Disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker dead at 86

The Praise the Lord Club televangelist Jim Bakker died Monday at the age of 86, according to a statement from Bakker’s second wife, Lori. The late pastor and his first wife, Tammy Faye, rose to fame as televangelists throughout the 1970s and 1980s, before Bakker was federally convicted of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering. Bakker also faced sex abuse accusations from an employee in the late 1980s that forced him to resign from leadership within his own ministry.

But he finished the race with faith, and his decades-long legacy will never be forgotten, according to Lori Bakker’s post on a social media account for The Jim Bakker Show.

Bakker, born in Michigan, attended North Central University, an Assemblies of God-affiliated Bible college in Minneapolis, Minn. There, in 1960, he met Tammy Faye LaValley, whom he married the next year. The newlywed Bakkers left Bible college to become traveling evangelists, eventually finding popularity on Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network.

The Bakkers spent the 1970s and 1980s at the helm of Praise the Lord Ministries, dubbed PTL for short. PTL boasted a booming television program and the country’s third most popular amusement park, Heritage USA, which welcomed 4.9 million visitors annually. Bakker sold tens of thousands of “lifetime partnerships” for hotels that PTL never built.

In 1987, the empire began to unravel when reporters discovered that PTL paid $279,000 in hush money to a former employee who claimed Bakker and a fellow PTL employee had drugged and sexually assaulted her. Bakker denied the sex assault accusation, which never made it to court. But he was convicted of financial crimes and spent almost five years in prison for them.

Though many alleged that Tammy Faye was complicit in his crimes, she never faced charges. She divorced Bakker after his incarceration and died in 2007 at the age of 65.

After his release in 1994, Bakker remarried and rebranded, later launching The Jim Bakker Show in 2003. According to his 1996 book I Was Wrong, Bakker realized his error while in prison—after he read the whole Bible for the first time. In recent decades, Bakker’s sermons focused on survival and preparing for the quickly coming end of days. His website advertised survival buckets with dozens of freeze-dried meals.

Heritage USA, the once-popular amusement park, closed in 1989. A 21-story tower still stands unfinished and empty, despite the paid-for promises of lifetime benefits.

Bakker leaves behind his second wife, Lori, and his two children, Tammy Sue Bakker Chapman and Jay Bakker. Bakker’s cause of death remained unknown on Tuesday morning. The late televangelist earlier reported suffering at least 15 strokes in recent years.