Donations Drop in First 5 Months to Schuller Ministry

Contributions to the Rev. Robert H. Schuller’s TV ministry declined in the first five months of this year but have rebounded in June, according to figures released Monday.

The Garden Grove evangelist said in a prepared statement that adverse publicity surrounding the PTL scandal “has deeply hurt all television ministries.” But he did not attribute the declines in contributions to the PTL affair, which surfaced in March.

According to the statement, donations to Schuller’s “Hour of Power” TV program in the first three months of this year totaled $9,451,875, down 1.3% from $9,579,310 in the 1986 period.

At the end of April, the statement showed donations totaling $12,010,010, down 3% from the $12,401,040 taken in during the same period last year. By the end of May, they stood at $13,530,688, down nearly $400,000 from $13,910,961 a year earlier.

But in June the decline stopped, and “the revenues are expected to remain positive in the months ahead,” the statement said.

The big turnaround came in the first two weeks of June, when contributions were up 36% over the same period in 1986, Schuller said. This brought total donations from Jan. 1 through June 18 of this year to $16,446,013, up slightly from $16,386,655 taken in during the same period last year.

Schuller said Monday the figures show that his ministry is gaining viewers who have become disenchanted with other religious organizations. However, he would not say whether he believes his ministry has attracted former followers of PTL broadcasts.

News reports that TV evangelist Jim Bakker had had an extramarital sexual encounter first surfaced in March. Since then the scandal has mushroomed and Bakker has been forced to give up his PTL ministry in Fort Mill, S.C.