Televangelists. How the fuck did this happen? Why are they so popular and powerful?

THAT'S IT SEND ME TO MAUDE

It happened because Americans are the stupidest people on the planet with the tackiest """culture"""" on the planet.

I think it's a Bible Belt thing, as far as I can tell.

This is true.

t. American

They were in the 00's, not really anymore.

I'd say the worse ones were in earlier decades like the 80's or something.

Well, Pentecostalism and Charismatic movements keep growing and are all over Latin America and Africa. They're expanding like crazy.

Yeah and they also get the American culture exported there. I saw a documentary about a South African televangelist. He was a bloody brand through and through. Raking in money and selling shit pretending he heals people.

They mixed the worst of Western religion and their own Animistic/Shamanistic stuff and got absolute garbage.

Oddly enough, "snake handling" is full-blooded American as a "tradition", straight out of the Appalachian Mountains.

The Africans and Latin Americans found that the "shamanization of Christianity" was already done for them through a cherry-picked selection of New Testament verses.

pentecostals are going well in australia also

> the ministry of silly walks

Free markets in religion were a mistake, Europe has become mostly secular in large part because the state has kept the church in check as an appendage of itself.

checked for holy spirit

There are fewer methods to experience the divine in an industrialized world, and so people will turn to the most accessible methods.

these elements are found throughout the evangelical and pentecostal spheres

Is this confined to white evangelical churches or do the Blacks do this too?

Black evangelical churches have a much stronger history of musical and rhetorical flourish rather than bizarre physicality.

>this ritual is called, crossing the desert

What the heck is it about?

This. Most evangelical, Pentecostals, and various nondenominational churches incorporate some aspects of televangelist-y stuff in their services. I grew up nowhere near the bible belt and ran into people doing stuff like that all the time.

As said in: , it's spreading like wildfire in Africa as well.

I'm trying to imagine a movie on the ancient Israelites - as told in the Hebrew Bible - being chased by Egyptians, but moving like these Looney Tunes characters disguised as Protestant pastors.

Checked and kekd

I guarantee Pentecostals have the highest amount of untreated bipolar disorder on the planet. Those people are manic as fuck.

They prey upon uneducated and desperate people, mostly convicts who later return to their families and indoctrinate them with whatever bullcrap their pastors tell them. It's really immoral to do that on people with no education and no opportunities in life. It also creates a bigger gap between the secular and catholic low-to-middle class and the extremely religious and anti-scientific evangelical christians.
t. chilean taco

Americans crave and consume experience. That's how almost everything in their lives is marketed to them. It has to do with the banality of suburban life, spiritually empty and unfulfilling.

This is partly the same reason why the American college Greek and business startup culture can get really strange and cult-like in their passion. To people who aren't trying to fill some hole all of this comes off as insane, but to millions of suburban Americans they don't see things that way.

In the OP's gif they don't see mad men, they see people having an earnest, passionate experience that they crave for themselves, and luckily for them can be bought with the wealth/credit they've accumulated their whole lives.

Americans are formed with a specific mindset that is difficult to understand to outsiders. To Americans, success is not something that depends on luck, but a reward for trying hard enough. Americans also believe in simple solutions to even most difficult problems.

Televangelists exploit this perfectly. The religion they offer is simple. There's no difficult theology to grasp. There's no weighting of sins or anything like that. All you need to be saved is to believe in Jesus as told by the televangelist. And if you believe hard enough, the reward will come naturally.

Americans use religious mania to make up for lives of corporate drudgery.

These are strangely insightful posts for Veeky Forums

How many buckets have you ordered Veeky Forums?

youtube.com/watch?v=OiTrjPkY1QQ
youtube.com/watch?v=GyxTG1mucfs

American Southern culture is really fucked up. After the Civil War, they were as marginalized and infantilized as African Americans. For the blacks, the result was hip hop culture. For the Southrons, it's this.

Someone should make that a webm with this song youtube.com/watch?v=aWjeITmDmmo

Are you kidding? Joel Osteen preaches to a filled football stadium with an international telecast every sunday. His books sell well, at least they did when I worked at Chapters, and that was in Vancouver.

A huge part of it was the developement of a mobile, nationalized culture in the 1950s. Before that, you had limited options to receive your churching, and that was by preachers embedded in the community. There was always the simplifying tendency in American Protestantism, but that moderated by having a small, consistent group that you interact with.

In turn, churchgoers had a sense of stability and were rooted to a community that was interwoven with their church. They knew their neighbors through a pattern of baptisms, weddings, funerals and sunday services.

Then, the combination of television, radio, and the interstate highway network link together the country in new ways never before possible. Combined with economic disruptions of the 70s and 80s, (Dominance of Big Ag, shifting to a service economy) you have a disintegration of the traditional protestant white community in the south and midwest. The people are plagued with a sense of Anomie, while still having the cultural expectation that church is the solution to this. So, like everything in the world, the breakdown of actual culture is dealt with by the rise of mass market culture.

Which of course offers simple, loud solutions. You see this in every field. These people are the religious counterpart to Jim Kramer, and Crossfire. Loud, Simple answers and constant repetition, combined in an entertaining format WORKS on TV.

There's a lot of interesting parallels with the Islamic World, where the breakdown of traditional muslim living enables the rise of fundamentalism, as well as Veeky Forums, where extreme anomie breeds toxic ideologies promising various simple solutions as well.

Also good for comparison is the new age movement, which is basically cut from the same cloth: California sees a boom during and after the war, and this is filled by midwesterners leaving home for the first time. They also look towards a simplistic style of religion that avoids ethically challenging it's audience

I don't doubt it. He's beyond charismatic.

I went to church like this from 16-20. AMA

Did you ever get out in front and do weird shit yourself, and why?

No, I did cry hysterically while praying.
But I was turned off by a lot of the hysteria: it felt generic/physical to me and not truly spiritual.
Later, at a punk show, I was surprised to find the same sort of behavior and hysteria.

Do you think the others at the sermon/concert were just faking then? What do you think got them so excited that didn't excite you the same way?

America

I like listening to him on Radio. the man does have good messages and he doesnt add bullshit. By that I mean Jim Jones/Bible Belt tier shit, many examples in this thread, to his sermons. He does overdo it on his personal experiences(no, not talking to God type shit either) but its tolerable.

He preaches the good news of the Bible and promotes positive attitudes. its amazing what a positive outlook can do for people.

gapitalism

I was a preyty intellectual kid, and has been in much more serious, thoughtful churches previous to this one. It seemed to me that there was a dark, swirling demonic energy, to be honest.
At some point I began to see that it was mass hysteria similar to "Crucible" type of situation.

And yes, I did feel that some people were "faking". I guess that means not truly experiencing a mystical experience... I never felt like the running/ jumping was "real", or more than just drummed up excitement. Some of the twirling, falling, sobbing stuff seemed genuine.

Has anyone noticed that ritual is very similar to "Unblinking Eye"?

The free market.

i don't have anything against pentecostals, they're nice people, baptists though, are another story

youtube.com/watch?v=cA9hBLGzcto

My favorite televangelist

American religious freedom bred all sorts of wackiness

It's not a coincidence this shit is popular in countries and regions with African influence. It's just nigger-influenced Christianity.

Southrons in the U.S. may be racist as fuck, but they have more black genes than any other Americans. When true white cultures invent silly sects, it's more subdued, like the Mormons, such displays associated with Evangelicals are typically African in nature.

youtube.com/watch?v=GeP6l3JDBrw

This desu, I occasionally frequented a pentacostal church at a roommates bequest, and while the services were very strange and I felt out of place, the people where genuinely nice in a simple sort of way.

and Jehova Witnesses

top kek

>Before that, you had limited options to receive your churching, and that was by preachers embedded in the community.

>he's never heard of circuit riders.

Televangelism is just this era's manifestation of enthusiastic low protestantism.

100-200 years ago, it found its place in circuit riders and the restorationist movement.

Before that, right in the middle of the 1500s, it found it's expression in radical anabaptism, what with it's leaders who had visions and dreams, and it's calls to violence against the legitimate authorities.

nothing's ever new under the sun, bro.

Yes, and the Shakers, and elsewhere Sufi's, and ecstatic African dance...
It is a real form of mysticism sought through physical means.

>mysticism

you mean induction of the release of adrenaline?

My grandma does nothing but watch Jimmy Swaggart (buying his shit too), watches Fox, and then supports Trump and absolutely hates Hillary.

She's always a week behind on news too. It's pretty sad.

what is going on in this gif?
for what purpose.

Yes. Which cause feelings of euphoria.
This is heightened by strong emotions, asceticism, and fasting, which most of these traditions practice.

Oh, it's certainly not unreprecidented. All this is taking place in the context of low protestantism (just add enthusiasm).

But the rise (and fall) of powerful Televangelists and the moral majority was also shaped by the time and place this took place in, and the situation in the south and midwestern America.

People are being 'healed'.

Because the majority of the religious population are idiots

>But the rise (and fall) of powerful Televangelists and the moral majority was also shaped by the time and place this took place in, and the situation in the south and midwestern America.

ALL of those movements I mentioned were shaped by their times and places, user.

Radical anabaptists? They were able to rise because of the social conditions in the 16th century HRE, especially where it concerned peasants and their relations to their superiors.

Restorationists? Arose because of several quasi-related religions being invented in certain sparsely populated regions of new york where formal religion had withered, thus causing a boom in unguided interpretation of the scriptures.

Circuit riding? It was literally frontiersman christianity, promulgated by wesleyan missionaries, that degenerated into enthusiasm because wesleyans are pietists, and backwoodsmen don't know any better.

Every movement is shaped by it's historical context. Televangelists are just this century's "monster of the day" iteration of enthusiasm (which is a technical term here, by the way. I don't just mean "overzealous").

He sounds almost reasonable until he asks for people to send him money and says that if they pray hard enough they'll be rich. He really is a great speaker and charasmatic motherfucker though, I know he's full of shit but I can't help but want to believe him and be as happy as he seems.

They tell people what they want to hear, and people find comfort in that.
Isn't that what religion is? Finding comfort in the unknown?

At first glance these televagelists seem legit, but the problem is they preach that if you send money to them or pray hard enough you will receive riches from god.

To me, that goes against the message of the Bible where being poor is the better way to get into heaven.

I mean you shouldn't be praying to earn money when there are starving children in the world. You should be praying that they should be fed.

Thats my beef with the televangelists.

youtube.com/watch?v=qvC4lqaPgDo

magic. they are doing vodo with a new name. duh.

snakeoil salesmen who prey on the vulnerable

Mostly within the Catholic Church
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Charismatic_Renewal

Mob mentality is a hell of a drug.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_mentality

160 million members

pentecostal proddies have 300m

>ALL of those movements I mentioned were shaped by their times and places, user.
Well yeah. All historic events are. I just figured, since this was a history board, we'd discuss how that historic context shaped them.

Full of shit? eh, to a point sure. I believe his messages but I do question his character as he promises happiness by buying his merch. It is how he makes money tho so im split.

>Oh boo hoo I was told I was a sinner and they wanted me to have Jesus to save me soul.

Nigga they are trying to help you because they don't want you to suffer for all eternity.

>It is how he makes money tho so im split.
So what? If I make money running a child porn sharing service, would you be split?

are you seriously trying to compare televengalism to child porn

Sounds a bit like Rich Evans.

>How the fuck did this happen
Europe secularized. We continued having religious revivals into the 19 fucking 80's. That's how.

Not to mention that Europe had 3 religious revivals in the last 2000 years and only one Great Awakening. We've had four in almost 300 years and some are stating that we are in the midst of a fifth.

Try Harold Bloom's The American Religion.
Basically since the 2nd Great Awakening in the 1820s American Christianity has made a personal relationship with God the most important part of their religion. This is what Popular Evangelists provide and their congregations want.

But hey, as long as you believe it doesn't matter if you do it in a cathedral or under a pavilion.

>some are stating that we are in the midst of a fifth.
what?

There's currently a large and very vocal religious backlash to modern secularism in the states which would equate to the first and latter half of the fourth Great Awakening in scope. Not all of the Great Awakenings were targeted at non-churchgoers.

>the first and latter half of the fourth Great Awakening in scope
the first Great Awakening and the latter half of the fourth* Phrased that kinda weird.

Well to be fair America was colonized by religious loons and really really fucking greedy creeps. In a sense televangelists are natural product of such demographics.

I mean, they had lost almost all of their power by 1900 so it's a little curious as to how we have had two since. Comparing it to the Calvinist colonists makes sense. Comparing it to these FOB catholic Irish or Lutheran Germans makes no sense. Iirc, Baptists are still the largest religious denomination in the U.S.

in what denominations is this occurring and how is it manifesting?

>in what denominations is this occurring
Mainstream protestantism, baptists mostly.

>how is it manifesting
Do... do you not watch the news?

seconding this.

non american here
do tell me.

>do you not watch the news?

>ywn be american