Yes, Islam is an evangelizing religion. There’s a duty of followers to spread the faith, and Muslim missionaries, etc.
But in anycase, I suspect the primary audience of both Christian and Muslim televangelists are people that are already of the faith. I can’t imagine many athiests, jews or muslims are tuning in to the 700 club.
Isn’t he the guy who was recently caught in a sex scandal involving a mistress he was bringing around (making him even more similar to American televangelists)?
Too bad she didn’t actually work to save lives, and she was certainly happy enough to kiss the hands of dictators and butchers around the world.
A related question…
which countries have televangelists? If there’s any in Spain they’re a recent phenomenon and available only as local stations; I do know we have at least one evangelical radio station (local to Bilbao), although they’re perfectly happy to broadcast Catholic Masses and to play Shakira in between exhortations to read the Bible. I’ve seen some in Latin America cable channels, but the cable package carried channels from several countries and I’m not sure where exactly was that channel based (I never stopped there long enough to find out). Does Australia have televangelists? France? Germany? New Zealand?
Australia does but they are very obscure. Rather than being household names as I understand several US televangelists are, Australia’s televangelists are nobodies, with tiny followings and programs on at hours when airtime is cheap.
I have Sky Digital and it carries at least a dozen Godular channels, I’ll have to check when I’m home but I believe it also has religious content from non-Christian religions but these tend IIRC to be more like a televised prayer session rather than US-style televangelism. Televangelism exists on British tv but it is nowhere near as popular nor as culturally potent as it is in the US.
Although Irish state television has a religious bias, for example the Angelus is aired, I’ve never seen any Irish evangelical style shows.
Depends on what you mean by “Televangelist.” There’s a fine line (and sometimes a very broad line) between someone who genuinely uses TV to preach (Billy Graham comes to mind), and one who uses the guise of “evangelism” to fool people into giving them money (Robert Tilton, Creflo Dollar, etc. etc. etc.).
And I’m sure that line blurs quite often. For example: Jim Bakker, FWIW, probably started his TV ministry because of a genuine desire to preach. But then once he got caught up in the money, well… you know the rest of the story.
On my last trip to Iceland, I was disappointed to see that one of the few local television channels was a Christian station broadcasting the notorious drivel of Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron (but subtitled in Icelandic—“Bananinn og höndin eru gjörsamlega gerðu fyrir eitt annað!”)
The hotel TV also had a satellite dish, and no fewer than three of the channels were taken up by this thawb- and keffiyeh-clad guy, who we suspected was a Muslim televangelist. (We don’t speak Arabic so we don’t know for sure—maybe someone here can translate the text which appears on the screen?) This guy was on nearly 24 hours a day. People would call into his show, often getting quite worked up with ranting and yelling, while he would just sit there calmly, looking at his laptop, not saying anything for maybe twenty minutes at a time.
A must reading on the subject is The Faith Healers by James Randi.
I am aware of the accusations (I believe the book was called “Hell’s Angel”) of how she cozied up to dictators etc. But - there’s no denying she dropped out of a comfy middle class life and a comfy normal convent to spend her life doing good works for the poor. This is the alternative message some people take from Christianity, that charity is more important than proseletyzing. Somehow it seems more appealing and sincere.
IIRC the enthusiasm of some (American) evangelists has thoroghly ticked off governments on several continents. A decade or more ago the catholic-vs-evangelical issue in Guatemala was in the news. Several east Europe countries have also become ticked at these pushy evangelists too. Of course, the strict Muslim countries take the command seriously (IIRC) that leaving Islam (for some other religion, or atheism) is a death penalty offense; so logically any other religion preaching to anyone else but their own and in private I assume would not be tolerated. It would be viewed as encouraging someone to commit heresy.
You guessed wrong. Islah Tv is an anti-Saudi TV Channel based in London.
I haven’t heard anything like that about him.
Of course you can deny that. Mother Theresa’s “good works” have been widely criticized as negligent and haphazard at best, and as bizarre and sadistic at worst. Many medical and religious commentators observe that her philosophy was to promote worldly suffering in an effort to bringing those under her “care” closer to God. Her approach has been condemned by theists and atheists alike.
Fascinating! Thanks for the information. We’ve been wondering about that guy for over a year now.
Yeah… I’m in England with Virgin cable. Out of 160 channels, only one (God Channel) is religious.
If I want to watch Law and Order, though, I’ve got a choice of six channels. 
