CHRISTIANNOTICE.COM (report).- In the 1970s, Jim Bakker and his wife Tammy achieved fame with their program ‘The PTL Club’. The televangelists’ popularity skyrocketed, earning over $100 million at the show’s heyday.
This allowed Bakker to establish a Christian-themed water park in South Carolina called Heritage USA. But it all came crashing down in the late 1980s amid a sex scandal and prison sentences for fraud.
Who is Jim Bakker?
Jim Bakker grew up in Muskegon, Lake Michigan. When he was younger, he was described as someone who loved the spotlight. He met Tammy while he was in college in 1960 and married her after their third date.
They then dropped out of college and concentrated their efforts on becoming televangelists. In 1966, Jim and Tammy began working at Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) in Portsmouth, Virginia, which had an audience in the thousands at the time.
The Bakkers helped grow the network, hosting a children’s variety show called Come On Over. Due to the success, Robertson made Bakker the host of a new prime-time talk show, The 700 Club, which gradually became CBN’s flagship show.
The Bakkers left CBN in 1972, and the following year joined Paul and Jan Crouch to help found the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) in California. However, this association lasted only eight months until a falling out between Jim Bakker and Paul Crouch caused the Bakkers to leave the new network.
Later in 1974, Jim founded the PTL Satellite Network, where PTL stood for Praise the Lord or People He Loves. The couple began hosting their own late-night style talk show called ‘The PTL Club’.
Bakker scandals
In March 1987, Jim resigned from PTL after it came to light that he had an alleged affair with Jessica Hahn, a church secretary, at a hotel in Florida. She accused him of sexually assaulting her.
He later confessed to paying her a substantial amount of money to keep their date a secret. But that money came from church funding and not from his own pocket.
Additionally, federal records showed that Jim used money from viewers in the form of donations for personal gain. He bought a sports car, a houseboat and expensive coats.
Viewers contributed more than $350,000, believing that their money would be used for religious programs in South Korea and Brazil. Some of the money was also used to build the water park.
prison time
In October 1989, Bakker was convicted of 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy. Later that year, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison. He said at his sentencing: “I am deeply sorry for the people who have been injured, the partners and the people who worked at Heritage USA.”
Later, an appeals judge reduced his prison time, stating that the sentencing judge made inappropriate statements in connection with the case.
Bakker was released from prison in December 1994 after spending about 5 years behind bars. By then, Tammy had divorced him after 30 years of marriage.
Jim has remarried and now hosts ‘The Jim Bakker Show’ with his second wife, Lori Bakker. The show started in 2003 claiming that the Rapture was coming soon. His new ministry called Morningside has been established in Blue Eye, Missouri.
False prophecies and declarations
The now 82-year-old televangelist was once again at the center of controversy during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. His show sold Silver Solution, which was supposed to cure the coronavirus.
In 2013, Bakker wrote, ‘The Time Has Come: How to Prepare Now for the Epic Events Ahead,’ a book about end-time events.
Bakker has also changed his views on prosperity theology. In his 1980 book ‘Eight Keys to Success’, he stated, “God wants you to be happy, God wants you to be rich, God wants you to prosper.”
In his 1996 book, ‘I Was Wrong’, he admitted that the first time he read the Bible in its entirety was in prison. Bakker also wrote that he realized that he had taken passages out of context and falsely used them as proof texts to support his prosperity theology.
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