Why does America have so many TV evangelists,In the UK we don't have any or not like those guys you watch.

Answer 1

Because you guys are lucky, lucky bastards...

Answer 2

You guys only have ONE official religion, the Church of England. I'm sure the Archbisop of Canterbury gets some air time on the BBC now and then.

Or have I missed something here. Did the repeal the law that the Royals have to be members of the Church of England.

Did they repeal that one? Allow a Catholic Queen or King again. Maybe a Muslim one, one day!

See, America is about competition and one upmanship and when you have a Mixed Baptist pluraity (Black, Southern and Northern Baptists make up 50% of the country) and minority Catholic Majority (the Roman Catholics make up 25% and growing) the rest of the religioins (Methodists, Born Agains, Mormons, Presbyterians, Evangelicals, Anglicans) have to make a stand.

The Pope gets more Airtime on the Networks than anyone else. I can't see NBC, ABC and CBS spending ALL day as the Baptists decides who will replace Bill Graham on the day he dies.

There won't be any white smoke.

Answer 3

The US is an anomaly among the civilised and developed world.
It is a very religious nation, sadly, and the deluded are also very gullible. The evangelists capitalise upon the gulllibility and make large fortunes from them.
The UK has more atheists than anything else, so the viability of TV evangelism doesn't guarantee the same profits.Thus, no scam artists on TV asking for donations.
Philippines has one. Rich guy. made a fortune from the poor people. Sad.

Answer 4

Its because all the crazies left the UK for the states back in the colonial days. Occasionally one of us here will be born sane. I like English tv a lot, by the way, especially when the cameras go into the locker rooms after a game! (Look at that! Is that that guys ****? IT IS!)

Answer 5

Because they make a living by fleecing the flocks that watch them. My sister-in-law is a prime example of throwing her money in the laps of the t.v evangelists, she thinks she's buying a "ticket to heaven" by her large "donations"

She told me this herself. Very, very sad !

Answer 6

I'll try and give you a serious answer because I think this is a great question.

The biggest reason is the C of E.

It pains me to say this, as I am an Anglican, but the C of E was NOT founded as a religious institution, it was founded as a political and economic institution. Henry VIII needed to be head of the Church in England for political reasons. Sure his divorce from Queen Catherine was part of it, as was his lust for Anne Boleyn and his need for a male heir (which is highly ironic because Elizabeth I was one of the best monarchs England ever had). He also wanted to seize the Church lands (the Church owned almost 1/3 of the real estate in England at the time, Henry wanted to steal that land so he could reward his supporters). Most importantly Henry wanted to have totalitarian con troll over his people... much the same way the Chinese Communist Party has a state controlled Catholic Church today... it's all about controlling the people. If you let the people have a place where they can rally and talk and think that is not controlled by the State they might use that place to foment a revolt or revolution, just look at how the Roman Catholic Church was central to the founding of the Solidarity Union in Poland, and the fall of the Communist government there.

So the C of E was an instrument of state control and religious oppression for the first several hundred years of its existence. Catholics were opressed, ( google St. Edmund Campion) but not without some reason ( google up Guy Fawkes) , but so were Protestants that didn't agree with the C of E, such as Calvinists and Congregationalists. That is why the Pilgrims left Scrooby and wound up in Plymouth Mass.

The televangelists come from the Calvanist and Congregationalist tradition. Like the Catholics Calvinists and Congregationalists were not allowed to go to University in the U.K. for a very long time, and were subject to religious discrimination in all forms of life. It is not suprising that, like a lot of Catholics, they left the UK and moved to the colonies.

Ironicly the Congregational churches were at their best while the pressure of persecution served to cement them; this removed, the absence of organization left them an easy prey to the inroads of rationalism and infidelity. Before the end of the eighteenth century many of them lapsed into Unitarianism, alike in England and America.

So the Congregationalists either left England, or those that remained colapsed. The institutions that would turn out a televangelist don't exist in England.

Another big reason is how Television time is set up in the UK. The televangelists used to buy the TV time to put their shows on, then they went to buying and setting up their own TV networks (like CBN and TBN and even EWTN). In England the BBC owns the airwaves and you can't buy air time or set up your own network like you can in the states (though ITV might let people... I don' t know about that).

The other reason is that the C of E, as I said, was primarily designed as an institution to A) Keep the Tudor Family in power, B) Keep England from having the sort of religious civil war that France and Germany had during the Reformation C) Keep the population from revolting.. things like actually worshiping God and helping the poor were (and sadly still are) "D" and "E" level priorities. Because of this Anglican Church theology is still all about "the middle way" and compromise... there is not an Anglican tradition of "God said, I believe it, that settles it". This sort of theology does not lead people to become public "in your face" preachers.

You can see that in how John Wesley's followers, despite Wesley's personal commitment to the Anglican Communion, were essentially expelled from the C of E, when they started taking Christianity seriously and got involved in preaching revivals, abolition, prison reform, missionary work, etc. Wesley's call to personal and social holiness challenged Christians about what it means to participate in the Kingdom of God.... and the C of E is all about "not rocking the boat" (see objectives A, B, and C, above) so the idea of radical Christian revival does not sit well in C of E circles. The same thing happened with "The Oxford Movement", when a group of High Church Anglicans wound up taking Christianity seriously, and they wound up having to become Catholic. This same tradition of compromise exists even today as the Anglicans are trying to compromise between the Nigerian Bishops who take the Bible's prohibition on homosexuality seriously, and the American Episcopalians who choose to ignore what the Bible says on the topic.

Lastly, the C of E has suffered greatly in the past century due to the intelectual fashonabilty of Marxisim and Socialism. Remember the C of E was designed to keep the peace between the differing Christian Denominations during the Reformation, so the Anglican tradtion is all about compromise... but while the C of E spent the 16th and 17th centuries compromising between different forms of Christianity, it found itself in the 19th and 20th Centuries compromising between Christianity and Non-christian ideas, like Marxisim and Socialisim; and it is, I hate to say it, falling apart. People saw that the C of E really didn't believe in anything except "not rocking the boat" so they left in droves. Sadly this resulted in a general rejection of not just the C of E but of Christianity in General in the UK

"Children who do not come from churchgoing homes - as I did not - now grow up largely ignorant of Christian ideas in a way unimaginable half a century ago. [...] The comments about religion by journalists in the press and on television [...] suggest that even the basic Christian ideas are no longer understood by university-educated people, still less by others. Indeed even churchgoers can reveal an ignorance of the main elements of Christian belief.”

So the C of E has created a religious tradition in England where peace and quiet are the paramount objective... and sincere belief in, much less the preaching of, the Christian message is of secondary importance (at best). The televangelists are just the opposite... they believe in shaking people up, in using the truth of the Gospel to radically change people's lives... and radical change is what the C of E is most definitely NOT about.

The two traditions just don't mix.

Answer 7

Haven't you always though that a great many Americans were a little on the gullible side.... Well, I'm an American and I can tell you that you are correct to think so. I am surrounded by the fools of foolish notions and the non-thinkers of overwhelming measures of naivety.

...and therein you have your reason.
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Answer 8

Because this country is on a downward curve to becoming a christian taliban nation with the christofascists taking over.

Answer 9

These guys figured out how to fleece a larger flock. Perhaps there are more laws in the UK restricting that sort of nonsense.

One can almost get away with murder in the name of religion here.

Answer 10

Really? None? I don't watch them at all yet I can picture a dozen just off the top of my head. I don't know why we have so many - must be profitable.

Answer 11

I'm moving the the UK.