Hangen, Tona J. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press,
2002. ix + 220 pp. $18.95 (USD). ISBN: 0807854204.
[1] This is a thoroughly researched and well-written study of the
use of the radio by conservative Christians from the 1920s through
the early 1960s. These groups employed this new medium to spread the
Gospel, assume the guardianship "of the nation's values" (19), and
battle liberalism/modernism. According to Hangen, the radio also gave
the movement its "institutional and tangible, audible form" (18).
During these years the fundamentalists and conservative believers
carried on a running battle - first with the Federal Council of Churches,
and then with the National Council of Churches - over the proper method
to allocate religious time on the airway. The latter groups favored
"sustaining time" or free airway, which the major networks usually
gave to mainline Protestant ministers, Roman Catholic priests, and
Jewish rabbis, while the former preferred "commercial time" or programs
paid for by the sponsors. In the end the fundamentalist desire for
commercial time won out, and this helped pave the way for the rise
of radio programming from the Christian right in the late 1970s and
1980s.
[2] The author focuses on three of the important figures in the rise
of conservative Christian radio - Paul Rader of the Chicago Gospel
Tabernacle, Aimee Semple McPherson of the Angelus Temple, and Charles
Fuller of "The Old Fashioned Revival Hour." Radar provided a wide
variety of Sunday programming, ranging from sermons and gospel music
to shows for children and the home-bound. Before it collapsed in debt
in the 1930s, the broadcast reached from the Rocky Mountains to the
New England states. Through her church's own radio station, McPherson
provided many of the same types of programs not limited by commercial
fees (which could increase at any time). Fuller, however, depended
solely on donations from listeners and contributions from friends
to sustain his show, which was first aired on the Mutual network and
then on independent stations. By the mid-1940s, "The Old Fashioned
Revival Hour" with its "plain-folks persona" (110) was reaching 20
million people weekly over 400 stations.
[3] A good book (like this one) often raises questions that can lead
to further research. After examining the radio ministries of Radar,
McPherson, and Fuller, why not a chapter on how an early Bible institute,
such as Moody Bible Institute, utilized radio? The author notes that
the formation of organizations like the National Association of Evangelicals
and the National Religious Broadcasters led to attempts "to self-regulate
fundamentalist commercial programs on the production side" (116).
How did this take place? Were there any noteworthy examples of programs
being modified? Finally, where does Aimee Semple McPherson fit into
the religious mosaic of the inter-war years? Is she a Pentecostal,
a fundamentalist, or a combination of the two? Hangen favors the latter,
writing that McPherson's radio station "served as a national signpost
of fundamentalist strength that transcended region, but it was first
and foremost the jubilant expression of a local Pentecostal congregation"
(74). Is the author implying that there was a much closer relationship
between fundamentalists and Pentecostals in the 1920s and 1930s than
previously imagined? While not all will agree with this assessment,
the issue is certainly worth further investigation.
[4] In conclusion, one must ask to what the title Redeeming the
Dial refers? The word "redeem" means to recover, get back, rescue,
or restore. Thus, the title seems to suggest that fundamentalists
and conservative Christians struggled to regain control of the radio
waves in order to proclaim the Gospel and to redeem a sinful America.
As Hangen writes, "Religious radio sought to counter the social fragmentation
of American life by using the very tool - the mass media - being portrayed
as the culprit in the breakdown of American community" (157). However,
the author spends more time on the triumph of "commercial time" over
"sustaining time" than on a Christian struggle to regain control over
secular radio. Thus, Redeeming the Dial appears to be about
the triumph of conservative Christians over the liberals in the struggle
over access to the nation's airways.
W. Terry Lindley
Department of History
Union University
Jackson, TN
tlindley@uu.edu
