The rise and fall of one of the world biggest Televangelists

For some people, their pastor is a humble man in cloth robes. For others, he’s the guy on T.V. screaming outrageous things and demanding their money.

These preachers are called televangelists, and they are notorious for taking advantage of others.

Most people default to guys like Joel Olsteen and Kenneth Copeland; most don’t remember ol’ Jim Bakker, who was arguably the worst

of the bunch.

But unlike his counterparts, Bakker was convicted of fraud, misconduct, and spent some years behind bars.

Seeing someone successfully scam so many people makes you wonder: What makes prosperity preachers like Bakker so popular?

Prosperity Preaching

Bakker is considered a pioneer of modern televangelists. It’s tough to put the finger on when the T.V. Preacher-scam started as it evolved from traveling circus to Cable T.V. over the past 80 years.

Televangelists like Bakker and Osteen tell their flock to sow the seeds of wealth by giving them money. In return, God will bless them with riches beyond their wildest dreams. They asked, and their followers willingly gave — and gave — and gave.

Is there anything worse than someone who betrays those that trust them?

Bakker got his T.V. start in the mid-60s when he and his wife got jobs on Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network. They worked on a show called ‘Come On Over’ featuring musical puppet routines catered to a child audience.

‘Come on Over’ was so popular, the Bakkers were promoted to hosting the network’s flagship program, the 700 Club.

Bakker was on fire In 1972. He left his network and partnered with Paul

and Jan Crouch to co-found Trinity Broadcasting network. But, the deal only lasted eight months before there was a falling out and Bakker left the network.

Bakker was always prepping his next scam, and in 1974 he and his wife Tammy founded The P.T.L. Network. This was an exclusively religious programming network that allowed local affiliates to have air time. He also unveiled his own answer to Christian talk shows called the P.T.L. Club.

The show was wildly popular amongst his fan base and became the top show on the network. The show started off in a small studio but moved to the newly built P.T.L. headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.

These new headquarters were called Heritage Village and Bakker began broadcasting worldwide in 1975. That first broadcast from Heritage Village would set off the wildest chain of events in the history of Televangelism.

Heritage USA

With his success skyrocketing and his earnings pushing into the millions, you would think God actually blessed Bakker.

However, many people began to question his Prosperity Preaching. Baker only had one response when asked about the morality of making millions preaching Christianity — “if Jesus were alive today, he would be on T.V.”

Those who despised Bakker believed P.T.L. stood for “Pass the Loot” instead of “Praise The Lord.” But the naysayers didn’t stop Bakker from chasing his ultimate dream.

With all this new money in hand, he opened up Heritage, U.S.A., the Disney Land of Christianity… or so it was advertised. Many things set this theme park apart from others around the world. The 2300 acre lot in Charlotte, North Carolina, was 20 times bigger than The Magic Kingdom in Florida. It was home to the world’s largest wave pool and a ridiculous 52-foot-long water slide.

Heritage U.S.A. was marketed as “a special place for God’s people.”

In reality, it was a giant piece of bait that Bakker hung over a pond of gullible followers. They came in flocks to Charlotte and sunk their money into the park.

Heritage featured a 501 room hotel and a 400 plot campground. Heritage also featured condominiums and offered timeshares for those who hadn’t been duped enough.

Heritage U.S.A. was the third most popular theme park in the world behind Disney World and Disneyland.

The star attraction was called ‘The Upper Room,’ believed to be a replica of where Jesus and his followers had “The Last Supper.”

Was it? We can’t say for sure.

But to visitors of Heritage U.S.A., they sure believed it was.

The Upper Room, just like the gift shop, offered a peek into these religious sites without having to visit the middle east.

Investigation

The first attempt to take Bakker down was lackluster. The F.C.C. opened an investigation against Jim and P.T.L. in 1979. Bakker had been soliciting donations from viewers claiming they were going to foreign aid.

Instead, the F.C.C. concluded that Bakker instead used funds to build part of Heritage U.S.A. while slipping a few bucks in his pocket as well.

Ultimately the F.C.C. voted to drop the allegations, and Bakker sold his T.V. station to avoid additional F.C.C. oversight.

Of course, being the money-making man he is, Jim turned this around and used it to make even more money.

Another I.R.S. investigation found that from 1980 to 1983, Bakker had used over $1.3 million of P.T.L. funds for his own expenses. However, no legal cases were opened against him. Bakker remained untouched until 1987 when a woman named Jessica Hahn accused him of misconduct.

Bakker tried to shut her up with a $279,000 pay-off. Thankfully, the bribe was exposed, and Bakker had nowhere left to run. He stepped down from P.T.L. and left it in the hands of friend and co-worker Rev. Jerry Falwell. But Falwell had other ideas.

As the allegations against Bakker continued to stack, Falwell banned him from ever returning to the company.

Membership Math

While the allegations of misconduct crippled Bakker’s reputation, they weren’t the reason he went to jail.

Instead, Bakker was busted running what we’ll call a semi-Ponzi scheme to try and recoup the losses suffered by Heritage U.S.A. He offered $1000 lifetime memberships promising the buyer a yearly three-night stay in Heritage USA for the rest of their lives.

The only problem?

He had nowhere to put them. He sold tens of thousands of memberships but

only had a single 500-Room hotel. Some quick math tells us those yearly three-night stays were bogus.

Even though he made enough money to build the hotel twice over, he used most of the funds to operate Heritage and pocketed millions.

In 1988 Bakker was indicted on 8 counts of mail fraud, 15 counts of wire fraud, and 1 count of conspiracy. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison. Everything was about to collapse on this con artist when a judge’s choice set of words saved him from spending the rest of his life in prison.

Judge Robert Parker, otherwise known as “Maximum Bob,” was known for handing out near maximum sentences to convicts, and he looked to make an example of Bakker.

Right before he sentenced the televangelist to 45 years, he said,

“those of us who do have a religion are sick of being saps for money-grubbing preachers and priests.”

Bakker’s lawyer used that quote to knock Bakker’s sentence down to 5 years claiming Maximum Bob’s maximum sentence reeked of bias.

The Fall

Heritage U.S.A. didn’t last much longer after Bakker’s conviction. Under Falwell’s guidance, Heritage fell into $70 Million worth of debt and filed for bankruptcy.

To add insult to injury, Hurricane Hugo severely damaged the park in 1989, forcing it to close once and for all. Parts of Heritage are still in use today, but most of the old attractions have been reduced to a ghost town.

In 1994 Bakker was released from prison with the promise that he would never again mix religion and profits to con people. He was also slapped with a $6 million bill from the I.R.S.

However, in 2003 Bakker found a way to make it back in front of his fans with a whole new scheme. He condemned his old way of life and instead focused on his new mission to save people from the “dark days ahead.” He became an apocalyptic preacher who would talk about the end of days.

A generous $25 million dollar donation kickstarted Bakker’s operations from a local developer named Jerry Crawford, who claimed that Bakker, of all people, saved his marriage.

Jim Bakker Today

COVID-19 devastated the world in 2020. A normal pastor would teach solidarity, connection, and faith.

But come on, this is Jim Bakker we’re talking about. He decided to come up with his own cure for Covid. Bakker told his supporters that he could cure

them using a product (that he sold, of course) containing Colloidal Silver.

For context, the medical community discontinued the medicinal use of Silver in the 1940s. The F.D.A flew in like Covid-Man after seeing the misinformation skylight. They sent him a cease and desist letter and gave him 48 hours to take down anything that claimed Silver cured Covid.

Nowadays, you will find Jim Bakker in his late 70’s still preaching about the impending doomsday and asking for donations.

Only time will tell what happens to Jim and the old Heritage U.S.A. water slide.