James Orsen "Jim" Bakker (born January 2, 1940, pronounced "Baker") is an American
televangelistTelevangelism is the use of television to communicate the Christian faith. The word is a portmanteau of television and evangelism and was coined by Time magazine. A “televangelist” is a Christian minister who devotes a large portion of his ministry to television broadcasting...
, a former Assemblies of God minister, and a former host (with his then-wife Tammy Faye Bakker) of
The PTL ClubThe PTL Club , later called The Jim and Tammy Show, and in its last days PTL Today and Heritage Today, was a Christian television program first hosted by evangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, which ran from 1974 to 1989...
, a popular
evangelicalEvangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
television program.
A sex scandal led to his resignation from the ministry. Subsequent revelations of
accounting fraudAccounting scandals, or corporate accounting scandals, are political and business scandals which arise with the disclosure of misdeeds by trusted executives of large public corporations...
brought about his
imprisonmentImprisonment is a legal term.The book Termes de la Ley contains the following definition:This passage was approved by Atkin and Duke LJJ in Meering v Grahame White Aviation Co....
and
divorceDivorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
and effectively ended his time in the larger public eye.
Early life
Bakker was born in
Muskegon, MichiganMuskegon is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 38,401. The city is the county seat of Muskegon County...
, the son of Raleigh Bakker and Furnia Lynette "Furn" Irwin. Bakker attended
North Central UniversityNorth Central University is a coeducational, undergraduate, primarily residential college owned and operated by 11 Assemblies of God districts of the upper Midwest. It is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA...
, a Bible college affiliated with the Assemblies of God, in
Minneapolis, MinnesotaMinneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
, where in 1960 he met fellow student Tammy Faye LaValley. He worked in a restaurant inside a department store in Minneapolis, and she had a job in a boutique for a time.
On April 1, 1961, Bakker and Tammy Faye were married. They left the Bible college to become
evangelistsEvangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
. They had two children, Tammy Sue "Sissy" Bakker Chapman (born March 2, 1970) and
Jamie Charles "Jay" BakkerJamie Charles Bakker is an American Christian pastor and the son of Jim Bakker and the late Tammy Faye Bakker Messner. He ministers to Revolution Church, a church he founded in 1994 in Phoenix, Arizona with Kelli Miller and Mike Wall...
(born December 18, 1975).
Career
In 1966, the Bakkers began working at
Pat RobertsonMarion Gordon "Pat" Robertson is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who is politically aligned with the Christian Right in the United States....
's
Christian Broadcasting NetworkThe Christian Broadcasting Network, or CBN, is a fundamentalist Christian television broadcasting network in the United States. Its headquarters and main studios are in Virginia Beach, Virginia.-Background:...
, which at the time barely reached an audience of thousands. The Bakkers greatly contributed to the growth of the network, and their success with a variety show format (including interviews and puppets) helped make
The 700 ClubThe 700 Club is the flagship news talk show of the Christian Broadcasting Network, airing in syndication throughout the United States and Canada. In production since 1966, it is currently hosted by Pat Robertson, Terry Meeuwsen, Kristi Watts, and Gordon P. Robertson, two of whom will host on any...
one of the longest-running and most successful televangelism programs. The "Jim and Tammy Show" was broadcast for a few years from their
Portsmouth, VirginiaPortsmouth is located in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of the U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2010, the city had a total population of 95,535.The Norfolk Naval Shipyard, often called the Norfolk Navy Yard, is a historic and active U.S...
, studio. It was aimed at young children, whom they entertained with such films as "
Davey and GoliathDavey and Goliath is a 1960s stop-motion animated children's Christian television series. The programs, produced by the Lutheran Church in America , were produced by Art Clokey after the success of his Gumby series.Each 15-minute episode features the adventures of Davey Hansen and his "talking"...
", a claymation
BibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
-story series. The Bakkers then left for California in the early 1970s.
Teaming with their former youth pastors
PaulPaul Franklin Crouch is a religious broadcaster and, along with his wife Jan, co-founder of the Trinity Broadcasting Network .-Biography:...
and
Jan Crouch, the Bakkers created the "Praise the Lord" show for the Crouches' and Bakker's new
Trinity Broadcasting NetworkThe Trinity Broadcasting Network is a major American Christian television network. TBN is based in Costa Mesa, California, with auxiliary studio facilities in Irving, Texas; Hendersonville, Tennessee; Gadsden, Alabama; Decatur, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Orlando, Florida; and New...
in California. While that relationship lasted only about a year, this time the Bakkers retained the rights to use the initials
PTL and traveled east to
Charlotte, North CarolinaCharlotte is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the seat of Mecklenburg County. In 2010, Charlotte's population according to the US Census Bureau was 731,424, making it the 17th largest city in the United States based on population. The Charlotte metropolitan area had a 2009...
, to begin their own show,
The PTL ClubThe PTL Club , later called The Jim and Tammy Show, and in its last days PTL Today and Heritage Today, was a Christian television program first hosted by evangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, which ran from 1974 to 1989...
. Their show grew quickly until it was carried by close to a hundred stations, with average viewers numbering over twelve million, and the Bakkers had established their own network,
The PTL Television Network (also known as
PTL-The Inspirational Network). They attributed much of their success to decisions early on to accept all denominations and to refuse no one regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, or criminal record.
By the early 1980s, the Bakkers had built
Heritage USAHeritage USA was a Christian theme park, water park, and residential complex built in Fort Mill, South Carolina, USA, by PTL Club founders televangelist Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker Messner...
in
Fort Mill, South CarolinaFort Mill is a fast-growing suburban town in both York and Lancaster counties in the U.S. state of South Carolina, and a suburb of the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, and Rock Hill...
, (south of Charlotte), then the third most successful theme park in the US, and a satellite system to distribute their network 24 hours a day across the country. Contributions requested from viewers were estimated to exceed $1 million a week, with proceeds to go to expanding the theme park and mission of PTL. In justifying his use of the mass media, Bakker responded to inquiries by likening his use of television to Jesus's use of the amphitheater of the time. "I believe that if Jesus were alive today he would be on TV", Bakker said.
In their success, the Bakkers took
conspicuous consumptionConspicuous consumption is spending on goods and services acquired mainly for the purpose of displaying income or wealth. In the mind of a conspicuous consumer, such display serves as a means of attaining or maintaining social status....
to an unusual level for a non-profit organization. According to Frances FitzGerald in an April 1987
New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
article, "They epitomized the excesses of the 1980s; the greed, the love of glitz, and the shamelessness; which in their case was so pure as to almost amount to a kind of innocence". Detractors often said that PTL stood for Pass The Loot.
Scandals
PTLThe PTL Club , later called The Jim and Tammy Show, and in its last days PTL Today and Heritage Today, was a Christian television program first hosted by evangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, which ran from 1974 to 1989...
's fund raising activities between 1984–1987 underwent scrutiny by
The Charlotte ObserverThe Charlotte Observer, serving Charlotte, North Carolina and its metro area, is the largest newspaper, in terms of circulation, in North Carolina and South Carolina...
newspaper, eventually leading to criminal charges against Jim Bakker. From 1984 to 1987, Bakker and his PTL associates sold $1,000 "lifetime memberships", which entitled buyers to a three-night stay annually at a luxury hotel at
Heritage USAHeritage USA was a Christian theme park, water park, and residential complex built in Fort Mill, South Carolina, USA, by PTL Club founders televangelist Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker Messner...
. According to the prosecution at Bakker's later fraud trial, tens of thousands of memberships had been sold, but only one 500-room hotel was ever completed. Bakker "sold" more "exclusive partnerships" than could be accommodated, while raising more than twice the money needed to build the actual hotel. A good deal of the money went into
Heritage USAHeritage USA was a Christian theme park, water park, and residential complex built in Fort Mill, South Carolina, USA, by PTL Club founders televangelist Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker Messner...
's operating expenses, and Bakker kept $3.4 million in bonuses for himself. A $279,000 payoff for the silence of
Jessica HahnJessica Hahn is an American model and actress. She is best known for a sex scandal involving televangelist Jim Bakker while she was employed as a church secretary.-Jim Bakker scandal:...
, a staff secretary at the church, was paid with PTL's funds to Hahn through Bakker associate Roe Messner, who later married Tammy Fay Bakker. Bakker, who apparently made all of the financial decisions for the PTL organization, allegedly kept
two sets of booksThe concept of "two sets of books" refers to the practice of attempting to hide or disguise certain transactions from outsiders by having a set of fraudulent books for official use and another, the real set, for personal records....
to conceal the accounting irregularities. Reporters from
The Charlotte Observer, led by Charles Shepard, investigated and published a series of articles regarding the PTL organization's finances.
On March 19, 1987, following the revelation of a payoff to Jessica Hahn to keep secret her allegation that Bakker and another minister had raped her, Bakker resigned from PTL. Bakker acknowledges he met Hahn at a hotel room in Clearwater Beach, Florida, but denies raping her. Following Bakker's resignation as PTL head, he was succeeded in late March, 1987, by
Jerry FalwellJerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the United States. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia...
. Later that summer, as donations sharply declined in the wake of Bakker's resignation and the end of the Bakkers' popular
PTL Club TV show, Falwell raised $20 million to help keep the
Heritage USA Theme ParkHeritage USA was a Christian theme park, water park, and residential complex built in Fort Mill, South Carolina, USA, by PTL Club founders televangelist Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker Messner...
solvent, including a well-publicized waterslide plunge there. Falwell called Bakker a liar, an embezzler, a sexual deviant, and "the greatest scab and cancer on the face of Christianity in 2,000 years of church history". In 1988, Falwell said that the Bakker scandal had "strengthened broadcast evangelism and made Christianity stronger, more mature and more committed". Bakker's son, Jay, wrote in 2001 that the Bakkers felt betrayed by Falwell, who they thought, at the time of Bakker's resignation, intended to help in Bakker's eventual restoration as head of the PTL ministry organization.
Legal problems
Following a 16-month Federal grand jury probe, Bakker was indicted in 1988 on eight counts of mail fraud, 15 counts of
wire fraudMail and wire fraud is a federal crime in the United States. Together, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, and 1346 reach any fraudulent scheme or artifice to intentionally deprive another of property or honest services with a nexus to mail or wire communication....
and one count of conspiracy. In 1989, after a five-week trial which began on August 28 in
Charlotte- CHARLOTTE :CHARLOTTE is an American blues-based hard rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1986. Currently, they are signed to indie label, Eonian Records, under which they released their debut cd, Medusa Groove, in 2010. Notable Charlotte songs include 'Siren', 'Little Devils',...
, the jury found him guilty on all 24 counts, and Judge Robert Potter sentenced him to 45 years in
federal prisonFederal prisons are run by national governments in countries where subdivisions of the country also operate prisons.In the United States federal prisons are operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. In Canada the Correctional Service of Canada operates federal prisons. Prison sentences in these...
and a $500,000 fine.
He served time in the
Federal Medical Center, RochesterFederal Medical Center, Rochester is a United States Federal Bureau of Prisons facility in southeast Minnesota which provides specialized and long-term physical and mental health medical care to male offenders...
, in
Rochester, MinnesotaRochester is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Olmsted County. Located on both banks of the Zumbro River, The city has a population of 106,769 according to the 2010 United States Census, making it Minnesota's third-largest city and the largest outside of the...
, sharing a cell with activist
Lyndon LaRoucheLyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Jr. is an American political activist and founder of a network of political committees, parties, and publications known collectively as the LaRouche movement...
and skydiver
Roger NelsonRoger Warren Nelson was a skydiver and founder of Skydive Chicago, the nation's largest skydiver training center.-Freak Brothers:...
.
In February 1991, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld Bakker's conviction on the fraud and conspiracy charges, but voided Bakker's 45-year sentence, as well as the $500,000 fine, and ordered that a new sentencing hearing be held.
Jim and Tammy Bakker were divorced on March 13, 1992. On November 16, 1992, a sentence reduction hearing was held and Bakker's sentence was reduced to eight years.
In August 1993, Bakker was transferred to a minimum security federal prison in
Jesup, GeorgiaJesup is a city in Wayne County, Georgia, United States. The population was 9,279 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seat of Wayne County.-Geography:Jesup is located at ....
, and was subsequently granted
paroleParole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...
in July 1994, after serving almost five years of his sentence. Bakker's son, Jay, spearheaded a letter-writing campaign to the parole board on his father's behalf, urging leniency.
His
Federal Bureau of PrisonsThe Federal Bureau of Prisons is a federal law enforcement agency subdivision of the United States Department of Justice and is responsible for the administration of the federal prison system. The system also handles prisoners who committed acts considered felonies under the District of Columbia's...
(BOP) number was 07407-058, and he was released from BOP custody on December 1, 1994.
On July 23, 1996, a
North CarolinaNorth Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
jury threw out a class action suit brought on behalf of more than 160,000 onetime supporters who contributed as much as $7,000 each to Bakker's coffers in the 1980s.
The Charlotte Observer reported that the
Internal Revenue ServiceThe Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...
(IRS) still holds Bakker and
Roe MessnerRonald Roe Messner is an American building contractor who has built more than 1,700 churches, including several megachurches....
, Tammy Faye's husband from 1993 until her death in 2007, liable for personal income taxes owed from the 1980s when they were building the PTL empire, taxes assessed after the IRS revoked the PTL ministry's nonprofit status. Tammy Faye Messner's new husband said that the original tax amount was about $500,000, with penalties and interest accounting for the rest. Notices stating the IRS liens list still identify "James O. and Tamara F. Bakker" as owing $6,000,000, liens on which Jim Bakker still pays.
Philosophy
Bakker has renounced his past teachings on
prosperity theologyProsperity theology or gospel is a Christian religious belief whose proponents claim the Bible teaches that financial blessing is the will of God for Christians. Most teachers of prosperity theology maintain that a combination of faith, positive speech, and donations to Christian ministries will...
, saying they were wrong. In his 1996 book,
I Was Wrong, he admitted that the first time he actually read the Bible all the way through was in prison, and that it made him realize he had taken certain passages out of context — passages which he had used as "proof texts" to back up his prosperity teachings. He wrote:
In 1998, he and
Lori GrahamLori Graham Bakker is the second wife of televangelist Jim Bakker. She was born Lori Beth Graham .Lori is the author of More Than I Could Ever Ask ....
were married. Bakker released another book that same year,
Prosperity and the Coming Apocalypse ISBN 9780785269878, and, in 2000, he published
The Refuge: The Joy of Christian Community in a Torn-Apart World ISBN 9780785274599.
His son, Jay, who is now a minister at Revolution Church in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, wrote of the PTL years in his book,
Son of a Preacher Man: "The world at large has focused on my parents' preaching of prosperity, but ... I heard a different message — one of forgiveness and the abundance of God's love. I remember my dad always seating a mentally handicapped man in the front row and hugging him. And when vandals burned an African American church down, Dad made sure its parishioners got the funds to rebuild. His goal was to make PTL a place where anyone with a need could walk in off the streets and have that need met."
Later career
In January 2003, Bakker began broadcasting the daily
Jim Bakker Show at Studio City Cafe in
Branson, MissouriBranson is a city in Taney County in the U.S. state of Missouri. It was named after Reuben Branson, postmaster and operator of a general store in the area in the 1880s....
, with his second wife, Lori. It is carried on the
DISHDish Network Corporation is the second largest pay TV provider in the United States, providing direct broadcast satellite service—including satellite television, audio programming, and interactive television services—to 14.337 million commercial and residential customers in the United States. Dish...
and
DirecTVDirecTV is an American direct broadcast satellite service provider and broadcaster based in El Segundo, California. Its satellite service, launched on June 17, 1994, transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in the United States, Latin America, and the Anglophone Caribbean. ...
satellite networks and the
CTN cable networkChristian Television Network is a non-profit broadcast television network of small owned-and-operated stations that broadcasts religious programming. It is based in Largo, Florida , and the flagship station is WCLF channel 22, which signed on the air in the Tampa Bay Florida region in 1979...
. He and wife Lori have since adopted and/or taken in five children from the
Phoenix, ArizonaPhoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
, inner-city neighborhoods Lori once frequented as a part of the Master's Commission, a worldwide discipleship program now based out of Relevant Church in the Dallas Metro area.
In January 2008, Bakker's ministry moved into a new television studio near Branson, in
Blue Eye, MissouriBlue Eye is a village in Stone County, Missouri, United States. The population was 129 at the 2000 census, at which time it was a town. It is part of the Branson, Missouri Micropolitan Statistical Area...
The studio is housed in a 600 acres (2.4 km²) development that resembles Bakker's former location, Heritage USA. Most or all of the property in the new development (named Morningside) is owned by associates of Bakker rather than by Bakker himself. The
St. Louis Post-DispatchThe St. Louis Post-Dispatch is the major city-wide newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri. Although written to serve Greater St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch is one of the largest newspapers in the Midwestern United States, and is available and read as far west as Kansas City, Missouri, as far south as...
reported that Bakker still owes the IRS about $6 million.
External links