The Encyclopedia of World Religions

televangelism S 443

too, the inhabitants of eastern Tibet held great summer festivals in her honor.

There is a good reason, then, for the puzzling language that the book uses. No one can express directly what the book is trying to say. The Tao is not only nameless. It also has no intentions or purposes. Thus, the Tao Te Ching insists that the Tao never acts. Nevertheless, the Tao is “the mother of all things.” The Tao Te Ching uses many different images to express the creative power of the Tao. One is mathematical: “The Dao produced the one, the one produced the two, the two produced the three, and the three produced the ten thousand.” Another image appeals to nature: “There is nothing softer and weaker than water, and yet there is nothing better for attacking hard and strong things.” According to the Tao Te Ching , the Tao should be our guide in life. The book rejects C ONFUCIUS and his emphasis on proper behavior. In carefully pre scribing behavior Confucius carves blocks of stone, so to speak, and thus destroys them. According to the Tao Te Ching , one should simply accept the stone as it is, uncarved. Governments, too, should imitate the Tao. The best rulers do not govern with iron fists. “The best leaders value their words, and use them sparingly. When they have accomplished their tasks, the people say, ‘Amazing: we did it, all by ourselves!’” The above quotes and observations only begin to reveal the contents of this remarkable book. It bears careful rereading and calm reflection. Tara A Buddhist GODDESS worshipped for protec tion. Tara is the female counterpart of the BODHI SATTVA known as A VALOKITESVARA . Although her cult arose in India, she is most popular in Tibetan Bud dhism ( see T IBETAN RELIGION ). There, monks and laypeople alike WORSHIP her as a deity who protects them from all sorts of dangers. It is sometimes said that Tara gives protection from eight dangers: elephants, lions, serpents, thieves, vampires, sea monsters, fire, and chains. Artists have been par ticularly fond of depicting the eight Taras who save worshippers from these threats. By tradition, traveling troupes of players acted out tales of Tara and her deliverances, By tradition,

Tathagata A Sanskrit word meaning “having gone [ gata ] or come [ ¯agata ] thus [ tath¯a ].” The term is designation for the B UDDHA . It applies especially to the Buddha after his parinirvana ( see NIRVANA ). In the oldest traditions of B UDDHISM the Bud dha is not a god whom Buddhists WORSHIP . He is a human being who is venerated because he blazed the path to ultimate release from SAMSARA or rebirth. To achieve release, human beings must follow him. As a result, the Buddha was called the Tatha gata, “the one who went that way.” Buddhists also read the term as “the one who came thus,” refer ring to the Buddha’s teaching of the dharma in the world. The title is said to date back to the Buddha himself. televangelism The use of television to spread religious messages. The word “evangelism” refers specifically to spreading the message of Christian ity, but other religions, too, have begun to use tele vision for similar purposes. Television first became widespread in the United States in the 1950s. At that time, several mainline churches experimented with televi sion broadcasts. For example, in 1958 the United Lutheran Church of America began work on a car toon series, “Davey and Goliath.” In 1960, how ever, the federal government ruled that broadcast ers did not have to give nonprofit organizations such as churches a certain amount of their airtime without charge. As a result, interest in such pro gramming among producers fell off. In the 1980s, televangelism came into its own, largely among conservative Protestants ( see P ROT ESTANTISM ). These people formed their own broad casting networks, such as the Christian Broadcast ing Network, founded by Pat Robertson (b. 1930), and the PTL network, founded by Jim Bakker (b. 1939). In addition, many Christian televangelists