Every new media development in the United States has attracted interest within religious circles. In the earliest days of the Republic, there were many newspapers and magazines published that purported to provided a Christian worldview (see Olasky, 1988).
In the early days of the development of electricity during the mid-nineteenth century, people openly expressed amazement or awe that God had made it possible for humankind to communicate across distance. Telegraph lines were "lightning lines;" as this new technology reached one small town after another sermons captured the essence of Samuel F. B. Morse’s first message: “What hath God wrought?” (Czitrom, 1982; Carey, 1988)
The possibilities for world-wide evangelization using this technology fascinated people in the church. Few were bothered by Thoreau's famous witticism when told that America was in such a hurry to construct a telegraph line from Maine to Texas: "but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate." (Quoted by Lundin, 1995, p. 22)
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