Kristina Serafini | Tribune-Review
Courtesy: Heinz History Center/Detre Library and Archives
A KDKA radio crew prepares for a remote broadcast from the Syria Mosque, circa 1920.
Kristina Serafini | Tribune-Review
The Rev. Jonathon Jensen stands for a portrait in the pulpit at Calvary Episcopal Church in Shadyside on Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2020.
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Before Jerry Falwell, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Joel Osteen, Archbishop Fulton Sheen and famous radio evangelists such as Father Charles Coughlin and Aimee Semple McPherson, there was Edwin Van Etten.
It was the Rev. Edwin Van Etten, far from a household name, who helped popularize the live radio sermon. It began Jan. 2, 1921, at Pittsburgh’s Calvary Episcopal Church on fledgling KDKA radio and continued Sunday nights for decades. And as it happens, Van Etten, rector of the East Liberty church, initially shied aw