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After setting himself apart from corrupt televangelists and achieving incredible early success, the Christian network chief lived from scandal to scandal.
Marcus Lamb, the founder of Daystar Television, died on Tuesday at the age of 64.
Lamb and his wife, Joni Trammell Lamb, launched Daystar more than two decades after Paul and Jan Crouch started the Trinity Broadcasting Network, and more than three after Pat Robertson started the Christian Broadcasting Network. But they managed to compete with and eventually rival the older Christian broadcast companies through a combination of business savvy, incredible timing, and the maintenance of an upright reputation.
Later in life, though, Lamb seemed to tumble into one scandal after another. He made headlines for sex, money, and conspiracy theories, not his passion for proclaiming the message of Jesus.
An ordained bishop in the Pentecostal Church of God, Lamb said he had been committed to spreading the gospel as far and fast as possible ever since he preached his first sermon at 15. His official Daystar bios always failed to mention, however, the truth he told newspaper reporters in the early years: The only audience for the first message was a horse in his parents’ barn.
But if he sometimes embellished his history, cut corners, and fell short of his own ideals, that didn’t damper his success at building a Christian television network that reached millions of people around the world.
Lamb, for his part, always explained his mission in the same way.
“Our assignment is to build television stations … so we can reach the most people in the least amount of time,” he said in the early 2000s. “With television, we can curse the darkness and turn on the light.”
As news of his death spread on social media, Lamb was remembered by prominent pastors and ministry leaders for his commitment to evangelism.
“I ...
from Christianity Today Magazine
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