Jim Bakker
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Claims to fame: High-profile televangelist; adulterer; bisexual; fraud; ex-con; ex-Mr. Tammy Faye Bakker
Moral apex: It’s a tie: We can’t decide whether it was his $265,000 hush-money payment to keep church secretary Jessica Hahn quiet about their affair, or the $158 million he embezzled from his own PTL (a.k.a. Praise the Lord, a.k.a. People That Love) ministry, and spent on lavish mansions (with gold-plated bathroom fixtures), luxury cars, an air-conditioned doghouse, and a face lift (for Jim, not wife Tammy Faye), among other little necessities.
With friends like these, who needs enemas? Bakker was exposed (publicly, that is) by rival telepreacher (and fellow fornicator) Jimmy Swaggart.
Adding insult to injury: Almost simultaneously, Bakker was defrocked, and the PTL and its associated Heritage USA Christian theme park were snapped up by even-bigger rival Jerry Falwell.
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Twinkie defense: Bakker claimed he’d had a “psychotic break.”
Divine justice: Convicted in 1989 on 23 counts of fraud, sentenced to 45 years in prison, and fined half a million dollars.
Add divorcé to his resume: In 1992, while Bakker was dropping his soap in the pen, Tammy Faye ended their marriage.
What happened next: Paroled in 1994, Bakker went back to religious huckstering in 2003, with his new wife (whom he met in an alley while she was “ministering”), who admits to having had five abortions (for which, of course, she has been forgiven since finding Jesus).
What happened to Tammy Faye: She got addicted to painkillers, recovered at Betty Ford, and then was diagnosed with colon cancer, which developed into inoperable lung cancer. (In 2004, she told Larry King that, after chemotherapy, she was cancer-free; however, in March of 2006, she reported that she had stage-four lung cancer.)
Born again, again, in 1993 Tammy Faye married one Roe Messner, the building contractor for the now-defunct Heritage USA. History repeated itself, when Messner (who, incidentally, says he has prostate cancer) was convicted on bankruptcy fraud charges, and spent a few years in prison.
While Roe served time, Tammy Faye went back to TV with a syndicated talk show co-hosted by gay (and HIV+) actor Jim J. Bullock (formerly JM J. Bullock) of “Too Close for Comfort” fame. (”Her beliefs,” reflected Bullock, “are not in favor of homosexuality, but she gave me the freedom to be who I am.”) The show was cancelled in 1996.
The subject of two documentary films (The Eyes of Tammy Faye, 1999, and Tammy Faye: Death Defying, 2004), she embraced the gay community, and became a gay icon.
On July 21, 2007, barely two days after her last interview with Larry King, Tammy Faye passed way.
Of all the evangelicals we rip to shreds around here, Tamme Faye is not one of them. Listen to her last words to King, and you will understand why:
Godspeed, Tammy Faye.
What happened to Jim and Tammy Faye’s kids: Tammy Sue ran away from home, was estranged from Tammy Faye for a while, and then went to work for her father. The Bakkers’ obese son Jay grew up to be a drug addict, recovered, and became a heavily-tattooed-and-pierced street preacher in Atlanta.
Fun fact: Jim Bakker was born James Orsen; he took Tammy Faye’s “maiden name” as his own.
Memorable quotes and observations:
I was wickedly manipulated by treacherous former friends who victimized me with the aid of a female confederate. … Vulnerable as I was at the time, I was set up as part of a scheme to co-opt me and obtain some advantage for themselves over me in connection with their hope for position in the ministry.— Jim Bakker, 1987
I have sat across the table from men who have told me of your homosexual advances.
— Jerry Falwell to Jim Bakker
Press conference, 1987
“The Devil in Jim Bakker: His Homosexual Lover and Pimp Tells All”
— Title of Penthouse article, January, 1989
That is where Jim and I have been, the sorrow and the grief and the hurt! And we had absolutely nothing left, reputation destroyed, everything gone! My God! Oh, my!
— Tammy Faye Bakker
Jim and Tammy, January 2, 1989
I think the devil was mad.
— Jim Bakker, ibid.
Satan got into our computer and lost the money.
— Tammy Faye, date unknown
When challenged, he became God’s prophet with God’s mandate for the hour. Doubting Jim Bakker became equivalent to doubting God.
— Grant Wacker
Christian Century, 1989
I didn’t hear about it when it happened. And they kept it from me for all those years. And so when we lost PTL was the first time I ever heard about it. …Jim told me himself. He said, it’s going to be in the papers tomorrow, and I’ve got to tell you something. And we went in the bedroom and he told me what had happened.
— Tammy Faye, telling Larry King how she found
out about Jim’s affair nine years after the fact
June 7, 1996
It used to take a million dollars every two days just so I could live.
— Jim Bakker, 1998
And a lot of times, when a pastor makes a mistake, he’s never, ever given another chance. And what we want to do is bring them — you see, the inner city kids and the inner city people — first of all, they don’t know who I am. They just know that I love them. And they don’t care if he has credentials. They don’t know if he’s been deflocked or — defrocked, I should say — you know — I guess a Christmas tree is flocked. But anyhow, they don’t care. They just love.
— Jim Bakker on Larry King Live
January 25, 2000
Life’s been a little bit hard on me.
— Tammy Faye Messner to Larry King
June 24, 2001
At a recent Tammy Faye look-alike contest held at a gay nightclub in Washington, D.C., Lady Bunny introduced the real Tammy Faye to a raucous crowd. And even at this over-the-top contest, surrounded by men in falsies and pancake makeup, Tammy Faye Messner is impossible to upstage.
— NPR News, June 20, 2002
She was in search of a group to possibly adore her. … She found one and she clung to it.
— Metro Weekly publisher Randy Shulman, on
Tammy Faye embracing the gay community, 2002
It was never exactly clear how many sexual partners (allegedly both women and men) [Jim Bakker] enjoyed in those crazy days before his reckoning with the law and crushing humiliation. …
…Bakker, we all assumed, would fade into shamed obscurity. One thing was for sure, he told one interviewer shortly afterwards - he would never preach on television again. …
Not only is he preaching once more, but he is doing it before the cameras. …
Bakker, in other words, has made a swift journey from shamed to shameless.
— The Independent, June 15, 2003
Would you make a pledge to this ministry for $100?
— Fundraising letter on Jim Bakker’s Web site, 2003
Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Bakker: None. We think Jim Bakker is unsalvageable. So, instead, we offer this:
There’s an ugly little weasel ’bout three-foot nine
Face puffed up from cryin’ ‘n lyin’
‘Cause her sweet little hubby’s
Suckin’ prong part time
(In the name of the Lord) …Did he really choose Tammy to do his work?
Robertson says that he’s the one
Oh he sure is,
If Armageddon
Is your idea of family fun,
An’ he’s got some planned for you!
(Now, tell me that ain’t true)Now, what if Jimbo’s slightly gay,
Will Pat let Jimbo get away?
Everything we’ve heard him say
Indicated that Jim must pay,
(And it just might hurt a bit)But keep that money rollin’ in,
‘Cause Pat and naughty Jimbo
Can’t get enough of it …Jim and Tammy!
Oh, baby!
You gotta go!
You really gotta go!— Frank Zappa
Jesus Thinks You’re a Jerk, 1988
