In the past hour or so, Lori Bakker, married to infamous or famous televangelist pioneer Jim Bakker since around 1998, announced her husband, 86, has died. No doubt other media will pick it up because of his prominence. Jim's sister died just five days ago.
Jim was among the last of the "old guard" of televangelists, having outlived Jimmy Swaggart, who gave him a lot of grief by helping to precipitate the scandal that ruined his theme park, Heritage U.S.A., back around 1987 and landed Jim in prison, James Robison, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and so on down the line. Oral Roberts, Rex Humbard, and Billy Graham died further back.
Bakker was born in Muskegon, Michigan, on January 2, 1940, and he graduated from Muskegon High School in 1958. A look at his senior yearbook via Classmates reveals Bakker had a strong interest in broadcasting. Following graduation, he attended what was then called North Central Bible College, now called North Central University, affiliated with the Assemblies of God. It was there he met Tammy Faye LaValley (1942-2007), and after they married, they dropped out of college in 1960 to become traveling evangelists. Truthfully, neither of them needed college. Both of them were very smart, and Tammy Faye herself always called Jim a genius, which is entirely believable.
Eventually, they came into contact with Pat Robertson, son of a U.S. Senator, who owned a television station in Virginia, and they helped start the 700 Club with Bakker as the original host. Bakker got the idea that the late night television talk show format ala Johnny Carson or Jack Paar would be a good format to spread the gospel. It was highly successful. They also had a puppet show that included Tammy. Robertson, though, was always secretly envious of Bakker because Bakker did not have the pedigree of hoity-toity private schools and an Ivy League education like he did, yet Bakker was way smarter than Robertson ever was. Robertson wanted to be in front of the camera himself. The Bakkers eventually left Robertson and came upon Paul Crouch, who with his wife founded the Trinity Broadcasting Network. The Bakkers were involved in programming there, but Crouch, like Robertson, was envious of the Bakkers and wanted to appear in front of the camera himself. The Bakkers left there and decided to form their own network, PTL, which stood for "Praise the Lord" (or, as cynics called "Pass the Loot") and started their own flagship show, The PTL Club. Bakker took advantage of satellite technology and became hugely successful in that field. He and Tammy Faye became quite wealthy. On PTL, he and Tammy Faye--the REAL draw of the show, who had real charisma, real talent, and was the real deal as millions of people both religious and secular would pleasantly discover--had many people who were prominent in the "evangelical" field, including religious figures, as well as celebrities like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., and Col. Sanders. Here is a video of Bakker interviewing the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken from around 1979:
The money flowed in, and Bakker got the idea for a theme park near the border of both Carolinas and named it Heritage U.S.A. It eventually became one of the leading theme parks in the country. Tammy Faye didn't have much to do with that end of the business but focused on music and raising their two children, Tammy Sue and Jamie Charles (now known as Jay). It expanded rapidly, and eventually Jim and his team got involved in constructing a hotel and selling timeshares. Tammy, in her book, Telling It My Way, was concerned Jim was getting way in over his head.
Bakker's television network hosted a variety of programs from televangelists including John Ankerberg, Marvin Gorman, and Jimmy Swaggart. Swaggart, however, got it in his head Catholics were somehow the enemy of the world and went on anti-Catholic rants on his own show, which did NOT please Jim at all. Jim was not a bigot. His network reached many Catholic-dominated countries, especially those in Latin America, and he wasn't going to tolerate Swaggart's bullshit. He removed Swaggart's program from the PTL Network lineup. At the same time, Tammy was feeling the pressure and was having problems psychologically and with presciprtion drugs. She had taken some time off from hosting duties on PTL, and had done so a couple of times. The last time was in 1987, when she left for their home in southern California to be near the Betty Ford Clinic, and Jim decided to take leave so he could care for her. This left a big opening for the unscrupulous televangelists to take over the network. Bakker had people who were a bit shady like Richard Dortch, who helped mismanage the business, while Swaggart and Jerry Falwell, who was NEVER a friend of the Bakkers but who lusted after the satellite facilities, were plotting a takeover. Along the line, they and the media found out about the Jessica Hahn payoffs after he reportedly sexually assaulted her in around 1980 and paid her hush money. Bakker found himself ousted from PTL, and Falwell installed himself as running the business, which he deliberately bankrupted to get the satellite facilities. While Falwell succeeded in bankrupting PTL, he never did get the satellite facilities, which was poetic justice.
As we all know, Bakker was charged with fraud over the timeshares and such and was sentenced to 45 years in prison, which was overkill. Eventually, Bakker served five years in prison. Tammy Faye divorced him while he was in prison and married Roe Messner, who himself was sentenced to 27 months in prison for bankruptcy fraud. Tammy battled cancer for years, dying of the disease in 2007. Jim married Lori Graham, who lived in Arizona, and they adopted five children. They started up a ministry based near Branson, Missouri, with a television show on a much smaller scale than the original PTL network series. Bakker was opening himself for ridicule for peddling survivalist nonsense including those disgusting food buckets. In his youth, he looked way younger than his age; in his senior years, he grew a moustache and beard and lost almost all his hair, which made him look his age, but he likely would have still had the baby face had he not had those.
Myself, I don't think the ministry will long survive his demise. None of those children he adopted with Lori have what it takes to run a televangelist organization. Jay, Jim's son with Tammy, would have had the goods with a measure of charisma inherited from his mother, but he and his dad were polar opposites religiously and politically, plus he lives in another part of the country. Daughter Tammy Sue embarked on a career change and has been out of the limelight for years.
From the Jim Bakker Show Facebook page:
Jim Bakker, a television evangelist who lost his popular and prosperous ministry in a 1980s sex scandal and then lost his freedom for five years, imprisoned for having violated federal laws with his conflation of God and mammon, died on Monday. He was 86.
His wife, Lori Bakker, announced the death in a post on Mr. Bakker’s official Instagram account. She did not cite a cause or say where he died. Mr. Bakker had what was described as a mild stroke in 2020.
In the 1970s and ’80s, Mr. Bakker and his first wife, Tammy Faye Bakker, rode to fame and riches preaching the gospel of prosperity, the notion that those who embraced genuine Christian faith would reap material rewards. Their pulpit was the television ministry PTL, which stood for Praise the Lord and People That Love, and their appeal was a combination of sermons, songs and tears. Both had a penchant for crying in public. Tammy Bakker wept on the air so often that she made sure her thickly applied mascara was waterproof.
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