wait until marriage to have sex. They were individually passionate and convinced of their decisions. They sounded like proper Catholic schoolgirls. One student sat, however, in the back of the class, her head on the table the entire time. She had not really been involved during the full duration of the talk. Eventually she sat up. “My name is Denise. My parents have been married twenty-two years. I have two other siblings, and I’m the youngest.” She paused for a moment. “My father has ten other children outside of the marriage.” I stood silent, unsure of what she was communicating. “While married to your mother?” I asked. “Yes,” she replied matter-of-factly. “And your mother knows?” I clumsily asked unsure of where this conversation was going or why she chose to reveal such details to the small gathering left standing. Maybe because they spoke so filled with hope about marriage. “Yes, she knows.” “Why does she stay?” I inquired further—naïvely, hesitantly, foolishly. “I don’t know,” she replied and then placed her head back on the desk. She didn’t really want to talk anymore. She just wanted us to know that marriage was not her utopia. It had not been for her mother, and it seemed doubtful that she bought into the idea that it would be hers. Sexual relations are forever changed and changing. Women navigate them as best they know how. Urbanization has influenced us all—regardless of income levels or gender. We live in fluid economic times, which lead to fluid sexual experiences—whether we are the longing lovers, the ones living the “sweetheart lives,” the faithful wives, the ones managing mistresses, the ones navigating the landscape of sexual tourism, or the ones absolved of longing all together. Televangelists, it seems, bare their souls, helping people navigate these new terrains by narrating their own land-mine experiences. Women I talked to appreciate this. They want someone who names the standard yet identifies with them and traverses alongside them as they find their way through these shifting sexual realities.

6 D ISTR I BUTIN G TH E M ESSAG E Globalization and the Spread of Black Televangelism You know what I tell African American preachers . . . because I know so many of them. If their message is towards the black church, INSP is not the network for them. They need to be on the Word. . . . If you’ve got a black social gospel, then . . . the Word Network, because they’re an urban network. INSP, our audience is pretty much like 30 percent African American, so you’ve got 67 percent general market people. You can’t be preaching that black social gospel on this network. You can, but as far as viewers and responses, you’re not going to get what you want. . . . And I tell the people, I tell the preachers, you’re really limiting yourself if that’s all you’re preaching, a black theology. Heidi, African American employee at INSP, one of the largest Christian networks in the United States1

Gospels of prosperity and sexual redemption are distinctly personal and individualized modes of transformation. Most often they interpret suffering as embedded in the psycho-spiritual challenges of individual believers, not rooted in a history of race, class, or gendered oppression. Even if suffering is determined to be a result of oppression, solutions are most often immediately related to a need for individual transformation and individual faith in God. In some ways, faith-alone solutions mimic our consumption of television media—at home, alone, behind closed doors. Some scholars contend that media enhances our sense of aloneness and thus mutes our collective outrage at injustice and capacity for collective action. In this “bowling alone” environment believers readily insist that televangelists speak directly to “me.”2 The black social gospel’s emphasis on race and insistence on collective action against the injustices of America’s political, economic, and judicial system,

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which many in the “general market” believe is fair, limits the mass appeal of the message and the potential for mass mobilization. Crafted through the long fight for racial justice in the United States, against the profound immorality of early white Christian theological interpretation that historically questioned the existence of black souls, affirmed slavery as biblical, justified the rape of black women, funded itself through the dislocation of black families, entertained itself through the lynching of black bodies, and adamantly preached white supremacy and the separation of the races, the black social gospel was for African Americans a reaffirmation of God’s divine love and consideration of black folk.3 It spoke boldly of the Divine’s concern about justice and God’s pronounced “preferential option for the poor.”4 The black social gospel today continues to interpret the lives of oppressed people through the lens of scripture while calling institutions and governments to account for the perpetuation of social injustice. Tellingly, in the United States these issues are often magnified during the political campaign season. Before the religion-muted presidential campaign of 2012, in which white evangelicals overwhelmingly supported the first Mormon candidate, downplaying the significance of the irony of their allegiance,5 the presidential campaign of 2008 sparked religious fire and enthusiasm as no other campaign since John F. Kennedy’s bid in 1960 as a practicing Roman Catholic. Watching the 2008 US Democratic presidential primary and subsequent presidential bid offers perceptive commentary on the intersections of race, gender, religion, media, and politics in the contemporary United States. Never before had either of the country’s major presidential primaries boiled down to the political qualifications, familial histories, and campaigning shrewdness of a black male candidate and a white female contender. For weeks, the spotlight, ever focused on the two candidates, eventually concentrated on Barack Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white American mother. At one point the most critical question focused on one issue—Barack Obama’s faith. Explosive video clips of his former pastor’s sermon suddenly raised questions about Obama’s patriotism, claims to Christianity, and legitimacy as a candidate for all of America, “not just black America.” The original title of Wright’s sermon, “Confusing God and Government,” became described, pejoratively for some and defiantly by others, as the “God Damn America” sermon.6 Obama’s ease away from his pastor in order to maintain his standing among middle America proved a keen lesson on the troubling politics of race in America, the power of the media, and the challenges of televised faith. Be-



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yond the peddling of sound bites by networks and the wholesale denunciation of the message by commentators, most noteworthy about the sermon is not that it was aired but the television network that originally aired it. Trinity United Church of Christ, where Wright pastored, found outlet for its media broadcast on the Word Network, which identifies its primary audience as “the urban market.” Wright’s messages were not broadcast on Paul and Jan Crouch’s TBN, Pat Robertson’s CBN, Marcus and Joni Lamb’s Daystar, or David Cerullo’s INSP. These television networks, marketed to a wider (read: “whiter”) audience, exacting higher distribution costs, and slanted largely toward conservative Republican social and economic politics, generally do not air ministers whose messages emerge from a black theological tradition—one that has identified itself with the Old Testament prophetic practice of speaking truth to power, while offering empathy and direction for the poor and oppressed. Not surprisingly, Jeremiah Wright located his theological home in this tradition. His entire defense of his ministry and message was that the attack on him was an attack on the “black church” and the black theological tradition that has shaped much of the church’s engagement with the world. Wright’s introduction of “the black church” and “black theology” seemed, as he suggested, a strange new concept to newscasters who covered the story as well as the audiences who tuned in to make sense of the ensuing political ­scandal. Hidden in plain view, the history and complexity of black religious life in America became an important yet still enigmatic subject of political commentary. The radical departure of Wright’s message from the mainstream of white evangelical preaching, which is often as politically charged toward conservative Republican politics, seemed to demand explanation, if not outright condemnation. Furthermore, Wright and his ministry stood mostly outside the mainstream of African American televangelists like T. D. Jakes and Juanita Bynum, whose ministries largely frame the pages of this book. Given the increased following of Jakes in American popular culture, Wright, as an African American preacher, appeared obscure at best. And this is not incidental. Wright and Jakes are different preachers, reflecting the varying strains of theological interpretation that constitute religious life for black Americans. While it is fair to describe both preachers as gifted orators, biblically versed, committed to community development, and faithful to scriptural authority, they are fundamentally different.7 Jakes, nurtured in the Pentecostal tradition, speaks to the concerns of personal salvation and attainment of social and economic success within America’s mainstream while making few incisive

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critiques of the structures and practices that inform American economic, social, and foreign policy. Wright, likewise, speaks of salvation and social mobility, while calling to task those whom he understands to perpetuate social and economic injustice in America. Although Trinity, the church he pastored for thirty-six years, is a part of the predominantly white, United Church of Christ denomination, it maintains a majority African American membership and exists under the motto adopted by their previous pastor, Rev. Reuben A. Sheares II, during the civil rights and Black Power struggles for justice in 1971: “Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian.” Wright’s remarks aligned with the substance of his life’s ministry, advocating for the concerns of the marginalized members of his community and challenging the social and political systems that perpetuate injustice. Within such a framework, the black theology of liberation to which he ascribes maintains a ready critique of racism and the ongoing indulgences of capitalism. His sermon, which was framed by a critique of the US government’s decision to go to war in Iraq and how that war was sold to the American people, challenged parishioners not to confuse God with government. Governments, the argument goes, lie, change, and fail. God, on the other hand, never lies, never changes, and certainly never fails. Even when it looks like God has failed, the evangelical part of his sermon suggested, the cross and Christ’s resurrection remind us that God never fails. The point of contention with his sermon, however, emerged when he used portions of US and world history to illustrate how governments fail. Governments fail. The government in this text [referring to the New Testament passage from which his message came] comprised of Caesar, Cornelius, Pontius Pilot—Pontius Pilate—the Roman government failed. The British government used to rule from east to west. The British government had a Union Jack. She colonized Kenya, Guyana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Hong Kong. Her navies ruled the seven seas all the way down to the tip of Argentina in the Falklands, but the British failed. The Russian government failed. The Japanese government failed. The German government failed. And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them in slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them



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in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing “God Bless America.” No, no, no. Not “God Bless America”; God Damn America! That’s in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God Damn America for treating her citizens as less than human. God Damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme!8

Given the fallout from Wright’s televised message, Heidi’s admonition to potential INSP clients that “you can’t be preaching that black social gospel on this network” holds relevant, if troubling, importance. It speaks tellingly of the politics and economics that amplify both the preaching and distribution of the gospel. Wright’s message, her comments suggest, could be aired on TVOne or the Word Network, but certainly not on the larger conglomerate stations like TBN or INSP, serving a more general market. But why not? And whose political interests and economic bottom lines are served in exporting certain versions of the gospel and not others? An array of religious forms exist in African American communities, yet only a few are televised nationally and internationally. In judging who actually makes it on air and who reaches the widest audiences, one must consider how a number of interrelated factors—costs of airtime, the politics of the network owners, the sensibilities of the teams of reviewers they hire—all inform broadcast decisions. Such concerns exist in relationship to one another. Politics and economics robustly interact in the discussion of who is selected and who succeeds on television, alongside purported central concerns about faith and doctrinal soundness, which can easily double as litmus tests for political consent. The controversy surrounding Wright’s sermon may be notable for its impact on a presidential election, but it is only one example of a larger and more general conundrum concerning which ministries are broadcast. As the repertoire of sermons framed by divergent theological and political inflections reflective of “the black church” in the United States goes global, reaching international communities with the message of the gospel, important questions remain. What gospel are they preaching? For which audiences? At what cost? And how do these messages ultimately influence what is understood as the spiritual, cultural, and political missions of black churches in the United States and abroad? Distributors are at the center of any conversation that begins to answer these questions. They determine what is aired, the literal

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costs of airtime, the audiences that will receive the message, and the overall quality of the show being aired. What they ascertain as important for distribution and what they view as relevant for the market inform what we all see when we turn on our televisions. A great deal of power sits in rooms full of people with unknown names and faces, people who evaluate what counts as the gospel and what does not. I examine the role of distributors as gatekeepers in the selection and dissemination of the message. Earlier I have considered how producers and consumers influence and are influenced by televangelism, especially how gospels of prosperity and sexual redemption travel and find residence in communities outside the United States. I now ask what types of political and economic interests inform how distributors, television network owners, and managers develop content and maintain their stations. It demonstrates the challenges faced by nonmainstream, and in this particular case non-American, voices in gaining access to the world of religious television broadcasting since the social and political agenda of established engines of religious broadcasting are nearly fixed and the financial costs constrain participation in the global market. I look first at the politics of the overarching institution under which religious broadcasting stations organize, the National Religious Broadcasters Association. Here calls to honor God, country, and family serve both to inspire faith and unite a strong constituency of Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Charismatics in the spiritual and political arenas. These three themes, while seemingly immutable, double as gatekeeping ideals for who belongs on religious television. Next, by focusing on research with three television networks in the United States and Jamaica—INSP, LOVE TV, and MTM—I point out the economic issues that significantly inform the potential expansion of networks in the United States and the Caribbean. International communities are not merely consumers but distributors with messages and products of their own. As part of the global, free-market system, American religious broadcasting, however, is involved in the business of economic competition and subsequently inspires a range of responses from international broadcasters. The challenges of MTM and LOVE TV in Jamaica, for example, hint at the extent to which (not whether or not) new outlets for religious broadcasting are able to negotiate the demands of the neoliberal marketplace to create a robust, non-US-dependent avenue for religious broadcasting. Success for US television broadcasters who have built their foundations upon faith, family, and patriotism hinges on their ability to live out the very



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ideals on which their ministries are built. Contemporary religious television scandals undermine the work that broadcasters have undertaken throughout their lives, ironically revealing the very loose structures of accountability, cults of personality, and tendencies toward individualism that undercut the ministry. Ultimately, the “freedoms” of the television market—reflected in relatively few internal checks and balances—may serve as its very undoing.

Gatekeeping: Politics and the National Religious Broadcasters Reverend Wright’s critique of the war effort and his subsequent command not to confuse God with government stand in sharp contrast to the politics that frame the commitments of the organizers of the NRB. By and large, these commitments are informed by an alliance developed in the 1980s between the religious right and the Republican Party.9 As Richard Kyle humorously notes in his work on evangelicalism and American culture, “How do you spell God? Many evangelicals believe it is spelled GOP”—the relationship fused years ago through shared commitments to conservative social and economic policies.10 When I arrived at the 2008 NRB meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, the alliance of these two forces was in full view, though I scarcely expected the week’s keynote speaker. The meeting, an international gathering of Christian television and radio broadcasters, draws together people aiming to hone their skills in the production and distribution of Christian media from across the United States and several other countries. The attendees included book distributors, videographers, marketing specialists, sound engineers, Christian public policy thinkers, radio and television Bible preachers and teachers, and church media ministry leaders. The event’s expansive vending area offers a glimpse into the businesses and ministries present. Divided into sections by product, these include radio, TV/film, Internet/computer media, church media, equipment, publishing/products, agency/consulting, equipment/manufacturer, humanitarian services, fundraising/donor management, ministry/ mission/church, satellite service TV, and a host of other goods and services. The vendors’ area was overshadowed only by the printed program itself—over seventy-five booklet pages of workshops, advertisements, hospitality lounges, special lunches, dinners, breakfasts—all happening over a six-day period. During the past several years the conference has taken place at one of the Gaylord Resorts—luxury hotel accommodations found largely in the South, promising the best taste of Americana.

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The NRB’s daily conference newspaper broke the story on the front page, “Monday Edition, March 10, Nashville, TN,” on day two of the conference: “President George W. Bush to Address NRB.” Like Ronald Reagan before him, Bush spoke to those who had the potential to shape electoral outcome among America’s Christian conservatives—the newsmakers and news framers. In 2000 he had received 80 to 85 percent of the evangelical vote, while in 2004 that number grew even larger as supporters suggested that “not to vote for Bush in 2004 was tantamount to heresy.”11 Bush came to thank his supporters. In anticipation of the speech, conferees sat in chairs and on the floor, some simply standing for hours in the lobby just beyond the ballroom waiting for the security check to commence. Among the sea of predominantly white conferees, I happened on a spot next to an older African American female broadcaster, one of a handful of black broadcasters present. She took the time to tell us about her journey in religious broadcasting and to promote her upcoming conferences and workshops. An ability to constantly promote such events is a valued trait of most successful broadcasters. When we were about to move into the grand ballroom for Bush’s address, she stood, handed those gathered a swanky compact disc/ business card, and wished us well. Although I had not heard of Thelma Wells at the time, she seemed an old favorite among the white evangelical female leadership of the meeting.12 George Bush’s presence at the 2008 NRB was progress from the previous year, when he delivered greetings via satellite at the start of one of the event’s main sessions. He spent much of the early part of his speech solidifying the fact that he shares the views of many in the audience. In an effort to drum up support for opposition to a bill called the Fairness Doctrine, a regulation that requires equal time be given to both sides of any controversial debate rendered over the air, he launched into why the regulation, repealed twenty years ago by Congress, should be defeated: We know who these advocates of so-called balance really have in their sights: shows hosted by people like Rush Limbaugh or James Dobson, or many of you here today. By insisting on so-called balance, they want to silence those they don’t agree with. The truth of the matter is, they know they cannot prevail in the public debate of ideas. They don’t acknowledge that you are the balance; that you give voice [applause]. The country should not be afraid of the diversity of opinions. After all, we’re strengthened by diversity of opinions.

Known as defenders of the family and conservative values as well as opponents of affirmative action, defenders of “small government” (most evident



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in disinvestment in social welfare programs for the poor), advocates of “tough on crime” sentencing, proponents of tax cuts for the wealthy (“job creators” as they are defined), and a host of other issues that consistently drive wedges between the majority of African American voters and the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, James Dobson, and their constituencies stood in for those that Bush seemed to represent best, white middle-class and wealthy voters. According to sociologists Christian Smith and Michael Emerson, the attention to individualism and personal responsibility that animates many of these conservative ideals fits nicely within the framework of white evangelical Christianity and informs its inability to address racism and structural inequality in the United States. “Evangelicals,” they contend, “usually fail to challenge the system not just out of concern for evangelism, but also because they support the American system and enjoy its fruits. They share the Protestant work ethic, support laissez-faire economics, and sometimes fail to evaluate whether the social system is consistent with their Christianity.”13 After solidifying the relationship between himself, Rush Limbaugh, James Dobson, and the pool of evangelical broadcasters gathered, Bush brought the discussion of freedom back to a more familiar topic. Embattled in a debate about the legitimacy of the Iraq War, Bush took time to reaffirm the importance of the war. “We love freedom in America, and we’re the leader of the world not because we try to limit freedom but because we’ve helped to spread it. You and I know that freedom has the power to transform lives.” To thunderous applause he added, “Freedom is not America’s gift to the world; it is God’s gift to all humanity.” The remainder of his speech concerned the dangers of Middle Eastern dictatorial governments and the horrors of human casualty left when “evil” regimes have been ignored historically by the international community and allowed to remain in power—among those mentioned were the devastating effects of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. Bush’s remarks at the convention fell on friendly ears—every phrase peppered with applause and spontaneous standing ovations, the final salutation itself marked by an extended, thunderous, and rousing ovation. As with many of the other policy decisions of the Bush era, the war in Iraq was, statistically speaking, a war championed and supported by white conservatives and middle-class voters, with polls repeatedly showing the vast majority of African Americans (nearly 60 to 80 percent) in opposition to it. Bush spoke the language of the NRB, while one might argue that Wright spoke the language of the vast number of African Americans, a defiant opposition to the war and its implications for a different kind of justice and freedom.

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Bush’s presence and warm embrace by the crowd signaled a definitively conservative, Republican political lean for the organization. Together with organizations like the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the Alliance Defense Fund, and the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society (funded in part by the Heritage Foundation), Bush’s presence challenges the NRB’s literature that it is a nonpartisan organization of religious media leaders. Most distributors of American religious broadcasting, particularly those who own and operate stations, clearly have a political stance. The vibrancy of the NRB, as the “child” of the evangelical movement in the 1940s, is tied to claims to biblical authority. Serving as an umbrella organization for “Bible believing” broadcasters, it maintains a focus on scripture that also aligns itself with a fundamental valuation of America as God’s country and its political and economic systems as inspired by God. From the patriotic broadcasting during the buildup to the Iraq War, the sermons in support of US troops in the Middle East, or the messages warning of militant Islam, station owners and those they opted to broadcast rendered both subtle and direct support of America’s foreign policy under the Bush administration. This support was on full display during Bush’s speech before the convention. His foreign policy was their own, as well his economic policy, because he was their candidate—a Christian, an Evangelical, on his way to saving God’s country. They adored him, every rousing ovation longer and louder, and he needed them. Bush’s war effort in Iraq in the early 2000s was only one of a host of political issues that rallied evangelicals behind him. As a direct response to the September 11 attacks, the war represented for evangelicals the immediate and aggressive response that the United States needed to demonstrate in order to protect Israel from radical Islam in the Middle East and its spread around the world.14 In addition to his foreign policy position, during his second campaign for the presidency, domestic issues like opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage served as two primary political concerns that solidified broad evangelical commitment to Republican causes. Calls to save traditional marriage dominated their public discourse. Speaking of pro-family themes in terms of opposition to same-sex marriage, opposition to abortion, and promotion of traditional gender roles masks a host of other policy positions (such as opposition to Head Start, universal health care, gun regulations, environmental regulations, and minimum wage increases) that many argue run directly counter to the needs of other families—mostly black, brown, and poor. As proponents of faith, family



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values, and American patriotism, INSP and TBN serve as multinational corporations that actively spread the message.

US Distributors: TBN and INSP In recognition of TBN’s fortieth anniversary in 2013, its vice president for cable and satellite relations, Bob Higley, issued the following statement: “In the highly competitive world of cable and satellite television, this is a significant achievement. . . . What began as a small UHF station broadcasting a few hours a week in Southern California back in 1973, has become the nation’s go-to Christian network, delivering faith-and-family programming 24 hours a day to 93 million homes across America.”15 If nothing else, TBN does faith and family. Founded by Paul and Jan Crouch, TBN contends that viewers choose to watch them for three main reasons: “Faith in God. Love of family. Patriotic pride.” Seamlessly merging commitments to faith and country, they explain viewer dedication: “These are the values Americans consider most precious. Values that have been attacked and ridiculed by our pop culture and news and entertainment media. Yet, the American people still cherish our nation’s core values. In fact, there is a major religious awakening sweeping through American society as we enter the 21st century.”16 Without a hint of the conflicts that might emerge with so close a link between patriotism and Christian values, the network merges these two ideals and packages them for distribution throughout the world via old and new technology formats. “Featured on over 5,000 television stations, over 70 [international] satellites, the Internet and thousands of cable systems around the world,” TBN broadcasts a steady stream of sermons, original movies, musical concerts, children’s shows, marriage enrichment series, and a host of other programs on ­advertisement-free television. They are fully partner-supported television with ministries paying for their own broadcasting time. They are viewed in Europe, the Middle East, Central Africa, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, Brazil, Latin America, and elsewhere. It is without question the predominant voice of Christian television broadcasting worldwide. INSP, comparably, is also among the largest Christian broadcasting networks in the United States. Originally founded in the 1970s as Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s PTL Club, INSP has undergone turnovers in leadership that included a brief period of ownership by Jerry Falwell. Eventually purchased

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by Morris Cerullo, the organization today is under the leadership of his son, David ­Cerullo, who operates the station from its current location near Charlotte, North Carolina. Similar to TBN, INSP is committed to faith and family broadcasting. Episodes of The Waltons and Little House on The Prairie play repeatedly throughout the afternoon, reminiscing about the quaint old days of American adventure, material simplicity, and abiding faith in God. The stories teach lessons on forgiveness, kindness, hard work, sacrifice, fidelity, and other ideals useful for developing a devoted Christian life and becoming a productive citizen. At the same time, with few images of African Americans in these stories to disrupt the narrative of US history portrayed, viewers are able to reminisce about the good old days of the nation without attention to its abuse of African Americans under slavery and Jim Crow segregation, nor its other racist misdeeds. The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie allow for a type of fictive remembering of American history, whereas playing episodes of Alex Haley’s Roots, for example, might signal a different type of remembering and thus questioning. They are sanitized narratives, meant to build faith and hope in viewers of all ages irrespective of race. INSP has become a go-to place for family-friendly entertainment for both adults and children. Its episodes of JAG allow viewers to honor current military personnel and veterans while encouraging the standards of honesty and integrity that make for good family life. As it celebrates American patriotism and builds empathy for the men and women who serve in military service, it renders consistent patriotic gestures for emulation. Old Henry does a bit of both, celebrating family while acknowledging the struggles of an aging generation of adults trying to fit into a society and world that have moved beyond them. Different from earlier models of religious broadcasting, with their 24-7-365 onslaught of religious preachers, INSP offers a mix of broadcasting for family enjoyment. Throughout the week, preaching is limited, with most of the airtime geared toward prime-time, syndicated dramas. Nevertheless, in the morning on INSP, while preparing for work, viewers can tune in for a “fresh word” from Joyce Meyer. Having changed the title of her show from Life in the Word to Enjoying Everyday Life, Meyer’s message reaches a broad swath of people who may or may not be “in the Word.” Her practical, no-nonsense messaging makes for compelling broadcasting. In addition, shows such as Life Today, hosted by James and Betty Robison, and Marriage Today, hosted by Jimmy and Karen Evans, offer Christian self-help and inspirational programming.



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In addition reruns of Billy Graham evangelistic outreaches play nearly once a week, encouraging sinners to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The weekend lineup, however, is filled with television preachers speaking in thirty-minute to one-hour blocks of time—from the evangelical voices of Charles Stanley, David Jeremiah, and Zola Levitt (a Jewish evangelical Christian whose messages continue to air posthumously) to the Word of Faith and Charismatic teachers like Jesse Duplantis and Morris Cerullo. The mission of INSP is “to positively impact people’s values, beliefs and behavior through values-based entertainment programming,” but the aggressive effort to share the word with the world has consequences.17 In the structuring of faith, family, and patriotism as the primary foci of what it means to share the gospel with the world, distributors, as major corporate entities, have created and sanctioned a type of Republican American gospel that leaves little room for voices that disrupt their view of history and faith or voices from beyond the United States, especially from the Caribbean. Alternatively, the Word Network, while owned by a white Jewish family, offers space for African American ministers to speak beyond the concerns and framework of major conglomerates like TBN and INSP. When Heidi spoke of the “67 percent general market people” that her station services, she was speaking virtually of the same constituency that Bush mentioned. In these instances race and its theological manifestations become a major factor in who is and is not broadcast on major religious networks. As Jonathan Walton notes in his study of African American televangelists T. D. Jakes, Creflo Dollar, and Eddie Long (before his fall), they thrive on televangelism because they promote ideals that work in the mainstream “economic advancement, the minimizing of race, and Victorian ideals of the family.”18 As noted in Between Sundays, often this minimization of race comes with an insistence, from black and white popular televangelists alike, on multiculturalism sans a critique of racism.19 These are the permissible messages on networks with high percentages of general market viewers. Reverend Wright and any other ministers with a more sustained critique of the United States and its capitalist ventures, military interventions, and/or systemic racism are aired on stations that do not serve this same constituency. Yet questions about the viability of these programs reach beyond the will of the network owners and often reflect economically for ministries in determining whether they have sufficient market share and return on their investment. Will preachers who preach critical messages to general market audiences be able to recoup their broadcasting expenses?

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As Heidi indicated, ministers who preach “a black theology” or one that offers a strong critique of racism and its ills are often seriously “limiting themselves.” Without monetary resources from viewers, it is impossible to remain on religious broadcasting networks in an era of paid-time programming. The challenges to ministries are unyielding. Global media create a marketplace that thrives on universals, not the particular. Attempts at race-neutrality or colorblind messages are as much about advocating for utopian equality (as some proponents suggest) as about surviving and thriving in a global market fixated on commonality and commodity exchange. When ministers, like Wright, choose to speak to the specifics of African American concerns or offer a critique of the United States that runs contrary to popular opinion, the markets sanction. People financially endorse what they want to hear, not what they do not. Upwardly mobile, meritocratic, self-help individualism sells. This concern emerges differently for stations outside the United States. Concerns around race in the United States might be replaced with concerns regarding nation in Jamaica. If a race-specific narrative, framed, for example, by black theology, faces challenges on mainstream religious television stations, how do those networks fare that are already marginal because they are in developing nations? In other words, certain messages from the United States may not make it onto larger stations because of ideological differences that hinder appeal and profitability, whereas messages from developing countries may not reach the airways because of more pragmatic concerns related to limited technological and financial resources. Conglomerates like TBN and INSP pose different challenges for stations attempting to thrive within the Caribbean.

Jamacian Distributors: LOVE TV and MTM LOVE Radio, easily one of the most popular local radio stations in Jamaica, started in 1993 broadcasting both music and extensive social and political commentary across the island. Several years later the station expanded to include LOVE TV, which broadcasts news and community programming, and a significant slate of shows with religious content. The station describes itself specifically as a religious broadcasting station. Gospel videos as well as sermons from Caribbean and US ministers are regularly broadcast. Since the founding of the television component of the enterprise, however, LOVE Radio has operated to support the perpetually cash-strapped LOVE TV. Production and distribution costs alone hamper the type of broad vision that inspires its leadership.



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Compared with the palatial layout of INSP and TBN, the modest design and simple location of LOVE TV in 2006 reflected the resources of the station. The nondescript studio sat on the second floor of a building in the middle of a congested shopping plaza in Kingston. When I arrived to meet with the manager, the staff were huddled away in cubicles, attempting to complete the day’s tasks. The open arrangement, divided only by the cubicles, provided visitors a full view of the station’s administrative layout. A public event was scheduled for the weekend, so all hands were on deck, rolling up station banners in the hallway in front of me. “Want a job?!” one joked, looking up at me. I passed politely on the opportunity but offered a bit of empathy for the work ahead of them. Eventually, Mr. Ridgard, the station manager, invited me back to his office. On the way there, he pointed to the recording studio, where segments of LOVE Radio are produced, which was almost directly across the hall from his office. The rear room, just beyond the first studio, is prepared for live broadcasts on LOVE TV. In his small yet seemingly efficient office, he told me of the unique opportunity and great challenge Jamaicans face in owning their own station. Ridgard was passionate about his country and committed to the work of LOVE TV. He wanted me to understand that it is an independent organization, an underdog of sorts, in the world of glitzy, twenty-four-hour, cable satellite television. Like other local networks, LOVE TV is responsible for soliciting its own ads and making its programming as appealing to the Jamaican audience as possible. This latter feature is what complicates its complete success as a network. As expected from all networks, LOVE TV now broadcasts twenty-four hours a day; however, it does not have easy access to quality, industry-standard programming that will fill a complete twenty-four-hour cycle. For Ridgard, this is the major challenge. Organizations like World Harvest and Cornerstone Television and Family Net and so on . . . we developed these relationships with them in order to be able to get programming material from them at no . . . virtually no cost to us. Because we needed to ensure twenty-four-hour transmission, and therefore we had to have material to fill that. Television programming is a voracious consumer of material because, unlike radio, it is difficult for you to broadcast repeats of certain programs . . . and expect the audience [to follow] . . . so you have to have fresh material almost every twenty-four hours.

The need for continuous programming, therefore, requires that LOVE TV connect with other stations to meet the demand. To fill the time, they often

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have broadcast prerecorded local shows, including ministry broadcasts, family-­oriented movies, social and political debates and discussions, as well as an assortment of musical programming. While the audience desires local programming, it conflicts with the tremendous need for advertisement dollars, because advertisers want to have a broad audience and LOVE TV’s audience is religiously based. As such, it permits only advertisements that run consistent with their mission—God- and family-friendly television, like TBN. Advertisements for products such as alcohol and tobacco, large contributors to the financial bottom line of secular television stations, are not accepted. The major changes in programming for LOVE TV have been in its importation of foreign programming. When LOVE TV started, according to Ridgard, clearly 95 percent of its programming was foreign. By 2006, he proudly announced, roughly 45 percent came from outside the country. This change in producers has been a longtime goal of LOVE TV. Although difficult, it is desirable to have the overwhelming majority of its programming originate from Jamaica. Local ministries do not have the capacity to continuously produce the type of programming that could fill the airtime. As a result, LOVE TV broadcasts satellite-disseminated programs from the United States. For Americans, this equals free broadcasting and advertisement for their ministry. Trying to recoup the costs from American ministries is an uphill battle. R: You know, we have, as an example, Joyce Meyer is one of the popular female work ministry presenters, and her program on the air is trust sponsorship from her organization. MF: And so she pays . . . R: She pays us for . . . the exposure, yes. MF: But not all of them do? R: Not all of them do, no. Some of the other ones, Benny Hinn, for instance, which is one of the more popular ones; they have not paid us. But we feel that retaining him on the air is important to our audience because the audience responds very favorably to him. So we keep trying to see if we can get money from him, but so far we haven’t been able to get any money from him at all. That’s bad. He should . . . he should really come up and pay us. MF: Really? What about Jakes? R: Jakes is the same thing. We used to carry him and Creflo [Dollar], but we stopped. We stopped, and . . . we have on occasion carried [Myles] ­Monroe. But some of them . . . I . . . maybe it is just that we have not



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been able to convince their agents and that takes a little bit of time. So, I keep working at it. I keep going to the National Religious Broadcasters conventions.

The conflict between his need for programming and payment from American broadcasters for their “free” Jamaican airtime means that LOVE TV is in constant financial struggle. Globalization, while offering an opportunity for people to connect around the world, offers uneven access to resources for distribution. This unequal access fuels an ongoing cycle of local networks trying to remain afloat while larger, international bodies that have the money and resources are able to get up-to-date, smart, and classy television broadcasts to local communities. Over the years, the challenges faced by LOVE TV have not declined. Between 2006 when I first spoke with Ridgard and 2014, the station changed ownership at least three times, including stints of ownership by both Rev. Al Miller and Bishop Harold Blair and their respective ministries. Currently, the station is under the leadership of David Casanova of DC Digital. While procuring content remains a central concern, an issue of equal perplexity is that Jamaica’s media infrastructure itself is not completely digital, still running some analog programming. In order to meet the standards of American broadcasting and more readily distribute “Jamaica to the world,” they will need to convert to digital programming at some point in the future. All three of Jamaica’s “free-to-air” stations in the meantime, including LOVE TV, are part of Jamaica’s national programming and are required by ­Jamaica’s Broadcasting Commission to be heard across the island, whether residents have cable television or not. Pulling out an old wire antenna and placing it on top of the television, Richard, the media producer at Bishop Blair’s church, explained to me that this is how free-to-air programming works. Thus, anyone with a wire antenna and television should be able to access free to air. Moving the antenna from side to side until we could make out a partial picture on the television screen, he stopped on the day’s programming. While Blair’s church still chooses to air on LOVE TV because of its national reach, the picture consisted of black lines and fuzz, and the audio was hardly more discernible. I commented on the decline of the station in audio and visual clarity since my previous visit. The challenges for LOVE TV are numerous, but the costs of upgrading are tremendous. The local churches are also working with older technologies, which limits the possibilities for high-quality international television exposure. Richard sat in his old three-wheeled chair in the church’s constricted media room, explain-

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ing in detail the process of recording, editing, and transmitting the program. “In the US they have equipment; they use HD. We are not yet in that standard right now, but we are trying to get there. . . . The resolution is 1920- by 1080-inch resolution. We’re still using 720 by 480 resolution. But what we do now is try to convert it, analog to digital.” The conversion process gives them the appearance of high quality, but stretch the video too far and one immediately notices the difference, as he pointed out the checkered images that emerge. To switch their church alone to digital would cost “$10million JA,” he estimates, with a JA$100 to US$1 exchange rate in 2014. In addition to purchasing high-definition cameras, HD monitors, and HDMI cables for each camera, Richard insists that “you would have to change out the lighting and use LED natural light because we are using halogen light right now; you’d have to get an HD recorder, a true HD cable; you have to get an HD switcher.” In essence the entire little room in which we sat surrounded by big box monitors and antennas would have to be retrofitted to accommodate HD-quality recording. “All the churches at large are not improving in order to carry out the gospel, in order to reach other people. Sooner or later the station is going to reject our equipment. . . . We are in the age of technology. We have to be up to par.” In the meantime, he works with what he has, producing a suitable program that can be converted in studio with the click of a button from analog to digital. The church sends its program to LOVE TV, and the program also airs on the church’s own cable station in Kingston (knowing that all the while in the United States digital is eventually going wireless “in short order”). For a small island like Jamaica there are over forty cable operators (including Flow, LogicOne, TelStar) based on subscriber television and thus dozens of television stations. For most of these networks, according to Mark, a former media producer at Faith Cathedral, currently working at one of the public broadcast stations in Jamaica, “over 80 percent of their content is North American, so they’re simply pulling satellite signals and relaying them,” a restatement of Ridgar’s sentiments. Broadcasting American-based television seems the bread and butter of most stations in Jamaica. “We’re not lacking Christian content [in Jamaica]. . . . For pulling North American content, you do get a lot of religious stations. So, we’re not short of it.” LOVE TV and MTM, however, are two of only a handful of Christian stations that broadcast primarily material from the Caribbean and from across the African Diaspora. When I asked his projection for the future of LOVE TV, Mark answered reluctantly, clear only about his position: “So, the short answer is I don’t know if LOVE is going to survive. I know I don’t watch LOVE. I will tune into LOVE



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maybe on a Sunday morning if I’m somewhere and I want to catch a service. Beyond that it’s not somewhere I go at all.” The challenge of securing quality content and updating technical equipment is not unique to LOVE TV; other networks in Jamaica, like MTM, face a similar dilemma although their circumstances are quite different.

Mercy and Truth While LOVE TV operates as a local station competing with cable stations for advertising dollars and program content, Mercy and Truth Ministries (MTM) is the first faith-based twenty-four-hour cable broadcasting station in Jamaica. The founder, Basil Hanson, a Kingston-based businessman, sat down with me to talk about the history of the station and the work ahead. MTM provides a clear picture and quality sound, but the challenges it faces are similar to those of LOVE TV. Basil Hanson started MTM in 1998, a gift from a local network owner, the late Lancelot “Lloydie” Watson, a pioneer of the Sauce cable company (which has since been taken over by Flow), who thought the Caribbean deserved a twenty-four-hour cable religious station. Though it presented a huge challenge, Hanson took the offer as a word from God and began managing the station from his home in Kingston. In the beginning, “I would play one taped sermon a week, just repeating, repeating, repeating,” he laughed, reminiscing about his meager start. When we met, he sat with me for hours in his living room, talking about the founding of MTM and the future vision of the station. At the time, still operating the station from his home on the lower side of the mountain just beyond the city center, he eventually took me upstairs to show me the enterprise—the computers, tapes, videos, and editing equipment needed to make the station happen—that overlooked his downstairs living room. His story resembled what I had heard Ridgard describe at LOVE TV. The voraciousness of the twenty-four-hour cycle and the demand for high-quality content are difficult to address in the Caribbean. That’s a big challenge for the church in Jamaica in the Caribbean, about production. So, it’s very challenging. It’s really hard to do Christian programming. . . . If you’re going to put quality money into production, you must be able to see a return. . . . People will give money to their local churches because they can see a return on their investment, but other than that they’re not going to pay that kind of money [for television ministries].

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Both parishioners and pastors wince at the idea of investing in high-end recording equipment and the personnel needed to film and edit the program for broadcast. They have other responsibilities, and getting on television has not been a high priority. At the same time, MTM does not charge a fee for broadcasting. Everything is done by contribution. Hanson asks that pastors make a contribution, of their own choosing, to be on the network. “My thing is not about making money. . . . I deal with contributions; I really don’t even charge; I deal with a contribution. . . . I do not believe that if you cannot pay, but you have a word, that you should be denied the opportunity to speak to the nation.” Nevertheless, for those who can afford to pay or for those who have pledged an amount, he anticipates that they will eventually follow through. “There are persons who have not paid me for months. I’ve been calling them every month to remind them of the program. My phone bill is very high because I’ve been calling, literally calling every month to remind these people . . . every month, every month, every month, every single month. I get so discouraged.” Given that the station was a gift, there are tremendous acquisition costs for which he is not responsible; however, managing the station and producing the programs are expensive, and the money often comes from the resources he and his wife can accrue through donations and her salary as a nurse. Even at personal expense, he contends, he continues to produce the show. “We’re not allowing money to influence us. Therefore, if somebody comes to us and they don’t have the money, but they have the content and it makes sense and it will influence my Nation, I’ll still use it. . . . I am not motivated by money. I’m motivated by purpose.” Hanson referred frequently to “speaking to the Nation” and “my Nation,” references that are not incidental. He believes that God gave him MTM to help transform Jamaica through the preaching of the gospel, and he is committed to that goal. As a result, he focuses on broadcasting messages from pastors in the Caribbean region. Although MTM of late has broadcast shows from Africa and a few other places, it is largely Caribbean based. “For too long we have imported everything into the Caribbean. But I’m into exporting the Caribbean to the world . . . rather than importing the world into the Caribbean. So, rather than allowing the Caribbean to be influenced by the rest of the world, we need to influence the world.” Over the past five years, Hanson has expanded his influence throughout the community and has ventured as far as Kenya to record and broadcast Christian programming by people of African descent. In the spring of 2014, he was



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invited by Kenya’s government to film and broadcast live in the Caribbean the religious crusade of Prophet David Owuor, a popular minister from Kenya whose revival brought, according to Hanson, “over 7.5 million people” together. Although no official numbers are known, the pictures he showed me from his laptop computer of people walking with food and sleeping materials atop their head as they made the journey to camp out for the meeting were stunning. As far as the eye could see, people. Hanson had never seen anything like the revival. He pointed out image after image of the crowds and the media perch upon which he and a member of his film crew captured the entire revival. For Hanson, this was real ministry. He claimed, like ardent followers of Owuor, to have seen numerous people healed. Despite Internet queries into the authenticity of Owuor’s prophetic capacities, Hanson—critical of prosperity preachers in general—seemed genuinely taken with the ministry of Owuor, who reportedly took up no offering during the revival in Kenya. For Hanson, this contrasts sharply with what he sees from the United States. American televangelists, he contends, have brought to Jamaica an emphasis on the prosperity gospel that he finds detrimental to the country: These preachers have preached so much health, wealth, so much prosperity message that they almost forget that sin is a reproach to any man. They’re just thinking about the dollar bill. Look at Zachery Tims recently. You know, a man who had a church with eight thousand members and the power of God could not deliver him from what he was going through. He basically committed suicide. . . . So, I’m saying, we have preached a gospel that has no substance. It is all about money and material. So, for you to get a [a minister] to come here, you have to find a five-star hotel. You have to provide him with security detail. You have to provide him with limousine. You have to provide him with special bottle water. You have to provide him with ALL manner of things, and then you have to pay him probably one hundred thousand US dollars. So, by the time you finish, you have to pay him first-class ticket or private jet. So, you see, we have lost the focus. That, just to come and preach for a night. We’ve lost it.

In his exasperation with what he imagines to be the requirements for popular televangelists to preach a one-night revival, Hanson demonstrates his frustration with what he believes has come of American religious broadcasting. Gone for him are the days of Billy Graham, who just preached “a simple gospel of repentance,” if one believes that such a time ever truly existed.

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At the same time, the Jamaica Gleaner captured Hanson’s vision in succinct prose in a 2006 full-page story in their “Mind and Spirit” section. This is the opening paragraph: “Basil Hanson has big dreams. He wants his cable ministry to become the TBN of the Caribbean. For the uninitiated, TBN is the short for the Trinity Broadcasting Network—perhaps the largest Christian broadcaster in the world.”20 While he might want to become a sort of replica of TBN for the Caribbean, according to the local newspaper, Hanson has a different vision of ministry than what he sees coming from the United States. Without mentioning financial pressures under which American televangelists operate, like those mentioned by Heidi, the INSP employee, and Bishop Carlton Pearson, Hanson spoke only of the effect of American broadcasting. The constant demand for more and more money was a turnoff for Hanson, although the US system of paid-time programming instituted in the 1960s requires ongoing solicitation from viewers for success. He wants to develop a ministry in which the focus is completely on ministry, not the advertisement of books, products, and conferences and the solicitation of partners to help finance the operation. Hanson is keen to point out that MTM TV is not a business but a ministry. Accordingly, a person’s ability to pay for airtime is not the foremost consideration to getting on MTM TV. Nor is he afraid of hosting programs because the content and/or presenter is deemed to be controversial. For the most part on these points he has succeeded. Before meeting him, when I watched MTM in Kingston, I noticed that the preachers spoke for nearly the full thirty minutes of airtime, and at the end of their broadcast there was a brief message, one generally asking folks to call a local number if they had prayer concerns. That was it. No abbreviated teaser sermon, no solicitations, just preaching. When he explained his vision for the station, it all seemed to make sense. At the same time, the station struggles to gain the type of momentum that larger cable stations might enjoy. Today, its website reports, “MTM TV is the largest Christian television network in Jamaica. It is broadcast on twenty one (21) cable stations in Jamaica and on the Internet via this website. MTM TV offers a variety of inspirational Christian programs from various churches and ministries located within the Caribbean, North America and Jamaica.”21 The ever-expanding global television market sets in motion dynamics of competition that make it difficult for networks like LOVE TV and MTM to compete with American religious broadcasters like TBN and INSP. In this way the ministry, as a business, is preset for market dominance, making it difficult for locals to reach their own people with locally created programming.



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Gatekeeping Scandal The concerns that Jamaican broadcasters raise about American televangelists are real—attention to prosperity, cults of personality, and individualism. Nevertheless, such concerns suggest that being American makes one predisposed to greed, without wrestling with the human capacity writ large for excess and greed. Furthermore, it does not take into consideration the way in which globalization itself often leads to monopolization, not only in religious media but in the development of multinational corporations through mergers, takeovers, and acquisitions and the role of global business. Multimillionaire pastors across Latin America, Africa, and Asia have amassed television stations, private jets, expansive homes, and other items of elaborate consumption. The challenge of the prosperity gospel and its validation of excessive wealth in the upper echelons of ministry are not the province of only American-based televangelists. Jamaica itself is probably just one minister away from a financial scandal; however, the expansion of Jamaican televangelism remains restricted because of the limited number of ministries prepared for the outlay of money for high-quality programming and the predominance of non-Jamaican, mostly Western, televangelists who dominate the television airwaves. Sitting in Hanson’s home on the mountainside, where upwardly mobile Jamaicans reside, and later accepting a ride to my residence in his older-model Mercedes, it was clear that the effort put into building MTM, while challenging, has paid off in some important ways and will probably continue as he expands his reach into the Caribbean and extends his Internet footprint. The concerns with financial excess in religious broadcasting are thus not easily boiled down to simply being American, but they are concerns endemic to global businesses with loose accountability structures—whether related to the scandals of televangelism or the numerous scandals of Wall Street—Enron, J. P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, Barclays, among dozens of others. Religion simply amplifies the problem by pointing out its hypocrisy. Attention to prosperity, cults of personality, individualism, and loose accountability structures fuel numerous vices that undo secular and religious institutions under the mantle of neoliberal economic reform. In other words, without regulation, P.M.S.—as T. D. Jakes famously titled one of his popular Man Power videos, a beguiling acronym for power, money, and sex— enables the dismantling of organizations great and small, secular and sacred. Unfortunately, this scenario has played out consistently throughout the recent history of religious broadcasting.

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As calls to save the traditional family serve to unify evangelicals and bolster the appeal of religious broadcasting, they have also been an Achilles heel for religious networks, as many of the marriages of noted televangelists have unraveled before the watchful gaze of viewing audiences. The medium of television, used to rally the masses on stations like TBN and INSP, in this case serves as the very instigator of evangelists’ downfalls. After all, people don’t make scandal; media make scandal. People break the Ten Commandments (or other agreed-upon rules of social behavior), as they have for millennia, causing large and small ruptures within their social worlds. But the construction, and amplification, of a story that animates their misdeeds is what makes scandal—the massive social distribution of wrongdoing.22 Here, the agreedupon social behavior has often been constructed, pronounced, and even politicized by televangelists.23 People are spiritually and socially vested in these standards. When contradictions emerge between publicly professed ideological commitments and the choices and circumstances of televangelists’ own lives, the public airing of their personal failures immediately challenges their ministry and ultimately their marketing and sales capacity, given the family-first marketing focus of the product and the tight connection between religious broadcasting and conservative politics. As Judith M. Buddenbaum notes, evangelical scandals of late are different from earlier ones: “As evangelicals sought and largely gained political influence after nearly half a century out of the limelight, scandals created by evangelicals acting because of their faith gained prominence over the earlier kind where evangelicals behaved scandalously in spite of their faith.”24 Opprobrium, whether sexual or financial, therefore is not only bad for the faith; it is bad for business, yet in some ways it is endemic to the business of religious broadcasting as structured. Loose oversight, embrace of celebrity culture, attention to prosperity, and reliance on individualism mimic the same types of neoliberal tendencies that have revealed the capacity of other multinational corporations to crumble or at least destabilize world economies. The scandals that have consumed religious broadcasting are seemingly par for the course. We simply await the next one. Well known are the ones that have permeated religious broadcasting over the past forty years. Even as the much-ballyhooed “telescandals” of the 1980s covered the likes of Jimmy Swaggart and Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, the new millennium intensified televangelism’s fierce association with scandal. Whether related to the sexual misdeeds or accusations of misdeeds surrounding Paul



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Crouch (TBN owner), Marcus Lamb (Paystar Founder), Bishop Earl Paulk, and Bishop Eddie Long; the divorces of prominent evangelists Charles Stanley and Benny Hinn; public outcry over Creflo Dollar’s GoFundMe page for a $65 million private jet; or even the accidental drug overdose of Pastor Zachary Tims, in the first two decades of the millennium, televangelism has become more powerfully connected to scandal than in any of its previous iterations. This does not include the very public discussion of Ted Haggard’s homosexual liaison with a male prostitute while president of the National Association of Evangelicals nor Senator Chuck Grassley’s public inquiry into the financial records of Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Creflo and Taffi Dollar, Benny Hinn, Eddie Long, Joyce and David Meyer, and Paula and Randy White. While contemporary televangelists often speak openly about the frailties of the flesh, their presence on television means that their own frailties are brought before an immense, ravenous public. Such scandals have riveted followers and detractors alike but have also cast a shadow over the actual business of religious broadcasting. Over the last several years a number of televangelists have had to discontinue their broadcasts or severely limit the number of networks on which they appear.25 “All of that hurts us,” explained Heidi. “When Paula White and Randy got divorced, we got calls from viewers, ‘Why is Paula White still on?! She and her husband are going through a divorce!’” Yet taking Paula White off television, after she has signed a contract with the station, is not a matter of “church” protocol; it is a business decision. As Heidi explained in talking briefly about the scandal that consumed Eddie Long, “We operate under, ‘people are innocent until proven guilty.’ And usually if they are guilty, the funds will stop coming in and they will come off.” In White’s case, donors to her ministry decreased, and in the midst of a financial recession she decided that she could no longer meet her financial obligations to the station. Others like Juanita Bynum and Eddie Long also eventually removed their broadcasts from various networks because of decreased financial support in light of their personal problems. In addition to the influence of producers and distributors, consumer demand remains a powerful gatekeeper over who stays and who goes once evangelists are on air. In these instances the personal is not only political, it is also economic. Ultimately, according to Heidi, simply removing ministers from the network who have personal baggage would create a huge void in their programming lineup. “If we removed every minister who got a divorce,” she quipped

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jokingly, “there would be no ministers on television.” Despite the language of family values, divorce, it seems, is more acceptable than theological dissent from established orthodoxy for initially determining who is eligible for broadcast. When a Chicago pastor inquired about airtime, Heidi knew that he would not be an acceptable candidate for the network. He was married with children and a compelling orator, but his church’s position on gay marriage did not meet the station’s unprinted requirements. As we sat in her office discussing the request from this pastor, she took me to his website, where I could see the ministry emphasis of his church. The boardroom of reviewers had done the same—explored the church’s website—and determined that the church was too liberal on same-sex marriage, as the website advertised a ministry to support “same gender loving persons.” Rejection from the network because of doctrinal differences is not new. Carlton Pearson’s much-publicized movement away from Christian orthodoxy toward what he terms a “gospel of inclusion” made him an outsider to the religious world that had helped produce him. The rhetoric of God, country, and traditional family—even in light of telling contradictions—matters most to broadcasters, as it matters most to their viewers. Taking the gospel to the world is, thus, not a simple matter of taking the message of the saving grace of Jesus Christ to those who have not heard the message. Instead, a mix of social and cultural expectations animates this message. It is globalization with a sacred and social purpose. And while the target audience for religious broadcasters is nonbelievers, studies indicate that most of the people who watch religious broadcasting are committed Christians. Intended outreach to nonbelievers is strained even further given the contradictions in broadcasters’ own lives. “So, you see why it’s difficult for a lot of non-Christians to want to watch Christian television,” Heidi lamented. “When they say, ‘You guys are saying one thing, but you’re living just like the world, unsaved people. And then when you get busted, then you come forth and you paint this story, you do this PR blitz, you know, to save yourselves.’” From a business perspective, it all hurts the ministry. Yet the pastors and leaders who are broadcast are not the only ones whose personal and business practices negatively affect the ministries. Indeed, station owners themselves have faced allegations of marital infidelity and financial impropriety. It was the solid-gold faucets and toilet seats of Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker, along with his extramarital affair, that raised the ire of detractors. Similarly, the financial practices of contemporary station owners raise ongoing questions about the accountability structures and regulations in place for television broadcasters. News reports criticizing ISPN’s CEO, David Cerullo, high-



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lighted that his salary reached an estimated $2.5 million in 2009, making him one of the highest-paid leaders of a religious nonprofit. Comparing his salary to that of other CEOs in the media industry, the network’s board of directors supported his package as reasonable pay.26 Similarly, the New York Times ran an article in the spring of 2012 detailing accusations made by Brittany Koper, the granddaughter of TBN founders, Jan and Paul Crouch, alleging the couples’ misappropriation of donor funds in order to subsidize a lavish lifestyle. Unaccountable to donors who gave $93 million in 2010 alone, the Crouches reportedly purchased luxury homes in California and Florida, supplied family members with elaborate compensation packages, ordained staffers as ministers to avoid paying Social Security taxes, and purchased “corporate jets valued at $8 million and $49 million each and thousand-dollar dinners with fine wines, paid with tax-exempt money.”27 A rebuttal published days later by TBN’s attorney explained that the purchases were business-­related expenses and that the granddaughter was only trying to conceal her own misdealings.28 For much of the general public, the story seems to fit a pattern of corruption and financial malfeasance seemingly endemic to televangelism.

Toward a Celebrity Culture To the extent that accountability seems anathema to televangelism, similar comparisons might best be made to the rapid spread of globalization in its current neoliberal form. The decline in regulatory processes, noted by H ­ arvey, which are meant to bolster the free growth of industry, are similar to the types of influences that propel the business of religious broadcasting. These organizations flaunt regulations by the withdrawal from larger denominational structures; the dismantling of traditional deacon and trustee boards; the padding of boards with family and friends; and the development of cults of personality around the charismatic leader—all in an effort to grow unencumbered. Increasing public distrust of religious broadcasting can be most easily tied to the very culture that has facilitated its growth. Problematic intersections of religion, money, and power are not new. Scholars uncover and examine such incidents throughout Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and other world religions. What is striking at this moment is the hyperpresence and airing of these stories. News is now presented twenty-four hours a day, whether from reputable or disreputable sources. S­ ocial media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube add to the avalanche of bad news traveling

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rapidly, feeding the culture’s voyeurism into the personal pain and struggle of ministers who have reached celebrity status. The medium of television invites an ever-growing public that ultimately becomes judge and jury. In religious broadcasting the very appeal and compulsion of transparent disclosure of personal life stories—as a medium for relating to hurting individuals as well as a model for replication—are the same source of the ministries’ undoing when the story is not controlled and properly scripted as a narrative of redemption.29 Despite the scandals, a constant stream of ministers aspire to television airtime. TBN has a two-year waiting list. And the available preaching slots for INSP have decreased because of its increased emphasis on family-friendly syndicated entertainment. After several ministers left the network for financial reasons, INSP had to revamp its lineup to include family programming such as Highway to Heaven and the Gaither Gospel Hour to meet the demand for twenty-four-hour content. To the network’s surprise the new lineup proved even more successful than the focus on television preachers. As a result, there are fewer slots open for preachers and thus higher demand for the space that is available. Yet, according to Heidi, ministries underestimate the challenges and demands of television broadcasting. They want the apparent success: It has become an enterprise for some ministries. And those that haven’t reached that level, that’s where they want to be! I get so many calls from churches, not the pastors, but their assistants or media buyers. . . . “My pastor’s going to be the next Bishop Jakes! My pastor’s like Bishop Jakes!” . . . That’s the new bench now. Not for all of them, but for some of them.

The pressure to produce quality programming and remain in good financial standing can be all consuming. “I think smart ones, they get close and they think, ‘Oh, that’s too much!’ Because you’ve got to take the negative with the positive,” she cautioned. And while INSP now accepts some advertisements, for stations like TBN, which are still completely paid time, the demand is especially high; nothing is free. There are no advertisers. Every tub sits on its own bottom. At INSP, which is broadcast on twenty-eight hundred cable systems throughout the country that bring them to about twenty-nine million homes and an additional thirty-two million homes through DirecTV and Dish Network, the rates are between two thousand to five thousand dollars for thirty minutes. At TBN, which reaches nearly ninety million homes and offers no advertisement space on its network, the cost is closer to ten thousand dollars for thirty minutes of airtime. Ministries must raise this money. And it takes time for the upfront



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financial commitment—including the cost of airtime and production—to offer any returns. “We can’t put your, you know, whatever program you did in your church with one camera up behind a Bishop T. D. Jakes or Joyce Meyer, you know; it just doesn’t look right,” Heidi explained. This is a crucial conversation for those seeking distribution of their ministry. We tell them when they’re looking at INSP, if you’re looking for dollar-for-dollar match, that’s probably not going to happen for maybe six months to a year. But if you’re looking to build up your partnership, your donor base, you know, to get names, people calling in and then you establish a relationship with them, start mailing them something monthly, you know. Over the long term you’ll start to see if they decide to give you twenty dollars a month, a hundred dollars a month, whatever. Over the long term you will start to see the results. But initially it takes time.

In addition to these out-of-pocket costs to the broadcasters, ministries have to pay the cost of becoming a business. Not only do they need to create high-­ quality imaging, but their home churches need to prepare to become a business, fully equipped with a call center and fulfillment station. Prayer lines are also preferable. And fulfilling an order that comes in via the 1-800 number should take less than a week to deliver, certainly not more. “[Callers] don’t want to be a month!” Heidi contends, concerning a tape they were excited about receiving when they watched the program but did not receive until a month later. “Oh, this is the kind of service we get from them?” They expect it to be just like if they were ordering from a catalog or online. Inevitably, some who sign on to broadcast their ministry fall into financial distress. A number of well-known broadcasters have either had to remove themselves completely from television or trim back their presence on certain stations. The financial distress has been real, though not everyone acknowledges their limitations. Some press on, believing that the resources will eventually come. At INSP, even the culture of the station reflects differences in how employees think about the power of supernatural financial blessings. As Heidi jokingly explained, the people who answer phones in the call center and pray with folks are more aligned with the faith angle, believing the funds will eventually come in, while the folks in finance want to see the bottom line. We give them net thirty. You know, in the real world you have to pay your bills in thirty days. Some of them go ninety days. And then after ninety days we start harassing them. You wouldn’t want your members holding their tithes for thirty

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days, but you’ve got this major business corporation [waiting]. . . . We shouldn’t have to call you and say we have to take you off because you haven’t paid us in months.

The irony for Heidi comes in the emphasis on the prosperity gospel by many of these same preachers. “I’m like you’re teaching this prosperity . . . and yet you’re begging your members to give you money because they’re going to be blessed, but on the back end, you can’t make your bills! You can’t make your obligation.” Through the ups and downs of scandal, contract negotiations, and payment defaults, religious broadcasting is ultimately a business like any other and one marked by the expectation of substantial growth—except for its largely taxexempt status. Network clients have fees to pay, and the station is obligated to render a service—the bigger, the more expansive, the better. Growth requires appealing to your audience—preaching things they want to hear. And while televangelists and stations in the United States face this reality, as televangelism expands globally, it is this very business proposition that advantages US stations over smaller local ones. Since the days of Jimmy Swaggart’s predominance in the televangelism market in the Caribbean, US stations have enjoyed an advantage around the globe. Certain African American ministers now taking the gospel to the world, who preach to evangelical and Charismatic audiences and forgo the black theological tradition, benefit from these histories and the realities of the established business model. As difficult as it is for many American ministries to meet their financial obligation, the difficulty can be exponentially greater for communities outside the United States. The costs of distribution and high-quality production are ever present. In this way US networks have a distinct advantage over local stations like those found in Jamaica and facilitate and foster a type of American globalization of religious media in a way that is often faster and more powerful than what can be produced by local networks.

Conclusion As conservative politics and global market expansion serve as gatekeepers of power and access to distribution—both nationally and internationally—the challenge of many stations is in structuring a system that allows them to speak to their own constituencies while remaining financially viable. Nationally, these parameters are defined by politicized ideals of family, patriotism, and faith; internationally, these manifest themselves as the seemingly unintended consequences



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of global expansion, given the constant marginalization of poorer, less developed local markets. Stations like LOVE TV and MTM TV are attempting to navigate visions for themselves that move away from models of ministry based on prosperity appeals, while realizing that globalization and capitalism dominate the very industries that they own. There is virtually no escaping the demands of religious broadcasting in a paid-time era—all express a need for greater funding, all want a positive message of redemption shown, and all want to own the mechanisms of distribution to make broadcasting to their constituencies more feasible. In their discussions of the spread of religious broadcasting, scholars have often focused on American icons like TBN, CBN, Daystar, and INSP, which are the largest religious cable broadcasting stations in the world and hold politically and theologically conservative viewpoints. Their popularity raises issues of globalization and the spreading of American ideals and values around the world. For many, “globalization” is the buzzword for the Americanization of music, dress, food, and other cultural hallmarks. In a post–civil rights, postapartheid, post-colonialist moment, the centers of distribution are changing ever so slightly. As the change in producers from traditional, white, midwestern, and southern Evangelists like Tammy Faye Bakker, Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, and Oral Roberts to ministers such as T. D. Jakes, Creflo Dollar, and Juanita Bynum, so is the shift in distributors also recognizable. While religious broadcasting has indeed bolstered the spread of American religious values around the world, particularly its social and economic conservatism, other communities are pushing back on American religious broadcasting by establishing their own religious networks. The emergence of alternative broadcasting networks like LOVE TV and MTM TV in Jamaica demonstrates the rise in non-Western stations and networks, which at times hold slightly different social commitments than large US conglomerates. Even as they acknowledge the achievements of African Americans in religious broadcasting in the United States, their commitment to advancing Caribbean- and African-based religious broadcasters offers commentary on the ways in which the intersections of religion and race are framed by nations. Evangelists from America, even black evangelists, promote an American brand of faith that at times runs counter to the understanding of faith that Christian ministries in other countries deem valuable for their constituents. When scholars like Jacob Olupona speak of “reverse missions,” they implore us to consider how ministries around the world are raising support to come and share the gospel with Western Christians of American and European de-

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scent. I suggest that one should think about globalization not only in the context of reverse missions created by new networks of missionaries and churches but also in the emergence of new technologies of power. The financial empowerment of non-Western Christians in a post-colonial context creates new opportunities for the production and distribution of religious media. No longer does the United States hold a monopoly on the distribution of Christian media. In post-colonial contexts around the world, local laypersons and ministries are purchasing television stations and networks and redefining how the gospel is spread to their communities and, in turn, attempting to redefine the values that should be promoted in their communities. At the same time, the limits placed on them by market demands force us to ask how truly countercultural these stations can be in a market dominated by prosperity gospels and American ideals of religious life. These local entrepreneurs often fight an uphill battle for resources and content in order to offer a message counter to the calls for American patriotism, emphasis on individualism, and rapid expansion of prosperity theologies they feel emanate from an affluent American context. While they value the affirmations of possibility, the teachings on family, and the seemingly uncompromised reliance on the Bible that comes from American evangelists, they often reject the other attributes. As religious broadcasting spreads around the globe via satellite television, one of the only questions remaining pertains to its future as media morphs ever so quickly into a reliance on Internet broadcasts. If the concerns of satellite broadcasting are tied to resource generation and access to satellite distribution is prohibitive to small stations throughout the world, will Internet capacities eventually democratize access to religious broadcasting? And will that eventual change forever reshape what we have come to know as televangelism? As I sat in Hanson’s new studio in downtown Kingston, he showed me his strategy for spreading the gospel and generating resources. Ex-patriots, living around the world, want to connect to Jamaica. And he wants them to. They can access MTM TV from their computers in England, the United States, and around the world. Hanson is moving beyond reliance on the resources of local pastors to generate income for MTM, hoping that his Internet initiatives—live streaming, app downloads—along with his hardy Caribbean lineup will drive even more people to his station and will eventually help cover the costs of broadcasting. It is nascent now, but give him time, he insists. MTM will eventually change religious broadcasting as we have known it and bring the Caribbean message of the gospel to the entire world.

CON CLUSION Voices of the Next Generation There are those voices that God has raised up in this last day who have the precision of speech and the integrity of thought to feed not only your soul but your mind and your heart in such a powerful and didactic way that you leave forever changed; not thrilled, not emotionalized, not just with goose pimples, but a real resonant presence of the Holy Spirit has invaded the darkness in your life. T. D. Jakes, MegaFest 2013

Jakes preached these powerful words to the crowd gathered in the Dallas Convention Center. Thousands of men (and some women) came together for the last “Man Power” session of Jakes’s 2013 MegaFest, anticipating a “Word.” Over the course of four days men and women convened in sessions tailored specifically to meet the concerns of men, women, and children. The energy Jakes exuded was that of a man on a mission. Just the day before, he hosted Oprah Winfrey at MegaFest, filming a two-part series for her Lifeclass in which they discussed family issues related to fatherlessness and reconciliation. When he emerged from that experience, one could hear in his voice the excitement about the remainder of the week. Jakes’s introduction of the afternoon speaker revealed more than his impression of the young minister; it implicitly signaled something of a change in religious media. Jakes was introducing a speaker he had never heard of until recently. And his amusement at not knowing him became the substance of his introduction. “Do you know E. Dewey Smith?!” Jakes mimicked the people who would interrogate him. “No, I don’t know E. Dewey Smith.” “Do you know E. Dewey Smith?!” Jakes continued on for added effect. “No.” “Do you know E. Dewey Smith?” he asked more emphatically. Ignorance of Smith seemed an affront to

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his cutting-edge, in-the-know persona. If anybody should be acquainted with Smith, it would be Jakes, “America’s preacher.” Do you know E. Dewey Smith just bought Paulk’s church? No. Do you know that he’s filling up Paulk’s church? No . . . I didn’t know. Do you know that Paulk’s church is running over? Do you know Atlanta’s all on fire? Do you know E. Dewey Smith?

He conveyed the bombardment of questions from his friends, associates, and colleagues in ministry with great jest. By the time he finished his introduction and called the speaker to the stage, he proudly announced to the crowd, “Well, I want to report to all y’all . . . that I . . . NOW . . . KNOW E. Dewey Smith!” Untethered by contracts with TBN, INSP, BET, CBN, or any of the other major television networks, Smith seemed to have grown his ministry the “oldfashioned way,” word of mouth—with a slight twist—a vibrant Internet presence. Unless Jakes spent his time surfing the web, viewing up-and-coming preachers on websites like Streaming Faith, or following Facebook posts and Twitter updates, he would have no reason to know Smith. Smith did not travel in the circle of high-powered television ministers who have amassed mega ministries over the past twenty years—some of them appearing of late on the highly criticized reality television show Preachers of LA. Without prominent broadcasts on prime-time television, Smith was virtually unknown nationally. Nevertheless, by the time Jakes heard of Smith in 2013, the young, gifted preacher had moved his ministry from his small hometown of Macon, Georgia, to Atlanta, a thriving metropolis an hour and a half away. By 2013 he had served nine years as pastor of Greater Travelers Rest Baptist Church (GTR) and together with the congregation had purchased the former site of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit (Earl Paulk’s former ministry site), growing the congregation to well over ten thousand members—all of this movement devoid of major television investment. Jakes’s announcement of Smith’s relative obscurity in the midst of phenomenal growth speaks to the historic power of television outreach and the growing influence of Internet broadcasting. On the Internet, according to Smith’s media director, Smith’s viewership is gaining on Jakes’s, his “likes” catching up one click at a time.1 Smith’s presence at MegaFest and Jakes’s introduction of him as the new face of his generation present incisive commentary about the future of religious media. As large media ministries have paid the heavy economic and



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social costs of airing their broadcasts on television, the Internet and social media provide a formidable means of broadcasting without enormous financial exposure. In so doing, the Internet democratizes religious broadcasting, potentially shifting the balance of popular religious discourse. Just as evangelicals and charismatics leapfrogged over mainline denominations to dominate religious broadcasting with the Federal Communications Commission’s ruling in 1960, the rise of religious Internet usage today signals yet another potential shift in who influences religious broadcasting. The messages produced by mainliners, evangelicals, charismatics, and Pentecostals were not substantially altered in the 1960s and 1970s to propel the change; only the deployment of the medium changed. Once the FCC ceased its free distribution of airtime in service to the common good and decided that the common good could be served even if ministries had to pay for airtime, mainliners found it hard to compete in the new market environment. The Internet with its inexpensive platform, yet massive outreach, signals yet another potentially significant market (and with it theological) shift. Research in the field shows how the Internet and social media are already altering the way we view and appropriate religious media in our lives.2 Smith’s ministry growth and presence at MegaFest highlight new ways in which the Internet serves as a launching pad for relatively unknown talent. The gatekeepers of religious broadcasting, seated in cloistered halls, are no longer the primary determinants of how widely a ministry’s message will be distributed. As with other forms of media stardom ushered in by the I­ nternet— overnight singing sensations, savvy political commentators, quirky “kid presidents,” and an assortment of health and beauty gurus—religious voices, too, can find wide followings on the Internet. This shift is particularly acute for religious communities, as such changes in the powers of distribution might very well signal the potential for a fundamental shift in how Americans are doing theology. Prosperity gospels have become central to various aspects of evangelical and charismatic religion. The significant influence seemed to grow as prosperity preachers distributed their message via television media, promising viewers returns on their investment if they would but sow a seed, “spreading the gospel to the world” through assistance with broadcast costs. The symbiotic relationship created between 24-7-365 religious television broadcasting and prosperity gospels seems a relationship of co-dependency. The metaphoric “wild animal park” that Carlton Pearson used to describe televangelism is dependent on a ­

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constant stream of financial resources to feed it, mandating that in order to be successful on religious television, one must be a “money raiser.” As the costs of broadcasting decrease with the rise of Internet usage, will the emphasis on seed-faith giving also decline? How might these new dynamics shift what voices are made popular in the public discourse? What might be the future of religious broadcasting given the changing face of technology? I take up some of these questions by looking briefly at the media ministry of ­MegaFest’s unknown star and speculating on the emerging role of Internet broadcasting under an open-access Internet usage model. To the extent that legislators extend tariffs on the Internet—i.e., FCC 1960—this analysis changes.

E. Dewey Smith Smith moved his ministry to Atlanta in 2004 during what became the unraveling of Earl Paulk’s ministry and roughly six years before the rapid demise of Eddie Long’s ministry. These two television preachers were, for all practical purposes, the faces of twenty-first-century television scandal. As Charismatic exhorters of the gospel, they had amassed significant national and international recognition, exceptional wealth, and enormous congregations. Long’s church at one time was estimated to be the largest African American church in the country. Whether money and power accumulated through their vast media exposure drove them to megalomania or whether the root causes were already there, we may never know. The cause-and-effect relationship is as yet undetermined. Internet ministries have the potential to disrupt at least a portion of the model built on televised personality cults, as Smith’s ministry and message seem to suggest. His ministry is a study in contrasts from the ministries in his purview. Having quickly outgrown the former site of GTR, Smith and his congregation purchased Paulk’s sanctuary, as it was falling into disrepair because of depleted resources. The new church, slowly undergoing renovation by GTR and located roughly eight miles from Long’s New Birth, has become a beacon of hope for the scandal-torn community. Smith’s critique, during his hour-long MegaFest message, of “prosperity preachers” and those who need a cadre of “armor bearers” with which to travel, generated overwhelming applause from the audience. Dressed in blue jeans and a blazer, Smith distinguished himself at least in appearance from the predilections of excess seen historically in other media ministries. Yet his own story points out some of the challenges of resisting established patterns.



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I had heard about Smith through a friend and wanted to spend some time learning about his ministry. As pastor of a rapidly growing church, he optioned primarily for local and regional television broadcasts, which were considerably less expensive than nationally aired cable broadcast messages. “January ’06 we started to air on national television through the Word Network,” he explained as we sat talking in his office months before his message at MegaFest—him once again in blue jeans and a blazer. “We came off in April of 2009.” The expense was great. “A lot of guys say because we didn’t do the marketing stuff. We didn’t do sermon series. We didn’t do partnerships and tape clubs.” Smith elaborated on the speculation about why the costs were so prohibitive the first time. The pressure was strong. He could build a name brand, fill a solid slot on one of the major networks, and create a thriving television presence. He knew other ministers who had done it. But he eventually declined it all. “We just didn’t do a lot of that because I didn’t want to make it an infomercial. I do know the importance of monetizing it and giving people the opportunity to do it, but you know, is it the gospel or is it a commercial?” He was paying one hundred thousand dollars per year, roughly eighty-three hundred dollars per month, for “twenty-eight minutes and thirty seconds . . . not thirty minutes,” he emphasized, per week of airtime. “That’s just for the slot. That’s not for the tape itself, nor for the closed captioning that you have to have encoded. That’s not production costs. That’s just the time itself.” Always media engaged, when he started pastoring in 1990, the church recorded the services on cassette, primarily for distributing to people who were sick or shut-ins, Smith explained. He tells the story as if he has a photographic memory—dates, times, and places rarely escaping his recall. We started doing videotapes in 1992, little VCR and VHS tapes, and we would make those available upon request. In 1994 we moved into our church and started on television for the first time. September of ’94 we came on Cox Cable every Saturday and Sunday nights. It was a great outreach . . . local only. We started in ’94, and we’re still on that channel today; next year it will be twenty years. In ’97, ’98, we started to air on the channel called MBC. It was the first . . . black-owned network [later the Black Family Channel].

Once at GTR, to help manage the burgeoning ministry, he hired an executive leadership team. Among his new officers, Joshua is a young media expert who aids Smith in building a cutting-edge Internet presence.3 A former employee of Creflo Dollar Ministries (CDM), he joined CDM before Dollar

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“­exploded.” “It was fun. It was exciting. . . . He was also at a transitional point in his ministry. . . . I came at the time, at the base of that explosion.” The work Joshua performed to take Dollar’s ministry to the “next level” is considerably different from the work he is doing for Smith. At Dollar’s ministry, in order to push the television ministry to its national and international stature, he had to help create the television broadcast, establish a call center, and send out copious prayer letters each month to ministry “partners,” all in service of raising their one-million-dollar per month budget. “I know my responsibility for partnership was to make a million-dollar-amonth budget. That was my assignment.” This money, he explained, covered all of their media needs. At Smith’s ministry, he manages a budget of several thousand dollars. A virtual one-man team, he sits in his office week after week, watching the Internet responses to Sunday’s sermon, the Facebook comments, and the number of likes that the pastor garners. “The Internet has changed every­thing!” During his time at CDM, ministry leaders like Joshua drafted prayer letters infused with excerpts from the pastor’s sermon, received the pastor’s final approval for the letter, and sent, by snail mail, communication to all of their ministry partners. We had an entire department that . . . made sure that all of the mailing went out. . . . I mean . . . we had about two hundred and fifty thousand pieces of mail that went out on a monthly basis, every month. We had to have them printed. The printer printed them; then they had to be stuffed; the envelopes had to be put together. And all of those things had to be done every single month.

Then they waited for the responses. Checks that came in went to their appropriate department; prayer requests to their department and product orders to theirs—each item shuttled off to its corresponding ministry. “Because of the Internet and social media, that formula has changed. . . . The formula that I used effectively at Creflo Dollar is not the same formula I can use effectively here.” Now he connects directly with ministry supporters and viewers instantly. “The way that people communicate today,” he marveled, “has completely changed, and for me now, the question is how can I effectively use the Internet. . . . I can go on YouTube right now, and Pastor Smith has over four million hits on one page, and that’s not even his page.” The magnitude of reaching nearly four million people without paying for high-priced television airtime is striking. “Google E. Dewey Smith,” Joshua instructed, “and you’ll find any one of his YouTube clips with ten thousand, twenty thousand, fifty thousand,



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one hundred thousand hits. He’s popular . . . he’s probably one of the most popular preachers on YouTube. But what does that really mean?” Figuring out how to translate all of those “likes” into members of their “Internet campus” or “church” is the work before him. Do all of those likes mean that people will engage with the ministry more effectively, support it financially, or participate in its work? These are the questions that drive him. For now, he is working on building the base and moving from there. When viewers demonstrate an interest in a particular subject on the ministry’s Facebook page, he cuts and splices the pastor’s sermon to ensure that he gives them more of the same the following week. His best example at the time was a oneminute, ten-second clip he posted to Facebook from Smith’s sermon “Girl, Stop Crying.” Joshua admits that he did it “intentionally, because 55 percent of the people on Facebook are women between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-five. Right?! And, today one-third of all households are single-parent households, single-women households between the age of twenty-five and forty-five, so that particular clip was talking directly to them.” He says he expected good numbers, but he was “blown away” at the results—the line between effective ministry and strategic marketing forever blurred. In this way ministry is tailormade to fit viewers’ specific needs. That short Facebook clip, “not YouTube,” he reminded me, received more than twenty-six thousand views. The ministry’s average number of views, at the time, hovered around “thirteen, fourteen or fifteen thousand.” “It’s our biggest number ever, EVER!” Smith and his Internet guru/media minister are building his audience one “like” at a time. “Our numbers are nothing in comparison to Jakes and Joel Osteen, and of course, you know the nine hundred–pound gorilla in the room, Joyce Meyer.” Joshua affectionately referred to the way in which Meyer’s ministry dwarfs nearly every other ministry, but “we are not on television like they are.” He is clear about one thing. “We will never be able to have those types of numbers because my distribution isn’t as wide as theirs.” Television, in the long run, still matters. In the meantime, likening movies released in independent theaters to those released in the AMCs of the world, he insisted that “the Internet is the track for independent ministries.” And for him, “they may not be able to be distributed by the bigger labels, but there you have some incredible successes.” Sizing up the state of affairs, he opined, “I don’t think that television will ever go away. I don’t think that the lure of television will ever diminish, the gleam of television will ever diminish . . . ’cause it’s probably the fastest, easiest way to reach

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people with the credibility necessary.” That being said, they still aim to thrive on television. But they want to grow a system of support over the Internet that will one day sustain their efforts on television. “We can develop a base and a following, and if we’re good enough, people will share and we’ll grow virally and organically.” Time will only tell how Smith and his GTR staff will manage the newfound exposure as a result of his message at MegaFest and the stream of preaching invitations that have increased since then. In the summer of 2014 Jakes offered Smith a spot on the Word Network at a discounted rate, based on available space that Jakes had acquired. The new television spot that Smith occupies there is manageable for now, they say. Reflective of Joshua’s hopes and with a twist on audience building, Facebook has helped them establish thousands of relationships with supporters that would have taken months to establish on television. Even with the increased media exposure and subsequent financial demands, the team knows that church funds are still needed for local ministry. Resources are needed to resurface the old parking lot, refurbish the original building, offer greater benevolent services, hire more staff, and help with the day-to-day needs of the congregation. Despite the new slot, television airtime is still registered as a distant “need.” Time has proven that regardless of what happens with television, the Internet provides one of the best and certainly the most economical options for distribution. Even as Smith’s ministry offers a glimpse into the uses of the Internet for religious media, his story is one yet unfolding—changing in split-second fashion along with the growth and expansion of new religious media.

Concluding Thoughts The last forty years have seen an unprecedented alignment of the market with goods and services historically rendered—in a word—sacred. Today, everything from fresh drinking water to education to human organs to the creation of children is invariably connected to the market. Imagine for a moment the advertisements in elite university newspapers soliciting eggs and sperm from bright, beautiful young co-eds—some offer thirty to fifty thousand dollars. The price tags associated with these various goods seem to run counter to the altruistic value they intrinsically contain. Theorists are right. The marketization and sale of everything seems inevitable; this is neoliberalism at its finest—the boundless freedom of the market.



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As religious television broadcasting has expanded exponentially, it has relied more on the market. The proliferation of books, conferences, tapes, and ten-step plans suggests that one can reach God and experience the Divine if only one has the financial resources to buy, purchase, sow, or invest in the next religious gadget. In some ways, as Mara Einstein suggests, “the interdependence of religion and marketing in our society seems almost inevitable,” and their similarities bear this out. “Religion is the acceptance of a belief system; marketing is the acceptance of beliefs about a product. Religions have faith communities; marketing has brand communities. Religion has become a product; products have become religions.”4 No example of the particular relationship between religion and the market seems more disquieting than when Patricia, an attendee at a woman’s conference, described to me the time she attended a conference and the audience was told that they could put their prayer requests on the “wailing wall” for twentyfive dollars per request. The worshippers could place their requests on a replica of the Israeli wall, specially designed for the event, and have them specifically prayed for by the leaders of the event. Patricia lamented that she did not have enough money to place on the wall the names of all the people for whom she earnestly desired prayer. She missed that opportunity for her loved ones to receive the blessing they needed. Most unsettling to me in the scenario was the way in which her own faith was tied to economics—not her sincerity, her longtime service, or her simple need. She lamented not having enough money to receive the promised blessing. This type of market predominance in the making of contemporary religious experience adds to long-standing questions about the future of religion and markets, especially given that their marriage today is intrinsic to religious broadcasting. While the Internet does not necessarily mitigate the cost of video production, it certainly is only a fraction of the cost of distribution. Its exponential expansion suggests that novel understandings of social and religious possibility have also gained momentum. The democratization of religious media through the use of the Internet, with its creation of “independent ministries,” is probably the single most dramatic shift in the distribution of religious media since the emergence of paid-time broadcasting. As Pentecostals, Charismatics, and evangelicals have embraced paid-time broadcasting and increased their following as a result, the question remains as to who will dominate in the marketplace of “digital religion.” Or, better still, what creative synergies may emerge. What we have learned over the course of the past forty years, however,

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is that as it relates to the intersection of religion and media, media is implicated in the very making of religion and the construction of theology. Within Christian communities new technologies may mean new theologies or at least new ways of disseminating seemingly shelved theologies. Even as liberal Protestantism—shuttled to the margins of religious broadcasting in part by the FCC’s decision in 1960—offers critical and disquietingly sober readings of the gospels, it may find room again in the popular imagination through social media. Black liberation theology, a tradition introduced to the mainstream and then marginalized by the media after the 2008 election, might very well become a resilient source of social and theological inspiration beyond seminary classrooms, if ever taken vigorously to the Internet. Other liberation theologies, given renewed voice by the Vatican under increasingly popular Pope Francis,5 may also garner room in the public imagination with the continued restructuring of technologies of distribution. Similarly, ministries created by women and catering specifically to the expressed needs of women, may move even more to the center of religious life, reshaping how the church writ large addresses questions of gender and power in the reading of scripture. After all, women comprise the majority of Christian believers around the world. There is movement afoot. Many voices are being heard in an assortment of places and across a range of media in the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, and other parts of the world. African American and women televangelists have been integral to this movement. This phenomenon is at once a reflection of American religion gone global and indication that religious media, at one point dominated by American televangelists, are now produced and distributed by people around the globe with varying media capacities. As one scholar writes of the dramatic spread of televangelism in India, “The colonial gaze is now in reverse mode as Indian televangelists are constructing their own versions of what used to be a uniquely US phenomenon.”6 In the age of multiple media platforms, including television, the Internet, and social media, even the smallest ministry has the capacity to become the next media sensation. We simply await its arrival.

NOTES

Preface 1.  Mfonobong Nsehe, “The Five Richest Pastors in Nigeria,” Forbes, June 7, 2011, http://www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/2011/06/07/the-five-richest-pastors-in -nigeria/. LoveWorld TV broadcasts televangelists based in Africa and white American televangelists like Pat Robertson, Joyce Meyer, and Mike Murdock. Its headquarters are in the United Kingdom with outposts in the United States and South Africa. See LoveWorld TV, accessed August 27, 2014, http://loveworldtv.co.uk/. 2.  Alex Cuadros, “Edir Macedo, Brazil’s Billionaire Bishop,” Bloomberg Business, April 25, 2013, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-25/edir-macedo -brazils-billionaire-bishop#p2. Not without controversy, Forbes magazine has created lists of the world’s wealthiest pastors, including a listing of the wealthiest pastors in Nigeria and Brazil. See Nsehe, “Five Richest Pastors”; Mfonobong Nsehe, “Wealthy Nigerians, Pastors Spend $225 Million on Private Jets,” Forbes, May 17, 2011, http:// www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/2011/05/17/wealthy-nigerians-pastors-spend -225-million-on-private-jets/; and Anderson Antunes, “The Richest Pastors in ­Brazil,” Forbes, January 17, 2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/andersonantunes/2013/01/17/ the-richest-pastors-in-brazil/. 3.  Pradip Thomas and Philip Lee discuss the many different iterations of religious televangelism taking hold around the globe with several articles focused on the growth of Islamic and Hindu televangelism. See Pradip Ninan Thomas and Philip Lee, Islamic Boutique: Global and Local Televangelism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Several essays focus on the growth of Islamic and Hindu televangelism. 4.  Scholars have been particularly concerned with the growth and influence of Pentecostalism around the world. Selected works exploring the global dimensions of the movement include Allan Anderson and Walter J. Hollenweger, eds., Pentecostals After a Century: Global Perspectives on a Movement in Transition (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999); Murray W. Dempster, Byron Klaus, and Douglas Petersen, eds., The Globalization of Pentecostalism: A Religion Made to Travel (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 1999); Simon Coleman, The Globalisation of Charismatic Christianity: Spreading the Gospel of Prosperity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Joel Robbins, “The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity,” Annual

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­ eview of Anthropology 33 (2004): 117–143; Donald Earl Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori, R Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); Mark A. Noll, The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009); J.  Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity: Interpretations from an African Context (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2013); and Allan Heaton Anderson, To the Ends of the Earth: Pentecostalism and the Transformation of World Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

Introduction 1.  Names of persons and local communities are pseudonyms, except national and international religious leaders and business owners. 2.  “Who Killed Sasha Kaye Brown?,” Jamaica Star Online, May 25, 2006, http://www. jamaica-star.com/thestar/20060622/features/features1.html. For a statement regarding this crime and the growing tide of violence toward young people in Jamaica, see Patrick Foster, “Flash Points of Crime,” Jamaica Observer, October 16, 2005, http://www .jamaicaobserver.com/news/90482_Flash-Points-of-Crime. 3.  Jamaican churches responding to the country’s social, political, and economic challenges may exemplify a more general global phenomenon—the increasing responsibility of churches and other religious institutions to take up state services attenuated by regimes of privatization and fiscal austerity. As Jean and John Comaroff note, “It might be argued that, as neoliberal forces have eroded the provenance of liberal democratic states in respect of education, health and welfare, religious movements—above all, those flexible ‘prosperity’ movements that mimic the workings of business—have expanded their institutional reach into formerly ‘secular,’ public domains.” See Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, “Privatizing the Millennium: New Protestant Ethics and the Spirits of Capitalism in Africa, and Elsewhere,” Africa Spectrum 35, no. 3 (2000): 293–312. 4.  For further discussion of Pentecostalism and its global political influence, see Ruth Marshall, Political Spiritualities: The Pentecostal Revolution in Nigeria (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009); Kevin Lewis O’Neill, City of God: Christian Citizenship in Postwar Guatemala (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010). 5. Marshall, Political Spiritualities, 18. 6.  Anderson and Hollenweger, Pentecostals After a Century; Dempster, Klaus, and Petersen, Globalization of Pentecostalism; Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); William K. Kay and Anne E. Dyer, eds., Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies: A Reader (London: SCM Press, 2004); Ogbu Kalu, African Pentecostalism: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Asamoah-Gyadu, Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity. 7.  Charles Long, Significations: Signs, Symbols, and Images in the Interpretation of Religion, 2nd ed. (Aurora, CO: Davies Group, 1999), 162. 8.  Harry Stout and D. G. Hart, eds., New Directions in American Religious History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Catherine A. Brekus and W. Clark Gilpin,



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eds., American Christianities: A History of Dominance and Diversity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011); and Stephen J. Stein, ed., The Cambridge History of Religions in America, vols. 1–3 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 9.  A formidable literature has emerged over the past few decades that attends to the multiple faith traditions that constitute African American religious practice in the United States. Especially since the early days of Arthur Huff Fauset’s Black Gods of the Metropolis: Negro Religious Cults of the Urban North (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), and C. Eric Lincoln’s The Black Muslims in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), a vast study of African American Islam has emerged, including works by scholars such as Aminah Beverly McCloud, African American Islam (New York: Routledge, 1995); Sylviane A. Diouf, Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas (New York: New York University Press, 1998); Edward Curtis IV, Islam in Black America: Identity, Liberation and Difference in African American Islamic Thought (New York: State University of New York Press, 2002); Carolyn Rouse, Engaged Surrender: African American Women and Islam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004); Sherman Jackson, Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Toward the Third Resurrection (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Michael Gomez, Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of Muslims in the Americas (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Zain Abdullah, Black Mecca: The African Muslims of Harlem (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); and Jamillah Karim and Dawn-Marie Gibson, Women of the Nation: Between Black Protest and Sunni Islam (New York: New York University Press, 2014). Also, the study of African traditional religious practice in the United States has grown with works by scholars such as Yvonne Chireau, Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003); and Tracey Hucks, Yoruba Traditions and African American Religious Nationalism (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2012). As the canon grows even larger, more complex and detailed understandings of African American religious life in the United States emerge. For example, comparative work looking at the experiences of African American Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the use of media also helps shed light on the divergent ways in which these communities articulate and aim for social uplift in black communities. See Carolyn Rouse, John Jackson, and Marla Frederick, Televised Redemption: The Media Production of Black Muslims, Jews and Christians (New York: New York University Press, forthcoming). 10.  Charles Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya, The Black Church in the African American Experience (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990), 1. 11.  See Anthony Pinn, “Peoples Temple as Black Religion: Re-imagining the Contours of Black Religious Studies,” in Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America, edited by Rebecca Moore, Anthony Pinn, and Mary R. Sawyer, 1–27 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 12. 12.  Victor Anderson, Beyond Ontological Blackness: An Essay on African American Religious and Cultural Criticism (New York: Continuum Publishing, 1995); Long, Significations.

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13.  Barbara Savage, Your Spirits Walk Beside Us: The Politics of Black Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 9. 14.  Jonathan Walton, Watch This! The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Televangelism (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 27. 15.  Omar McRoberts, Streets of Glory: Church and Community in a Black Urban Neighborhood (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003); Shayne Lee, T. D. Jakes: America’s New Preacher (New York: New York University Press, 2005); Milmon F. Harrison, Righteous Riches: The Word of Faith Movement in Contemporary African American Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Tamelyn Tucker-Worgs, The Black Megachurch: Theology, Gender, and the Politics of Public Engagement (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011); Wallace Denino Best, Passionately Human, No Less Divine: Religion and Culture in Black Chicago, 1915–1952 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005); Anthea Butler, Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making a Sanctified World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007); Scott Billingsley, It’s a New Day: Race and Gender in the Modern Charismatic Movement (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2008); Monique Moultrie, “Between the Horny and Holy: Womanist Sexual Ethics and the Cultural Productions of No More Sheets,” PhD diss., Vanderbilt University, 2010; and Debra Mumford, Exploring Prosperity Preaching: Biblical Health, Wealth, and Wisdom (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2012). 16.  Faye D. Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod, and Brian Larkin, eds., Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 2. 17.  See also Lila Abu-Lughod, “The Interpretation of Culture(s) After Television,” Representations 59 (Summer 1997): 109–134. 18.  John Jackson, Thin Description: Ethnography and the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013). 19.  Ginsburg, Abu-Lughod, and Larkin, Media Worlds, 2.

Chapter 1 1.  Bahamas Faith Ministries International Fellowship (BFMI), accessed August 7, 2011, http://www.bfmmm.com/page.aspx?page_id=2. 2.  Myles Munroe, “Oral Roberts—My Mentor and Spiritual Father,” Myles Munroe International, accessed July 12, 2011, http://www.mylesmunroeinternational.com/index .php?option=com_content&view=article&id=93:oral-robertsmy-mentor-and-spiritual -father&catid=909:blog (essay no longer available). 3.  Embassy of God Church: Information for Meditation, accessed June 30, 2015, http://www.godembassy.com/embassy-of-god/item/57-information-for-meditation .html?tmpl=component&print=1. This site lists the “100,000” member count in the last section. 4.  For a discussion of neo-Pentecostalism and subjectivity, see Marshall, Political Spiritualities; and O’Neill, City of God. O’Neill’s work also takes up the masculinist framework used by leaders to spur men along in their spiritual battle to save Guatemala. See also Elizabeth E. Brusco, The Reformation of Machismo: Evangelical Conversion and Gender in Colombia (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995).



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5.  David Van Biema, “Spirit Raiser,” Time, September 17, 2001, http://www.time .com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1000836,00.html. Jakes is also a successful entrepreneur who has written more than thirty books, several of which have been New York Times bestsellers. He has also produced at least three movies, Woman Thou Art Loosed, Not Easily Broken, and Jumping the Broom. 6.  The Potter’s House, “Bishop T. D. Jakes—Biography,” MegaFest International, accessed June 30, 2015, http://www.thepottershouse.org/press/tph-press-kit/tdj-biography .aspx. 7.  Jakes began his famed “Woman Thou Art Loosed” (WTAL) series as a women’s Bible study group at his home church in West Virginia in the early 1990s. In 1993 he preached a sermon based on that series at Carlton Pearson’s Azusa conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The message addressed issues long silenced in the church related to the physical and emotional abuse of women, shame, and sexuality. Following the overwhelming success of that sermon, Jakes published a book under the same title and initiated a series of WTAL conferences that have drawn hundreds of thousands of women from around the country. 8.  J. Lorand Matory, “The Many Who Dance in Me: Afro-Atlantic Ontology and the Problem with ‘Transnationalism,’” in Transnational Transcendence: Essays on Religion and Globalization, edited by Thomas J. Csordas, 231–262 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009). See also J. Lorand Matory, Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). 9.  Dianne Stewart, Three Eyes for the Journey: African Dimensions of the Jamaican Religious Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 10.  Bettye Collier-Thomas, Jesus, Jobs, and Justice: African American Women and Religion (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), 203. 11.  Randal Maurice Jelks, Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement: A Biography (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 122. 12.  Cornel West, Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 147. 13.  Albert Raboteau, A Fire in the Bones: Reflections on African-American Religious History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 48. 14.  Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo, “Tracking Global Flows,” in The Anthropology of Globalization: A Reader, edited by Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo, 3–46, quote on 4 (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007). Inda and Rosaldo draw on the work of David Harvey and Anthony Giddens to explore the notions of time-space compression and time-space distanciation. Popular works like The World Is Flat have also emerged exploring this idea. For further discussion, see David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1989); and Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990); Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005). 15.  Inda and Rosaldo, “Tracking Global Flows,” 14.

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16. Ibid., 28. 17.  Jacob Olupona and Regina Gemignani, eds., African Immigrant Religions in America (New York: New York University Press, 2007). 18.  Anthropologists’ discussions of religious media and globalization point out how communities have reinterpreted the messages brought to them and used new technologies to share their stories with the world and how religious forms have been introduced into local social and political life via technology. Two earlier edited volumes have helped anthropologists think about the framing of the contemporary discourse on religion and media. See Ginsburg, Abu-Lughod, and Larkin, Media Worlds; and Birgit Meyer and Annelies Moors, eds., Religion, Media and the Public Sphere (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006). 19.  Thomas J. Csordas, ed., Transnational Transcendence: Essays on Religion and Globalization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009). For further discussion of religion and globalization, see Kamari Maxine Clarke, Mapping Yorùbá Networks: Power and Agency in the Making of Transnational Communities (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004). 20. Csordas, Transnational Transcendence, 2, 3. 21.  Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, “Religious Economies and Sacred Canopies: Religious Mobilization in American Cities, 1906,” American Sociological Review 53 (February 1988): 41–49; and Wade Clark Roof, Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999). 22.  David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 2. Harvey continues with more detail about the state’s decreased role under neoliberalism: “The state has to guarantee, for example, the quality and integrity of money. It must also set up those military, defense, police, and legal structures and functions required to secure private property rights and to guarantee, by force if need be, the proper functioning of markets. Furthermore, if markets do not exist (in areas such as land, water, education, health care, social security, or environmental pollution) then they must be created, by state action if necessary. But beyond these tasks the state should not venture” (ibid.). While Harvey takes a critical view of the theory of neoliberalism and its impact on a macrolevel, a number of scholars ask questions related to the microlevel: how such logics are seeping into aspects of individuals’ everyday lives. For an overview of some of the vast literature produced on neoliberalism by anthropologists in recent years, see Justin B. Richland, “On Neoliberalism and Other Social Diseases: The 2008 Sociocultural Anthropology Year in Review,” American Anthropologist 111, no. 2 (2009): 170–176. See also Carol Greenhouse, ed., Ethnographies of Neoliberalism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010). 23.  Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, “Millennial Capitalism: First Thoughts on a Second Coming,” in Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism, edited by Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff, 1–56 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001); John Rapley, Globalization and Inequality: Neoliberalism’s Downward Spiral (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004); James Pfeiffer, Kenneth Gimbel-Sherr, and



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­ rvalho Joaquim Augusto, “The Holy Spirit in the Household: Pentecostalism, Gender, O and Neoliberalism in Mozambique,” American Anthropologist 109, no. 4 (2007): 688– 700; Jill Marie Wightman, “New Bolivians, New Bolivia: Pentecostal Conversion and Neoliberal Transformation in Contemporary Bolivia” (PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008); Sasha Newell, “Pentecostal Witchcraft: Neoliberal Possession and Demonic Discourse in Ivoirian Pentecostal Churches,” Journal of Religion in Africa 37, no. 4 (2007): 461–490; Marla Frederick, “Rags to Riches: Religion, Media, and the Performance of Wealth in a Neoliberal Age,” in Ethnographies of Neoliberalism, edited by Carol Greenhouse, 221–237 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010); and Daromir Rudnyckyj, “Spiritual Economies: Islam and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Indonesia,” Cultural Anthropology 24, no. 1 (2009): 101–141. 24.  Shayne Lee and Phillip Luke Sinitiere, Holy Mavericks: Evangelical Innovators and the Spiritual Marketplace (New York: New York University Press, 2009). Here I am actually referring to Pentecostalism as well as the broader movements of evangelicalism, neo-Pentecostalism, and charismaticism. A few scholars have worked to sort out the differences between the terms with major differences drawn around issues such as speaking in tongues and the “word of faith.” Ogbu Kalu writes in African Pentecostalism: An Introduction that the spread of Pentecostalism in Africa in this modernist era is actually “rooted in older religious revivals” and “is another phase of the quest for power and identity in Africa” (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 4. 25.  This history is also grounded in a prior history—that of Protestant revivalism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Leading figures of this movement, such as Charles Grandison Finney, Dwight Moody, and Billy Sunday, self-consciously and successfully converted revivalism into the regular, routinized, and reproducible science of gathering funds and crowds. To that end, these prominent Evangelists, along with scores of less well-known revivalists, appropriated marketing and other business techniques while cultivating the networks of Bible schools and other evangelical groups that were emerging outside and across traditional denominational boundaries. Such figures thus prefigured the extensive organization, planning, and marketing that successful televangelists were quick to adopt. See Jeffrey K. Hadden and Anson Shupe, Televangelism: Power and Politics on God’s Frontier (New York: Henry Holt, 1988), 43–46; and Razelle Frankl, Televangelism: The Marketing of Popular Religion (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987). 26.  Dennis N. Voskuil, “The Power of the Air,” in American Evangelicals and the Mass Media: Perspectives on the Relationship Between American Evangelicals and the Mass Media, edited by Quentin J. Schultze, 69–95, quote on 69 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990). 27.  Kimberly A. Neuendorf, “The Public Trust Versus the Almighty Dollar,” in Religious Television: Controversies and Conclusions, edited by Robert Abelman and Stewart M. Hoover, 71–84, quote on 71–72 (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing, 1990). 28.  Peter G. Horsfield, Religious Television: The American Experience (New York: Longman, 1984), 40.

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29.  Stewart M. Hoover, Mass Media Religion: The Social Sources of the Electronic Church (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1988), 51. 30.  Voskuil, “The Power of the Air,” 85–86. Voskuil cites James DeForest Murch, Cooperation Without Compromise: A History of the National Association of Evangelicals (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 1956), 78–79. 31.  Neuendorf, “The Public Trust Versus the Almighty Dollar,” 77. 32.  Voskuil, “The Power of the Air,” 90. 33.  Mimi White, Tele-Advising: Therapeutic Discourse in American Television (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 112. 34.  See Jeffrey K. Hadden and Charles E. Swann, Prime Time Preachers: The Rising Power of Televangelism (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1981); and Hadden and Shupe, Televangelism. 35.  Many other critiques of television ministries weigh the influence of materialism and American culture against the types of messages religious personalities preach to the larger public. See Quentin J. Schultze, Televangelism and American Culture: The Business of Popular Religion (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1991). Other studies have gone beyond examining the medium to examining its influence on viewers across the United States and globally. See Hoover, Mass Media Religion; Robert Abelman and Stewart Hoover, eds., Religious Television: Controversies and Conclusions (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1990); Bobby Chris Alexander, Televangelism Reconsidered: Ritual in the Search for Human Community (Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1994); and Stewart M. Hoover and Lynn Schofield Clark, eds., Practicing Religion in the Age of the Media: Explorations in Media, Religion, and Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). 36. Lee, T. D. Jakes; Stephanie Mitchem, Name It and Claim It? Prosperity Preaching in the Black Church (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2007); Billingsley, It’s a New Day; and Walton, Watch This! A special edition of Pneuma edited by Jonathan Walton addresses the questions of religion, media, and Afro-Protestantism. See Jonathan L. Walton, “Introduction: Will the Revolution Be Televised? Preachers, Profits and the ‘Post-racial’ Prophetic!,” Pneuma 33 (2011): 175–179. 37.  Reverend Ike began broadcasting in the late 1960s and established the United Christian Evangelistic Association (UCEA) in 1962. He claimed over one million followers by 1972 and over seven million by 1982. Until his death on July 28, 2009, Reverend Ike continued to receive both praise and harsh criticism, especially from those who thought his message of prosperity distorts the Christian gospel. 38. Walton, Watch This! 39. Schultze, Televangelism and American Culture, 55–56. 40.  The now defunct Praise the Lord (PTL) ministry of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker was the first satellite-transmitted religious broadcast to launch in the United States. 41.  A World Bank study found that in 2004, 70 percent of the island’s households had television sets. See 2006 Information and Communications for Development: Global Trends and Policies (Washington, DC: World Bank Publications, 2006), 213. 42.  Coreen Andrea Marcia Dawkins, “Religious Broadcasting in Jamaica: An Anal-



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ysis of the History, Program Content, Audience Description and Viewing Motives” (PhD diss., Howard University, 1991), 21–24, 101–105. Media could be, John Lent opines, “a panacea for all communication problems, especially those of insularity and parochialism among the rural people.” See John A. Lent, Third World Mass Media and Their Search for Modernity: The Case of Commonwealth Caribbean, 1717–1976 (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Press, 1977), 67. In the 1930s, the early days of Jamaican broadcasting began with amateur radio stations. World War II saw the development of the British Commonwealth Broadcasting Association in the Caribbean and the proliferation of small government stations created to spread war news, boost morale, and sustain a sense of civic life during global conflict. After the war, government radio stations like Radio Jamaica Limited and Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) began broadcasting, as well as the first television station on the island, carried by JBC in 1962. 43.  Dawkins, “Religious Broadcasting in Jamaica.” 44. A 1990 study, for example, found that while the majority of religious radio programming was locally produced, 75 percent of television was foreign, with 50 percent coming from the United States and another 25 percent from other Caribbean nations. See ibid., 106–107, 125. 45.  Audio of the calypso song “Innocent Jimmy” by All Rounder, a.k.a. Anthony R. Hendrickson, is located at www.youtube.com/watch?v=svH-6MT1eQM, uploaded December 12, 2010.

Chapter 2 1.  Unlike other ethnographic interviews, after my initial call, Reverend Ike set his team to work on orchestrating a made-for-television interview. A fully equipped camera crew awaited our conversation with bright lights, microphones, and high-tech video equipment. Books lined the walls against which the furniture had been placed to make room for the interview desk. Reverend Ike wanted our interview professionally videographed for future reference. Soon I would be escorted to the powder room for my session with a makeup artist, but not before meeting Reverend Ike. He came around the corner, arms stretched wide, greeting me with bold, assured, and stagelike energy. Our conversation provided glimpses of the vision of this cultlike figure of African American religion when he first embarked on his mission to the masses. 2.  I interviewed Bishop Carlton Pearson in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 10, 2005, just days before my conversation with Reverend Ike. I met Bishop Pearson earlier that spring when he served on a panel for a conference at Harvard University organized by myself, my colleague Wallace Best, and Marlon Millner (then third-year master of divinity student), “Into All the World: Black Pentecostalism in Global Context.” It brought together scholars and ministers to discuss the growth of Pentecostalism around the world and its influence on mainline denominations. Bishop Pearson’s testimony about his rise and fall from the inner circle of Charismatic/Pentecostal religious broadcasting had produced one of the seminal moments of the conference. We agreed to speak again in more detail during my visit to Tulsa. 3.  Founded in 1963, Oral Roberts University has a television studio on-site and

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has served as a training ground for other televangelists, including Myles Munroe of the ­Bahamas. Oral Roberts, Robert Schuller, and Rex Humbard are often listed as the pioneers of evangelical television broadcasting. Taking cues from earlier Evangelists like Charles Grandison Finney, Dwight Moody, and Billy Sunday, their approach to ministry emphasized large revival meetings, evangelical preaching, and a commitment to biblical infallibility. By 1955 Oral Roberts, the “king of the faith healers,” was considered the “national leader of paid religious television,” a position he held until 1983 when he was usurped by Jimmy Swaggart. See Frankl, Televangelism, 74. 4.  Bishop Pearson founded Higher Dimensions Family Church in Tulsa. In its heyday the membership was more than five thousand. After Pearson began preaching his “gospel of inclusion message,” the church lost membership and in 2006 received its foreclosure notice. 5.  For a more detailed narrative of Pearson’s transformation and understanding of inclusive theology, see Carlton Pearson, The Gospel of Inclusion: Reaching Beyond Religious Fundamentalism to the True Love of God and Self (New York: Atria Books, 2006). Pearson was in the process of writing this book when we talked. 6.  For further information on the history and development of the prosperity gospel, see Kate Bowler, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 7.  Jonathan Walton does an important job of chronicling early black “race record” preachers of the 1920s and 1930s, such as Calvin P. Dixon; Rev. J. C. Burnett of Kansas City; Rev. A. W. Nix of Birmingham, Alabama; and Rev. Leora Ross. These race record leaders were predecessors of religious radio leaders like Elder Solomon Lightfoot Michaux, Mother Rosa Artimus Horn, and Rev. C. L. Franklin, who predate televangelists. See Walton, Watch This! 8.  Lerone Martin, Preaching on Wax: The Phonograph and the Shaping of Modern African American Religion (New York: New York University Press, 2014). 9.  For greater discussion of the pioneers in religious broadcasting, see Frankl, Televangelism; Hadden, Televangelism. 10.  For an overview of the New Thought/Mind Cure movement, see Donald Meyer, The Positive Thinkers: Popular Religious Psychology from Mary Baker Eddy to Norman Vincent Peale and Ronald Reagan (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1988). For an ethnographic study of contemporary black experience of New Thought, see Darnise Martin, Beyond Christianity: African Americans in a New Thought Church (New York: New York University Press, 2005). 11.  Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism, 59. 12.  Cheryl Sanders, Saints in Exile: The Holiness-Pentecostal Experience in African American Religion and Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). See also A. G. Miller, “Pentecostalism as a Social Movement: Beyond the Theory of Deprivation,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 9 (1996): 97–114. 13.  Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). 14.  Susan Fillin-Yeh, ed., Dandies: Fashion and Finesse in Art and Culture (New



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York: New York University Press, 2001). In an examination of the nineteenth-century French poet Baudelaire, Michel Foucault famously portrays the dandy as a figure of modernity “who makes of his body, his behavior, his feelings and passions, his very existence, a work of art.” See Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 41. But going beyond nineteenth-century western European notions of the dandy as a “man about town,” Fillin-Yeh offers in this work a “cross-cultural view that introduces new dandies from other places, and female as well as male manifestations of dandyism; [Dandies] examines unrecognized dandiacal constructions of appearance” (3). 15. Fillin-Yeh, Dandies, 2. 16.  Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1999); Marjorie Garber, Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (New York: Routledge, 1992); and Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, NC: Duke University, 1991). 17. Fillin-Yeh, Dandies, 5. 18.  Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, directors, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, DVD (Santa Monica, CA: Lions Gate Films, 2000). 19.  In his essay “‘The Spirit of the Holy Ghost Is a Male Spirit’: African American Preaching Women and the Paradoxes of Gender,” Best “scrutinizes how cultural beliefs about the black female body shaped perceptions of women who led churches and created complex conditions within which they had to maneuver in order to legitimate their ministerial authority.” He points out how women preachers, like “Mrs. Williams,” whose story is a part of the 1939 Works Progress Administration (WPA) records, accepted the idea of the Holy Ghost being male, while simultaneously arguing that women’s bodies could possess the “male” Spirit. When the Spirit would come upon a preaching woman, she would preach heavily with power and authority while denying “her body, herself, her femaleness.” See Wallace Denino Best, “‘The Spirit of the Holy Ghost Is a Male Spirit’: African American Preaching Women and the Paradoxes of Gender,” in Women and Religion in the African Diaspora, edited by R. Marie Griffith and Barbara Dianne Savage, 101–127, quotes on 102, 113 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006). 20. Frankl, Televangelism, 129. 21.  Richard J. Powell, “Sartor Africanus,” in Dandies: Fashion and Finesse in Art and Culture, edited by Susan Fillin-Yeh, 217–242, quotes on 219, 220, 222 (New York: New York University Press, 2001). 22.  Monica L. Miller, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), 6. 23.  Scholarship on the black church identifies the “black gods of the metropolis” as persons who helped fill a void left by Frazier’s Negro church leadership. This church, according to Frazier, was in decline due to its otherworldly theology and lack of relevance to Blacks attempting to make life livable after the great migrations. See E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Church in America (New York: Schocken Books, 1974); and C. Eric Lincoln, The Black Church Since Frazier (New York: Schocken Books, 1974). Urbanization

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left Blacks in the city to carve out a new life for themselves. They created churches and theologies and embraced leaders such as Father Divine and Daddy Grace, who could help them make sense of their new lives. See Fauset, Black Gods of the Metropolis. 24.  Tim Retzloff, “‘Seer or Queer?’: Postwar Fascination with Detroit’s Prophet Jones,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 8, no. 3 (2002): 271–296. 25. Walton, Watch This!, 73. 26.  For a detailed reading of Reverend Ike’s life and ministry, consult Martin V. Gallatin, “Reverend Ike’s Ministry: A Sociological Investigation of Religious Innovation” (PhD diss., New York University, 1979). For a discussion of the early work on racial caste in the United States, see John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (New York: Doubleday, 1949). 27.  Early scholars of the black church were fiercely critical of what they viewed as its “otherworldly” orientations, encouraging Blacks to look for justice and reward in the next life rather than advocate for it in the present life. See, e.g., Benjamin E. Mays and Joseph William Nicholson, The Negro’s Church (New York: Institute for Social and Religious Research, 1933). 28.  For a greater understanding of the influence of urbanization on the black church, see Milton C. Sernett, Bound for the Promised Land: African American Religion and the Great Migration (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997); and Best, Passionately Human, No Less Divine. See also St. Clair Drake and Horace Roscoe Cayton, Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1945). 29.  Interestingly, civil rights leader and Operation PUSH founder Rev. Jesse Jackson argues that one of the major oversights of the civil rights movement was a plan for black economic mobility. He argues that a fourth, “economic” movement is needed to attain true freedom. See Jesse Jackson and Jesse Jackson Jr., with Mary Gotschall, It’s About the Money! The Fourth Movement of the Freedom Symphony: How to Build Wealth, Get Access to Capital, and Achieve Your Financial Dreams (New York: Times Business, 1999). 30.  Numerous newspaper articles during the apex of Reverend Ike’s career cover his ministry. Most of the authors are quite critical of his work: “Beyond Ike’s message of the power-of-positive-greed is the ego-building, instant-divinity trip he offers his followers—far from traditional admonitions to repentance.” Timothy Tyler, “That T-Bone Religion,” Time, December 11, 1972, http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,878120,00 .html. Other articles note the tension between his empowerment message and his potential for swindling people out of their money. See Clayton Riley, “The Golden Gospel of Reverend Ike,” New York Times, March 9, 1975, SM4; “Rev. Ike Talks on Capitalism and Religion,” Sun Reporter 35, no. 1 (January 5, 1978): 17; and William C. Martin, “This Man Says He’s the Divine Sweetheart of the Universe,” Esquire, June 1974, 76–78, 140–144. 31.  Historian Nick Salvatore, however, reminds us that these ideas were not always held as polar opposites. Rev. C. L. Franklin, for example, held the protest message of justice in close tension with the prosperity message of attainment. For a detailed discussion of C. L. Franklin’s life, see Nick Salvatore, Singing in a Strange Land: C. L. Franklin, the Black Church, and the Transformation of America (New York: Little, Brown, 2005).



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32.  There is a long history of debate about the nature of the “black church” and its quest for justice largely centered on whether or not black religion (understood primarily at the time as “the black church”) has been accommodative or resistant to oppression. Writing within a context shaped by Black Power, earlier authors sought to articulate the redemptive nature of black Christian religion and worked to excavate the liberative tradition within the black church on the heels of Frazier’s declensionist model, producing works such as those by James Cone, Black Theology and Black Power (New York: Seabury Press, 1969); and Gayraud Wilmore, Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious History of African Americans (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998). Scholars over the last two decades have worked to expand the liberal Protestant definition and rehearsal of black religious history. They have pointed out the multiple and conflicting ways in which black religion encompasses far more than the polarizing dialectics of protest and accommodation. See Peter Paris, The Social Teaching of the Black Churches (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985); Lincoln and Mamiya, The Black Church in the African American Experience; Hans Baer and Merrill Singer, African American Religion: Varieties of Protest and Accommodation (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002); Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent; Savage, Your Spirits Walk Beside Us; Michael Battle, The Black Church in America: African American Christian Spirituality (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006); Larry G. Murphy, ed., Down by the Riverside: Readings in African American Religion (New York: NYU Press, 2000); Curtis Junius Evans, The Burden of Black Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); Anthony Pinn, The Black Church in the Post–Civil Rights Era (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002). 33.  Kinchlow served a number of years with Pat Robertson as co-host of his show on CBN. While not engaged in the preaching ministry on air, Kinchlow became a household presence for many followers of religious broadcasting. Gilbert E. Patterson, interestingly, did not preach a prosperity gospel but gained respect and admiration among Charismatic and non-Charismatic evangelical Christians as the head bishop of the Church of God in Christ. Tony Evans, like Patterson and E. V. Hill, did not preach a prosperity gospel but briefly appeared on television before returning exclusively to radio because of the high costs of television broadcasting. His radio series The Urban Alternative draws thousands of listeners from around the country every week. Theologically, he is situated within a more broad-based evangelical Christian framework than a more narrowly defined Pentecostal or Charismatic tradition under which much of religious broadcasting falls. 34.  The Church of God in Christ (COGIC) is the first and largest African American Pentecostal body in the United States. Originally organized as an interracial body, following the Azusa Street meetings of 1906, it became a predominantly black denomination after Whites departed to form the Assemblies of God. 35.  This same trend existed in mainstream media. The majority of early black models and actresses on television had brown or light brown skin. Debate still lingers as to the circumstances under which dark-complexioned actors and actresses who do not hold stereotypical European features are granted parts in major television and movie productions. For further discussion of colorism, race, media, and globalization, see Kathy Russell-Cole, Midge Wilson, and Ronald E. Hall, The Color Complex: The Poli-

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tics of Skin Color in a New Millennium (New York: Anchor Books, 2013); and Timothy Havens, Black Television Travels: African American Media Around the Globe (New York: New York University Press, 2013). 36.  Interview with Tony Evans, Dallas, Texas, spring 2006. 37. Savage, Your Spirits Walk Beside Us, 30. 38. Ibid. 39.  See Judith Weisenfeld, Hollywood Be Thy Name: African American Religion in American Film, 1929–1949 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 23. 40. Evans, The Burden of Black Religion, 5. 41. Lee, T. D. Jakes, 71. 42.  Religion scholar R. Marie Griffith argues that both T. D. Jakes and Joyce Meyer follow in a long line of Christian diet promoters whose postwar rhetoric intensified a focus on “self-realization.” “The shift ‘from salvation to self-realization,’” she writes, “so persistently documented by social scientists, theologians, and psychologists for much of the century, culminated for many Christians with a newly severe dogma of fleshly perfection, embodied in personal fitness.” See R. Marie Griffith, Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 171. 43.  Paula White reluctantly answered questions posed by television host Larry King regarding her surgery, responding only that the procedure was not paid for with church funds. Interview with Paula White, Larry King Live, first broadcast November 26, 2007, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0711/26/lkl.01.html. Prophetess Bynum, the most popular and most successful African American female televangelist, similarly admitted to the host of Exalted! on BET that she had undergone plastic surgery. 44.  John Burdick, Blessed Anastácia: Women, Race, and Popular Christianity in Brazil (New York: Routledge, 1998). 45.  While it is easy to see the merits of Brazilian Pentecostal perspectives, a focus on the spirit in denial of the flesh does not resolve the issue of how beauty standards are internalized. Pentecostals whom Burdick interviewed married dark-skinned or kinkyhaired persons “in spite of ” their physical attributes, not in celebration of them. 46.  See Friends International Christian University, accessed October 8, 2009, http:// www.ficu.edu. While the list of graduates consists of white and black televangelists, the list of popular African American television ministers who have received their credentials at FICU includes Frederick K. C. and Betty Price, Paul and Debra Morton, Ira and Bridget Hilliard, T. D. Jakes, and Bishop Clarence McClendon. See “Alumni,” Friends International Christian University, accessed October 8, 2009, http://www.ficu.edu/alumni .htm. The accreditation page reads in bold capital letters, “FICU is not accredited by an accrediting agency recognized by the United States secretary of education,” by requirement of disclosure law. See “Accreditation,” Friends International Christian University, accessed October 8, 2009, http://www.ficu.edu/accreditation.htm. 47.  Illiana Quimbaya argues that in Latin America such titles work to level the playing field among Charismatics and the seminary-trained ministers of the Catholic Church, whose ecclesiastic orders are centuries old. Illiana Quimbaya, “Pare de sofrer / Succeed in Life: The Interpretation and Influence of the Prosperity Gospel in the Igreja



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Universal do Reino de Deus Salvador, Brazil” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2011). See also Illiana Quimbaya, “The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God: A New Model of Religious Syncretism?” (Bachelor of Arts thesis, Harvard University, 2005). 48.  Interview with Paula White, Larry King Live. 49.  My interviews with pastors in the United States, such as Pastor E. Dewey Smith in Atlanta, Georgia, directly address this concern. While Smith’s own ministry resisted national broadcasting for some time because of the financial demands of the medium, he spoke of a number of cases in which ministers went into debt to purchase the cars and clothes indicative of success in contemporary broadcasting. Other interviewees who have worked in nationally broadcast ministries spoke of board meetings where pastors drained money from other ministries of the church to pay for their airtime. These types of issues foster debates among scholars and laity about the purpose and expectations of church on television. 50.  For greater analysis of these financial scandals, see Susan Friend Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000); and Janice Peck, The Gods of Televangelism: The Crisis of Meaning and the Appeal of Religious Television (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 1993). In 2007 Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) launched a Senate investigation into the financial statements of six top televangelists—Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, Kenneth Copeland, and Benny Hinn—three of whom (Hinn, Copeland, and Dollar) also sit on the Board of Regents for ORU. The suspicion has been that they used tax-exempt status as a means to “shield lavish lifestyles.” For further discussion, see Jonathan Walton, “Tax-Exempt? Lifestyles of the Rich and Religious,” Christian Century (January 29, 2008): 13. 51. A 2011 update on Sen. Chuck Grassley’s investigation indicates that he was unable to find significant evidence of wrongdoing, although only two of the six ministries cooperated with the investigation. Under pressure from religious groups about the reach of the federal government’s inquiry into the workings of religious organizations, the investigation pulled back its efforts. Rachel Zoll, “Televangelists Escape Penalty in Senate Inquiry,” NBC News, January 7, 2011, http://www.nbcnews.com/id/40960871/ns/politics -capitol_hill/t/televangelists-escape-penalty-senate-inquiry/#.UhpnjOC-JZ4. 52.  “CNN People in the News,” CNN.com, accessed June 20, 2015, http://www.cnn. com/TRANSCRIPTS/0412/25/pitn.01.html. 53. Walton, Watch This!

Chapter 3 1.  Residents are well aware that religious affiliation does not protect against the violence of the streets. A few weeks prior to my visit the local news media were saturated with a story about the shooting death of two young priests in one of Kingston’s most troubled communities. While washing dishes in the kitchen of their parish, they were gunned down by stray bullets from outside their window. See Glenroy Sinclair, “Missionaries in Mourning—2 Priests Shot Dead,” Jamaica Gleaner, October 29, 2005, http:// old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20051029/lead/lead2.html. Around this same time, I

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witnessed ministers at a local conference of pastors and leaders speaking openly about the fear that they and their congregations need to overcome to become more fully engaged in strategies for peace. 2.  For a history of Pentecostalism in Jamaica, see Diane J. Austin-Broos, Jamaica Genesis: Religion and the Politics of Moral Orders (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997). For a broader study of religions in Jamaica, see Stewart, Three Eyes for the Journey. 3.  William Julius Wilson coined this term in his discussion of inner-city Blacks in the United States who are not only unemployed but also unemployable as a result of the shifting economic realities of global economic competition and deindustrialization. See William J. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass and Public Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). 4.  David D. Hall, ed., Lived Religion in America: Toward a History of Practice (Prince­ ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997). 5.  Robert B. Potter, “Urbanization in the Caribbean and Trends of Global Convergence-Divergence,” The Geographical Journal 159, no. 1 (March 1993): 2. 6.  Colin G. Clarke, Decolonizing the Colonial City: Urbanization and Stratification in Kingston, Jamaica (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). See also George Beckford, Persistent Poverty: Underdevelopment in Plantation Economies of the Third World, 2nd ed. (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 1999). 7.  Augusta Lynn Bolles, Sister Jamaica: A Study of Women, Work and Households In Kingston (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1996); Faye V. Harrison, “The Gendered Politics and Violence of Structural Adjustment: A View from Jamaica,” in Situated Lives: Gender and Culture in Everyday Life, edited by Louise Lamphere, Helena Ragoné, and Patricia Zavella, 451–468 (New York: Routledge, 1997); and Gina A. Ulysse, Downtown Ladies: Informal Commercial Importers, a Haitian Anthropologist, and SelfMaking in Jamaica (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). 8.  Robert Forrant, “Constructing Knowledge, Boosting Development and Escaping Debt: The Case of Jamaica,” in Globalization, Universities and Issues of Sustainable Human Development, edited by Jean Larson Pyle and Robert Forrant, 29–47 (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2002). 9.  All figures are US dollars unless otherwise indicated. See ibid., 31, 33. 10.  Deborah A. Thomas, Exceptional Violence: Embodied Citizenship in Transnational Jamaica (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 2. 11.  Anthony Harriott, “The Jamaican Crime Problem: New Developments and New Challenges for Public Policy,” in Understanding Crime in Jamaica: New Challenges for Public Policy, edited by Anthony Harriott, 1–12, quote on 10 (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2003). For further discussion and analysis of the rise in violent crime in Jamaica, see Brian Meeks, Envisioning Caribbean Futures: Jamaican Perspectives (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2007). Some posit that the seemingly unrestrained violence and death witnessed in Jamaica begins before the 1960s discord between the PNP and JLP over the future of the emancipated country and is embedded in the history of trans-Atlantic slavery and the centrality of Jamaica to European profits. For a rich historical analysis of death and politics in Jamaica, see Vincent Brown, The



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Reaper’s Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). According to Brown, “From 1740 through 1807, ships from the British Empire carried about 2.2 million men, women, and children away from the African coast. . . . During this time more than 10 percent of the Africans died before they reached their New World destination; still, over 1.9 million arrived in the Atlantic British colonies. As the leading slave trade entrepôt in the empire, Jamaica received about 33 percent of them, more than 600,000 forced migrants” (25–26). This long, brutal history sets the stage for the story of Jamaica as a colony and its situation after independence. 12.  A. Clarke, Decolonizing the Colonial City, 211. 13.  Rivke Jaffe, “The Popular Culture of Illegality: Crime and the Politics of Aesthetics in Urban Jamaica,” Anthropological Quarterly 85, no. 1 (Winter 2012): 79–102, quote on 84. 14.  Obika Gray, Demeaned but Empowered: The Social Power of the Urban Poor in Jamaica (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2004), 21. 15.  The growth of these prosperity gospel messages speaks at once to economic conditions and the emergence of Pentecostalism as a global phenomenon at the turn of the millennium. However, there is a marked difference between conventional forms of Pentecostalism, with a history of eschewing worldly wealth for the sake of holiness and a certain level of spiritual asceticism, and the contemporary neo-Pentecostal movement, with its blend of Word of Faith teachings, which cultivate ground for the merger of faith and worldly finance. Neo-Pentecostalism capitalizes on present-day global economic flows and the emergence of new social, economic, and political possibilities. 16. Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism; Rapley, Globalization and Inequality. 17.  Comaroff and Comaroff, “Millennial Capitalism,” 19, 20. 18.  Paul Gifford, “Ghana’s Charismatic Churches,” Journal of Religion in Africa 24, no. 3 (1994): 241–265; David Maxwell, “‘Delivered from the Spirit of Poverty?’: Pentecostalism, Prosperity and Modernity in Zimbabwe,” Journal of Religion in Africa 28, no. 3 (1998): 350–373; Rosalind I. J. Hackett, “Charismatic/Pentecostal Appropriation of Media Technologies in Nigeria and Ghana,” Journal of Religion in Africa 28, no. 3 (1998): 258–277; Daniel Jordan Smith, “‘The Arrow of God’: Pentecostalism, Inequality, and the Supernatural in South-Eastern Nigeria,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 71, no. 4 (2001): 587–613; Marleen de Witte, “Altar Media’s Living Word: Televised Charismatic Christianity in Ghana,” Journal of Religion in Africa 33, no. 2 (May 2003): 172–202; Milmon Harrison, Righteous Riches: The Word of Faith Movement in Contemporary African American Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); and Mitchem, Name It and Claim It! 19.  Smith, “The Arrow of God.” 20.  Maxwell, “Delivered from the Spirit of Poverty?”; Hackett, “Charismatic/Pentecostal Appropriation of Media Technologies”; DeWitte, “Altar Media’s Living Word”; M. Harrison, Righteous Riches. 21.  Hackett, “Charismatic/Pentecostal Appropriation of Media Technologies,” 260. 22.  de Witte, “Altar Media’s Living Word,” 178. 23.  Birgit Meyer, “‘Make a Complete Break with the Past’: Memory and Post-colo-

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nial Modernity in Ghanaian Pentecostalist Discourse,” Journal of Religion in Africa 28, no. 3 (August 1998): 316–349. 24.  Gerardo Marti, “The Adaptability of Pentecostalism: The Fit Between Prosperity Theology and Globalized Individualization in a Los Angeles Church,” Pneuma 34 (2012): 5–25, quote on 14. 25.  Sung-Gun Kim, “The Heavenly Touch Ministry in the Age of Millennial Capitalism: A Phenomenological Perspective,” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 15, no. 3 (2012): 51–64. 26.  M. Harrison, Righteous Riches, 25. 27.  Devaka, Premawardhana, “Transformational Tithing”; Pfeifer, Gimbel-Sherr, and Augusto, “The Holy Spirit in the Household”; and Karen J. Brison, “The Empire Strikes Back: Pentecostalism in Fiji,” Ethnology 46, no. 1 (2007): 21–39. 28.  Naomi Haynes, “Pentecostalism and the Morality of Money: Prosperity, Inequality, and Religious Sociality on the Zambian Copperbelt,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 18 (2012): 123–139, quote on 127. 29.  Unlike the lottery machine, which is an inanimate object unable to communicate or offer promises to the subject and which operates on luck, “God,” as people understand God, is a being who has made specific promises to the believer, based on a relationship of reciprocity. Unlike luck, where one simply throws one’s hands up in the air and supposes that “today is just not my day,” an unfulfilled promise within a relationship of reciprocity must be explained. The Comaroffs’ essay is an attempt at an explanation. 30.  Katherine Attanasi, “Introduction: The Plurality of Prosperity Theologies and Pentecostalisms,” in Pentecostalism and Prosperity: The Socio-economics of the Global Charismatic Movement, edited by Katherine Attanasi and Amos Yong, 1–12 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). 31.  Marti, “The Adaptability of Pentacostalism,” 12. 32.  Tomas Sundnes Drønen, “Weber, Prosperity and the Protestant Ethic: Some Reflections on Pentecostalism and Economic Development,” Swedish Missiological Themes 100, no. 3 (2012): 321–335; and Marti, “The Adaptability of Pentecostalism,” 12. 33.  The ways in which Pentecostalism is rooted in ideas of community and sharing are the subject of recent studies on the growth of Pentecostalism around the world, which argue that the ability to meet one another’s needs is central to the practice of Pentecostalism. See Miller and Yamamori, Global Pentecostalism. 34. In 2006, Edward Seaga, the former prime minister of Jamaica, noted that his country “enjoys one of the highest rates of remittance of money from overseas Jamaicans compared to other countries.” According to Seaga, remittances, in fact, play a major role in offsetting poverty and economic stagnation: Remittances are now the mainstay of the external economy both in terms of contribution to the balance of payments and in providing disposable income for household expenditure. Some one million Jamaicans, it is estimated, benefit from these funds remitted to families and friends, or for private payments to Jamaican suppliers, or real estate investments. . . . The correct social perspective of remittances must give due credit to Jamaican migrant families for standing behind their families in times of need



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when a stagnated economy fails to function. This should not detract from the efforts of the government’s anti-poverty programme which would also have some success to its credit from other contributing factors. But real credit for lowering the poverty rate belongs more so to the families abroad who care for Jamaicans in need at home. (Edward Seaga, “Remittances Rescuing the Jamaican Economy,” Jamaica Gleaner, January 8, 2006, http://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060108/cleisure/cleisure3.html)

35.  The power of the dons is an ongoing issue for Jamaicans. In 2010 Christopher M. Coke, a.k.a. Dudus, was arrested after a bloody battle between police and local residents who were trying to protect Coke. The struggle ended with the deaths of nearly seventy residents. Extradited to New York to face prosecution in 2012, Coke was sentenced to twentythree years in prison. For more detail, see Benjamin Weiser, “Jamaican Drug Lord Gets Maximum Term,” New York Times, June 8, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/ nyregion/christopher-coke-jamaican-drug-lord-is-sentenced .html?_r=0. 36. Harrison, Righteous Riches. 37.  Marla Faye Frederick, Between Sundays: Black Women and Everyday Struggles of Faith (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 148; and Schultze, Televangelism and American Culture. 38.  Frederick K. C. Price, Name It and Claim It: The Power of Positive Confession (Tulsa, OK: Harrison House, 1992). 39.  Miller and Yamamori, Global Pentecostalism. 40. Sanders, Saints in Exile. 41.  During my research in 2006, the exchange rate in Jamaica averaged approximately JA$60 / US$1. Jamaicans constantly commented on how much their dollar, which at one point was virtually on par with the US dollar, has lost value over the last couple of decades. This steady decline has been a source of great hardship for Jamaica’s poor and working classes. By the time of my final research in 2014, the exchange rate was JA$100 / US$1. 42.  This example is taken from the field notes of Bob Wayne Bell, whose research in Kenya has been helpful in my understanding of how religious broadcasting is spreading beyond the United States. He attended Bynum’s conference in Kenya and sent notes and newspaper articles back to me. He lived in Kenya for two years.

Chapter 4 1.  P. Bunny Wilson, Knight in Shining Armor: Discovering Your Lifelong Love (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1995); Joshua Harris, I Kissed Dating Goodbye: A New Attitude Toward Relationships and Romance (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 1997); Stephen Arterburn, Fred Stoeker, and Mike Yorkey, Every Man’s Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time (Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2000); Shannon Ethridge, Every Woman’s Battle: Discovering God’s Plan for Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment (Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2003); Tim Alan Gardner, Sacred Sex: A Spiritual Celebration of Oneness in Marriage (Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2002); Chip Ingram and Tim Walker, Sex 180: The Next Revolution—There’s More to It Than “Just Wait” (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005);

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Gary Chapman, Making Love: The Chapman Guide to Making Sex an Act of Love (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2008); Michelle McKinney Hammond, How to Be Found by the Man You’ve Been Looking For (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2005); Michelle McKinney Hammond, How to Get the Best Out of Your Man: The Power of a Woman’s Influence (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2013). 2.  Christine J. Gardner, Making Chastity Sexy: The Rhetoric of Evangelical Abstinence Campaigns (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011); and Amy DeRogatis, Saving Sex: Sexuality and Salvation in American Evangelicalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). 3. Gardner, Making Chastity Sexy, 13. 4.  All of these women benefit from the pioneering work of earlier women Evangelists such as Aimee Semple McPherson and Kathryn Kuhlman who utilized media to spread the gospel. 5.  For a discussion of mimesis as it pertains to the enactment of Charismatic selves, see Simon Coleman, “Transgressing the Self: Making Charismatic Saints,” Critical Inquiry 35, no. 3 (Spring 2009): 417–439. The question raised by Simon, as part of an extension to the argument raised by Susan Harding, is whether the “imitation” of a preacher’s life is about an actual change in the viewer and/or, as Harding notes, a change in language, how believers talk. “A mimetic relation to preachers,” Coleman writes, “is combined with a fertile, self-reinforcing, bodily ingestion of their language” (431). See also Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell. For further discussion of mimesis, see Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1953); Walter Benjamin, “On the Mimetic Faculty,” in Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings (New York: Schocken Books, 1978), 333–336; and Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity (New York: Routledge, 1993). 6. Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent. 7. Ibid., 196. 8.  Patricia Hill Collins, Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender and the New Racism (New York: Routledge, 2004), 98. 9.  Leith Mullings, On Our Own Terms: Race, Class, and Gender in the Lives of African American Women (New York: Routledge, 1997), 112–113. 10.  Darlene Clark Hine, “Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women in the Middle West,” Signs 14, no. 4 (Summer 1989): 912–920, quote on 912. 11.  Danielle L. McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape and Resistance—a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), xix. 12.  Hine, “Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women,” 912. 13.  Religion historian Clarence E. Hardy argues that black Holiness communities articulated stringent spiritual and moral norms in opposition to the mainline churches from which they split, embracing the cultivation of an intensive personal piety in lieu of respectability’s racialized demands of “bodily awareness before unsympathetic ‘benefactors.’” See Clarence E. Hardy, “From Exodus to Exile: Black Pentecostals, Migrating Pilgrims, and Imagined Internationalism,” American Quarterly 59, no. 3 (September 2007): 737–757.



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14.  From New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). Such a theology reworked Methodist founder John Wesley’s teachings on Christian perfection. Crucially, Wesley did not commend the phrase “sinless perfection.” Rather, the perfection he held up was that of a true believer’s perfection of desire and intention, not a state of total sinlessness. See Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 6–8. Wesley’s disciple John Fletcher, however, may have popularized the phrase “sinless perfection.” Fletcher himself qualified this phrase as “evangelically sinless perfection”: he meant to follow Wesley in allowing that a believer might transcend all voluntary sin, or attain perfection “according to the gospel,” but still fall into involuntary errors. See John Fletcher, The Works of the Rev. John Fletcher (London: Thomas Allman, 1836), 22:11. 15.  Common scriptural warrants included 1 John 3:6: “No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him” (NRSV). 16.  Randall J. Stephens, The Fire Spreads: Holiness and Pentecostalism in the American South (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 1–14; and Sanders, Saints in Exile, 58. 17.  In the United States, while Pentecostalism set itself apart from the Holiness movement by requiring speaking in tongues as a sign of baptism in the Spirit, such distinctions have been far less clear throughout the rest of the world. See Jay R. Case, “And Ever the Twain Shall Meet: The Holiness Missionary Movement and the Birth of World Pentecostalism, 1870–1920,” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 16, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 125–160. For accounts of how glossolalia spread among Holiness churches and into the first African American Pentecostal congregations, see Hardy, “From Exodus to Exile”; and Iain MacRobert, The Black Roots and White Racism of Early Pentecostalism in the USA (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988). 18.  Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism, 26. 19. Sanders, Saints in Exile, 132–133. 20.  The evangelical language of backsliding comes from English Protestant reworking of the stories of the nation of Israel sinning against God in the Old Testament (e.g., Jeremiah 14:7, King James Version [KJV]). See, e.g., B. A. Demarest, “Backsliding,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, edited by Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1984), 128. 21. Butler, Women in the Church of God in Christ, 77. 22.  For more detailed engagement with and critiques of black church responses to sexuality in particular, see Kelly Brown Douglas, Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective (New York: Orbis Books, 1999); Anthony B. Pinn and Dwight N. Hopkins, eds., Loving the Body: Black Religious Studies and the Erotic (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). There is also cutting-edge research under way at the Center on African-American Religion, Sexual Politics and Social Justice at Columbia University under the leadership of Josef Sorett. See www.carss.columbia.edu. 23.  For a more detailed accounting of her history and development in the Church of God in Christ, see Monique Moultrie, “Producing the Prophetess,” in “Between the Horny and Holy: Womanist Sexual Ethics and the Cultural Productions of No More Sheets” (PhD diss., Vanderbilt University, 2010).

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24.  See Frederick, Between Sundays; and Walton, Watch This! “Bishop Jakes, Bishop Long, and Pastor Dollar, regardless of their contrasting views, all seem to promote similar aims, objectives, and desires for the African American community—economic advancement, the minimizing of race, and Victorian ideals of family.” Walton, Watch This!, 171. 25.  For further discussion on White and her performance of her rags-to-riches narrative, see Frederick, “Rags to Riches,” 229. 26.  See interview with Paula White, Larry King Live. 27.  With over 96 percent of black women supporting the Democratic Party in the 2012 reelection of President Barack Obama, Meyer’s historic Republican associations place her outside the political sensibilities of a large segment of her audience and render her previously expressed political sensibilities suspect. 28. Frederick, Between Sundays; and Walton, Watch This! 29.  Joyce Meyer Ministries, accessed August 23, 2014, https://www.joycemeyer .org/ AboutUs/WhatWeDo.aspx. 30.  Robert J. Priest, “Examining the Authors Being Read by African Christians,” unpublished manuscript presented at the American Society for Missiology Conference, St. Paul, Minnesota, June 21, 2014. 31.  Paula White, Deal with It!: You Cannot Conquer What You Will Not Confront (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2006), 186. 32.  Joyce Meyer, Help Me, I’m Married! (Tulsa, OK: Harrison House, 2000), 14. 33.  Joyce Meyer, “Life Beyond Abuse,” accessed August 27, 2014, http://www.joyce meyer.org/articles/ea.aspx?article=healing_and_hope. 34. Collins, Black Sexual Politics, 110. 35.  Shayne Lee, Erotic Revolutionaries: Black Women, Sexuality and Popular Culture (Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2010), 94, 87. 36.  For an overview of this emergence, see Barbara Christian, “But What Do We Think We’re Doing Anyway: The State of Black Feminist Criticism(s) or My Version of a Little Bit of History,” in Changing Our Own Words: Essays on Criticism, Theory, and Writing by Black Women, edited by Cheryl A. Wall, 58–74 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1989). For an ongoing discussion of intersectionality, see Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (July 1991): 1241–1299. See also Devon W. Carbado, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Vickie M. Mays, and Barbara Tomlinson, eds., “Intersectionality: Challenging Theory, Reframing Politics, and Transforming Movements,” special issue of Du Bois Review 10, no. 2 (2013). 37.  Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2000), 93. 38.  For a survey of various forms of black women’s cultural production, see Jacqueline Bobo, ed., Black Feminist Cultural Criticism (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001). 39.  See, e.g., Collins’s extended discussion of black men and women as portrayed by mass media’s controlling images across a constellation of class and gender positions in Black Sexual Politics, 119–180. Contemporary feminist examinations of hip-hop also underscore the ambiguities and constraints of mass media. Some scholars, like T. Denean



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Sharpley-Whiting, emphasize the ways in which the genre promulgates a heterosexist gender politics that treats women as disposable sexual commodities and enables concrete, harmful effects on the lives of women. See Pimps Up, Ho’s Down: Hip Hop’s Hold on Young Black Women (New York: New York University Press, 2007). Others explore how black women rappers “provide young Black women with a small, culturally-reflexive public space” that challenges sexist discourses and racist aesthetic hierarchies. See Tricia Rose, “Never Trust a Big Butt and a Smile,” Camera Obscura 8, no. 2 23 (May 1990): 108–130. For an account that attends to both dimensions, help and harm, see Gwendolyn D. Pough, Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004). 40.  Susan J. Douglas, Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message That Feminism’s Work Is Done (New York: Times Books, 2010), 127–130. 41.  Monique Moultrie, “After the Thrill Is Gone: Married to the Holy Spirit but Still Sleeping Alone,” Pneuma 33 (2011): 237–253, quote on 243. 42.  Beyond the tearful television confessional of Jimmy Swaggart, some of these evangelists and/or their wives have written books about their experiences. See Jamal H. Bryant, World War Me (Baltimore: Empowerment Publishing House, 2009); Gayle Haggard, with Angela Hunt, Why I Stayed: The Choices I Made in My Darkest Hour (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2010); Jim Bakker, with Ken Abraham, Prosperity and the Coming Apocalypse: Avoiding the Dangers of Materialistic Christianity in the End Times (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc., 1998). Vanessa Long offered a seminar at their church based in part on her experience with Long during the demise of his ministry after the allegations of sexual impropriety. 43.  Donnie McClurkin, Eternal Victim: Eternal Victor (Lanham, MD: Pneuma Life Publishing, 2001). 44.  See Corrie Cutrer, “Joyce Meyer Responds to Critics, Shifts Income Source,” Christianity Today, January 1, 2004, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/january web-only/1–19–13.0.html. According to the article, “Until January 2004, Meyer received a salary from her organization and donated all her book royalties back to Joyce Meyer Ministries. She now will retain royalties on books sold outside the ministry through retail outlets such as Wal-Mart, amazon.com, and Christian bookstores, while continuing to donate to her ministry royalties from books sold through her conferences, catalogs, website, and television program.” With her website indicating that nearly thirty million of her books have been distributed worldwide, the royalties from book sales alone dwarf her previous salary. The challenge many of these ministries face is finding the balance between income generated through the ministry and income generated as a result of their own intellectual capital. To the extent that the person is the ministry “brand,” the lines are increasingly blurred. Attempting to disaggregate the lines of confusion, some ministers, like T. D. Jakes, have established both “for-profit” and “not-for-profit” arms of their work and ministry. 45.  S. Lee, T. D. Jakes, 150–151. 46.  Moultrie, “Between the Horny and Holy,” 125. 47.  Coleman, “Transgressing the Self,” 421.

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48.  Juanita Bynum and Thomas Weeks III, Teach Me How to Love You: Communication and Intimacy in Relationships, the Beginnings (Denver, CO: Legacy Publishers International, 2003). 49.  See Shaila Dewan, “A Minister’s Public Lesson on Domestic Violence,” New York Times, September 20, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/us/20preacher.html?page wanted=all&_r=0. 50.  Kathryn Lofton, Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 7–10. 51.  Birgit Meyer, ed., Aesthetic Formations: Media, Religion, and the Senses (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

Chapter 5 1.  Mayy El Sheikh and David D. Kirkpatrick, “The Rise in Egypt Sex Assaults Sets Off Clash over Blame,” New York Times, March 25, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013 /03/26/world/middleeast/egyptian-women-blamed-for-sexual-assaults.html. 2.  Overseas Security Advisory Council of the US Bureau of Diplomatic Security, “Jamaica 2013 Crime and Safety Report,” accessed October 29, 2014, https://www.osac .gov/pages/ContentReportDetails.aspx?cid=14289. 3.  Petrina Francis, “One Rape Every 12 Hrs,” Jamaica Gleaner, October 30, 2005, http://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20051030/lead/lead6.html. 4.  For further discussion of prayer as intervention when governmental structures are seen as ill equipped, see Timothy Nelson, Every Time I Feel the Spirit: Religious Experience and Ritual in an African American Church (New York: New York University Press, 2005). 5.  T. M. Luhrmann, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 35. 6. O’Neill, City of God, 58, 40. 7.  Keri Day, Unfinished Business: Black Women, the Black Church, and the Struggle to Thrive in America (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2012), 104. 8. Austin-Broos, Jamaica Genesis. 9.  Denise Brennan, What’s Love Got to Do with It? Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), 15–16. 10.  In these networks both men and women engage in sexual activity with tourists as a means of supporting themselves and their families. See Jenny Sharpe and Samantha Pinto, “The Sweetest Taboo: Studies of Caribbean Sexualities; A Review Essay,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 32, no. 1 (2006): 247–274. For further discussions of sex tourism in the Caribbean, see Brennan, What’s Love Got to Do with It?; Kamala Kempadoo, ed., Sun, Sex, and Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999); Kamala Kempadoo, Sexing the Caribbean: Gender, Race, and Sexual Labor (New York: Routledge, 2004). More recent studies have also focused on gay, lesbian, and transsexual experiences in the Caribbean. See Jafari S. Allen, Venceremos? The Erotics of Black Self-Making in Cuba (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011); Suzanne LaFont, “Very Straight Sex: The Development of



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Sexual Morés in Jamaica,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 2, no. 3 (2001): 1–29; David Murray, Opacity: Gender, Sexuality, Race, and the ‘Problem’ of Identity in Martinique (New York: Peter Lang, 2002.) For a discussion of masculinity in the Caribbean, see Barry Chevannes, Learning to Be a Man: Culture, Socialization, and Gender Identity in Five Caribbean Communities (Barbados: University of the West Indies Press, 2001). For a feminist critique of the sexual commodification of women in the new global economy, see Angela M. Gilliam, “A Black Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Commodification of Women in the New Global Culture,” in Black Feminist Anthropology: Theory, Politics, Praxis, and Poetics, edited by Irma McClaurin, 150–186 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001). 11.  Maria Frahm-Arp, Professional Women in South African Pentecostal Charismatic Churches (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2010), 202. 12.  Paul Brodwin describes how Haitian migrants in Gaudeloupe join Pentecostal churches as a means of countering prevailing images of Haitians as an “economic drain on society.” Comparing Haiti to Jamaica, he asserts, “Members of the black working class face deep obstacles in conforming to the English-derived code of respectability; they are denigrated especially for their ‘superstition’ and their ‘immorality.’ In response, Jamaicans join Pentecostal churches, where they credential themselves to perform the marriage rite and they ferociously denounce ‘fornication’ in sermons and everyday talk. Church members thereby generate distinctive modes of collective identity (AustinBroos 1997:10) through the sanctifying practices of marriage and sexual restraint.” See Paul Brodwin, “Pentecostalism in Translation: Religion and the Production of Community in the Haitian Diaspora,” American Ethnologist 30, no. 1 (2003): 85–101. 13.  David Smilde, Reason to Believe: Cultural Agency in Latin American Evangelicalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); Brusco, The Reformation of Machismo. See also O’Neill, City of God. 14.  O’Neill argues that “neo-Pentecostal Christians in Guatemala City perform their citizenship through Christian practices [like prayer] and that these Christian practices make neo-Pentecostal Guatemalans into citizens” (City of God, 3). By their adopting these practices as the singular means for transformation, O’Neill contends that the “weight” of changing the city is placed directly on the shoulders of believers rather than the government. See also Miller and Yamamori, Global Pentecostalism. 15.  Gloria-Jean Masciarotte, “C’mon Girl: Oprah Winfrey and the Discourse of Feminine Talk,” Genders 11 (Fall 1991): 81–110; Laurie L. Haag, “Oprah Winfrey: The Construction of Intimacy in the Talk Show Setting,” The Journal of Popular Culture 26, no. 4 (Spring 1993): 115–122, quote on 116; Peck, “Talk About Racism,” 89–126; Sujata Moorti, “Cathartic Confessions or Emancipatory Texts? Rape Narratives on the Oprah Winfrey Show,” Social Text 57 (Winter 1998): 83–102. 16.  Moorti, “Cathartic Confessions or Emancipatory Texts?,” 83. 17.  John L. Jackson, Real Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 15, 14–15. 18. Lofton, Oprah. 19. Jackson, Real Black, 9.

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20.  Patrick Eisenlohr, “What Is a Medium? The Anthropology of Media and the Question of Ethnic and Religious Pluralism,” Social Anthropology 19, no. 1 (2011):40–55. 21.  On this front, historian Scott Billingsley discusses the role of pioneering women religious broadcasters like Aimee Semple McPherson and Kathryn Kuhlman; prominent women who followed in their wake like Paula White, Joyce Meyer, and Juanita Bynum; and other less widely known but still influential figures like Marilyn Hickey, Vicki Jamison-Peterson, and Anne Gimenez. Billingsley argues that while these women appealed to traditional discourses of submission, they nonetheless “encouraged a receptive audience of conservative Christian women to take public leadership roles in their churches. They used the same message and ministry-building techniques that their male counterparts used, and by recounting their own personal hardships they identified with a broad segment of the American population. . . . They opened doors that, to a large extent, had previously been closed to women, and they forced many conservative Christians to rethink their views about gender roles in the church and society.” See Billingsley, It’s a New Day, 96–97. 22.  R. Marie Griffith, God’s Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Brenda Brasher, Godly Women: Fundamentalism and Female Power (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998); Christel Manning, God Gave Us the Right: Conservative Catholic, Evangelical Protestant, and Orthodox Jewish Women Grapple with Feminism (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999); Frederick, Between Sundays; Rouse, Engaged Surrender; Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). 23. Mahmood, The Politics of Piety, 14. 24. Ibid., 14–15. 25.  Marla Frederick, “‘But It’s Bible’: African American Women and Televangelism,” in Women and Religion in the African Diaspora: Knowledge, Power, and Performance, edited by R. Marie Griffith and Barbara Dianne Savage, 266–292 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).

Chapter 6 1.  Italics mine. The name of the employee is a pseudonym. 2.  Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000). 3.  Canonical readings in the study of black theology include James H. Cone, Black Theology and Black Power (New York: Seabury Press, 1969); James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, 20th anniversary ed. (1970; repr., Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990); James H. Cone, Risks of Faith: The Emergence of a Black Theology of Liberation, 1968–1998 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1999); James H. Cone and Gayraud S. Wilmore, eds., Black Theology: A Documentary History, 2nd ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993); J. Deotis Roberts, Liberation and Reconciliation: A Black Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971); Cornel West, Prophesy Deliverance: An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1982); Gayraud Wilmore, Black Reli-



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gion and Black Radicalism. An extensive and vibrant canon of black theological writings has emerged since the early 1960s and 1970s. Included in this work has been the critique offered by first-wave womanist theologians who have pushed both black liberation theologians and white feminist theologians to consider the ways in which the intersections of race, gender, and class define the particularities of both individual and structural oppressions. See Jacquelyn Grant, White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus: Feminist Christology and Womanist Response (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989); Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993); Katie Geneva Cannon, Katie’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community (New York: Continuum, 1995); Emilie Townes, Womanist Justice, ­Womanist Hope (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993). An extensive literature of second- and third-wave womanist critiques has emerged since the early days of womanist writings. See Stacey Floyd-Thomas, ed., Deeper Shades of Purple: Womanism in Religion and Society (New York : New York University Press, 2006); and Katie Geneva Cannon, Emilie M. Townes, and Angela D. Sims, eds., Womanist Theological Ethics: A Reader (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011). Recent work explores the theology in the very construction of race and its aftermath, racism. See Victor Anderson, Beyond Ontological Blackness; J. Kameron Carter, Race: A Theological Account (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); and Willie Jennings, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010). 4.  Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics and Salvation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988). 5.  Major evangelical outlets have traditionally considered Mormonism a “cult.” See Walter Martin, Kingdom of the Cults, edited by Ravi Zacharias (1965; repr., Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2003), which devotes an entire chapter to Mormonism. During the presidential campaign of 2012, however, there was strong evangelical support for the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. In 2012 a leading evangelical magazine, Christianity Today, ran a series of articles analyzing the relationship between Evangelicals and Mitt Romney. See Tobin Grant, “Evangelicals Vote ­Republican—­Mormon or No Mormon,” Christianity Today, September 24, 2012, http:// www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/september-web-only/will-evangelicals-vote-for -mormon.html; Tobin Grant and Ted Olsen, “In Defeats, Evangelicals’ Political Unity at All Time High,” Christianity Today, November 7, 2012, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/november-web-only/in-defeats-evangelicals-more-politically-united -than-ever-b.html; and Ted Olsen, “Actually, Evangelicals Were Quite Enthusiastic About Romney,” Christianity Today, December 7, 2012, http://www.christianitytoday. com/ct/2012/december-web-only/actually-evangelicals-were-quite-enthusiastic-about -romney.html. A New York Times article highlights the efforts made by both to find common ground. See Ashley Parker, “Romney Assures Evangelicals That Their Values Are His, Too,” New York Times, May 13, 2012, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html ?res=9E03E5DE1E3DF930A25756C0A9649D8B63. 6.  In the wake of this important political moment, several books have been published analyzing the relationship between Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, black liberation the-

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ology, and President Obama. See Clarence Earl Walker, The Preacher and the Politician: Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama and Race in America (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009); Carl A. Grant and Shelby Grant, The Moment: Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright and the Firestorm at Trinity United Church of Christ (Lanham, MD: Rowman Littlefield Publishers, 2013); and Angela D. Sims, F. Douglas Powe Jr., and Johnny Bernard Hill, Religio-Political Narratives in the United States: From Martin Luther King Jr. to Jeremiah Wright (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 7.  For years scholars have worked to describe the differences between black religious traditions. Lincoln and Mamiya, in The Black Church in the African American Experience, famously articulated the differences along a continuum of dialectical tensions between Priestly vs. Prophetic, Other-Worldly vs. This-Worldly, Universalism vs. Particularism, Communal vs. Privatistic, Charismatic vs. Bureaucratic, and Resistance vs. Accommodation. Baer and Singer, in African American Religion in the 20th Century, describe the differences between black churches as fitting within four quadrants: mainstream, thaumaturgical, conversionist, and messianic/black nationalist. Others have argued that such attempts to categorize African American religion do not leave enough room for overlap and dynamic change over time. Each of these characterizations, however, helps us begin to articulate the sheer diversity of African American religious life, a diversity that historian Barbara Savage argues gives lie to the idea of the monolithic “black church”—an idea that operates as a “political, intellectual and theological construction” to symbolize unity while disturbingly masking its diversity. See Savage, Your Spirits Walk Beside Us, 9. 8.  For one transcript of Reverend Wright’s sermon, which was preached on April 13, 2003, from his pulpit at Trinity United Church of Christ, see “God Damn America,” accessed August 27, 2014, http://www.sluggy.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=315691&sid=4 b3e97ace4ee8cee02bd6850e52f50b7. 9.  Oran P. Smith, The Rise of Baptist Republicanism (New York: New York University Press, 1997); Jeffrey K. Hadden, “The Rise and Fall of American Televangelism,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 527 (May 1993): 113–130; and Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell. 10.  Richard Kyle, Evangelicalism: An Americanized Christianity (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2006), 166. 11. Ibid., 167. 12.  Ensconced in the evangelical community, Wells was not among the increasingly popular Pentecostal preachers who participate in the meetings. While such groups dominate popular airways, they do not dominate the NRB meetings. Those who identify more with evangelicalism than with Charismatic movements form the leadership of the organization and influence its programming. 13.  Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith, Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 22. 14.  Popular televangelist John Hagee of San Antonio, Texas, for example, often warned his Cornerstone Church and viewing audience about Islam in the East and promoted on his show The New Barbarians a book about Islamic fundamentalism.



NOTE S TO CH APTE R 6 

203

15.  “TBN Now Reaches 93 Million Cable and Satellite Subscribers Nationwide,” Christian Newswire, Los Angeles, July 30, 2012. 16.  “The TBN Story,” accessed October 28, 2013, http://www.tbn.org/about-us/ the-tbn-story. 17. INSP, LLC, Linkedin, accessed June 29, 2015, https://www.linkedin.com/ company/the-inspiration-networks. 18.  Jonathan Walton, Watch This!, 15 (italics mine). 19. Frederick, Between Sundays, 153. 20.  Mark Dawes, “Creating a ‘TBN’ for the Caribbean,” Jamaica Gleaner, October 14, 2006, http://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20061014/news/news1.html. 21.  Mercy and Truth Ministries, accessed June 30, 2015, http://www.mercyandtruth .tv/about/. 22.  For a theoretical discussion of “scandal,” see Johannes Ehrat, Power of Scandal: Semiotic and Pragmatic in Mass Media (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011). 23.  Furthermore, for many televangelists agreed-upon commitments to marriage and family values are key indicators of one’s salvation and commitment to Christ. The marital relationship in particular is described as a physical manifestation of a spiritual truth, emulating the type of sacrifice evident in the “marriage” between Christ and the church. Often such teachings offer prescriptive discussions of marital responsibilities, from the roles of husbands and wives to the discipline and training of children. These very tangible teaching points make the message an appealing one for audiences, as distributors note that most of the calls to their prayer centers regard family and financial struggles. 24.  Judith M. Buddenbaum, “Scandalous Evangelicals: Sex, Greed, Politics, and the Arts,” in Evangelical Christians and Popular Culture: Pop Goes the Gospel, edited by Robert H. Woods Jr., 110–127, quote on 123 (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2013). 25.  “We had some to come off,” Heidi explained, who “just couldn’t survive during the recession.” While the financial crisis of 2008 and the rise in Internet use by ministries are important factors in these changes, much of the decline in US broadcasting has been by their own hands. Beyond the spiritual and political toll that personal scandals raise for followers, the economic fallout directly affects broadcasters. 26.  While the earlier link to an article critical of Cerullo’s salary dated March 9, 2012, can no longer be accessed online at the Charlotte Observer, a statement issued by INSP on this date is available. See “Statement from Inspiration Networks,” Charlotte Observer, March 9, 2012, http://www.charlotteobserver.com/incoming/article9078356 .html. See also Ames Alexander, “CEO of Ministry Building $4 Million Lakefront Home,” Charlotte Observer, June 29, 2009, http://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/ religion/article9027638.html. 27.  Erik Eckholm, “Family Battle Offers Look Inside Lavish TV Ministry,” New York Times, May 4, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/05/us/tbn-fight-offers-glimpse -inside-lavish-tv-ministry.html?pagewanted=all. 28.  Luiza Oleszczuk, “TBN Family Feud Heats Up as Network Fires Back Against Fraud Accusations,” Christian Post, May 9, 2012, http://www.christianpost.com/news/ tbn-family-feud-heats-up-as-network-fires-back-against-fraud-accusations-74645/.

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29.  Juanita Bynum’s attempt at immediately recasting herself as the “new face of domestic violence to the world” after the public altercation with her husband reflected her unsuccessful attempt at turning her “test,” as one respondent told me, into her “testimony.”

Conclusion 1.  Interview with one of Smith’s media coordinators in the spring of 2013. 2.  For research on new religious media, see Brenda Brasher, Give Me That Online Religion (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001); Heidi Campbell, When Religion Meets New Media (New York: Routledge, 2010); Pauline Hope Cheong, Peter Fischer-Nielsen, Stefan Gelfgren, and Charles Ess, eds., Digital Religion, Social Media and Culture: Perspectives, Practices and Futures (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2012); Heidi Campbell, ed., Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds (New York: Routledge, 2012). Charting the future through a review of the most recent scholarship on religion and media, David Morgan offers further insight into the subject by examining the terminology that has been at the heart of the field. See David Morgan, “Religion and Media: A Critical Review of Recent Developments,” Critical Research on Religion: An Interdisciplinary Journal 1, no. 3 (December 2013): 347–356. 3.  Joshua is a pseudonym. 4.  Mara Einstein, Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age (New York: Routledge, 2008), 78. 5.  See Paul Vallely, “A Church for the Poor,” New York Times, September 4, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/opinion/a-church-for-the-poor.html. 6.  Jonathan D. James, “The Global in the Local: The Ambivalence and Ambition of Christian Televangelism in India,” in Islamic Boutique: Global and Local Televangelism, edited by Pradip Ninan Thomas and Philip Lee, 108–125, quote on 124 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

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IN D E X

Abernathy, Ralph, 42 abortion, 142 Abu-Lughod, Lila, 8, 9; Media Worlds, 180n18 accountability structures, 55, 139, 155, 156, 158–59 Adams, Ty, 103 Adelaja, Sunday, 16–17, 18, 19–20, 66 advertising, 148, 160 African American religion: black liberation theology, 133–37, 145–46, 174, 201nn3,6; emotionalism in, 45–46, 47–50; and the hereafter, 40–41, 186n27; protest orientation in, 5–7, 11, 40, 42, 43, 145–46, 186n31, 187n32; relationship to American religion, 5–6; social gospel, 133–34, 135, 136–37; traditions in, 177n9, 202n7; as transnational, 4, 10, 20–23, 32–33, 174. See also prosperity gospel African Diaspora, 20, 32, 39, 150 African Methodist Episcopal church, 44 agency, 129–30 Alliance Defense Fund, 142 American Pie, 113 Anderson, Victor, 6 Andy Griffith Show, 113 Angola, 96 anticolonialist movements, 32 Assemblies of God, 187n34 Attanasi, Katherine, 70, 71

Austin-Broos, Diane, 118, 199n12 authenticity: realness of personal testimonies, 88, 99, 109–10, 111–12, 122–23, 125–29, 131; vs. sincerity, 127–29 Azusa conference, 46–47, 49, 179n7 backsliding, 92, 195n20 Back to the Bible, 27 Baer, Hans A.: African American Religion in the 20th Century, 202n7 Bahamas Faith Ministries International, 17 Bakker, Jim, 36, 105, 143, 156, 158, 182n40, 197n42 Bakker, Tammy Faye, 10, 36, 88, 143, 156, 158, 163, 182n40 Bal Harbour, 31 Bank of America, 155 Baptists, 6, 20, 34, 35, 44, 90, 92 Baraka, Amiri, 37 Barboza, Mrs. M. H., 20–21 Barclays, 155 Bartman, Sarah, 87–88 Belafonte, Harry, 33 Bell, Bob Wayne, 193n42 Best, Wallace, 7, 183n2; “The Spirit of the Holy Ghost Is a Male Spirit”, 36, 185n19 Bethune, Mary McLeod, 21 Billingsley, Scott, 7, 200n21 Black Entertainment Television (BET), 27, 114, 166, 188n43

2 2 6 IND E X

Black Family Channel, 169 black liberation theology, 133–37, 174, 201nn3,6 Black Power, 136, 187n32 black women rappers, 104, 197n39 black women writers, 103–4 Blair, Harold, 3, 77, 149 Bolles, A. Lynne, 63 Brazil: favelas in, 66; Pentecostalism in, 51–52, 188n45; prosperity gospel in, 67, 68 Brekus, Catherine, 5 Brennan, Denise, 118 British Commonwealth Broadcasting Association in the Caribbean, 183n42 Brodwin, Paul, 199n12 Brown, Michael, 113 Bryant, Jamal, 105 Buddenbaum, Judith M., 156 Buddhism, 6 Burdick, John, 51–52, 187n45 Burnett, J. C., 184n7 Bush, George H. W., 26 Bush, George W., 10, 140–42, 145 Butler, Anthea, 7, 92 Bynum, Juanita, 52, 74, 103, 193n42, 200n21; appearance, 51, 111, 188n43; The Diary of Juanita Bynum, 111, 112; divorce, 157; fundraising by, 102, 110–11; marriage to Weeks, 110–11, 157, 204n29; Matters of the Heart, 52; “No More Sheets” sermon, 87–88, 99–102, 105, 108, 110, 112, 119, 120, 122, 126; Pentecostalism of, 93, 101–2; popularity, 4–5, 44, 94, 98–99, 105, 106, 114, 117, 119, 120, 122–23, 125–27, 130, 135, 163; prosperity gospel preached by, 84, 88–89; relationship with Jakes, 100, 106, 107, 108–9; on sexual redemption, 12, 87–88, 89, 93–94, 96, 99–102, 104, 105–6, 109, 114, 117, 120–23, 125–26; Teach Me How to Love You, 110

cable television, 53–54, 55–56, 66, 84, 131, 150, 151, 160 Candomblé, 6 capitalism, 18, 20, 32, 67, 69, 102, 112, 119, 163. See also globalization; markets; neoliberalism Case, Jay R., 195n17 Casanova, David, 149 Catholics, 5, 24, 25 Central African Republic, 96 Cerullo, David, 135, 144, 158–59 Cerullo, Morris, 143–44, 145 Charismatic movement, 9, 62, 138, 145, 173, 181n24, 187n33, 188n47, 194n5, 202n12; Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations, 17; growth of, 35; and religious broadcasting, 26, 33, 34, 35, 46, 50, 51, 68, 162, 167, 168. See also neo-Pentecostalism Chicago: Mama Morton in, 104 Chireau, Yvonne: Black Magic, 177n9 Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), 27, 135, 163, 166, 187n33 Christian Coalition, 95 Christianity Today, 108, 201n5 Christian Right, 26 Church of God in Christ (COGIC), 44, 46, 92, 99, 187nn33,34 Citigroup, 155 civil disobedience, 40 civil rights movement, 22, 42, 93, 113, 136, 186n29 class, 8, 29, 133, 201n3; middle class, 10, 34–35, 36, 51, 63, 67, 68–69; social mobility, 36–37, 39, 53, 58, 67, 68, 70. See also poverty Coke, Christopher M., 193n35 Cold War, 32 Coleman, Simon, 110, 194n5 Coles, Lucy Henry, 20–21 Collier-Thomas, Bettye, 21 Collins, Patricia Hill, 90, 103; Black Sexual Politics, 196n39



IND E X 227

Collins, Susan, 21 colonialism, 40, 117 Columbia University: Center on AfricanAmerican Religion, Sexual Politics and Social Justice, 195n22 Comaroff, Jean and John: on occult economies, 67–68, 70, 192n29; on religious institutions and neoliberalism, 176n3 commodification, 102, 107–8, 110–12, 172–74 Communications Act of 1934, 25 Cone, James: A Black Theology of Liberation, 5; Black Theology and Black Power, 187n32 congressional investigations, 55, 58, 157, 189n50 consumers of religious broadcasting, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 56, 157, 180n18, 182n35; and agency, 129–30; women as, 29, 94, 96, 114, 119–31, 171 conversion, 74, 80, 82 Cooper, Anna Julia, 48 Copeland, Gloria, 36, 58, 88, 157 Copeland, Kenneth, 36, 40, 58, 79, 80, 157, 163, 189n50 Cornerstone Church, 202n14 Cox Cable, 169 Crawford, John, 113 Creflo Dollar Ministries (CDM), 169–70 Crouch, Jan, 27, 48, 54, 135, 143, 159 Crouch, Paul, 27, 47, 54, 135, 143, 159 Csordas, Thomas J., 23 cults of personality, 139, 155, 159, 168 Daddy Grace, 30, 38, 186n23 Davis, Francis, 21 Day, Keri, 117–18 Daystar, 27, 114, 135, 163 DC Digital, 149 death, 40–41, 186n27 devil, the, 98, 100–101 DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society, 142

de Witte, Marleen, 68–69 DirecTV, 160 Dish Network, 160 distributors of religious broadcasting, 4, 8, 9–10, 11, 12–13, 56, 163, 164; as gatekeepers, 137–38, 139–43, 157, 167. See also Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN); Inspiration Network (INSP); LOVE TV; Mercy and Truth Ministries (MTM); Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) Divorce Court, 111 divorces among televangelists, 156, 157–58 Dixon, Calvin P., 184n7 Dobson, James, 48, 140, 141 Dollar, Creflo, 26, 33, 36, 44, 55, 58, 79, 145, 148, 157, 196n24; investigation of, 189n50; popularity of, 5, 67, 74, 163, 169–70; on prosperity, 59 Dollar, Taffi, 36, 58, 157 domestic violence, 110–11 Douglas, Susan J.: on African American women in television and film, 104 Dr. Phil Show, 113 drug trafficking, 123–24 Drønen, Tomas, 71 Du Bois, W. E. B., 48, 49 Dunbar-Nelson, Alice, 48–49 Duplantis, Jesse, 145 Ebony, 39 Egypt: Muslim women in, 129; rape in, 115 Eikerenkoetter, Frederick (Reverend Ike), 11, 26, 30, 39–44; appearance, 35, 183n1; The Joy of Living, 42; on money, 42; and New Thought, 42, 43, 46; prosperity message of, 31, 33, 39–40, 41–42, 43–44, 51, 58–59, 182n37, 186n30; as religious dandy, 33–34, 41–44; and Science of Mind, 42, 46; and UCEA, 182n37 Einstein, Mara, 173 Eisenlohr, Patrick, 128–29

2 2 8 IND E X

Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations, 17 Emerson, Michael, 141 Enron, 155 Episcopal Church, 6 Essence, 111 Evangelical Fundamentalism, 44 Evangelicals, 141, 156, 162, 187n33; and election of 2012, 134, 201n5; National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), 25, 157; and politics, 134, 138, 139–40; and religious broadcasting, 25–26, 142, 167, 173, 202n12 Evans, Curtis, 50 Evans, Jimmy, 144 Evans, Karen, 144 Evans, Tony, 47–48, 187n33 Exalted!, 188n43 Facebook, 159, 166, 170, 171, 172 Fairness Doctrine, 140 faith, 3–4, 116, 163; faith healing, 35, 46; relationship to patriotism, 142, 143, 144; relationship to prosperity, 29, 30, 34, 35–36, 38–39, 44–45, 66, 75, 78–79, 82, 85, 133; seed-faith giving, 38, 56, 62–63, 69, 71, 79, 85, 167–68 faith healing, 35 Falwell, Jerry, 26, 143 family broadcasting, 144 Family Research Council, 142 family values, 26, 158, 203n23 Father Divine, 30, 38, 186n23 Fauset, Arthur Huff, 30, 38; Black Gods of the Metropolis, 177n9 Federal Communications Commission, 25, 167, 168, 174 Federal Council of Churches, 24–25 feminism, 103, 104, 196n39, 201n3 Ferrell, Jonathan, 113 Fiji: prosperity gospel in, 69 Fillin-Yeh, Susan, 36, 53, 185n14 financial crisis of 2008, 24, 70, 203n25

Finney, Charles Grandison, 181n25, 184n3 Fletcher, John, 195n14 Flow, 150, 151 Focus on the Family, 48, 142 Foucault, Michel: on dandyism and modernity, 185n14 Frahm-Arp, Maria, 118 Francis I, 174 Frankl, Razelle, 37 Franklin, C. L., 184n7, 186n31 Franklin, Kirk, 105 Frazier, E. Franklin: The Negro Church in America, 185n23, 187n32 Frederick, Marla: Televised Redemption, 177n9 Free African Society, 6 Friedman, Thomas: The World is Flat, 179n14 Friends International Christian University, 188n46 fundraising: relationship to prosperity gospel, 56; for religious broadcasting, 34, 42, 43, 54, 55–56, 58, 59, 77, 107–8, 146, 154, 157, 161, 162, 167–68, 170, 172, 197n44; by women televangelists, 102, 107–8, 110–12 Gandhi, Mohandas, 21 Gardner, Christine, 88 Garvey, Kelvin, 78 Garvey, Marcus, 21 Gaither Gospel Hour, 160 gender, 36, 118, 133, 174; feminism, 103, 104, 196n39, 201n3; gender roles, 142, 200n21; sexism, 104. See also women; women televangelists Ghana: prosperity gospel in, 67, 68–69 Giddens, Anthony, 179n14 Gilpin, W. Clark, 5 Gimenez, Anne, 200n21 Ginsburg, Faye, 9; Media Worlds, 180n18 globalization, 8, 20, 159, 164; and monopolization, 155; and religious media, 11,



IND E X 229

12–13, 22–23, 28–29, 146, 149, 154, 155, 162–63, 180n18; and sexuality, 118 glossolalia. See speaking in tongues God: beneficence of, 3, 10, 38, 44–45, 70, 75, 80, 192n29; democratization of, 117; direct intervention into daily lives by, 4, 42, 75, 117; as healer, 89, 98; as just, 134; providence of, 17–18; relationship with, 75, 79; and social mobility, 67; as Trinity, 20 Gordon, Nora, 20–21 Graham, Billy, 144–45, 153 Grassley, Charles, 157, 189nn50,51 Gray, Obika , 65 Great Awakening, 24 Greater Travelers Rest Baptist Church (GTR), 166, 168, 169, 172 Grey’s Anatomy: Dr. Bailey in, 104 Griffith, R. Marie, 188n42 Guadaloupe, 199n12 Guatemala: Pentecostalism in, 117, 178n4, 199n14; violence against women in, 117 Hackett, Rosalind, 68 Hagee, John, 74, 202n14 Haggard, Gayle, 197n42 Haggard, Ted, 105, 157 Hagin, Kenneth, 40, 79, 80, 163 Haiti, 199n12 Haley, Alex: Roots, 144 Hall, Anna E., 21 Hall, David, 62 Hanson, Basil, 151–54, 155, 164 Harding, Susan, 194n5 Hardy, Clarence E., 194n13 Harriott, Anthony, 64 Harrison, Faye V., 63 Harrison, Milmon, 7, 69 Hart, D. G., 5 Harvey, David, 179n14; on neoliberalism, 23, 159, 180n22; on the state, 180n22 Haynes, Naomi, 69–70, 71 healing, 35, 46

Heavenly Touch Ministry, 69 Heritage Foundation, 142 heterosexuality, 90, 91, 93, 113, 196n39 Hickey, Marilyn, 88, 200n21 Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks, 90, 92 Higher Dimensions church, 184n4 Highway to Heaven, 160 Higley, Bob, 143 Hill, E. V., 44, 187n33 Hill, Napoleon: Think and Grow Rich, 42 Hillard, Bridget, 188n46 Hillard, Ira, 188n46 Hinduism, 159 Hine, Darlene Clark, 91 Hinn, Benny, 58, 67, 148, 157, 189n50 hip-hop, 196n39 Holiness movement, 7, 82, 91–92, 194n13, 195n17 Holy Spirit, 49, 91, 92; gifts of the, 35, 46; as male, 36, 185n19 homosexuality, 105, 113–14, 131, 157 hope, 19, 56, 66, 75, 98, 121 Horn, Mother Rosa Artimus, 184n7 Howard, Clara, 21 Howard University, 49 Hucks, Tracy: Yoruba Traditions and African American Religious Nationalism, 177n9 Humbard, Rex, 34, 184n3 Inda, Jonathan Xavier, 22, 179n14 India, 96, 174; rape in, 115 individualism, 42, 45, 141, 146; vs. collective action, 133–34; and neoliberalism, 24; in neo-Pentecostalism, 130; in prosperity gospel, 68–69, 133; and televangelism, 78, 139, 155, 156, 164 “Innocent Jimmy”, 27–28, 183n45 Inspiration Network (INSP), 10, 27, 114, 133, 137, 138, 143–46, 154, 160–62, 163, 166; audience, 133; and David Cerullo, 135, 144, 158–59; and Morris Cerullo, 143–44, 145; founding, 143–44

2 3 0 IND E X

International Monetary Fund (IMF), 16, 64 Internet, 27, 93, 111, 155; religious broadcasting on the, 13, 164, 166–67, 168, 170–72, 173–74, 203n25; social media sites, 159–60, 166, 167, 170, 171, 172, 174 “Into All the World: Black Pentecostalism in Global Context”, 183n2 Islam, 6, 159, 177n9, 202n14 Israel, 10, 142 Jackson, Jesse, 186n29 Jackson, John: on authenticity vs. sincerity, 127–28; Televised Redemption, 177n9; on thick description, 8 JAG, 144 Jakes, T. D., 23, 26, 33, 47, 80, 81, 148, 160, 188nn42,46, 196n24, 197n44; appearance, 51, 107; as author, 179n5; on E. Dewey Smith, 165–66; on getting ready, 75; MegaFest conferences, 6, 10, 13, 19, 95, 107, 108–9, 165, 167, 168, 172; as movie producer, 179n5; and Pentecostalism, 135–36; P.M.S., 155; popularity, 4–5, 19, 20, 67, 74, 96, 120, 126, 127, 135, 145, 163, 171; on prosperity, 44, 59, 66, 135–36; relationship with Bynum, 100, 106, 107, 108–9; relationship with White, 94, 106, 108; on self-disclosure, 106–7; “Woman Thou Art Loosed” (WTAL) conferences, 94, 108–9, 179n7; “Woman Thou Art Loosed” sermon, 106–7, 122, 124, 125, 179n7; vs. Wright, 135–36 Jamaica: Baptists in, 9, 32; Broadcasting Commission, 149; crime and violence in, 2–3, 15–16, 18, 20, 62, 63, 64–65, 75, 115, 116–17, 121, 189n1, 190n11; dons in, 65, 73–74, 193n35; economic conditions in, 16, 63–64, 67, 73, 117, 118, 130, 192nn34,41; vs. Haiti, 199n12; Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), 16, 64, 190n11; Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation

(JBC), 183n42; Kingston, 1–2, 61–63, 64, 65–67, 115, 116, 189n1; middle class, 63, 67; national anthem, 15–16; out-ofwedlock births in, 16; Pentecostalism in, 1–3, 7, 9, 15–18, 62, 66, 76–77, 82–84, 116–17, 119–23, 199n12; People’s National Party (PNP), 16, 64, 190n11; political conditions in, 16, 64–65, 190n11; prosperity gospel in, 4, 11, 59, 63, 65–66, 67, 71, 153; Radio Jamaica Limited, 183n42; rape in, 115, 116; relations with IMF, 16, 64; religious broadcasting in, 4, 7–8, 12, 19, 22–23, 27–28, 30, 34, 59, 66, 74–75, 76, 77–78, 84, 98, 114, 116, 125–29, 138, 146–54, 155, 163, 164, 183n44; remittances to, 73, 192n34; same-sex marriage in, 114; “sweetheart life” in, 118; television sets in, 182n41; tourism in, 63, 64; unemployment in, 73; vs. United States, 2, 3, 4; urbanization in, 16, 63, 117, 118; women and sexuality in, 12, 63; Word of Faith in, 7 Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation, 27 Jamaica Gleaner, 116, 154 Jamison-Peterson, Vicki, 200n21 Jelks, Randall, 21 Jeremiah, David, 145 Jerry Springer Show, 113 Jesus: and the church, 203n23; resurrection of, 136; as savior, 32, 158 Jet, 39 Jim Crow laws, 21, 144 1 John 3:6, 195n15 Johnson, John H., 39–40 Jones, Jim, 6 Jones, Nancy, 20–21 Joy of Living, The, 42 J. P. Morgan Chase, 155 Judaism, 6, 159, 177n9 Jumping the Broom, 179n5 Kalu, Ogbu: African Pentecostalism, 181n24



IND E X 231

Kennedy, John F., 134 Kenya, 96, 114, 152–53, 193n42 Kim, Sung-Gun, 69 Kinchlow, Ben, 44, 187n33 King, Larry, 53, 94, 95, 188n43 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 21, 42 Koper, Brittany, 159 Kuhlman, Kathryn, 34, 194n4, 200n21 Kyle, Richard, 139 Lamb, Joni, 135 Lamb, Marcus, 135 Larkin, Brian, 9; Media Worlds, 180n18 Latifah, Queen, 104 Leave It to Beaver, 113 Lee, Shayne, 7, 51, 103, 104, 108 Lehman Brothers, 155 Levitts, Zola, 145 LGBT relationships, 113–14 liberation theologies, 133–37, 174, 201nn3,6 Liberia, 20 Lifeclass, 165 lifestyles of evangelists, 34, 37, 38, 41, 155, 159, 189n50 Life Today, 144 Limbaugh, Rush, 140, 141 Lincoln, Charles Eric, 6; The Black Church in the African American Experience, 202n7; The Black Church Since Frazier, 185n23; The Black Muslims in America, 177n9 Little House on the Prairie, 144 lived religion, 62–63, 85 Lofton, Kathryn, 112, 128 LogicOne, 150 Long, Charles, 5, 6 Long, Eddie, 44, 58, 105, 145, 157, 168, 189n50, 196n24, 197n42 Long, Vanessa, 197n42 Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention, 20 LOVE Radio, 146, 147

LOVE TV, 10, 12, 77, 138, 146–51, 154, 163 Luhrmann, T. M.: When God Talks Back, 117 Lutheran Hour, The, 27 Mahmood, Saba, 129–30 Mainliners, 167 Malcolm X, 21 Mamiya, Lawrence H., 6; The Black Church in the African American Experience, 202n7 Man Power, 105 Marcus, George, 8 markets: commodification, 102, 107–8, 110–12, 172–74; in neoliberalism, 11, 12–13, 23–24, 84, 138, 172, 180n22; and religious media, 8, 12–13, 22, 52–53, 88, 89, 111–12, 128, 138, 146, 154, 164, 167, 172–74. See also globalization Marley, Bob, 61 marriage: in Christianity, 203n23; and sexuality, 11, 88, 90, 93, 99–100, 103, 105, 107, 113, 131–32, 142 Marriage Today, 144 Marshall, Ruth: on rise of religion, 3, 23 Marti, Gerardo, 69, 71 Martin, Lerone, 33 Martin, Trayvon, 113 masculinist authority, 18, 178n4 Master’s Time, The, 27 Matory, Randy: Black Atlantic Religions, 20 Maury Pavich Show, 113 Mays, Benjamin Elijah, 21; The Negro’s Church, 186n27 McBride, Renisha, 113 McCain, John, 95 McClendon, Clarence, 188n46 McClurkin, Donnie, 47, 105 McDowell, Deborah E., 103 McPherson, Aimee Simple, 194n4, 200n21 McRoberts, Omar, 7 media ratings, 110

2 3 2 IND E X

Mercy and Truth Ministries (MTM), 10, 12, 27, 138, 150, 163; and Basil Hanson, 151–54, 155, 164 Methodism, 20, 34, 35, 195n14 Meyer, Brigit, 69, 112; Religion, Media and the Public Sphere, 180n18 Meyer, David, 157 Meyer, Joyce, 12, 67, 200n21; appearance, 51, 188n42; fundraising by, 108; investigation of, 58, 157, 189n50; Life in the Word/Enjoying Everyday Life, 144; and politics, 95–96, 196n27; popularity of, 5, 74, 93, 96, 98, 105, 114, 117, 122–23, 125, 127, 130, 148, 171; profitability of ministry, 108, 197n44; prosperity gospel preached by, 88–89; and race, 96; redemption narrative of, 94, 96–98, 109, 114, 117, 122–23; sexual abuse of, 96, 97–98, 109, 125 Michaux, Lightfoot Solomon, 184n7 middle class, 10, 34–35, 36, 51, 63, 67, 68–69 Miller, Al, 16–17, 149 Miller, Donald, 82 Miller, Kelly, 49 Miller, Monica, 37 Millner, Marlon, 183n2 mimesis, 194n5 miscegenation, 47 missionaries, 5, 19, 20–21, 22, 90 Modern Family, 113 money, 29–30, 41, 42, 76 Moody, Dwight, 181n25, 184n3 Moors, Annelies: Religion, Media and the Public Sphere, 180n18 Moorti, Sujata, 123 Moral Majority, 26 Mormonism, 134, 201n5 Morton, Debra, 188n46 Morton, Paul, 188n46 motivation, 89 Moultrie, Monique, 7, 105, 110 Mozambique: prosperity gospel in, 69

Muhammad, Elijah, 30 Mullings, Leith, 90 multinational corporations, 155, 156 Mumford, Debra, 7 Munroe, Myles, 16–18, 19–20, 23, 44, 66, 148 National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), 25, 157 National Council of Churches, 24 National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) Association, 10, 25, 138, 139–43, 202n12; conventions, 10, 139–42, 149 neoliberalism, 66, 67, 69, 117, 118, 155, 176n3; defined, 23; individualism in, 24; markets in, 11, 12–13, 23–24, 84, 138, 172, 180n22; and religious broadcasting, 23–24, 112, 156, 159; and the state, 180n22 neo-Pentecostalism, 89, 112, 117, 129, 130, 178n4, 181n24, 199n14; growth of, 4, 35, 51, 191n15, 192n33; vs. traditional Pentecostalism, 37, 51–52, 93, 191n15. See also Charismatic movement Newman, Susan, 103 New Thought, 32, 34, 35, 42, 43, 46, 51, 66, 184n10 New York Board of Rabbis, 25 Nicholson, Joseph William: The Negro’s Church, 186n27 Nigeria: Boko Haram in, 115; Oweri riots in, 68; Pentecostalism in, 3; prosperity gospel in, 67, 68 Nix, A. W., 184n7 Nkrumah, Kwame, 21 nonbelievers, 158 Not Easily Broken, 179n5 Obama, Barack, 33, 95, 115, 134–35, 196n27, 201n6 Obama, Michelle, 33 occult economies, 67–68, 70 Old Henry, 144



IND E X 233

Olson, T. L., 34 Olupona, Jacob, 22; on reverse missions, 163–64 O’Neill, Kevin: City of God, 178n4, 199n14; on Pentecostalism in Guatemala, 117, 178n4, 199n14 Oprah Winfrey Show, 105, 122, 123 Oral Roberts University (ORU), 17, 31, 44, 183n3, 189n50 Osteen, Joel, 171 Ousley, Henriette, 20–21 Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), 116 Owuor, David, 153 Pan-African dialogues, 21 Patterson, Gilbert E., 44 Paulk, Earl, 105, 157, 166, 168 Peale, Norman Vincent: The Power of Positive Thinking, 42 Pearson, Carlton, 11, 30, 31–32, 44–50, 183n2; appearance, 45, 47; Azusa conference, 46–47, 49, 179n7; on black audiences, 47, 48; on cost of religious broadcasting, 54–55, 56–57, 154, 167–68; gospel of inclusion message, 158, 184nn4,5; on motivation for ministry, 56–57; Pentecostalism of, 32, 33, 44, 45–46, 49–50, 51; on racism, 47, 48; as religious dandy, 33, 45–46; on stress of televangelism, 56–57; and TBN, 46–47, 49 Pentecostalism, 11, 26, 32, 33, 37, 69, 75, 135–36, 138, 167, 173, 187n33, 199n12; in Africa, 181n24; Church of God in Christ (COGIC), 44, 46, 92, 99, 187nn33,34; ecstatic worship in, 34–35, 39, 45–46, 49–50, 58; giving in, 83–85; vs. Holiness movement, 195n17; in Jamaica, 1–3, 7, 9, 15–18, 62, 66, 76–77, 82–84, 116–17, 119–23, 199n12; modest appearance in traditional Pentecostalism, 37, 51–52, 92, 93, 99;

and neoliberalism, 24; Pentecostal Assemblies of the World (PAW), 51; prayer in, 116–17; and sexuality, 91, 119; sharing in, 83–85, 192n33; and sinless perfection, 91–93, 99; speaking in tongues, 9, 35, 46, 92, 181n24, 195n17. See also Charismatic movement; neo-Pentecostalism Peoples Temple, 6 physical appearance: of African Americans, 47, 187n35, 188n45; of Bynum, 51, 111, 188n43; of Jakes, 51, 107; of Meyer, 51, 188n42; of Pearson, 45, 47; plastic surgery, 51, 53; of Reverend Ike, 35, 183n1; of E. Dewey Smith, 168, 169; in traditional Pentecostalism, 37, 51–52, 92, 93, 99; of White, 51, 94–95, 188n43 Pinn, Anthony, 6 Pinto, Samantha, 118 politics: in Jamaica, 16, 64–65, 190n11; and religious broadcasting, 10, 12, 13, 26, 95–96, 138, 139–43, 156, 162, 163, 196n27; Republican Party, 26, 95, 135, 139, 140–42, 196n27 pornography, 105 possibility: narrative of, 11, 19, 34, 38, 44, 54–55, 56, 58, 59, 66, 69; and religious dandyism, 11, 54–55 post-colonial changes, 22, 40 Potter’s House, 19 poverty, 10, 11, 38, 39, 58, 63, 66, 67, 72, 118 Powell, Colin, 33 Powell, Richard J., 37, 53, 58 Praise City, 62 Praise the Lord (PTL), 49, 18240 prayer, 116–17, 123, 173 Preachers of LA, 166 Premawardhana, Devaka 69 Presley, Harriette, 20–21 Price, Betty, 188n46 Price, Frederick K. C., 44, 79–80, 188n46 Priest, Robert, 96

2 3 4 IND E X

producers of religious broadcasting, 4, 8, 9–10, 11, 56, 139, 157, 163. See also National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) Association; religious broadcasting profiteering, 107–8, 110–12, 128 pro-life values, 26 Promise Keepers, 105 prophecy, 46 Prophet Jones, 38 prosperity: as constitutionally relative, 71, 72–80; as material wealth and health, 11, 32, 34, 36–37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 52, 58–59, 66, 67–68, 70, 71, 76–77, 78–80, 84, 93; relationship to faith, 29, 30, 34, 35, 38–39, 44–45, 66, 75, 78–79, 82, 85, 133; as spatially relative, 72, 82–84; as temporally relative, 71–72, 80–82 prosperity gospel, 12, 13, 29–30, 32–33, 35–36, 54, 68–72, 112, 133, 138, 186n31; criticism of, 68, 69, 153, 155, 164, 182n37, 186n30; in Jamaica, 4, 11, 59, 63, 65–66, 67, 71, 153; relationship to economic disenfranchisement, 33; relationship to fundraising, 56, 162; relationship to racial oppression, 33; relationship to sexual redemption discourses, 8, 88–89, 117–18, 119; and relative prosperity, 59, 63, 71–85; of Reverend Ike, 31, 33, 39–40, 41–42, 43–44, 51, 58–59, 182n37, 186n30; seed-faith giving, 38, 56, 62–63, 69, 71, 79, 85, 167–68; and women televangelists, 81, 84, 88–89 Protestantism, 5, 21, 24, 25–26; respectability in, 89–91, 92–93, 98–99, 112; revivalism in, 181n25; sinless perfection in, 89, 91–93, 99, 112, 195n14 PTL Club, 143 Puritans, 5 Quakers, 5 Quimbaya, Illiana, 188n47

Raboteau, Albert, 21 race, 8, 12–13, 112–13, 127–28; black liberation theology, 133–37, 145–46, 174, 201nn3,6; race record preachers, 184n7; racial uplift, 33, 36–37, 39, 40, 41–43, 50, 53, 57–58, 177n8; racism, 11, 21, 29, 33, 36–37, 40–41, 44, 47–48, 50, 58, 59, 69, 90–91, 103, 134, 141, 144; and religious broadcasting, 4, 6, 26, 36, 94–95, 96, 145, 196n24 radio, 24, 27, 47–48, 93, 183nn42,44 rape, 90–91, 97–98, 109, 121–22, 123, 124, 125, 134 rap music, 131, 197n39 Reagan, Ronald, 26, 140 reality television, 12, 108, 166 realness of personal testimonies, 88, 99, 109–10, 111–12, 122–23, 125–29, 131 Rejoice in the Lord, 27 religious broadcasting: African American televangelists vs. white televangelists, 4, 6, 26; continuous programming, 26–27, 143, 144, 147–48, 151, 160, 167, 167–68; cost of, 53–55, 56–57, 138, 145, 146, 148–49, 151–52, 154, 160–62, 163, 164, 166–67, 169, 172, 173, 187n33, 189n49, 203n25; criticism of, 34, 37, 38, 42–44, 58–59; exported from United States, 4, 7–8, 19, 22–23, 27–29, 34, 59, 74–75, 76, 77–78, 84, 98, 114, 116, 125–29, 130, 137–38, 143, 145, 146, 148–49, 150, 153, 155, 162, 163, 174, 183n44, 193n42; free-to-air programming, 149; fundraising for, 34, 42, 43, 54, 55–56, 58, 59, 77, 107–8, 146, 154, 157, 161, 162, 167–68, 170, 172, 197n44; history of, 7, 24–29, 35–36; on the Internet, 13, 164, 166–67, 168, 170–72, 173–74, 203n25; in Jamaica, 4, 7–8, 12, 19, 22–23, 27–28, 30, 34, 59, 66, 74–75, 76, 77–78, 84, 98, 114, 116, 125–29, 138, 146–54, 155, 163, 164, 183n44; and neoliberalism, 23–24, 112, 156, 159; paid-



IND E X 235

time programming, 24, 25, 50, 56, 146, 154, 160, 163, 167, 173; and politics, 10, 12, 13, 26, 95–96, 138, 139–43, 156, 162, 163, 196n27; popularity of, 4–5, 26–27, 28–29, 32–33, 74–76, 119, 122–23, 125–29, 143, 163, 173; and race, 4, 6, 26, 36, 94–95, 96, 145, 196n24; sustainingtime programming, 24, 25. See also consumers of religious broadcasting; distributors of religious broadcasting; National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) Association religious dandyism, 32, 33–39; and black gods of the metropolis, 36, 185n23; and narrative of possibility, 11, 54–55; and narrative of struggle and redemption, 38; and narratives of success, 53; as performance, 33–34, 36–37, 39; relationship to racial uplift, 33, 36–37, 39, 40, 41–43, 53, 57–58 Republican Party, 26, 95, 135, 139, 140–42, 196n27 research methods, 8–10 Reverend Ike. See Eikerenkoetter, Frederick Ridgard, Mr. (station manager at LOVE TV), 147, 148–49, 150, 151 Robb, Douglas, 19 Roberts, Oral, 17, 34, 40, 44–45, 46, 163, 184n3 Robertson, Pat, 26, 27, 135, 187n33 Robison, Betty, 144 Robison, James, 144 Roman Catholic Church, 6 Romney, Mitt, 201n5 Rosaldo, Renato, 22, 179n14 Ross, Leora, 184n7 Rouse, Carolyn: Televised Redemption, 177n9 salvation, 112, 117, 129, 203n23 Salvatore, Nick, 186n31 same-sex marriage, 113–14, 142, 158

Sanctified tradition, 82 Sanders, Cheryl, 34–35, 82 Sanders, Deion, 47, 48 Santeria, 6 satellite television, 19, 27, 34, 53, 65, 143, 147, 148–49, 150, 164, 182n40 Sauce cable company, 151 Savage, Barbara, 48–49; on the black church, 6–7, 202n7 scandals, 55, 58, 138–39, 155–60, 168, 197n42, 203n25 Schuller, Robert, 34, 184n3 Schultze, Quentin, 78, 109–10; Televangelism and American Culture, 182n35 Science of Mind, 42, 46 Scopes trial, 24 scripture, 18, 25, 29, 41, 142 Sculark, Jasmin, 109 Seaga, Edward, 192n34 seed-faith giving, 38, 56, 62–63, 69, 71, 79, 85, 167–68 self-help, 12, 13, 114, 123 Seoul, South Korea, 69 sexuality: female vs. male, 104–6; and globalization, 118; and marriage, 11, 88, 90, 93, 99–100, 103, 105, 107, 113, 131–32, 142; and racism, 90–91; sex tourism, 118, 198n10; sexual abstinence, 88, 118–19; sexual abuse, 29, 90–91, 95, 96, 97–98, 105, 109, 124, 129; sexual promiscuity, 12, 29, 90, 99–102, 105–6; sexual purity, 88, 90, 92, 93, 99–100, 105–6, 118–19, 126, 132; sexual redemption, 8, 11–12, 87–89, 93–94, 95, 96–102, 104, 105–6, 108–10, 112, 114, 115–16, 117–18, 119, 120–23, 125–26, 127, 129, 130, 138; sexual revolution, 93, 113; sexual violence against black women, 90–91, 109; and urbanization, 117–18, 132 Sharp, Jane, 20–21 Sharpe, Jenny, 118

2 3 6 IND E X

Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denean, 196n39 Sheares, Reuben A., II, 136 sincerity, 131; vs. authenticity, 127–29 Singer, Merrill: African American Religion in the 20th Century, 202n7 single mothers, 73–74, 124–25 slavery, 21, 39, 40, 90, 115, 134, 144, 190n11 Smith, Barbara, 103 Smith, Christian, 141 Smith, Daniel, 68 Smith, E. Dewey, 165–66, 167, 168–72; appearance, 168, 169; on cost of religious broadcasting, 169, 189n49; “Girl, Stop Crying” sermon, 171; popularity, 170–72; on prosperity preachers, 168; on YouTube, 170–71 Smith, Emmit, 48 Smith, Julia, 20–21 Smith, Mother Lucy, 30 social media sites, 159–60, 166, 167, 170, 171, 172, 174 social mobility, 36–37, 39, 53, 58, 67, 68, 70 Sorett, Josef, 195n22 South Africa: apartheid in, 22; economic conditions, 118–19, 130; MegaFest in, 10; rape in, 115; religious broadcasting in, 27; sex-for-goods industry in, 118–19; shantytowns of, 66; urbanization in, 118 Southern Baptist Convention, 25 speaking in tongues, 9, 35, 46, 92, 181n24, 195n17 Stanley, Charles, 145, 157 Stein, Stephen J., 5 Stewart, Diane: Three Eyes for the Journey, 20 Stockton, Betsey, 20–21 Stout, Harry S., 5 Streaming Faith, 166 Sudan, 115 Sunday, Billy, 181n25, 184n3 Swaggert, Jimmy, 59, 105, 162, 184n3; scandal involving, 27–28, 156, 197n42

Sykes, Wanda, 104 tax-exempt status, 159, 162, 189n50 TelStar, 150 Terrell, Mary Church, 48 testimonies, personal: realness of, 88, 99, 109–10, 111–12, 122–23, 125–29, 131; of women televangelists, 11–12, 88, 89, 96–98, 99–102, 104–6, 107–8, 109–10, 111–12, 114, 117, 119, 122–23, 125–29, 130, 131, 132 1 Thessalonians 5:23, 91 thick description, 8 Thomas, Deborah, 64 Thurman, Howard, 21 time-space compression, 22, 179n14 Tims, Zachery, 153, 157 titles among evangelists, 52, 188n47 travailing prayer, 116–17 Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), 9–10, 12, 53, 110, 114, 135, 137, 146, 148, 154, 157, 160, 163, 166; founding of, 27, 159; and Pearson, 46–47, 49; popularity, 27, 67, 78, 79, 143 Trinity United Church of Christ, 135, 136 Tucker-Worgs, Tamelyn, 7 Tulsa, Oklahoma, 17, 31, 183n2, 184n4 TV One, 12, 27, 137 Twitter, 159, 166 Ukraine, 17, 18, 66 Ulysses, Gina A., 63 United Christian Evangelistic Association (UCEA), 182n37 United Church of Christ, 136 United Methodist Church, 6 United States: economic conditions, 130; election of 2004, 140; election of 2008, 134–35, 174; election of 2012, 134, 196n27, 201n5; inner cities of, 66; invasion of Iraq, 136, 141, 142 Urban Alternative, The, 187n33 urbanization, 16, 63, 117–18, 132, 185n23



IND E X 237

US Catholic Conference, 25 Vidor, King: Hallelujah, 50 View Africa Network, 27 Vodou, 6 Walton, Jonathan, 7; Between Sundays, 145; on black televangelism, 5, 26, 59, 145, 196n24; on prosperity gospel, 33, 59; on Reverend Ike, 40; Watch This!, 5, 184n7, 196n24 Waltons, The, 113, 144 Watson, Lancelot “Lloydie”, 151 Weber, Max, 71 Weeks, Thomas: marriage to Bynum, 110; Teach Me How to Love You, 110 Weisenfeld, Judith, 50 Wells, Thelma, 140 Wells-Barnett, Ida B., 21 Wesley, John, 195n14 West, Cornel: on Constantinian Christianity, 21 White, Mimi, 26 White, Paula, 12, 52, 67, 200n21; appearance, 51, 94–95, 188n43; on class, 94; divorce of, 157; interview with Larry King, 53, 94, 95, 188n43; investigation of, 58, 157, 189n50; and politics, 95; popularity, 5, 94, 98, 105, 106, 114, 117, 122–23, 126, 127, 130; prosperity gospel preached by, 81, 88–89; and race, 6, 94–95; redemption narrative of, 94, 95, 96, 109, 114, 117, 122–23, 127, 130; relationship with Jakes, 94, 106, 108; sexual abuse of, 95, 96, 125; up-frompoverty story, 95, 96 White, Randy, 58, 157 white gaze, 99, 112–13 Williams, Serena, 33 Williams, Venus, 33

Wilmore, Gayraud: Black Religion and Black Radicalism, 5, 187n32 Wilson, Chandra, 104 Wilson, William Julius, 190n3 Winans, Marvin, 47 Winfrey, Oprah, 33, 105, 112, 165 Woman Thou Art Loosed, 179n5 women: as consumers of religious broadcasting, 29, 94, 96, 114, 119–31, 171; feminism, 103, 104, 196n39, 201n3; physical abuse of, 107, 110; women’s agency, 129–30; women’s rights movement, 93 women televangelists, 8, 26, 36, 52, 174, 185n19; fundraising by, 102, 108, 110–12; vs. male televangelists, 88, 105, 119; personal testimonies of, 11–12, 88, 89, 96–102, 104–6, 107–8, 109–10, 111–12, 114, 117, 119, 122–23, 125–29, 130, 131, 132; plastic surgery of, 51, 53; prosperity gospel preached by, 81, 84, 88–89; and sexual redemption, 8, 11–12, 87–89, 93–94, 95, 96–102, 104, 105–6, 108–10, 112, 114, 115–16, 117–18, 119, 120–23, 125– 26, 127, 129, 130, 138. See also Bynum, Juanita; Meyer, Joyce; White, Paula Word Network, 12, 27, 53, 133, 135, 137, 145, 169, 172 Word of Faith movement, 7, 11, 36, 44, 55, 69, 79–80, 145, 181n24, 191n15 World Bank, 16, 182n41 Wright, Jeremiah, 145, 146, 201n6; “Confusing God and Government” sermon, 134–37, 139, 141 Yamamori, Tetsunao, 82 Yoruba, 6, 20 YouTube, 159, 170–71 Zambian Copperbelt, 70 Zoll, Rachel, 189n51

John L. Jackson Jr., David Kyuman Kim, Editors RaceReligion publishes historical/genealogical, ethnographic and theoretical work that focuses on the complex relationship between race and religion. This series examines the paradoxical conditions under which the postcolony and empire have come to co-exist with new master narratives generated by global capitalism and contemporary notions of democracy. It seeks to uncover new ways of conceptualizing, theorizing, and understanding (any of) the following: Orientalism, nationalism, new ethnic formations, continuities and discontinuities between urban and indigenous/vernacular religions, contemporary fundamentalisms, questions of agency, mourning rituals, political/social mobilizations, diasporic/exilic subjectivities, and the work of memory in the reconstitution of tradition. The series also bridges theoretical concerns with the lived experiences of individuals and their communities. Rather than presuming race and religion as transparent categories, books in the series showcase their unexpected conjunctions, revealing new understandings of what it means to live race and religion, to do race and religion, in the contemporary world. By highlighting modern confluences of these two terms, they trouble conventional thinking about secularism, political rationality, and the lived realities of modern life.