How Jim Bakker became the Johnny Carson of Christian TV

Filed 48m ago · Via The Conversation · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Frogs Legs Rag

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Rijksmuseum · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Jim Bakker, who built the PTL television and theme park empire with his wife Tammy Faye starting in the 1970s, died Oct. 5, 2026, at age 86. PTL's 'The PTL Club' modeled itself on Johnny Carson, pioneered satellite Christian broadcasting reaching 14 million American homes, and booked guests ranging from Billy Graham to Larry Flynt.

The Bakkers preached the prosperity gospel and lived it, buying multiple vacation homes and luxury cars while building Heritage USA, a Christian theme park with a 500-room hotel and a $13 million water park. The enterprise was financed by money raised for other projects and was $65 million in debt, losing $2 million a month, by the time a 1987 Charlotte Observer story revealed a 1980 sexual encounter with church secretary Jessica Hahn and $265,000 in hush payments.

Bakker resigned in disgrace and was sentenced to 45 years in prison for fraud in 1989, serving nearly five years before release. The Bakkers divorced in 1992 while he was still incarcerated; Tammy Faye died in 2007.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Preaching that God wants you rich works out fine right up until the auditors show up, and then it turns out God wanted the donors' money moved around a lot faster than anyone disclosed. Bakker built something real, a satellite network and a talk-show format other preachers still copy, and then buried it under a water park he couldn't afford and debts he covered with other people's donations. The lesson here isn't subtle: when the sermon and the spending both promise prosperity, somebody downstream is paying for the gap.

Source: Read the original at The Conversation → Scored: Frogs Legs Rag · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0