36 percent over 10 years. The televangelists' forays into politics also hurt. In 1985, when talk of a presidential bid Pat Robertson started to be heard in public, Robertson's TV audience began to shrink. Even before the Jim Bakker scandal broke in 1987, the audience for The 700 Club had fallen by 21 per- cent over two years.
But the nimble entrepreneurs of faith have readjusted. Robertson, for example, restructured his Christian Broadcasting Network to present family-entertainment programs along...