TV preachers still find believers
• Superstitious Folly
A look at 21st century televangelism and the god-craving's insatiable gullibility.
One moment, men like the PTL Club's Jim Bakker and television's Jimmy Swaggart seemed bigger than life, supermen who had been blessed with an uncanny ability to attract followers and money. The next, they were only men - fragile, flawed, and the butt of barroom jokes and newspaper cartoons.
In many ways, it seemed like the beginning of the end for big-time TV religion. Look, the critics said, the emperors really have no clothes.
But Americans, at least many of them, seem to have forgotten and forgiven. TV's salvation shows are still here, bigger and flashier than ever, thanks to the proliferation of the Internet and the continued spread of satellite and cable TV.
Bill Smith And Carolyn Tuft, © St. Louis Post-Dispatch: TV evangelists call signals from the same playbook