Televangelist Rex Humbard Dies at 88

waltky · 09-22-2007, 03:55 AM

God callin' his ministers home...

Sep 22, 2007: The Rev. Rex Humbard, a former itinerant preacher whose televangelism ministry once reached more parts of the globe than any other religious program, died Friday a family spokeswoman said. He was 88.

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Humbard died of natural causes at a South Florida hospital near his Lantana home, family spokeswoman Kathy Scott said. "He was the ultimate role model in showing love and caring about other people over and above himself," his grandson Rex Humbard III said. The son of evangelists, Humbard evolved his ministry from revivals across the country to a permanent home in Akron, Ohio, and television. He realized the potential of the new medium in the early 1950s and became known to millions by the 1970s. But financial overreaching eventually eroded his organization.

As with his contemporaries Billy Graham and Oral Roberts, Humbard's ministry began to flourish in the post-World War II era. "The vast majority of people do not go to church and the only way we can reach them is through TV," he said in his autobiographical book, "Miracles in My Life." "We must go into their homes - into their hearts - to bring them the gospel of Jesus Christ." His Sunday services were televised by 1953. He began with a renovated theater and eventually built the $4 million domed, 5,000-seat nondenominational Cathedral of Tomorrow, which included velvet drapes, a hydraulic stage and a cross covered with thousands of red, white and blue light bulbs.

His ministry eventually expanded to include a Mackinaw, Mich., campus used for religious education and a 23-story Akron office tower. The broadcast, also called "Cathedral of Tomorrow," developed into a mixture of preaching and music, with Humbard's wife, Maude Aimee, an accomplished gospel singer, and the Cathedral Quartet as regular performers. The Humbards' children also performed. One of Humbard's admirers was Elvis Presley, who often sang gospel music himself. Humbard spoke at his funeral in 1977.

By 1970 Humbard's syndicated program appeared on more TV stations in America than any other program and eventually reached more than 600 stations, according to the 1999 reference work "Religious Leaders of America." By 1979, the show was broadcast in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Far East, Australia and Latin America, giving it a worldwide reach greater than any of his competitors, the reference said.

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