 National Religious Broadcasters logo | |
| Formation | 1944 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Washington, DC, United States |
| Website | NRB.org |
National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) is an international association of evangelical communicators. While theologically diverse within the evangelical community, NRB members are linked through a Declaration of Unity that proclaims their joint commitment and devotion to Christianity.
In the early 1940s in America, the emerging culture of hostility between mainline Protestant denominations and the rapidly growing evangelical Protestant movement reached a crisis phase in the world of radio broadcasting. Protestant denominational leaders argued for regulations that would restrict access to the radio broadcast spectrum. They claimed independent Evangelical preachers who were unaccountable to any denominational entity could not be trusted with the public airwaves. [1]
In those early years of radio broadcasting, pioneer Evangelical broadcasters like William Ward Ayer, Paul Rader, Donald Grey Barnhouse, Walter Maier, and Charles Fuller had built radio audiences in the millions and were faithfully proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. By 1942, the Mutual Broadcasting System received more than 25% of its total revenue from religious broadcasters. [2]
Yet in 1943, the Federal Council of Churches (later renamed the National Council of Churches) supported proposed regulations that would have resulted in every Evangelical broadcaster being taken off the national radio networks. They demanded that religious broadcasting should only be aired as a public service during free or "sustaining" time donated by the radio networks. They further argued that these public service slots should only be allocated to "responsible" religious broadcasters that had been approved by local and national denominational councils – like themselves. [3]
The Federal Council of Churches persuaded all three national radio networks – NBC, CBS, and the Mutual Broadcasting System – to adopt the proposed regulations. Subsequently, every Evangelical Christian broadcaster was taken off the national radio networks, with their only access being small independent stations with a very limited audience. [4]
In response to this challenge, 150 Evangelical Christian broadcasters and church leaders held a series of meetings which led to the formation of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB). In the fall of 1944, members of the NRB adopted their Constitution, Bylaws, Statement of Faith, and Code of Ethics. [5] And thus began a multi-year effort by NRB to build credibility for Evangelical broadcasters, to secure available public interest slots, and to overturn the ban on the purchase of radio airtime for religious broadcasting. [6]
In 1949 the newly formed ABC radio network reversed the ban on paid religious broadcasting, with the other networks following their lead. In a few years, Evangelical radio broadcasters were again on major radio networks with scores of new programs.
The NRB now operates in a more complex electronic media environment, while retaining its original focus of defending and expanding access to electronic media platforms for Christian evangelism. And the audience for religious broadcasters has expanded, with 141 million Americans using Christian media at least once per month. [7]
Members of the association are required to ascribe to the Statement of Faith and adhere to the NRB Code of Ethics. NRB members must also meet the Standards of Financial Accountability set forth by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA).[ citation needed ]
NRB members elect a Board of Directors and five Officers for the association. The five Officers, along with five Members-At-Large elected from the Board of Directors, form an Executive Committee that governs the association.
On 27 August 2021 NRB fired its senior vice president of communications, Daniel Darling, because he expressed support for the use of vaccines to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. This was done in the midst of a precipitous rise in COVID-19 deaths blamed largely on low vaccination rates against the disease. [8]
Evangelicalism, also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "born again", in which an individual experiences personal conversion; the authority of the Bible as God's revelation to humanity ; and spreading the Christian message. The word evangelical comes from the Greek (euangelion) word for "good news".
Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamental Christianity or fundamentalist Christianity, is a religious movement emphasizing biblical literalism. In its modern form, it began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among British and American Protestants as a reaction to theological liberalism and cultural modernism. Fundamentalists argued that 19th-century modernist theologians had misinterpreted or rejected certain doctrines, especially biblical inerrancy, which they considered the fundamentals of the Christian faith.
Televangelism is the use of media, specifically radio and television, to communicate Christianity. Televangelists are ministers, whether official or self-proclaimed, who devote a large portion of their ministry to television broadcasting. Some televangelists are also regular pastors or ministers in their own places of worship, but the majority of their followers come from TV and radio audiences. Others do not have a conventional congregation, and work primarily through television. The term is also used derisively by critics as an insinuation of aggrandizement by such ministers.
Christian radio is a Christian media radio format that focus on programming with a Christian message. Many such broadcasters play contemporary Christian music, though many programs include sermons, radio dramas, as well as news and talk programming covering popular culture, economic, and political topics from a Christian perspective.
The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) is an interdenominational organization of evangelical Christian churches, serving more than 600 million evangelicals, founded in 1846 in London, England, United Kingdom to unite evangelicals worldwide. WEA is the largest international organization of evangelical churches. The headquarters are in Deerfield, Illinois, with UN offices in New York City, Geneva, and Bonn. It brings together 9 regional and 143 national evangelical alliances of churches, and over one hundred member organizations. Moreover, the WEA includes a certain percentage of individual evangelical Christian churches. As of March 2021, the Secretary General of the WEA is German theologian Thomas Schirrmacher.
Nondenominational Christianity consists of churches which typically distance themselves from the confessionalism or creedalism of other Christian communities by not formally aligning with a specific Christian denomination. Many non-denominational churches have a congregationalist polity, which is self-governing without a higher church authority.
A Christian denomination is a distinct religious body within Christianity that comprises all church congregations of the same kind, identifiable by traits such as a name, particular history, organization, leadership, theological doctrine, worship style and sometimes a founder. It is a secular and neutral term, generally used to denote any established Christian church. Unlike a cult or sect, a denomination is usually seen as part of the Christian religious mainstream. Most Christian denominations self-describe themselves as churches, whereas some newer ones tend to interchangeably use the terms churches, assemblies, fellowships, etc. Divisions between one group and another are defined by authority and doctrine; issues such as the nature of Jesus, the authority of apostolic succession, biblical hermeneutics, theology, ecclesiology, eschatology, and papal primacy may separate one denomination from another. Groups of denominations—often sharing broadly similar beliefs, practices, and historical ties—are sometimes known as "branches of Christianity". These branches differ in many ways, especially through differences in practices and belief.
The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is an association of evangelical denominations, organizations, schools, churches and individuals, member of the World Evangelical Alliance. The association represents more than 45,000 local churches from about 40 different denominations and serves a constituency of millions. The mission of the NAE is to honor God by connecting and representing evangelicals in the United States.
Religious broadcasting, sometimes referred to as faith-based broadcasts, is the dissemination of television and/or radio content that intentionally has religious ideas, religious experience, or religious practice as its core focus. In some countries, religious broadcasting developed primarily within the context of public service provision, whilst in others, it has been driven more by religious organisations themselves. Across Europe and in the US and Canada, religious broadcasting began in the earliest days of radio, usually with the transmission of religious worship, preaching or "talks". Over time, formats evolved to include a broad range of styles and approaches, including radio and television drama, documentary, and chat show formats, as well as more traditional devotional content. Today, many religious organizations record sermons and lectures, and have moved into distributing content on their own web-based IP channels.
Trans World Radio (TWR) is a multinational evangelical Christian media distributor. The largest Christian media organization in the world, it uses mediumwave or high-powered AM and shortwave transmitters, local FM radio stations, cable, satellite, Internet, and mobile device technologies. Currently, their programs can be heard in 190 countries in more than 300 languages and dialects.
WCRF-FM is a non-commercial radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio, known as "Moody Radio Cleveland". Owned by the Moody Bible Institute, the station broadcasts a religious format and is the Cleveland affiliate for Moody Radio. Both the WCRF-FM studios and transmitter are located in the Cleveland suburb of Brecksville.
John Ankerberg is an American Christian television host, author, and speaker. He is an ordained Baptist minister and has authored or coauthored more than 150 books and study guides. He is the producer and host of the internationally televised weekly program The John Ankerberg Show.
Evangelische Omroep is one of the twelve member-based broadcasting associations contributing to the Netherlands Public Broadcasting system. It has as its mission to bring people into contact with Jesus Christ and its statement of faith is a form of Evangelicalism. EO is one of the few broadcasting associations in the pillarized Dutch broadcasting system to have remained totally faithful to its religious roots. For a long time every one of its programs made reference to God and to the Christian religion, although this is less often the case in the 21st century.
The Evangelical Christian Church(Christian Disciples) as an evangelical Protestant Canadian church body. The Evangelical Christian Church's national office in Canada is in Waterloo, Ontario.
The Conservative Congregational Christian Conference is a Congregationalist denomination of Protestant Christianity. It is based in the United States.
NRB TV is an evangelical Christian cable channel founded by members of the National Religious Broadcasters, a non-partisan, international association of Christian communicators. While the NRB association is located in Manassas, Virginia, the channel's corporate headquarters is located in Nashville, Tennessee. Created in 2005, the network can be seen on DirecTV satellite and broadcast affiliates making it available to a national audience of over 40 million viewers. Programming can also be streamed at nrbtv.org, on Roku players, and via a mobile app available for iPhones, iPods, iPads, Android phones, Android tablets, and Windows Phones.
The American Christian Television System (ACTS) was an American religious television network that was founded by the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Plans for the network involved a distribution reach through a combination of low-power and full-power broadcast television stations, most of which were to be built, and carriage on cable television providers.
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to be errors, abuses, and discrepancies within it.
Protestantism is the largest grouping of Christians in the United States, with its combined denominations collectively comprising about 43% of the country's population in 2019. Other estimates suggest that 48.5% of the U.S. population is Protestant. Simultaneously, this corresponds to around 20% of the world's total Protestant population. The U.S. contains the largest Protestant population of any country in the world. Baptists comprise about one-third of American Protestants. The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest single Protestant denomination in the U.S., comprising one-tenth of American Protestants. Twelve of the original Thirteen Colonies were Protestant, with only Maryland having a sizable Catholic population due to Lord Baltimore's religious tolerance.