When the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Feb. 28, 2026, images of smoke rising over Iranian cities flooded global newsfeeds. Yet something else remained a constant feature of those same skylines: the thousands of satellite dishes perched on Tehran's rooftops, quietly pulling in signals from beyond Iran's borders — despite persistent government attempts to confiscate them.
For more than two decades, Christian television channels produced in the United States and Europe have been finding their way into Iranian living rooms. Some of this programming echoes apocalyptic ideas from American voices promoting the war, rooted in scriptural interpretations with a long history in evangelical thought. Writer Hal Lindsey helped popularize these ideas in the 1970s with "The Late Great Planet Earth," a best-selling book that cast Persia as the prophesied antagonist in an imminent end-times confrontation that would herald Jesus' second coming.
In my 2025 book, "Satellite Ministries: The Rise of Christian Television in the Middle East," I trace how these broadcasts became instruments for spreading such messages to both Christians and potential converts — positioning the region at the center of a long-running "faith war."
Satellite missions
Christianity itself was born in the Middle East, and the region's rich, diverse traditions long predate any Western missionary presence. Ancient communities — the Assyrians, Copts, Maronites, and Armenians — have maintained their liturgical and theological heritage across generations, representing some of the oldest continuous Christian traditions on earth.
Evangelical churches, however, have been proselytizing in the region for two centuries. Over the past 50 years, evangelical media operations have tended to expand during moments of conflict or wherever weak government control has opened space for missionary activity.
During the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1991), U.S. evangelicals — including former business executive George Otis and Christian Broadcasting Network founder Pat Robertson — established what is now known as Middle East Television. The channel transmitted from Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon from 1981 to 2000, operating in a legal gray zone that sidestepped both Israeli and Lebanese broadcasting regulations.
The station's primary aim was the conversion of Israeli Jews to Christianity — a goal tied to triggering a sequence of end-times events consistent with prophetic frameworks widely held in American evangelical circles at the time.
A similar dynamic took shape after 9/11 and during the Iraq War that began in 2003. Paul Crouch, founder of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, was among the evangelicals who viewed the U.S. invasion as an opening for "spiritual warfare" — a cosmic battle between good and evil playing out in the Middle East. He traveled to Iraq and distributed satellite equipment so that local populations could receive evangelical programming in Arabic.
Many evangelicals interpreted the Iraq conflict through an apocalyptic lens, reading the chaos as confirmation of biblical prophecy. Some, like Oklahoma pastor Mark Hitchcock, argued that the fall of Baghdad and the toppling of Saddam Hussein mirrored scriptural descriptions of the destruction of "Babylon" preceding Christ's return.
This prophetic framing proved to be a potent fundraising tool among North American donors who believed they were helping accelerate a divine timetable.
Persian broadcasts
Western evangelicalism's presence in Iran dates to the 19th century. But arguably its most striking modern chapter began roughly two decades ago, when Christian networks began exploiting new satellite technology to circumvent Iran's tight restrictions on both media and religion.
Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Islamic Republic permitted Armenian and Assyrian Christians to practice their ancient faiths in their own languages, officially recognizing them as religious minorities. At the same time, it effectively criminalized Protestant worship conducted in Persian, which it associated with Western missionary influence.
Because Iranian evangelicals — a small fraction of the country's Christian population — worshipped in Persian, the prohibition triggered church closures, the persecution of community leaders, and a sweeping ban on missionary work. Converting from Islam to another religion is illegal in Iran, and those who do so risk serious punishment.
By 2006, Christian organizations based abroad had turned to satellite broadcasting as the most viable way to reach Iranian audiences. Satellite dishes, though officially banned, were already widespread and difficult for authorities to suppress at scale. Precise viewership figures are impossible to verify, but producers claim that Christian broadcasts helped nurture clandestine house churches across the country.
Gathering quietly in living rooms — guided by television programs and companion WhatsApp groups — believers conducted Bible studies and communal prayers. Many converts kept their faith carefully hidden to avoid persecution.
While exact figures remain elusive, Western governments and human rights organizations have documented a growing number of arrests of converts. Some of these groups report that the Islamic Republic has accused detainees of collaborating with foreign intelligence services.
3 channels
As I examine in my book, three major Persian-language Christian channels illustrate distinct approaches to this form of digital missionary work.
SAT-7 PARS, founded by British missionary Terence Ascott and a coalition of Western evangelical organizations, pursued a deliberately cautious strategy — encapsulated in its channel slogan, "make God's love visible." Its programming emphasized children's content and shows that engaged with Western perspectives on women's rights and family. Even this measured approach drew a hard response: in its early years, SAT-7's translation offices in Tehran were repeatedly raided, staff members detained, and translation operations ultimately relocated to England and Cyprus.
Two channels adopted a more confrontational tone: Trinity Broadcasting Network's Nejat — meaning "salvation" — and the Christian Broadcasting Network's Mohabat TV, meaning "love." Reza Safa, an Iranian convert who became a Pentecostal preacher in Sweden and the United States, teamed with TBN's Paul Crouch to launch Nejat. Safa framed Christianity as engaged in an existential struggle against what he described as the "demonic" forces of extremist Islam.
Mohabat TV struck a similar note, leaning heavily into the language of spiritual warfare and miraculous "signs and wonders." The channel also documented secret baptisms of Iranian converts, casting clandestine faith as both newsworthy and triumphant.
Among the more striking developments has been the introduction of Christian Zionist theology into Persian-language satellite broadcasting. Christian Zionism holds that the modern state of Israel occupies a pivotal role in biblical prophecy. In recent years, Mohabat TV has broadcast high-production Persian-language documentaries such as "In the Footsteps of Jesus," a film set in the "Holy Land" that presents Israel not as a geopolitical adversary — as Iranian state media insists — but as a land every Christian is called to revere.
Language of war
When conflict escalated in 2026, the Yahsat satellite service — an Emirati carrier that hosts Persian-language Christian channels alongside other programming — began experiencing disruptions. Iran has a long record of jamming satellite signals to suppress foreign broadcasts reaching its citizens.
Back in Washington, the religious framing of the conflict was growing louder. Religious language continued to escalate in American political discourse, with evangelical commentators increasingly invoking apocalyptic prophecy to interpret events in the Middle East.
It is a message with deep roots. Since the early 1980s, evangelical broadcasting ministries operating in the region have woven together conversion, end-times theology, and geopolitical commentary into a remarkably consistent — and durable — media project.
Febe Armanios does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
