Kirk D. FARNEY.  Ministers of a New Medium:  Broadcasting Theology in the Radio Ministries of Fulton J. Sheen and Walter A. Maier. Foreword Mark A. Noll. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic / Inter-Varsity Press, 2022. pp. 345. $40.00 hardcover.  ISBN 978-1-5140-0322-0. Reviewed by Joseph DOUGHERTY, 1900 West Olney Avenue, La Salle University, Philadelphia, PA 19141.

The thesis of Ministers of a New Medium is that two media pioneers, Catholic Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979) and Lutheran Walter A. Maier (1893-1950), guided their denominations into the American religious mainstream. Other radio preachers, perhaps of even greater “ethereal” market penetration, were not “conservative, orthodox” in their Christianity. For example, firebrand Father Charles Coughlan (1891-1977) was highly political, and fundamentalist Charles Fuller’s Old Fashioned Revival Hour had begun in 1924, and its audience was admittedly larger than Maier’s or Sheen’s.The large audiences of The Lutheran Hour and Catholic Hour did not follow denominational lines. Indeed, Lutherans’ media presence magnified their actual membership.

Anti-Catholicism was patent in the era. Witness the KKK and the presidential campaign of Governor Al Smith of New York in 1928. Lutherans were mostly German ethnically, and anti-German sentiments arose during the World Wars. Maier, according to Farney, was comfortably Protestant, for example, using abundant hymns from other denominations. Sheen maintained a Catholic profile; although he was on the radio, he dressed as a prelate and referred to Mary, the Blessed Mother of God. Indeed, the contract with NBC specified the program was to explain “to the American public . . . the Catholic faith.” Both interacted cordially and productively with many acceptable denominational leaders in their long careers.

The book summarizes aptly the lives of the protagonists, whose prominence has demanded proper biographies. It summarizes, too, early commercial radio and the development of networks, and then treats the origins of these two programs in delightful detail. The National Broadcasting Company took the initiative for The Catholic Hour; radio time was gratis; administrative costs were borne by National Council of Catholic Men, a subgroup of the National Catholic Welfare Council. Sheen shared its pulpit.  Maier, on the other hand, instigated, if not single-handedly, The Lutheran Hour. It paid commercial rates, and Concordia Seminary of the Missouri Synod, anchored the studio. Maier’s fund-raising is well documented. Also, Farney hypothesizes that Maier succeeded because the “ponderous” denomination had averted its attention.
Sheen and Maier had both earned impressive doctorates and held academic appointments. Ironically, they were wont to deride “modernistic” intellectualism—I.e., liberal Protestantism--as embodied by Henry Emerson Fosdick.

Their amazingly accessible—even entertaining—sermons exploited infant commercial radio. Sheen’s “delivery . . . vivified the words, stimulated the intellect, stirred the emotions, and moved the soul.” Maier’s delivery was “breathlessly energetic and relentless.” His physical and passionate delivery had him strip to a tee-shirt while on the air! Such figured into publicity for the program. The book does not credit any professional public-relations efforts, but notes their natural celebrity, even glamor.

Sheen and Maier “believed in capital –T ‘Truth” (147). Maier’s diction was Bible and Holy Writ, and “sola scriptura” was his foundation. He also urged regular individual recourse to the Bible. Sheen, in contrast, referred to “light of revelation, words of heavenly wisdom, and immutable truth” (148) Sheen explicated dogma, but he reached his audience by emphasizing that “Christ living” is the fundament of (Catholic) faith.  Sheen urged upon his listeners an hour of meditation daily. Both glossed Biblical passages by enlivening them. Maier wove into the passages references to the times. Both professed “substitutionary and propitiatory atonement” (178). Farney observes that Sheen indeed was “disgusted” by those who regarded Jesus as an ethical teacher only.

"Take your tawdry, cheap Christ Whom you call a moral teacher and ethical reformer, social planner; Whom you would put on the same plane as Buddha, Confucius, Laotze and Whom you call a good man. He is not just a good man. . .  We need the Risen Jesus of the Scars for our time." (188)

Both preachers logically connected the atonement with the universality of sin, despite denials by modernists. Maier balanced sin with grace, readily available by giving one’s life to Jesus. Maier enjoined, soon after Pearl Harbor, “America, turn to Jesus” (233). Sheen wrapped grace in terms of “reparation for sin,” which would make “many Protestants squirm” (196). Both explained sanctification with some humility. In 1949, Sheen applied humor. “This broadcast is not for saints or angels but for penitent sinners. . . I will give the saints two seconds to shut me off” (213). Lutheran and Catholic both called upon America to resume godly living. Both were avowed patriots, but not uncritical.

Absence of a bibliography demands the rich and meticulous footnoting. Therein, Sheen’s critique of psychology and its ramifications, for example, provides a compact bonus chapter (193). Doctor Farney could have transposed this American religious history--and also relevantly media history--to a treatise on proto-ecumenism. Ministers of a New Medium enhances our understanding of popular theology and its success with new technology, quite handsomely.