REDEEMING THE DIAL: Radio, Religion, and Popular Culture in America

In this engagingly written and accessible study, Hangen provides a window into both the development of evangelical Christianity in the 20th century and the understudied world of radio, which she says helped cement evangelical conviction. "Radio—paradoxically—prevented the decline of old-fashioned religious belief," she argues. It was a highly contested medium, and Hangen does readers a great service by fleshing out the main characters and contentions of radio's heyday. Separate chapters explore the contributions of Paul Rader, Charles Fuller and Aimee Semple McPherson, who plied the airwaves with slightly variant versions of an American revivalist folk religion. Conservative radio preachers, Hangen explains, had to buy commercial airtime in an era when mainline Protestant denominations often were awarded "sustaining" (free) time in prime slots. Hangen has a keen eye for irony, as when she explores the idea that radio—a very public instrument—functioned as a uniquely intimate religious community, granting preachers unprecedented access into hearers' living rooms, bedrooms and kitchens. She is a highly skilled and innovative writer, with a remarkable talent for description and for employing primary sources to invite readers into the story. She also makes her mark on how evangelical history is told, challenging the oft-touted thesis that evangelicals simply retreated after the humiliation of the 1925 Scopes Trial and suddenly resurfaced in 1976 with the Carter presidency. Instead, she shows, they used that half-century to build their coalition, learn new technologies and define the limits of their theology. (Oct. 28)