In the halcyon days of the televangelists, when Jim Bakker stood shoulder to shoulder with fire and brimstone preachers such as Jerry Farwell, Pat Robertson and Jimmy Swaggart, the collection plate always seemed bottomless. For Bakker, it meant a Christian theme park in a leafy Charlotte, N.C., suburb, a fleet of black Cadillac limousines, vacation homes, regular orders of truffles flown in from Brussels, a gold-plated bathtub, mink coats for his wife Tammy Faye and an air-conditioned doghouse at the family compound. In return for your unbending faith, he told viewers of his popular television show “The PTL Club,” God will bestow you great wealth and other blessings.
And to get things rolling, he added, just call the 800 number on the bottom of your screen. By the time it all fell apart amid a sex scandal and a fraud conviction, Bakker landed in prison and took stock of his life. He renounced the prosperity gospel he once had preached, wrote a raw and wrenching biography about his missteps and vowed to work with the needy and most vulnerable when he was released.
Once free, however, he set up camp at a Christian compound deep in the Ozarks, armed with a darker message. The End Times are upon us, he told viewers on his reborn television show, and the signs are everywhere — terrorist attacks, epic storms, thunderous earthquakes, frayed relations among world superpowers, a pandemic that refused to release its grip. To get viewers to the Rapture he said was sure to come, Bakker sold buckets of freeze-dried food with a shelf life of 30 years, fuel-less generators, doomsday guides and a magical elixir — “Silver Solution” — that could cure the coronavirus and other unpleasantries.
And, as before, the authorities were hot on his tail. A man of confounding contradictions, Bakker died Monday, his wife announced in a statement on his Instagram account. He loved this ministry, and he loved the friends and partners who stood with him throughout the years.” Baby-faced with dark lacquered hair and oversized glasses, Bakker became the sunny alternative to the hell-fire bombast of Swaggart and Falwell when he and his wife introduced themselves to America when “The PTL Club” debuted in 1976.
The show, an acronym for Praise the Lord, was breezy and chatty, styled after a late-night talk show with a lineup of guests, performances by Christian musicians and the never-a-mean-word banter between Bakker and Tammy Faye, who would frequently burst into song, tears dribbling down her cheeks. Together the Bakkers spoke of the souls saved and the hardships overcome by those who put their lives in the hands of the Lord. And as often, reminded viewers of the need for donations to keep their crusade barreling forward.
Before long, according to evidence introduced at Bakker’s fraud trial, more than $1 million a week was pouring into “The PTL Club.” Capitalizing on their fame and fortune, the Bakkers opened Heritage USA, a Christian theme park complete with a $12-million water park, a hotel, nightly Passion plays and a Disneyesque Main Street where guests could buy palm-size Jesus dolls, 24-carat gold crosses and boxes of Heavenly Fudge. As the guests rolled in, developers built condos and homes for those who wished to live in such a place. It was all heady stuff for Bakker, who often said that as a youth he had few expectations.
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