The 20th Century brought about significant changes to the way many North Americans spent their discretionary time. Radio became an important source of information and entertainment in homes, offices and automobiles. Information that might have taken days or weeks to find its way into our homes, now became available in hours or minutes. In a very real way, it transformed the sharing of information and ideas — in both healthy and sometimes injurious ways!
When television began sweeping across the continent, the way many people spent their discretionary time again changed radically. The television generation of the 50’s and 60’s had far different expectations about accessing information and entertainment than prior generations. Through television, sometimes the news broke right before our eyes.
While Christadelphians were faced with how to deal with this intrusion into their own homes, it was clear that radio and television were here to stay. The people that were spending their discretionary time listening to the radio or watching their television were the same audience that we wanted to interest in the Truth.
Brethren looked carefully at these new “technologies” and realized that there might be a great opportunity to preach the word through them. The stories collected here are about some of the pioneering work that was done in radio and television by Christadelphians. While often they are stories from the past, they may provide important insights for preaching as new technologies for communications and entertainment continue to be developed.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One