Former televangelist, ex-convict back on TV
Sunday, April 15, 2007 By Susan Harrison - Muskegon Chronicle
Twenty years ago, Jim Bakker was a man in exile.
Banished from the televangelism empire he founded near Charlotte, N.C. Toppled from power by moral indiscretion and accusations of financial improprieties. Hounded by reporters, day and night. Abandoned by fellow preachers, followers and even friends from his childhood growing up in Muskegon.
"My whole world collapsed," he said.
On March 19, 1987, Bakker resigned as an ordained minister in the Assemblies of God denomination after it was revealed he had paid $265,000 in alleged "hush money" to a former church secretary, Jessica Hahn, after a sexual encounter with her seven years earlier.
The scandal came with heavy consequences.
Bakker stepped down as president and board chairman of the PTL (Praise The Lord) television ministry and was forced to leave Heritage USA -- a 2,500-acre Christian retreat and theme park he had designed and founded in Charlotte, N.C.
The kid from Muskegon made front page news at home and around the world.
"I was the No. 2 or No. 3 news story for a year ... all negative news," he said.
He and ex-wife, Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, fled from Charlotte with their two children to a home in Palm Springs, Calif., where they sought refuge from everyone but their closest and most trusted colleagues.
It was, he says, a public fall from grace for which he still seeks forgiveness.
"I apologize," Bakker said in a telephone interview on March 21, 2007, almost 20 years to the day after his resignation. "I am so sorry. If I've ever hurt (anyone) or embarrassed you because of my failures, I say please forgive me."
Since his release from prison in 1993, Bakker has preached a message of restoration and healing. And hope.
"I'm not back for the perfect people, the people who have it all together," he said. "I'm here for the broken and the bruised and the hurt. I'm here to say we have a God of second and third chances."
He uses his own life as example.
After being off the air for 16 years, in 2003, Bakker and his second wife, Lori Bakker, launched a new television ministry -- "The Jim Bakker Show" -- from Branson, Mo.
"The amazing thing is I'm back on television," he said. "It's what I know, what I do. It's my calling."
Set in a converted restaurant he renamed Studio City Cafe, Bakker hosts an hour-long show Monday through Friday on a set far less lavish and with a budget that is a mere fraction of the former PTL Club. There's none of the 24-hour broadcasting capabilities or satellite dishes of yesteryear when he and Tammy Faye ruled the air waves.
Tops, there are 30 employees on The Jim Bakker Show -- a far cry from the 3,000 workers at PTL Club and Heritage USA.
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