Online Minister To Host 'Interactive Evening'

Published: May 19, 2007

When New Age spiritual guru Deepak Chopra packed the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center a few months back, Bill Keller saw an opportunity.

"If people like him can get audiences to pay $40, $50, even $100 a ticket to come and listen to their nonsense, then I can get people to come out and talk about real issues," he surmised.

And he wanted to go one step better. He would make it free, thanks to donors willing to pay the $5,000 rental fee for the facility.

Keller - host of "LivePrayer With Bill Keller," a TV call-in program that airs at 1 a.m. weekdays on WTOG, Channel 44 - will bring his own version of spiritual smack to the center's Ferguson Hall at 8 p.m. Friday.

He's calling it "An Interactive Evening of Faith." Since this is a man who rarely holds back, it promises to be a few fun hours.

No subject is taboo. He plans to tackle the "big issues" of life: where we come from, why we are here and where we go when we die. He'll talk about homosexuality, abortion, presidential politics, addictions. He toes the fundamentalist line with a Bible he loves to thump, but his aim isn't directed at adoring listeners.

He wants engagement and debate, and he prefers it from people who totally disagree with him. There's no point in preaching to the choir.

Shock Jock Stern Receptive

Case in point: A producer for shock jock Howard Stern, who now has two shows on satellite radio, captured a few of Keller's sound bites and spliced them into the program. Yes, they were making fun of some of Keller's more outrageous statements.

When Keller heard about it from some of his fans, he got a message to Stern's people.

"I didn't mind them using the bites; I just wanted credit for it. In fact, I told them I wanted to be interviewed by him," he says.

On March 1, Stern obliged. What was supposed to be a five-minute interview turned into 25.

It was such a hoot that Stern called Keller and invited him to New York, offering him a full hour for a call-in show. And he gave him another hour in April. Negotiations are under way to do something on an ongoing basis, Keller says.

"He's actually been very respectful," Keller says of Stern. "The first few minutes of our interview started out crude. By the end of it, I think we had achieved a level of respect, even though we come from two completely different places."

Yes, Keller is always working a new angle. But there's a reason for his willingness to stride into territory typically shunned by conservative Christians.

"Every time I've been on [Stern's show], we've typically gotten between 4,000 and 5,000 e-mails from people who want to continue the discussion," he says. "They run about 50-50. Some are legitimately looking for help, looking for prayer, looking for answers."

That's how Keller sees it. He would rather have one hour on Stern's program than a month on any Christian network.

Online Ministry Blossoming

Keller loves to be different. In 1999, he launched LivePrayer.com, a Web site and online prayer ministry. You can log on, request a prayer and get an answer in 24 hours from one of more than 700 retired ministers around the country. The site operated out of a cramped, donated space at a St. Petersburg used-car lot.

I thought it would last a few months. Keller proved me wrong. Since its inception, he says, LivePrayer has responded to more than 60 million requests. About 2.4 million e-mail subscribers get the daily devotional.

The Web site and the television show cost about $2 million annually to operate. Keller is proud that he doesn't solicit for donations on the air, which is common practice for religious broadcasting.

"We're now in our 93rd month of operation, and every month, it's the same. We start off with nothing, and the supporters come through," he says. "That's God's grace."

Not bad for an ex-druggie (cocaine) and a former felon (securities violations in an insider trading scandal in the 1980s). That was then; this is now. A conversion to Christianity while in prison put Keller on a new path.

As for Friday's event, he promises he won't be selling tapes or books or passing the collection basket. But he will be running off at the mouth, and there's no telling what he'll say.

For information, go to liveprayer

.com or call (727) 420-7005.