surfing over the net about the late Tammy Faye, I found this blog post, which is actually pretty good.
The Bakkers WERE different, and, as somebody who watched them religiously during the glory years of the late 1970s up until the 1987 scandal, the blogger's assessment is accurate.
I was rather hard on them when the scandal first broke, but it soon became clear to me the Bakkers were simply in over their heads running an empire that was growing too rapidly.
I would watch the show and hear Jim talking about the next project he had going for Heritage U.S.A., and I wondered how in the world he could possibly keep his head above the water. Well, it turned out he couldn't, and the empire came crashing down.
S.O.B.s like Falwell stabbed the Bakkers behind their backs, although at the time when they were talking about a "hostile takeover," I don't think the media took them very seriously. Looking back on it, their charges were accurate.
Jim Bakker has adopted a far more low-key profile in recent years than during the PTL days. He has a television show with his second wife, Lori Graham Bakker (with whom he adopted five children), based in Branson, Missouri. I haven't watched this program because I cannot get it on my satellite dish. I have seen interviews with him where he said in effect he didn't want to have the high profile program he did when he had PTL.
With regard to PTL, I think it was Tammy Faye who was the big draw on that show. She sang and she cried--oh, how she cried!--but she had real charisma, and it was no surprise after she left Bakker she would gain considerable celebrity on her own.
Tammy Faye was loved by millions, both in and out of the religious world, perhaps because underneath the makeup she was no fake at all.
