1. Loudon Wainwright III – I Am The Way
2. Steve Earle – Angel Is The Devil
3. Alison Krauss & Union Station – There Is A Reason
4. Joni Mitchell with the Band – Shadows and Light
5. Timbuk 3 – Prey
6. Robert Forster – The Evangelist
7. Susan Werner – Lost My Religion
8. Ray Stevens – Would Jesus Wear A Rolex
9. De Dannan – Operator
10. Sandy Posey – Down In The River To Pray
11. Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton – Daddy Was an Old Time Preacher Man
12. Original Blind Boys of Alabama – Old Time Religion
13. Tom T. Hall – The Little Lady Preacher
14. Amos Lee – Street Corner Preacher
15. Ben Folds – Jesusland
16. Robbie Robertson with Neil Young – Soap Box Preacher
17. Smokelahoma – Jesus on a Candle
18. Townes Van Zandt – When He Offers His Hand
19. Billy Joe Shaver – Jesus Is The Only One Who Loves Us
20. The Sovines – Jesus Dionysus
21. Clem Snide – Messiah Complex Blues
22. Ted Hawkins – Long As I Can See The Light
“Hallelujah” is, to use a religious term, no revelation.
The close of the 20th century was a bad time for TV preachers. One moment, men like the PTL Club's Jim Bakker and television's Jimmy Swaggart seemed bigger than life, men who had been blessed with an uncanny ability to attract followers and money. The next, they were fragile, flawed, and the butt of barroom jokes and newspaper cartoons. In many ways, it seemed like big-time TV religion would start to fade away. Look, the critics said, the emperors really have no clothes.
But Americans, at least many of them, seem to have forgiven and forgotten. TV's salvation shows are still here, bigger and flashier than ever, thanks to the proliferation of the Internet and the continued spread of satellite and cable TV. The names may have changed – Benny Hinn, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Paula White, T.D. Jakes and Joyce Meyer have replaced Bakker, Swaggart and Oral Roberts at the top of the evangelical mountainbut the message remains virtually identical.
Believe with all your heart and soul, they tell the faithful. Give and you shall receive, sow and you shall reap. And give, give, give until you can't give any more. God, they say, loves a cheerful giver.
Two decades have passed since Bakker's Praise the Lord empire turned to dust, the victim of a motel tryst with Jessica Hahn and a criminal conviction of defrauding thousands of investors in his Heritage USA theme park. Swaggart, too, fell fast and hard, after a rival minister caught him meeting with a prostitute. His guilt-ridden, tear-streaked face still graces mocking Internet websites, though he has made his way back into the lower tiers of the industry. Even Roberts, dubbed the father of television evangelism, took fire for claiming that God would "call me home" unless his viewers sent him $8 million, a statement seen by some as a form of evangelical blackmail. Oral’s son is carrying on the family tradition of corruption and deceit, by being temporarily relieved of his duties at the university bearing his father’s name because of “improper usage of university funds for political and personal purposes along with the improper use of university resources.”
Critics of the evangelists risk accusations of being in league with Satan. That’s the ultimate response to questions about the ethics of these evangelists, but it falls short as we have seen to serving as a get-out-of-jail-free card. Worse yet is their still relevant influence over our political system. We only have to see John Hagee’s en dorsement of McCain and McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin to realize the potential these preachers have for undermining the democratic process.
Doowad and Avocado Rabbit put together this mix about the “Evangelistas” still cluttering up the TV and Internet. Don’t take it as gospel, though there are flavors of gospel throughout.
