The rise and fall of Jim Bakker

Jim Bakker, founder of the PTL television ministry, visionary leader of Heritage USA, and eventual inmate of the federal prison system, died Monday at age 86. By any measure, he lived a most interesting life. Seen rightly, the rise and fall of Jim Bakker is one of the most bizarre but revealing chapters in the story of American religion.

Jim Bakker came from a family that had deep roots in American Pentecostalism. As a young man, he headed off to North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, where he met Tammy Faye LaValley. They were soon married and headed off into a life of ministry. He would eventually join Pat Robertson at the ministry known as CBN—the Christian Broadcasting Network. Robertson and Bakker would present as an odd pair. The scion of Virginia aristocracy, Robertson was the son of a U.S. senator. Bakker was from the old sawdust trail. Nevertheless, they were a dynamic duo and Robertson clearly understood Bakker’s ability to raise money from a television audience.

Evidently, Bakker understood his own ability as well. With his wife Tammy Faye, who was already known for her outlandish makeup and hairstyles matched to an outlandish personality, Bakker left CBN and in 1976 established PTL, for “Praise the Lord” ministries and his own television ministry called “The PTL Club.” Together, the Bakkers quickly built a television empire, based on Jim’s ability to raise millions of dollars from viewers, largely through the standard monthly donations branded as memberships.

By the 1980s, late night comedians on major networks were making fun of the Bakkers, who were grinning all the way to the bank. They would eventually draw an audience of more than 13 million weekly viewers. They were absolutely committed to their own aggressive form of prosperity theology, which holds that God promises wealth and prosperity to Christians and that worldly wealth is a sign of God’s abundant blessings.

They were ostentatious in their display of wealth and excess, right down to Tammy Faye’s over-the-top outfits and flamboyant hair colorings. They were transported on private jets and in chauffeur-driven limousines, lived in a gaudy mansion, and proudly showed PTL viewers their proof of God’s blessing. Their dogs lived in air-conditioned dog houses. The Bakkers were so outlandish that most Americans could not take them seriously. Yet, by any measure, they were piling up serious money, receiving well over $100 million each year in contributions. Critics eventually suggested that PTL actually stood for “Pass the Loot.”

Jim Bakker also came up with a remarkable concept that became Heritage USA, a Christian theme park presented as a family friendly alternative to Disney attractions on a complex that included the television studios for the PTL Club, a conference center, and eventually a high-rise hotel. In a very real sense, that hotel would be a big part of PTL’s collapse. But, in the years before the explosion of controversy and scandal that brought Jim Bakker down, Heritage USA ranked as the third most popular entertainment destination for American families, behind only the two Disney theme parks.

For a while, it worked. I was a graduate student working on my Ph.D. in theology when I had to go to the area for a wedding. I decided to attend a taping of the PTL Club program. I was interested in seeing prosperity theology on full display. It’s safe to say I got what I was looking for. Honestly, I was more amazed by the audience than by Jim and Tammy Faye on the stage.

Everything blew up in March of 1987. The Charlotte Observer broke the story of a sexual affair that involved Jim Bakker and a younger woman who had been a church secretary. Predictably, the story quickly expanded to include the use of ministry funds as hush payments to the woman. Everything began to fall apart, but the world of prosperity theology and the religious culture that produced the empire was also prone to forgive, if not forget, the sexual misdeeds of their leaders. In one of the strangest twists of the story, Jerry Falwell, well known as the theological opposite of Jim Bakker, stepped in to provide temporary credibility. Falwell would discover that the scandal was even worse than imagined, and he left.

It all fell apart fast when the sex scandal turned also into a financial scandal that would eventually find Bakker convicted of federal crimes and sent to federal prison. Some of the counts were related to Bakker’s method of raising money by promising stays at Heritage USA in the big hotel as rewards for contributions. It turned out that Bakker had made promises he knew he could not fulfill. Add sex scandal to financial scandal and the enterprise fell apart fast. Most of the property is now in an advanced state of disrepair.

Tammy Faye divorced Jim Bakker when he was in prison, remarried, and became something of a gay-rights celebrity. Drag queens liked her outfits and her style. Jim Bakker eventually was paroled from prison, remarried, and started another religious program, this time through streaming video. Once again, he would get himself into legal trouble.

The death of Jim Bakker raises all the issues that are connected to prosperity theology, American Pentecostalism, religious television, and celebrity culture. The lessons are huge.

I have to conclude with a story that will be told more fully, I hope, one day in a memoir. I was involved in a big SBC conference on biblical inerrancy that met at the Ridgecrest conference center near Asheville, N.C. Due to a runway issue, the Asheville airport was temporarily closed. I was pressed into service, quite gladly, to drive to the Charlotte airport to transport major evangelical scholars to the conference. As a doctoral student, I was elated to drive, for example, the late J. I. Packer two hours each way for the conference. The PTL scandal was then at its height. To my utter surprise, Packer asked if we could drive to Heritage USA to see it, at the peak of controversy, first hand.

We arrived just as the news was breaking of the expanded controversy. Patience had run out. We drove onto the property only to see tractors plowing through a giant planting that spelled “FORGIVEN” at the entrance. Packer quietly said that the entire vision was horrifying. Has was assuredly right, for it certainly was horrifying. But it was also clarifying. Almost 40 years later, the memory remains powerful. The whole scene was wretched and tragic, and that pretty much sums up the story of PTL.

Editor’s note: This column has been corrected to reflect that Jim Bakker attended North Central Bible College in Minneapolis.