TALK RADIO'S PIONEER
The most popular Christian live call-in show is Point of View, hosted by Marlin Maddoux, who has been syndicated nationally since 1982. Point of View has an estimated audience of more than 2 million. The Dallas-based Maddoux sees Christian radio as a First Amendment stronghold against a liberal and secular press.

Maddoux says he is undeterred by Christians who criticize him for making "disparaging" remarks about President Clinton. Maddoux says that Scripture shows Jesus as "a very confrontational type of man."

Many issues discussed on Point of View, such as homosexuality or sex education, are the result of wayward government policies, according to Maddoux. "We've got to get involved if we want to save the country and the children." In 1985, Maddoux formed the USA Radio Network, which has several live call-in programs, such as Christian Consumer Advocate and Youth Talk. More are planned.

"We are in the process of developing full-time talk," Maddoux told CT, with radio stations taking as many hours as needed from a satellite feed.

"Some Christian talk-show hosts are upset that many Christians are listening to Rush Limbaugh instead of staying tuned to Christian stations," Winzenburg says. "You can't be too opinionated on Christian radio without alienating your audience."

Although Limbaugh gains many Christian listeners with his conservative message, few are aware of his own religious views. In a recent interview in The Door magazine, Limbaugh said he adheres to traditional Christian beliefs, but he declines to use radio as a pulpit. Not so with Maddoux, who says, "I go further than Rush Limbaugh. I espouse the Christian view."

UNFETTERED CONTENT
With the demise seven years ago of the Fairness Doctrine—which required broadcasters to allow a "reasonable opportunity for the presentation of contrasting viewpoints"—Christian radio has become a champion of unfettered airwaves. This new freedom has not necessarily translated into increased responsibility in content. "Very few stations are willing to provide standards of conduct for the people they have on their programs," Calvin College's Schultze says. "There aren't theological, doctrinal, or even ethical standards."

In 1986, the NRB organized its own ethics panel, the Ethics and Financial Integrity Commission (EFICOM). Yet EFICOM was dissolved in 1993, and NRB has stipulated membership in the 15-year-old ECFA as a prerequisite for NRB membership. Ministries wanting to display the ECFA seal of approval must meet accounting, fundraising, and governance standards. However, there are no clear content standards. "We do not get into the theology of what they're saying on the air, other than we ask for a statement of faith," says ECFA president Paul D. Nelson.

Indeed, beyond restrictions on endorsing candidates, there are few restraints on the program content of Christian broadcasts, related print material, and audio and video recordings. Through his programs, broadcaster and pastor Jerry Falwell has sold, for $43 each, more than 100,000 videos featuring former Arkansas state employee Larry Nichols, who has been on 150 talk shows. Nichols claims that "Bill and Hillary Clinton violated every law on earth through Whitewater." The tape also suggests Hillary Clinton had repeated adulterous affairs, and the President has ordered killings of "countless people." Clinton, going on a live radio show, called the video "scurrilous" and likened Falwell to the moneychangers Jesus threw out of the temple.

Falwell is not alone in alleging Clinton's misdeeds. Another talk-show host, Vic Eliason, on Milwaukee WVCY's Home Front in April, said, "The issue [is] how many people have died in proximity to this present administration; someone said it is anywhere between 22 and 29 people who have perished in one manner or another; some allegedly accidental, some allegedly self-inflicted."

Eliason does not restrict his attacks to politicians. He targeted Chapel of the Air host David Mains for allegedly booking New Age guests (CT, May 16, 1994, p. 38) and cancelled the program on his station after 30 years. Seven other stations followed suit, but Chapel of the Air continues on 450 outlets. "I had worries about whether we were going to survive, but it looks like we'll be okay," Mains says.

Why do such allegations draw listeners? Tom Nash, a communications professor at Biola University in La Mirada, California, says, "There are Christians who like a really angry message. That's why sometimes the more vitriolic ministries succeed." Yet NRB president E. Brandt Gustavson of Manassas, Virginia, warns, "Because of the haranguing about everyday politics, [some will] be turned off to the real message of hope and encouragement of finding Christ."

HOW TO BE ACCOUNTABLE
For religious nonprofit organizations, the airwaves have provided a unique and powerful way of raising money. While most broadcasters exercise careful restraint in fundraising, others test the limits. Last December, Denver's Bob Larson, the controversial host of the call-in show Talk-Back, went on the air pleading for funds, saying the Lord had told him in a vision that he needed to raise $1.89 million to revive Christian radio in America. On the air, Larson said, "You say, 'What's the vision?' I'm not telling you because, if I tell you, enemies of this ministry out there who want to see me off the air … would cut my knees out from under me in a moment's time." Larson went on to explain that an $89 donation would net two videos, one on the Devil in the classroom, the other on neo-Nazi Satanism. If callers put the contribution on a credit card, a third cassette about the Devil would be included. A $189 contribution would result in four videos and a book. "You say, 'I already got all that stuff; I gave last week.' Give again, give it away, give it to somebody else, and just give us the gift." Such tactics have given Larson a reputation as the rebel of religious talk radio.

In contrast to Larson, NRB's Gustavson says, "Our ethics statement calls for tasteful requests for funds. Some, no doubt, are more forceful, or may I even say, possibly gimmicky, in their fundraising. But the majority of NRB members are really very straightforward."

One complicating factor for Christian radio's mainstream is that some of the most controversial shows have dropped out of NRB, yet religious broadcasting as a whole gets besmirched when nonmember ministries get into trouble. Another talk-show host, Harold Camping, president of the 39-station Family Radio, asserts in two self-published books and on his show Open Forum that the world will end in September. "Theologically, there are no ways of getting a nonmember to stop that type of thing," Gustavson says. ECFA's Nelson says around 70 percent of all religious broadcasters belong to the organization. Yet membership is voluntary. Falwell, Eliason, Larson, and Camping are former members or have never joined.