Broadcasters Hold Convention, Trade Show in Washington : ‘Electronic Church’ Taking Off ‘Like a Rocket’

Finely groomed and suited, they beckon their audiences to happiness and heaven. Their prescriptions vary from stiff to gentle, demanding to soothing, conversational to vehement.

But they share a common pursuit--promoting faith and followings. They are the shepherds of the “electronic church,” and it is booming in America.

While major denominations have suffered losses, “the growth in the numbers for Christian broadcast has literally taken off like a rocket,” said Ben Armstrong, executive director of National Religious Broadcasters.

He said the growth is almost too fast to keep tabs on, amounting to an average of 20 new religious radio stations and two new religious television stations each month, along with additional producers supplying programs.

At present, he reported, there are 1,370 radio stations with full or substantial religious content in the country, up 22% in a decade, and 221 religious TV stations, up 71% in five years.

The number of producers of religious radio programs has grown to 596, up 33% in a decade, he added, with the producers of religious TV programs rising at the same rate in five years to 414.

It is a “huge success story,’ he said, particularly when compared to the lagging statistics for mainline churches.

Armstrong, whose association is based in Morristown, N.J., said in a telephone interview that the flow of religious programs into cable systems also has climbed “geometrically, up out of sight.”

Professionals of that surging religious industry--preachers, managers, counselors, producers and directors, along with hosts of technical suppliers--converge on Washington today through Wednesday.

A turnout of 4,200 broadcasters is expected for promotional exhortations, popular Christian singers and music, a trade show and a spread of 50 how-to-do-it workshops.

The religious broadcasters’ annual convention and exposition typically brings in some stars of the art, along with top figures from a friendly Reagan Administration, often the President himself.

He is expected this time, along with Vice President George Bush, but that will not be certain until shortly beforehand, mostly for security reasons, planners said.

(Christian Broadcasting Network founder Pat Robertson, a possible contender for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination, will not be on the religious broadcasters’ program. National Religious Broadcasters spokesman Dan Nicholas said Robertson declined a spot on the schedule because of a California speaking engagement. Robertson is giving a speech Tuesday night at Pasadena City College, sponsored by the Republican Women’s Club of San Marino.)

U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, an active Presbyterian and author of books on faith and medical ethics, is to address the gathering, and a lineup of big-time evangelists are on the program.

They include Jim Bakker of the PTL (People That Love) network, who with his wife, Tammy Faye, hosts the daily program, “Jim and Tammy,” along with fervent evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, whose pleas are often mingled with sobs.

Others include roving mass-crusade evangelist Luis Palau, Southern Baptist President Adrian Rogers, Campus Crusade author Josh McDowell, religious radio pioneer J. Vernon McGee and Christian psychologist James Dobson.