Preacher Eli Soriano joins Youtube community for online bible expositions

Following his foray into the blogosphere, Philippine preacher Eli Soriano this time embarks on video blogging via Youtube to kick off anew his biblical expositions online to target the more than 12 million avid viewers of the wildly popular video sharing portal owned by Google.

Eli Soriano is presiding minister of ADD or Ang Dating Daan (The Old Path) in the Philippines, a group named after the preacher's long-running religious program of more than two decades.  Officially, the group Soriano heads is registered Members Church of God International, on account of the worldwide presence of this once small-town group with only nearly 300 members during the 80s.

Today the group has estimated membership of half a million and still growing.

First post on October 2 with Youtube was Soriano's commentary about one Oprah Winfrey Show episode which tackles the differing views by members and preachers of different Christian groups in the United States about whether Jesus Christ is the only way to go to heaven and be saved.

This comes as a follow up to his earlier posted article to his Wordpress blog, located at esoriano.wordpress.com, entitled “The Truth is the Truth—if it is the whole Truth." Soriano said while browsing online, he saw this one Oprah episode and was amazed how the Queen of Talk Show gave her brilliant insight and question that if the only way to be saved is through Jesus Christ, what will happen then to those who have not heard about the Savior?

On his blog, the often dubbed "most sensible preacher of the times" has been receiving an average of 4,000 daily unique visitors since its launch on April this year.  Recent topics featured on his blog are diverse mix of issues such as the Sabbath, Ten Commandments, Jesus Christ's deity, and commentaries to headline-grabbing people and events such as Ernie Chambers and Kathy Griffin, a self-professed atheist.

Soriano on his Youtube video shed light on such matter that God in the Bible who wants all people to be saved has provided leeway to those people who may or have no means to hear the Word of God in the Bible, particularly those who live in far-flung places.

Over the years, Soriano has tried almost all means available to preach.  On radio and television, he hosts the award-winning Ang Dating Daan, while on live online streaming he hosts Worldwide Bible Exposition which features the Itanong mo kay Soriano (Ask Soriano) segment, where people are urged to ask him questions live.  

Soriano on the web is dubbed the Truthcaster, with a website located at truthcaster.com, which holds his English format video of several programs namely Biblically Speaking, Truth in Focus and Bible Guide.  It will also be recalled that Soriano held his fist live online video exposition on this website, and even accepted questions from an online chat carried by this website.  

In the Philippines where he has huge followers, organization website of his group has been winning popular choice awards from the country's Web Awards since 2002 and was consistently declared "Most Popular Website of the Year."  ADD, on one hand, was "Most Informative Religious Program of the Year" in 2006 from the Gawad Amerika award-giving body in Hollywood, California.

His phenomenal rise as a preacher, according to several newspaper accounts online, has earned him both avid followers and opponents, particularly from other religious front who took the brunt of his hard-hitting and frank discourses and exposes to teachings and doctrines not in the Bible.

On his earlier years in Philippine broadcasts, Soriano’s program, Ang Dating Daan, could have enjoyed longer airtime hours but enemies from other religions are conspiring and conniving to buy his blocktime slot from networks, inventing lies to character assault the person of Soriano, even to the point of putting pressure to network managements to remove or ban the preacher from airing on television such as in IBC-13.

Religious persecutions and pressures compelled the evangelist to use the online medium and modern technology to continue his relentless mission to preach at all cost amidst pressures and other challenges.  He still has Bible Exposition at his disposal where he uses live streaming to allow simultaneous conferencing from different parts of the world.

With more than 100 million videos being watched daily by millions of Youtube fans worldwide as of June estimates from the company, Soriano who just started his own this month will have to make his video channel appeal to as wide and greater number of people not just members of the Church he presided.