Spellbinder (2 page)

Did Daddy sweat and twitch and palpitate in the weeks and months before the sawdust chips ground into his face that summer night in Muncie, Indiana?

Eyes piously raised, the chorus hits the last note, holds it, lingers lovingly with it, then lets it slowly die. Their workweek is finished.

The curtain stirs. Holloway’s foot appears, the black shoe brilliantly polished, the ties tassled. A hand follows—an arm—the full figure, clad in blue doubleknit polyester, white shirt gleaming, wide tie too boldly patterned.

If the grandfather wore a flamboyant frock coat and black string tie, the son would wear doubleknit. And the grandson, too, waiting in the wings with his mother, diaphanously clad in pale pink gauze, crisscrossed at the bosom, trailing as she walks—unsteadily.

As the final words begin, the manager’s eyes circle the audience, making a ritual calculation. A slip of paper on the shelf beside the spiral notebook is inscribed with the figure 63,400, the attendance tally. The month is October, the seventeenth day. Most of the faithful have just been paid. October is a promising month, with no vacations to strain family budgets. No taxes due. No Christmas presents, or Easter clothing. In Washington, credit is loosening, inflating the economy in an election year. Therefore, beneath the 63,400, the manager notes $42,000. It’s his estimate of the take. For twenty-two years, each time Holloway has preached, the manager has estimated the take. At first, his estimates were wild, usually too high. Now, he comes closer than a computer.

His eyes wander to the man standing alone in the center of the stage. Almost imperceptibly during the last minute, the houselights have gone dim. Three beams of light hold Holloway in their soft golden glow—all on cue.

The final words are beginning.

When the manager had first brought in a lighting expert, Holloway had objected. The spotlights and the footlights bothered him. He wanted to see his audience—to communicate with them, he said. Wanted to feel them. Touch them. But the TV crews needed lights. And, slowly, the manager had introduced the special effects, the dramatic highlights. As Holloway lost touch with the faithful, he became rich and famous: the first successful TV evangelist.

In spite of himself.

In spite of his canvas-and-sawdust background, his down-home delivery, his simplistic, jingoistic appeals. In spite of an alcoholic wife, a ruthless son, a disaffected daughter—and, somewhere, an illegitimate child.

With his family life a disaster, Holloway still manages to appear the devoted husband and father. For an evangelist, it is essential. On stage, evangelism is a family matter. Unlike politicians, there are no divorced evangelists.

From the loudspeakers, the final words are continuing, running too long. Although their sense is lost among the manager’s thoughts, their import is clear: Holloway is building up to something big. Some surprise for all of them, he’d promised, the audience and staff alike. When the introduction is finished and the meat begins, the manager’s attention will focus on the words, not the rhythm of their mesmerizing cadence. Holloway is in fine form—in perfect control, as usual. Sixty-three thousand souls believe him. Sixty-three thousand, plus one. Because Holloway, himself, still believes. At age sixty-three, he’s been preaching for more than fifty years. He’s cheated and swindled and raved at his enemies and fornicated with the faithful. But his vision of God remains clear and concise: and old man with a flowing white beard, eyes that never blink and a stomach that never sags. Holloway’s evocation of God is as natural and spontaneous and often as truculent as a small boy’s my-father-can-lick-your-father boast. They are a team, Holloway and God. A successful team, capitalized in the millions.

Thanks mostly to the manager.

Now he finally tunes his attention to the words coming over the loudspeakers. The meat, he knows, is coming up:

“Every one of you in this great Temple,” Holloway is intoning, “and everyone at home, watching this service on their television sets, surrounded by their family, they all know how I came to the service of God. They all know how God first called to my Daddy, and told him to go out among the people and bring God’s word to everyone who wanted to listen. They all know how my daddy started preaching the gospel in a vacant lot. Yes, friends—a vacant lot, in Peoria, Illinois. Finally, after years of serving the Lord, and raising a family, and saving every cent he could from the collections on Sunday, my Daddy scraped together enough money to buy a tent. It wasn’t a big tent, friends. But it was a holy tent. It was a consecrated place. It wasn’t consecrated by any bishop, or any Pope, or anyone else who wore fancy robes, and preached from a fancy pulpit. No—” Holloway’s voice begins to tremble. As he lifts his eyes toward heaven, he blinks against tears. The manager glances quickly at the monitor. Yes, the cameraman caught the tears.

“No,” Holloway is saying huskily, “that tent wasn’t consecrated by any of the princes of the church. They didn’t know it existed. And they didn’t care, either. But it was consecrated by the people. It was consecrated by the people who came here every Sunday, and knelt down in the sawdust and prayed with my Daddy for their eternal salvation, and life everlasting. It was consecrated by the little people—the ordinary people. They never earned much money, these people. And they never wore fancy clothes, either. Why, I can remember, as a boy, seeing them come in overalls, walking all the way into town from their farms, miles away. And I can remember something else, too. I can remember that, when I was eight years old, I began passing the collection plate. And I remember seeing those people—those simple, wonderful people—digging down in their worn pockets and dropping whatever they could into the collection plate, to help my Daddy do God’s work.”

Eyes still raised, Holloway pauses, as if to control himself. He drops his eyes to the prayer book he holds in both hands before him. Then, in a low, solemn voice:

“My Daddy died when I was only nineteen years old. He died under the canvas top the people had bought for him. He was preaching God’s word when he died. He was doing God’s work, just like he’d always done. Healthy or sick, rich or poor, hungry or not, my Daddy was doing what he’d always done. He was praying for sinners, trying to light their way to glory.

“By that time, I’d already been preaching for eight years, friends. Yes—” Holloway nods out toward his audience, invisible to him as he stands in the glare of the three golden shafts of light. “Yes, friends, I began preaching when I was eleven years old. But it wasn’t until I was nineteen years old that I began my ministry. It wasn’t until my Daddy laid down God’s burden. Because when he laid down his burden and ascended to heaven, I knew that my time had come. The burden was mine. And I accepted it—accepted the challenge to do God’s work, even though I wasn’t truly a man yet.

“So I started preaching in that old, patched canvas tent of my Daddy’s. But then, just a few years later, the Lord showed me a better way to preach. I was still very young, still very inexperienced. I had a lot to learn, friends. I had a whole lot to learn. But I could feel the Lord’s hand on my shoulder, offering guidance. I could hear His voice in my ear. He was telling me that He wanted me to reach thousands of people with my ministry, not just hundreds. And He showed me how to do it. Yes, the Lord showed me the way. He opened my eyes, friends, to the miracle of radio. He made me understand how the very essence of His work is trying to reach more people—more souls, aching to be made whole, and be led out of the darkness and into the light of Christ’s own salvation. He made me understand that the words of Jesus Christ are like a pebble thrown into a pool—a pool of life everlasting. Rings of ripples spread out from the spot where that pebble hit the water, and those ripples never stop. They didn’t stop with the Apostles, even though they only spoke to a handful of people at a time. They didn’t stop with my Daddy, who could only speak to a few hundred people, under that canvas tent. And, friends, those ripples didn’t stop with me, either.

“And so, in 1936, I preached my first sermon on radio. And, praise God, more and more people listened, and believed, and prayed with us. They knelt down beside their radios, and we prayed together. The ripples of Christ’s own teaching were spreading wider.

“And then, of course, there came God’s own ultimate miracle—television. And it was then that God touched my shoulder again. He told me to take my wonderful wife Katherine and my young son Elton, and He told us to come here to Los Angeles, the home of television. He made me understand that if radio could work one miracle in His service, then television could work a thousand miracles. That was twenty-eight years ago, friends—in 1950. And I don’t mind telling you—I don’t mind admitting to you—that I was shaking in my soul the first time I preached a sermon in front of a TV camera. Because I was awed by it. I’m
still
awed by it.” As he speaks, Holloway turns to face the camera, eye to eye. Confessing: “Because I knew—I was convinced—that the camera’s eye is all-seeing. It never blinks—and it never lies, either. I knew that the TV, God’s own miracle, would test me sorely. And I prayed to God Almighty that I could pass that test, and that people would believe me. I prayed that the Lord would allow me to bring His words to millions throughout the world, face to face, as Christ first brought the words from heaven down to earth.”

Now Holloway pauses. His eyes fall to the prayer book. Beyond the footlights, the audience is still. When Holloway raises his eyes again to the camera, he speaks softly, humbly:

“Yes,” he says, “I prayed for help, and for guidance. And God answered my prayers. Because within five years—five short years—we were able to build this Temple. We built this magnificent Temple the way my Daddy erected his poor, patched old canvas tent. We built it with your help, friends. With your help, and your dollars, And with God’s own guidance.

“But the erection of the Temple wasn’t the end of our struggle. It wasn’t the end of our mission. It wasn’t the end of God’s plan for us. No, friends, that was only the beginning—only the first circle in that ring of ripples everlasting on the great pool of life. This Temple is only made of wood and glass and concrete and steel. It’s a temporal thing—a thing of the world, and not of the spirit. And God knows that, friends. Because His wishes are clear. I can still feel His hand on my shoulder. I can still hear His voice. I can still hear His command. It’s just as clear as it was many years ago, when I was nineteen years old, and taking up my Daddy’s work. That command is just as clear and as strong as the TV picture that comes from this Temple to your home, God’s own miracle.

“And that command was—” A long, solemn pause. Holloway stares straight into the camera. Then: “That command was, ‘Reach out to others. Widen the ripples of Christ’s teachings. Use God’s electronic miracle to help bring the message of eternal salvation to every person in every home in every village on earth.’ And if those homes don’t have TV sets, if they don’t have radio sets—and many of them didn’t, and still don’t, friends—then our command was equally clear. We were to supply those radio sets, and those TV sets.

“And so, with God’s guidance, we made our plans. We planned our campaign as carefully as any general ever planned for any battle, or any war. We drew up our battle plans, and then we carried them out. We would start humbly, we decided, just as Christ started. We would go into a remote village, and we would find the largest public building, and we would supply it with radios, and TV sets. We would start humbly, but we would finish triumphantly, God willing. Using the miracle of electronics—God’s own ultimate miracle—we would take Christ’s message to all the world.

“And that, friends, is just what we did. We did it with your help, just as we built this Temple with your help. We went first to Chile, in 1961. We took radios and television sets into the towns and the hamlets of that poor, primitive country, and we gave them to the people. Some of those trips were made on horseback, friends, with radios strapped to the backs of burros. Some of our people rode through dangerous jungles, risking life and limb for God. But they achieved their goals. They accomplished their missions. They delivered their holy cargo.

“And then, after we’d done that, we went to Santiago, and we rented their soccer stadium there. We brought the choir, and we brought Pastor Bob and Sister Teresa, and all the other people you’ve come to know and love and depend on for your own weekly walks with God. And we brought our TV cameras, and our transmitters, and our technicians, too. And then, friends, we had ourselves a good, old-fashioned prayer meeting. It was the same kind of a meeting we’d have if we went to Joliet, Illinois, or Little Rock, Arkansas, or St. Petersburg, down in Florida. And I remember, friends—” The voice trembles. In the monitor, looking again straight into the camera, Holloway’s eyes are misted with memory.

“I remember that when I asked who it was that would come down the aisle to repent his sins and take the Lord Jesus Christ for his savior, why, the first person to come down the aisle of that mammoth soccer stadium was his honor the mayor of Santiago. And he was crying, friends. He was crying like a child, unashamed. And his hands were stretched up to heaven, reaching out. And he was only the first of hundreds, friends. Only the first of three hundred and eighteen souls, to be exact, who declared for Christ that day.”

A long, heavy pause. Then:

“And the most miraculous thing-about it was, friends—” Holloway shakes his head, overwhelmed. “The most miraculous thing of all, was that God’s work was done that day with an interpreter. Except for the first sentence, I didn’t speak a word of Spanish. And the audience, they didn’t speak English, of course. But that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter one single bit. Because God spoke through me directly to the hearts of those poor, simple people. He spoke, and they understood. And they believed. And they made their decisions for Christ. All three hundred and eighteen of them, following their mayor down the aisle of that soccer stadium.

“That was in 1961, like I said. Then, in 1965, we took our ministry out to the Philippines, and we reached out to touch the natives there. Next came Africa, in 1972. When we told you that we wanted to buy a river steamer, and outfit it, and sail it down the Nile under God’s banner, to work for Christ among the natives of Africa, you heeded our call. We told you we needed a half million dollars. Yes—” A slow, grave nod. The beautifully barbered head remains momentarily bowed. Intently, the manager looks at the line where Holloway’s hairpiece meets his natural hair. The joining is almost imperceptible.