OPINION:
In the 1980s, the media dubbed them “televangelists.” These were men and a few women who preached a “prosperity gospel” that claimed God would reward donors who gave money to their “ministries.”
Jim Bakker, who died Monday at age 86, was among the most successful of the group, if your standard for success is money and fame.
Mr. Bakker spent nearly five years in prison after his 1989 conviction for defrauding followers in a scheme involving the sale of vacation timeshares at his Heritage USA Christian theme park and resort.
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I opposed his imprisonment, recommending the biblical standard of restitution. Putting him in prison, I said, did not help the people who had been defrauded. He wrote me a letter from his prison cell, thanking me.
When Mr. Bakker was released from prison, I invited him to my home. I had met him on a few occasions and appeared once on “The PTL Club.” “PTL” stood for “Praise the Lord,” or “People That Love,” which he used interchangeably.
Mr. Bakker “loved” in an unbiblical way. A woman named Jessica Hahn claimed that Mr. Bakker drugged and raped her when she was a 21-year-old church secretary. Ms. Hahn was given $265,000 — equivalent to about $790,000 — for her silence, which was paid with PTL funds through Bakker associate Roe Messner.
In a drama resembling a soap opera, Mr. Bakker’s wife, Tammy Faye, divorced him and married Messner.
When Mr. Bakker came to my home, I said, “I think I know the answer to this question, but I want to hear it from you. When did you start to go wrong?”
Mr. Bakker replied, “When I surrounded myself with people who told me only what I wanted to hear.”
That should also serve as a warning to politicians.
I told him that television was like a drug and he had been a heavy “user.” “I advised him to stay off TV. He heeded that advice for a time, but in 2003, he returned to the airwaves with a new show alongside his second wife, Lori. Tammy Faye passed away four years later, in 2007.
Religion can occasionally be as phony as politics. Both require a lot of money and have sometimes been guilty of not telling the truth.
Even some non-Christians may be familiar with 1 Timothy 6:10: “The love of money is the root of all evil.” The passage continues: “Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”
That was true of Mr. Bakker as well as Jimmy Swaggart, who was caught with a prostitute in a seedy motel but managed to continue on TV, duping his dwindling followers.
It is sad to see how so many people can be fooled into believing lies. I blame biblical illiteracy.
In 2019, the Pew Research Center published a survey titled “What Americans Know About Religion.” When examining evangelical knowledge of the Bible, it found that:
- Only 66% of evangelicals knew that Jesus was from Nazareth, while 86% knew that Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt.
- Only 69% of evangelicals knew that Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, while 91% knew that David killed Goliath with a stone.
- About 25% of evangelicals thought the golden rule was one of the Ten Commandments.
Yet some of these same people want the Ten Commandments placed in public schools.
This one always makes me laugh: “Surveys by the Barna Research Group show that roughly 10% to 12% of Americans mistakenly believe Joan of Arc was the wife of Noah.”
After the laughter and “holier-than-thou” expressions recede, there is still the problem of TV evangelists ripping off decent, gullible people.
Mr. Bakker is gone, but others remain.
• Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book, “A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America” (Humanix Books).
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