Thus begins the sacred texts of Christendom. In the 19th century there was another beginning; the beginning of the electronic communication revolution.

Radio, as we now know it, began in 1896 with Guglielmo Marconi's discovery of wireless communication, but the first successful voice transmission occured a decade later when a Canadian engineer, Reginal Fessenden, beamed a signal from the coast of Massachuesetts to ships at sea.

The date was December 24, 1906, Christmas Eve. The content of this first transmission was a religious service which included a violin solo (Gounod's "O Holy Night"), readings from the gospel of Luke, and the singing of a sacred song (Handel's Largo).

Religious broadcasters, to the person, agree with broadcast historian J. Harold Ellens that "[i]t is not without significance that the first voice broadcast was a Christian religious celebration." Given the rapid expansion and experimentation with wireless transmission, any number of persons might have been the first to transmit a human voice. But God choose this time, the eve of the birth of Christ, and this man, a devout Christian who understood the significance of his act, to foretell the most significant development of the 20th century.

To evangelical Christians who take seriously Christ's commandment to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15), this revolution is not just one among many significant scientific advances in the 19th and early 20th century. Rather, it is perhaps the paramount event in histoy since God sent his Son to offer atonement for human sin. The ability to transmit the voice and visual image of the preacher has, for the first time, made it possible to reach all humandkind with the Gospel message.

It was not accidental that evangelical Christians should single out electronic communication as a development of such importance. While the fundamental rudiments of electronic communications were unfolding in the United States, England and Italy, a millenarian movement of profound importance was unfolding in England and the U.S.

Inspired by John Nelson Darby, dispensational premillennialism postulated a new exchatology which forecasted the immanent return of Christ. But Christ's return was necessarily contingent upon fulfillment of his commandment to preach the gospel to all the world.

In this context, the confluence of belief that the end of history was near and the creation of broadcast technologies took on a special significance. For those who became involved in religious broadcasting, this medium was early recognized as the instrument God had provided to make possible the fulfillment of Christ's Great Commission.

Radio quickly disseminated into virtually every American household. Evangelical preachers eagerly seized the opportunities radio afforded to spread the Good News. Television soon followed and evangelical preachers came in great numbers to capture the opportunity to enter the households of America via the cathode ray tube. Many of them developed significant followings, and with the donations send by the faithful, they built networks, cathedrals, universities and Christian theme parks.

To those outside of the evangelical community, it might appear that televangelists have eclipsed the radio preachers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Radio preachers greatly outnumber those preachers who broadcast exclusively on television. The superstars of radio are on far move stations, in more markets, with larger cumulative audiences than there big-time television counterparts. And while satellite transmission is now making possible the spread of Christian television globally, the dominant medium for spreading the gospel via the airwaves still remains radio.

As this Religious Broadcasting Page develops, we will endevour to present extensive materials on religious radio. We'll offer historical perspectives, examine the important role of short wave radio in the development of international broadcasting, identify and profile the major syndicated broadcasters, create links to web pages of Christian radio stations in major broadcast markets, and explore the use of radio by persons and groups outside the Christian faith tradition. We'll also consider why it is that evangelicals have, from the onset, been much more effective in utilizing the airwaves than have their liberal Protestant counterparts.

We welcome feedback, especially information about additional resources on religious broadcasting. For this section, we are looking for all kinds of religious radio materials, especially early broadcasting. If you are aware of Internet resources about religious radio that do not appear on this site, please share that information with us.

If you have print materials by, or about early religious broadcasters, we would much appreciate it if you would share that material with us. We will promptly return materials to you or, if you like, foward them to the archives of the American Institute for the Study of American Religion. In time, we expect to create profiles of early religious broadcasters and, hopefully, offer samples of audio transcriptions.