Televangelism began as a peculiarly American phenomenon, resulting from a largely deregulated media where access to television networks and cable TV is open to virtually anyone who can afford it, combined with a large Christian population that is able to provide the necessary funding.

Televangelist Joel Osteen at Lakewood Church, a Houston (Texas) megachurch .

Different denominations in the American Protestant Churches

(Mainline vs. Evangelical)

In typical usage, the term mainline is contrasted with evangelical. Theologically conservative critics accuse the mainline churches of "the substitution of leftist social action for Christian evangelizing, and the disappearance of biblical theology," and maintain that "All the Mainline churches have become essentially the same church: their histories, their theologies, and even much of their practice lost to a uniform vision of social progress."

The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) counts 26,344,933 members of mainline churches versus 39,930,869 members of evangelical Protestant churches. There is evidence that there has been a shift in membership from mainline denominations to evangelical churches.

As shown in the table below, some denominations with similar names and historical ties to Evangelical groups are considered Mainline.

Protestant: Mainline vs. Evangelical
Family:	Total:^[4]	US%^[4]	Examples:	Type:
Baptist	38,662,005	25.3%	Southern Baptist Convention	Evangelical
			American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A.	Mainline
Pentecostal	13,673,149	8.9%	Assemblies of God	Evangelical
Lutheran	7,860,683	5.1%	Evangelical Lutheran Church in America	Mainline
			Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod	Evangelical
Presbyterian/ Reformed	5,844,855	3.8%	Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)	Mainline
			Presbyterian Church in America	Evangelical
Methodist	5,473,129	3.6%	United Methodist Church	Mainline
			African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church	Evangelical
Anglican	2,323,100	1.5%	Episcopal Church	Mainline
Adventist	2,203,600	1.4%	Seventh-Day Adventist Church	Evangelical
Holiness	2,135,602	1.4%	Church of the Nazarene	Evangelical
Other Groups	1,366,678	0.9%	Church of the Brethren	Evangelical
			Friends General Conference	Mainline

Evangelicalism

Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement in which most adherents consider its key characteristics to be: a belief in the need for personal conversion (or being "born again"), a high regard for Biblical authority and an emphasis on the death and resurrection of Jesus. David Bebbington has termed these distinctive aspects conversionism

, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism.

The term "Evangelical" does not equal Fundamentalist Christianity, although the latter is sometimes regarded simply as the most theologically conservative subset of the former. The major differences largely hinge upon views of how to regard and approach scripture ("Theology of Scripture"), as well as construing its broader world-view implications. While most conservative Evangelicals believe the label has broadened too much beyond its more limiting traditional distinctives, this trend is nonetheless strong enough to create significant ambiguity in the term. As a result, the dichotomy between "evangelical" vs. "mainline" denominations is increasingly complex .

The contemporary North American usage of the term is influenced by the evangelical/fundamentalist controversy of the early 20th century. Evangelicalism may sometimes be perceived as the middle ground between the theological liberalism of the Mainline (Protestant) denominations and the cultural separatism of Fundamentalist Christianity. Evangelicalism has therefore been described as "the third of the leading strands in American Protestantism, straddling the divide between fundamentalists and liberals."

Evangelicals held the view that the modernist and liberal parties in the Protestant churches had surrendered their heritage as Evangelicals by accommodating the views and values of the world. At the same time, they criticized their fellow Fundamentalists for their separatism and their rejection of the Social Gospel as it had been developed by Protestant activists of the previous century. They charged the modernists with having lost their identity as Evangelicals and the Fundamentalists with having lost the Christ-like heart of Evangelicalism. They argued that the Gospel needed to be reasserted to distinguish it from the innovations of the liberals and the fundamentalists.

The movement's aim at the outset was to reclaim the Evangelical heritage in their respective churches, not to begin something new; and for this reason, following their separation from Fundamentalists, the same movement has been better known merely as "Evangelicalism." By the end of the 20th century, this was the most influential development in American Protestant Christianity.