Televangelists

In “Southland: Television’s Bible Belt” (Jan. 12) you gave ink to one of the most reprehensible practices of the broadcast industry, electronic religion. As a 30-year veteran of Los Angeles broadcasting, and an announcer, for over a decade, at one of the flagship Christian stations in this country, I witnessed some of the most blatant chicaneries ever fostered upon an uneducated, unsophisticated, superstitious and redemption-seeking public.

I refer to expensively dressed and coiffed men, with their outrageous, sometimes slattern women, begging, cajoling, in some cases threatening their faithful listeners, in their attempts to extract money for the purpose of perpetuating their opulent temples and ministries.

May I suggest the removal of their tax-exempt status as a means of making them disappear. I assure you, without hesitation, they will.

RAHN HARRIS

Ventura

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Didn’t the Crouches learn anything from Jim Bakker?

It sickens me to think of the amount of money televangelists bring in under the name of God and how excessively they spend it. Imagine the good that could be done in this world if that money went to a cause instead of someone’s inflated ego.

JOHN GORDON

Anaheim Hills