Wednesday, December 14, 2022

It is the 14th of December 2022. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

The 1517 podcast network began with one show- it was broadcast out of Concordia University in Irvine with 2 professors. With the connection between this network, 1517, and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, it would make sense for us to remember another broadcasting institution associated with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod that happens to be the oldest Christian radio station in America- and today, it celebrates its 98th birthday as it was on this, the 14th of December in 1924 that KFUO out of St. Louis Missouri went on the air.

Religious broadcasting began 3 years earlier, with KDKA in Pittsburgh broadcasting a church service. Religious broadcasting grew up alongside secular broadcasting, and in 1923 a member of the Walther League- Walter Maier, wrote an article in the Lutheran Messenger, “Why not a Lutheran Broadcasting Station?” The question was taken to the board of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, and 7,000 was raised for just such a project. The Walther League supplied another 7,000 dollars, and the station debuted on the 14th of December. Its founders were named the Rev Richard Kretzschmar and Walter A. Maier, who would go on to national prominence as the host of the Lutheran Hour on CBS radio. The station was assigned the call letters KFUO which the station, after the fact, said stood for forward, upward, and onward.

At first, KFUO only had two shows that were broadcast on Sundays and Wednesdays. They shared the station at 830 AM with KSD from the St. Louis Dispatch. The Dispatch wanted to buy KFUO, and the two stations put in claims- KFUO was moved up the dial to 850, where they could broadcast- however, they are a sundowner station meaning they must go off the air whenever the sun goes down in the market of the nearest clear channel signal- so KFUO broadcasts until sundown in Denver Colorado and comes back on the air at sunrise in Denver.

By 1928 the station had 34 programs and was broadcasting up to 21 hours a week. In the early 30s, CBS stopped airing the Lutheran Hour- there’s a bigger story here for another time, but the abuse of religious broadcasters to broadcast the likes of Father Charles Coughlin- a blatant anti-semitic racist led to a crackdown on religious groups buying airtime (there was already donated religious time on the major networks overseen by the Federal Council of Churches, the Catholic Church and a Jewish board of oversight). This would lead to the creation of the National Religious Broadcasters, or NRB forming- one of the largest conservative broadcasting associations.

Maier brought the Lutheran Hour to KFUO, where it was then syndicated along with the devotional program “Portals of Prayer.” Portals stopped broadcasting in 2013, but the Lutheran Hour continues today.

In 1948 KFUO was granted a sister station on the FM dial. In 1975 when the FCC ruled that simulcasting stations could no longer operate, it became a classical station- then Classic99 until recently switching formats to contemporary Christian music.

The station and the denomination made headlines in the 1990s when they were part of a lawsuit that became The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod vs. the FCC. They were charged with running afoul of the Equal Employment Opportunity laws for a failure to hire minorities and for requiring doctrinal assent for certain positions. The court ruled that the LCMS and KFUO had not, in fact, broken the law and that first amendment protections afforded them the right to discriminate with regard to hiring Lutheran Christians for certain positions.

Another controversy involved the program Issues, Etc- a talk show that was taken off the air. Some in the denomination thought there were ulterior motives for doing this besides the economic reasons it gave in what some considered a less than forthright and transparent manner. The show would be privately funded on another station and later as a podcast that would then be syndicated on other stations.

Today we remember the oldest continual Christian radio station in America - to the Lutherans who started broadcasting 98 years ago and their impact on generations of Christian and Lutheran broad- and now podcasters.

The last word for today comes from the daily lectionary- from Matthew 8:

14 When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. 15 He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him.

16 When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:

“He took up our infirmities
    and bore our diseases.”

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 14th of December 2022, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by the name in Lutheran audio production and coffee roasting- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man whose first broadcast was in 1993 on L.A’s Xtra Sports 690 with Steve Mason and Rick Schwartz- I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.