New Christian Broadcasters Group Formed

Trinity Broadcasting Network, the Christian programming service headed by televangelist Paul Crouch, has announced the formation of a new international organization of Christian broadcasters.

According to Crouch’s wife, Jan, vice president of the Tustin-based network, Christian Broadcasters International was formed last week in London at a meeting of European religious broadcasters, where Paul Crouch spoke. Representatives from Pakistan and Zaire have joined the organization, Jan Crouch said.

The announcement is another indication of the increased interest among American religious broadcasters in reaching beyond U.S. borders for converts, especially to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The Rev. Robert Schuller, whose “Hour of Power” broadcast appears on Trinity, recently announced that he had reached an agreement to have that program appear regularly on Soviet state television.

In Trinity’s June newsletter, headlined “To Russia With Love,” Paul Crouch wrote that he had recently visited the Soviet Union, where he met with religious and government broadcasting officials to work out plans for a programming exchange and, ultimately, a joint venture there.

“Some day we will build a TV station in Russia!” Crouch wrote.

Christian Broadcasters International is headed by Ben Armstrong, a former official of the National Religious Broadcasters. Crouch resigned from the NRB, a voluntary organization of 1,100 Christian broadcasters, after a yearlong ethics inquiry. Armstrong formally retired from the NRB about the time Crouch resigned.

“We’ll be working real closely with him,” Jan Crouch said of Armstrong. “We have formed this group. . . . We believe it’s going to be a real force in the world now that the whole world is opening to Christian broadcasting.”

The NRB’s ethics inquiry ended in December, when the NRB’s executive committee found there was “insufficient evidence” to expel Crouch and Trinity from the organization. The committee later issued a “clarification” stating that the charges leveled against Crouch were “of a serious nature” and that the December finding did not “represent an exoneration” of Trinity.

Crouch then resigned from the organization, citing “lying, trumped-up charges (that) were aimed at the heart” of his 200-station network and 24-hour-a-day programming service, which he said has a market value of $500 million.

On Jan. 15, Crouch--referring to himself as Trinity’s “President for Life”--announced that he was involved in starting a new, competing, international organization that--unlike the NRB--would admit Catholic broadcasters.

A number of other prominent televangelists, like Oral Roberts, do not belong to the NRB. Jimmy Swaggart was forced out of the organization, and about a third of the current members have so far refused to comply with the NRB’s strict new financial and ethical accountability standards.

Later, when Swaggart appeared on Crouch’s weeknight talk show, “Praise the Lord,” Crouch said that he hoped to form a new organization of Christian broadcasters that would include Swaggart and others. Armstrong also appeared with the Crouches and hinted at the establishment of the new organization.