Obituary
Billy James Hargis
Rightwing preacher laid low by sexual scandal
Michael Carlson
Friday December 10, 2004
The Guardian
Although Billy James Hargis, who has died aged 79, never achieved
the respectability of Billy Graham, his mix of fundamentalist
Christianity and virulent anti-communism, disseminated at his peak
in the early 1960s across a network of some 250 US television and
500 radio stations, gave him an influence reminiscent of the 1930s
right-wing radio preacher Father Coughlin. When someone finally
stood up to his red-baiting broadcasts, the result was a landmark
court decision on broadcasting fairness.
His use of his churches to organise rightwing candidates might
have served as a template for the strategy of George W Bush's
svengali, Karl Rove. Hargis's ministry brought him a vast fortune,
and, in a tradition going back at least to the inter-war period
and Sister Aimee McPherson, he was brought down by sexual scandal.
Standing 6ft 6ins and weighing nearly 20 stone, Hargis resembled
the stereotypical southern sheriff more than a preacher, and his
brand of fire and brimstone preaching came from a tradition known
in the Ozarks as "bawl and jump". Born in Texarkana, Arkansas, the
orphaned Hargis had promised to devote himself to Christ if his
adopted mother recovered from illness. Although he never finished
Bible college, he was ordained by the "Disciples Of Christ" while
still a teenager, but after a few years abandoned his pastorate
after finding success preaching on radio.
In 1950, with the red-baiting McCarthy era in its ascendancy, he
launched the Christian Crusade Against Communism. In 1953, he
travelled to West Germany to launch 100,000 balloons, with Bible
verses attached, over the iron curtain.
Hargis's "communist" targets soon expanded, to government, the
media, and even churches less committed than his to his fight. In
1957, the Disciples Of Christ withdrew his ordination, but by then
his televised ministry was bringing in more than $1m a year, and
he had established links with another evangelist, Carl McIntire,
and General Edwin Walker, the rightwing general and John Birch
Society leader. But the seeds of Hargis's downfall were planted
firmly in his success.
First, the Internal Revenue Service decided Hargis's work was
political and removed his tax exemption. Then, in a 1964 radio
broadcast, Hargis accused journalist Fred Cook of smearing the
Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, saying Cook had
been fired from jobs for journalistic misconduct. When Red Lion, a
Pennsylvania radio station refused Cook a right of reply, he sued,
and, in its "Red Lion" decision, the US Supreme Court established
the "fairness doctrine". Under the first President Bush, the
requirement of balance was removed; the current administration has
reduced the protections even further.
As his media power waned, Hargis founded the American Christian
College in 1971. Having denounced the Beatles as "godless", he
sold his school with cleancut images of its choir, the
"All-American Kids", which became a touring show. In 1976,
however, Time magazine reported that a student couple, married by
Hargis in the college chapel, discovered on their wedding night
that both had lost their virginity to Hargis. A number of male
choir members accused him of coercing them into sex, justifying
his seductions by quoting the example of David lying with
Jonathan. Hargis denied the charges, saying communists and Satan
were conspiring against him. But Hargis was forced to resign from
his college.
He spent the next two decades back on the revival circuit, and
founded a missionary foundation that set up orphanages, hospitals,
and leprosy clinics in the third world. In his autobiography, My
Great Mistake (1985) he wrote: "I was guilty of sin, but not the
sin I was accused of." Despite a series of heart attacks, he
continued to run Christian Crusade ministries until last year,
when his son, Billy James Hargis II, assumed control.
He survives him, as do Hargis's wife Betty Jane, and three
daughters.
Billy James Hargis, evangelist, born August 3 1925; died November
27 2004
Guardian Unlimited Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
====================
From: Don M.
[...] Aimee Semple McPherson would disappear from time to time to
have "visions", which she would then retail to her flock--I forget
whether she claimed to have been abducted by angels or simply
wandered into the desert, but there was always supernatural
intervention of some sort. On one occasion she went into the
desert (in California) and re-emerged a week later in the ocean
off LA with great wonders to tell.
She was brought down not by the straight-laced, but by a newspaper
reporter who suspected she was scamming the gullible with these
"mystic experiences". He followed her into the desert and noted
she was swept up not by angels, but by a gentleman in a waiting
Buick. He trailed the Buick into Mexico, documenting its stops at
various hotels, and back into the US to document her miraculous
reappearance filled with news from the Beyond. Then he published
his findings.
He didn't care that she was fucking somebody, but that she was
fucking somebody instead of communing, as claimed, with
supernatural beings.
My Father thought her a genius for having no collection plates.
She had ropes with sewing pins in them strung through the audience
and told them to "just pin your contributions to the ropes!"
"Ever try to pin a dime to a rope?" my Father would ask.
I have had the honor(?) of performing in a building formerly owned
by her. In the 60s, an old church used by the Bellingham Theatre
Guild had been part of her empire in the 30s.
---
http://lastliberal.org
"We wonder why they [students] carry guns and kill each other.
Well, we've told them "You're nothing, you're a freak, you're an
accident of nature. That's all'" -- Benny Proffitt, President of
First Priority of America - comments on teaching evolution
.
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