If no one is saying much about Dennis Hastert, then don’t expect more for Jim Bakker who died earlier this week.
If there’s one good thing you can say about Bakker, it’s at least he didn’t sexually assault young children. However, he allegedly raped Jessica Hahn at a Florida hotel in early December 1980. He then is believed to have used up to $350,000 in hush money to keep her quiet over about seven years until it became public in 1987. Adjusted for inflation, that’s close to $1 million in this day. Those funds are from his PTL ministry.
If you don’t know, Bakker along with his wife at the time, Tammy Faye, decided to tske advantages of the rise of cable TV, televangelism and conservative Christianity in the 1970s and 1980s, and start The PTL Club. PTL was short for Praise The Lord but after a while, people joked it meant Pass The Loot.
Even before the alleged Hahn rape (because he was never charged nor convicted), Bakker was facing scrutiny for illegal practices through The PTL Club on thr PTL Satellite Network. Allegations had been spreading in the media and especially on comedy shows, they were taking the money they were asking people to donate and using it for their extravagant lifestyle. On camera, they’d wear clothing inside rooms and houses were very pricey for the era. On Saturday Nigh Live, Tammy Faye’s extreme make-up and hairstyle became ripe for parody. Phil Hartman famously parodied him. Then after Bakker finally went to prison for embezzlement, Rick Moranis parodied him as the two had similar facial characteristics.
In the 1980s, he helped found Heritage, USA, an American Christian-themed amusement park in Fort Mill, S.C., an area located near the North Carolina border short of Charlotte. By the mid-1980s, it was the third most visited amusement park behind Walt DisneyWorld and DisneyLand drawing in 4.9 million visitors pulling in $126 million.
But following the reveal of accusations by Hahn against Bakker and John Fletcher, another man in his employ, attendance dropped drastically and the IRS revoked the tax exempt status.
In a last ditch effort, there was a fundraising effort if people donated $1,000, they would get a lifetime four-day annual vacation stay. The only problem was donors found it virtually impossible to cash it in. A reported 165,000 donors led to $165 million raised. But only 501 rooms could be rented at Heritage. Suspicion grew that this was a Ponzi scheme.
Then in September of 1989, a Category 5 hurricane struck the Southeastern States causing damage to Heritage that would’ve cost too much to repair. It closed shortly afterwards in 1989.
Incidentally, Fletch Lives, released earlier that year, had a subplot involving BibleLand inspired by Heritage USA.
Bakker had resigned from PTL in 1987 and convicted on Oct. 5, 1989 (the same day he would die earlier this week), Bakker didn’t go away quietly. Released in 1994, he returned to televangelism and broadcasting in 2003 and it was aired on many networks. Just like other televangelists during this time, he leaned heavily into blaming natural disasters such as Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Matthews on his critics, liberals, the Democrats, LGBTQIA community and President Barack Obama.
But mostly he was just finding another con as doomsday preppers and militia groups became more popular. It was no surprise thst his white beard made him look more like a batshit crazy old man. After the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, he support the idea to arm teachers.
Just like Alex Jones he was plugging supplements for money. During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, he pushed colloidal silver supplements as a cure for the virus.
He was nothing but a con man his whole life. He used people’s Christian faith to line his own pockets. Yet people continued to buy it because Bakker and others know how to play weak and vulnerable people like the world’s best violin player.
He was never a man of God. People like him are actors selling you a product they have no evidence of its existence. However you can’t question it.
Bakker’s death was just three days after Marjoe Gortner passed away. Gortner was the focus of a documentary Marjoe in 1972 of Pentecostal ministers and the lucrative business they have. Sometimes I think even if God came down and told everyone not to follow or support people like Bakker, many would still call bullshit snd continue to support Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen or whomever the next con artists is.
