Paul Crouch, the religious broadcaster who co-founded Trinity Broadcasting Network and was known for his prosperity gospel messages and lavish lifestyle, died Saturday. He was 79.
His death was announced on the network’s website.
“We are grateful for the life of this amazing servant of God,” it said. “Please pray for the Crouch family during this time.”
Crouch and his wife, Jan, started the network in a rented facility in Santa Ana, Calif., in 1973. Now based in Costa Mesa, it grew to include a “family of networks” and became the largest and most-watched Christian broadcast company in the country.
“Paul was a pioneer in Christian television; the channels and studios that Paul built around the world are an incredible achievement and will live on as a permanent legacy,” religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, founder of the rival Christian Broadcasting Network, said in a statement.
In October, Crouch was taken to a Dallas-area hospital after falling ill. By November he had returned to California, where a spokesman said his doctors were addressing “heart and related health issues.”
Crouch was the host of TBN’s “Behind the Scenes,” which gave donors updates on network activities. He and his wife also co-hosted TBN’s flagship “Praise the Lord” program, which now sometimes features other Christian celebrity hosts, such as Bishop T.D. Jakes and singer Carman, but maintains the Christian chats, guest musicians and Pentecostal fervor it has had for decades.
“Tears pour from my eyes, I’ll miss my friend but there is Joy in Heaven where millions of people are thanking him for sharing Jesus with them,” said evangelist Arthur Blessitt, who has carried a large cross around the world and was a frequent guest on TBN programs.
Crouch was an on-air evangelist but also a media magnate who expanded his television empire to several continents, including Central and South America. Both he and his wife stood out physically — especially his wife’s purple bouffant hairstyle — but their main success was a multimillion-dollar network to which popular religious broadcasters paid to air their programs.
“With his snowy white mane, he was a visibly important part of televangelistic talk shows, but he did not cultivate a flashy or controversial style of delivering his message,” said Anson Shupe, retired professor of sociology from Indiana University-Purdue University, who wrote about televangelists in the 1980s.
