Edifying Spectacle

People who sued Jim Bakker to get $6.54 ASHEVILLE, N.C. - A 16-year-old lawsuit against disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker has netted $6.54 payments for the 165,000 people who joined the class action reported the Associated Press, August 1, 2003. Meanwhile, their lawyers will get $2.5 million of a $3.7 million settlement fund, the Citizen-Times of Asheville reported Thursday. The plaintiffs gave $1,000 each for four-day vacation stays at a PTL (Praise the Lord) resort that was never built near Charlotte. An order issued July 24 by Asheville-based U.S. District Judge Lacy Thornburg gives a California claims administrator a month to issue the checks. Money for the settlement fund was placed there by former PTL accountants. California-based law firm Thomas T. Anderson and Associates had asked Thornburg for the entire settlement, saying it would be fruitless to search for everyone involved in the suit. Thornburg denied that request last year. Bakker resigned from Praise The Lord ministries in 1987 after admitting he had an affair with a ministry secretary. In 1989, he was convicted in Charlotte of a wire and mail-fraud scheme over the sale of more than 150,000 lifetime partnerships to the planned Heritage USA theme park in Fort Mill, S.C. Bakker's 45-year sentence was reduced to 18 years and he served five before his parole in 1995. While in prison, his former wife, Tammy Faye - now remarried as Tammy Faye Messner - divorced him. Bakker has since contended that his years in prison were his salvation. He re-read all the scriptures and crucially concluded that the so-called "prosperity preaching" of his PTL days - wherein he equated dollar-wealth with godliness - was misguided. For a while, Bakker lived by his new creed that God also attended to the poor. He moved to Los Angeles where he met his new wife, with whom he is now raising seven Hispanic foster children. Although many sheep are leery of Bakker, the clergy admired his propensity to rob and use the sheep. In 1995, when he was barely out of prison, he addressed a Christian leadership conference where 10,000 clergymen cheered and gave him a 15-minute standing ovation. "I thought people would spit on me," he later recalled. "Instead they received me with open arms." Bakker is now back on the air with "The Jim Bakker Show," taped in Branson, Mo. Assembly of God preacher and Evangelist Jim Bakker presided as the king over one of the most corrupt television ministries of the past two decades. A successful televangelism group run by Jim and Tammy Bakker is a testimony that Evangelical pastors sold their own souls just to make their wallets thicker, when they were supposed to bring God to the people. As a result Jim Bakker and his sidekick Richard Dortch ended up in prison accused of sexual immorality, tax evasion, and racketeering. The wave of corruption not only affected other televangelists such as Jimmy Swaggart, but also showed a dark, dirty fight for the control of PTL among several other prominent televangelists. Felon Richard Dortch, senior vice-president of PTL and associate pastor of Heritage Village Church, said pride, arrogance and secrets led to the PTL scandal. While most people never face temptations on the same scale, the ingredients for seemingly smaller failures are the same, he said. Dortch said the men in PTL's leadership felt they were above accountability. They felt specially called by God and accountable only to Him. He said they didn't plan the scandal; instead, it was the natural result of living for oneself, rather than for God. Most people are aware of Jim Bakker's $265,000 payoff to Jessica Hahn to keep her sexual services to him a secret, his longtime homosexual relationship with his right hand man David Taggart, his prison sentence, his close relationship to Billy Graham, and his lust for public spotlight. As his fellow evangelists seemed to take their turns facing justified criticism, Billy Graham maintained his own integrity and the sincerity of his message. Far from publicly condemning his peers, Billy spoke of them with concern, and even visited Jim Bakker in prison for birds of feather stick together. It is not known whether the Graham's, including Billy and Franklin Graham, will be assisting Bakker in with his ventures. Franklin came to prison over and over again to visit Jim Bakker. Franklin Graham said, "Jim Bakker's my friend". When Bakker got out of prison the Grahams sponsored him and paid for a house for him to live in and gave him a car to drive. None of the Graham's supported or comforted any of the Jim Bakker's victims! It didn't matter to the Grahams that -Bakker had 47 bank accounts, 6 luxury homes, $1.9 million dollar salary and Rolls Royce and Mercedez cars. - Falwell called Bakker a liar, an embezzler and sexual deviate. He fired Bakker's entire staff when he took over Praise the Lord show. Falwell bankrupted the PTL Club calling Bakker "the greatest scab and cancer on the face of Christianity in two thousand years of church history" But Jim Bakker won't have to pay $120 million to former followers who bought "partnerships" in his PTL tele-ministry. A jury in North Carolina on July 23, 1996 threw out a class action suit brought on behalf of more than 160,000 onetime believers who paid as much as $7,000 each in the '80s to join Jim and Tammy Faye in holy larceny. However the Internal Revenue Service says Bakker and Messner owe personal income taxes from the 1980s when they were building their Praise The Lord empire reported the Charlotte Observer. The IRS assessed the taxes after revoking the PTL ministry's nonprofit status, said Roe Messner, Tammy Faye's husband since 1993. Tammy Faye Messner new husband said Jim Bakker and his former wife didn't want to talk about the tax issues. "We don't want to stir the pot," Messner said. He said the original tax amount was about $500,000. Penalties and interest account for the rest of the bill. The notices reinstating the liens list "James O. and Tamara F. Bakker" as owing $3 million. On his website, Jim Bakker is still being a parasite, living off money that he steals from others, stating: Dear Internet Friend, It's not an accident that you have come to this page on this website at this critical hour in the life of this ministry! Lori and I thank you for your meaningful support. Even Moses had the help of faithful loved ones who held up his arms to steady him at a critical hour in his ministry (Exodus 17:12). We need you today to hold up our arms, to steady us at this exciting hour in the life of this growing and vital outreach. My heart is bonded with you and the Apostle Paul who admonished the Saints of God: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. - 2 Corinthians 9:6-8, NKJ I need your help right now! Think it not strange that you are reading these words from my heart at this very moment, "online"! Your obedience to God's leading will be a needed breakthrough for us right now. Would you make a pledge to this ministry for $100? Bakker, who apparently made all of the financial decisions for the PTL and kept two sets of books to conceal the accounting irregularities, took conspicuous consumption to new extremes. PTL once spent over $100,000 for a private jet to fly the Bakker's clothing across the country. PTL also spent more than $100 on a purchase of cinnamon rolls because Jim and Tammy wanted the smell of them in their hotel room. "They [Bakkers] epitomized the excesses of the nineteen eighties--the greed, the love of glitz, and the shamelessness--which in their case was so pure as to almost amount to a kind of innocence. " PTL sold "lifetime memberships" for a $1,000 or more, which entitled buyers to a 3-night stay annually at a luxury hotel in Heritage USA. According to the prosecution at Bakker's trial, tens of thousands of memberships had been sold, and only one 500-room hotel completed. Bakker had not only sold more "exclusive" partnerships than could be accomodated, but had also raised more than twice the money needed to build the hotel. The Bakker trial revealed that a good deal of the money had gone into operating expenses of Heritage USA, and Bakker kept $3,700,000 for himself. (Frances FitzGerald, "Jim and Tammy," The New Yorker, April 29, 1990.) Between 1984 and mid-1987, the Bakkers received annual salaries of $200,000 each and Jim awarded himself over $4 million in bonuses. The Bakkers own, among other things, a $600,000 house in Palm Springs, 4 condos in California, and a Rolls Royce. ("Fresh Out of Miracles," Newsweek, May 11, 1987 & "TV's Unholy Row," Time, Apr 6, 1987.) The former televangelist preached at Central Assembly of God in Muskegon, Mich., July 30, 2000, Religion News Service reported. It was the first time he had been there in 30 years. "If I've ever hurt you, I say please forgive me," Bakker told the congregation of several hundred people during a two-hour service. "My life was smashed, but Jesus Christ has put me back together again." Bakker's grandfather helped start the church in the Depression, and his cousins and their families still attend there. Jim Bakker nor the Assembly of God with whom he was ordained have never publicly discussed or dealt with the fact that Jim Bakker was Bi-sexual or that his real lover was a man! Although a contrite Jim Bakker returned to his childhood church to ask forgiveness, he never talked about David Taggart his great male lover! Bakker, the founder on the now non existent PTL Club and Village, has downplayed the role of the bisexual evangelist John Wesley Fletcher, who arranged his tryst with Jessica Hahn. He hardly talks about James and David Taggart, the brothers who many claim controlled Bakker in his final PTL years Fletcher was bitter and said Bakker had failed to keep promises and had forsaken him during tough times. Fletcher stated during the "Pearlygate" media storm that he, too, had been sexually involved with bisexual Bakker, reported Christianity Today. So it was not surprising that Tammy Faye Bakker ( now Messner), who divorced Bakker, would have a prominent role in the gay pride festivities in Washington in June 2002. The former televangelist was to judge a Tammy Faye look-alike contest, appear at a fund-raising dinner and speak from the main stage of the Capital Pride 2002 street festival. There are those who believe that Tammy Faye is really a drag queen. Once adored by viewers of the electronic church, Messner now appears at gay-pride events nationwide, such as a Tammy Faye look-alike contest held in Washington, D.C., recently where, according to National Public Radio, she was "surrounded by men in falsies and pancake makeup and...impossible to upstage." "I'm just trying to give back to them," she says. "I...tell them there's a God who loves them and cares for them. I told them there's a better way out...that nothing can give you peace except Jesus." Messner does not specifically address the issue of homosexuality being a sin when she talks to groups of gays. "I leave that up to the Holy Spirit because unless He speaks to them, they won't change anyway," she said. But Tammy Faye's former husband, Assembly of God Evangelist Jim Bakker, the founder on the now non existent PTL Club and Village, has downplayed the role of the bisexual evangelist John Wesley Fletcher, who arranged his tryst with Jessica Hahn. He hardly talks about James and David Taggart, the brothers who many claim controlled Bakker in his final PTL years or that David Taggart was his lover and gave him blow jobs. Fletcher was bitter and said Bakker had failed to keep promises and had forsaken him during tough times. Fletcher stated during the "Pearlygate" media storm that he, too, had been sexually involved with bisexual Bakker, reported Christianity Today Bakker, former head of PTL Ministries and Heritage USA, served five years in federal prison on fraud charges. He has spoken about confession of sins, forgiveness, and reconciliation for the last two years in churches around the country, RNS reported. Bakker's wife, Tammy Faye, divorced him while he was in prison and married his best friend, Roe Messner. Bakker, who remarried about two years ago, is starting a ministry in Florida for children from inner cities. At times in prison "I felt like God had left me," Bakker said. "That's the real problem with prosperity teaching," a cornerstone in his television days. "If God comes to you when you prosper, do you think he will walk away when you are poor?" he asked. "There's a lot of false doctrine going around, and I was preaching a lot of it." Bakker helped dedicate the 10,000-seat Carpenter's Home Church in Lakeland, Florida in 1985. The Straders went through a major split of Carpenter's Home Church in 1989 when the Straders refused to relinquish the financial control they had on the ministry, the church and its assets. After getting out from prison Baker once spoke at Carpenter's Home church and said Strader's wife, Joyce, wrote him a letter once a week while he was in prison. I was one of those who helped him build PTL," said Karl Strader, "and I never did know what he did wrong, frankly. And if he did do something wrong, I forgive him, and I know everybody else here forgives him," said Strader. Karl Strader was being generous with Jim Bakker for he too wanted absolution from these sins and crimes and those of his family. His oldest son Daniel, 37, was arrested, tried and sentenced to 45 years in prison in August 1995. He was convicted of 238 felony counts for bilking 57 mostly elderly investors, some members of the church, out of $2.3 million by selling investments in properties that didn't exist or already had liens against them. Dan's specialty was to pray with and prey on his victims with the help of his father. It is to be noted that Richard Dortch, a former Assembly of God district superintendent and vice president of the PTL Club, who paid Jessica Hahn off to buy her silence, led a campaign to raise $52,000 for the defense of Dan Strader but not a penny for any of Dan's victims. In response to all of this Paul Humphries wrote to the author and stated: "See, you do expect too much from our preachers and their family. You think a lil' ole raping and plundering and driving people to murder is wrong. You've got to lighten up, the lord allows for preachers to twist and change the commandments or even selectively choose which commandments are apt for that particular time and place. Since people are people, you can't expect them to follow all the commandments do you? Since you can't follow all of them even part of the time, then to hell with all of them, don't follow any of them........of course tell the sheep to follow every one of them." John Davies References http://www.strang.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/002728.html http://www.wcie.net/danielstrader/ http://www.davidicke.net/religiousfrauds/pentecostal/godfraud.html http://www.cephasministry.com/pentecostals_carpenters_church.html http://www.christiannews.0catch.com/strader.htm http://www.christiannews.0catch.com/hinn.htm http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/lewd.html http://www.sptimes.com/2002/08/12/Floridian/Strength_in_numbers.shtml http://www.evolvefish.com/fish/product902.html http://www.christiannews.0catch.com/bakker.htm http://www.christiannews.0catch.com/graham.htm http://www.christiannews.0catch.com/hank.htm

Own property on grounds Timeshare and had Seven different memberships never heard about suit.

Fool us once shame on you! Fool us twice shame on us!

No Other Gods "You shall have no other gods before Me. Exodus 20:3 "Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst. "But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images'(for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), Exodus 34:14 It’s unfortunate but true, many Christians don’t obey this number one commandment in the bible, “You shall have no other gods before Me” and not only loose great blessing but are destroyed by it. Some make their pet doctrine to be a god, some make their denomination to a god, some make their favorite preacher or evangelist to be a god, some make money to be their god, some make their past hurt or failure to be a god, some make sex a god, and some make favoritism and nepotism to a god. As a result they worship their particular god rather than worshiping the Lord who whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God, become a respecter of persons, show partiality to others, and it becomes a snare unto them (Snare - Something that serves to entangle the unwary). Case in point is that Evangelist Oral Roberts made Evangelist Jim Bakker into a god because he provided his son Evangelist Richard Roberts with TV air time when no one else did. So when Jim Bakker got into trouble and was exposed for being a crook, a liar, a thief, and bisexual, Oral Robert defended him contrary to God’s word (2 Chronicles 19:2). The life of Jim Bakker, the world's most famous fallen tele-evangelist, has always been about numbers, and we are not just talking hymns and psalms. There was the $1.9m salary he paid himself in 1986, the last full year that he led the Praise The Lord (PTL) Ministry that he founded in 1972 with his thickly mascara'd wife, Tammy Faye. At the time, he owned six luxury mansions, 47 bank accounts and a single Rolls-Royce. He was accustomed to raising $1m from his TV-goggling disciples across America every two days. Then came 1989, when he was charged, and convicted, on 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy for stealing $3.7m from his flock to fund his fabulous lifestyle.[1] In an interview on "The Larry King Show," Swaggart claimed that Bakker's downfall represented a "very glad day, because this cancer has been excised that I feel has caused the body of Christ untold reproach. ' ( Associated Press, "Swaggart Calls Bakker 'Cancer' of Christ," The Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Virginia), March 25, 1987.) These comments aroused Oral Roberts's ire, and he blasted Swaggart while defending Bakker. Foolish Oral Roberts forgave and defended Jim Bakker for something that was not forgivable. God does not forgive those who rob, rape and murder in the house of God as Eli and his two sons were not forgiven. Something that is in the very bible that they sometime use and is true. Oral Roberts forgave his friend, Jim Bakker, for robbing and raping in the house of God. Roberts made large contributions to the Praise the Lord (PTL) ministry of Jim and Tammy Bakker when they fell into hard times during the 1987 scandal. (Sara Diamond, Spiritual Warfare (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1989). Then he wondered why the City of Faith of faith was not finished, the law school was not accredited and ORU incurred a 40 million dollar debt. - Falwell called Bakker a liar, an embezzler and sexual deviate. He fired Bakker's entire staff when he took over Praise the Lord show. Falwell bankrupted the PTL Club calling Bakker "the greatest scab and cancer on the face of Christianity in two thousand years of church history" But Jim Bakker won't have to pay $120 million to former followers who bought "partnerships" in his PTL tele-ministry. A jury in North Carolina on July 23, 1996 threw out a class action suit brought on behalf of more than 160,000 onetime believers who paid as much as $7,000 each in the '80s to join Jim and Tammy Faye in holy larceny. However the Internal Revenue Service says Bakker and Messner owe personal income taxes from the 1980s when they were building their Praise The Lord empire reported the Charlotte Observer. The IRS assessed the taxes after revoking the PTL ministry's nonprofit status, said Roe Messner, Tammy Faye's husband since 1993. Tammy Faye Messner new husband said Jim Bakker and his former wife didn't want to talk about the tax issues. "We don't want to stir the pot," Messner said. He said the original tax amount was about $500,000. Penalties and interest account for the rest of the bill. The notices reinstating the liens list "James O. and Tamara F. Bakker" as owing $3 million. Assembly of God preacher and Evangelist Jim Bakker presided as the king over one of the most corrupt television ministries of the past two decades. A successful televangelism group run by Jim and Tammy Bakker is a testimony that Evangelical pastors sold their own souls just to make their wallets thicker, when they were supposed to bring God to the people. As a result Jim Bakker and his sidekick Richard Dortch ended up in prison accused of sexual immorality, tax evasion, and racketeering. The wave of corruption not only affected other televangelists such as Jimmy Swaggart, but also showed a dark, dirty fight for the control of PTL among several other prominent televangelists. Felon Richard Dortch, senior vice-president of PTL and associate pastor of Heritage Village Church, said pride, arrogance and secrets led to the PTL scandal. While most people never face temptations on the same scale, the ingredients for seemingly smaller failures are the same, he said. Dortch said the men in PTL's leadership felt they were above accountability. They felt specially called by God and accountable only to Him. He said they didn't plan the scandal; instead, it was the natural result of living for oneself, rather than for God. For many people, allegations of misappropriating PTL resources for their own personal use and the payment of huge salaries and bonuses were far more serious charges than the allegations of sexual misconduct. The Bakkers had appointed a rubber-stamp board of directors to oversee their management practices. In return for acquiescing to Jim and Tammy's whims, several of these board members received tens of thousands of dollars in fees, bonuses, and contributions to their own projects. In 1986 the Bakkers were paid $1.9 million; since 1984, a total of $4.8 million had been paid to them. In addition, PTL monies were used for expensive homes, a palatial suite at the Heritage Grand Hotel, automobiles, lavish wardrobes, vacations, and parties. The Bakkers' closest associates were privy to their high living at the expense of PTL partners. They, too, were well paid. Reverend Richard Dortch, the Assemblies of God minister who many thought had brought some order and organization to the rapidly growing Heritage USA operations, was paid $240,000 in 1985 and $350,000 in 1986. He received approximately $270,000 during the first three months of 1987 before Falwell sacked him. David Taggart, a twenty-nine-year-old "personal aide" to Bakker, received $360,000 in 1986; Jim Bakker's personal secretary received $160,000. And then there were "consultants." James Taggart, interior decorator and David Taggart's brother, was paid $10,000 a month, but, according to the new PTL management, he had performed no services "for months."' Peter B. Teeley, press secretary to George Bush until 1984, was paid $120,000 for eighteen months to serve as a Washington "liaison"; apparently there were no written records of any services performed. When the Bakkers departed, the financial records of the organization were in shambles-as they probably had been for years. No fewer than forty-seven separate checking accounts were found in the first days of the Falwell takeover. "The books are a mess," proclaimed Harry Hargrave, the Dallas-based consultant Falwell hired to become PTL's new chief executive officer. The real fact is that some deceived Pentecostals don't want to face the fact that Bisexual Jim Bakkker is a thief who has never repented of the fact that he was a thief or bisexual. Terry Mattingly’s religion column for Christianity Today 12/04/96 stated that: “For most Pentecostal and charismatic people, the most serious questions about Jim Bakker were all those allegations of moral misconduct. ... People haven’t forgotten that,” said historian Vinson Synan of Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va. “There does appear to have been a kind of subterranean, homosexual world inside PTL that has never been fully described. That’s where so many questions remain.” Many of the questions center on Fletcher. In addition to his ties to Hahn, it was Fletcher who made anonymous calls in 1983 spreading dirt about Bakker. One of those calls went to me, when I was working as a religion writer in Charlotte, N.C., and I later shared my information with reporter Charles E. Shepard, author of “Forgiven: The Rise and Fall of Jim Bakker and the PTL Ministry.” Years later, Shepard confirmed that Fletcher was my mystery caller. Fletcher mentioned Hahn by name in 1983 and also said David Taggart was Bakker’s lover. Fletcher was bitter and said Bakker had failed to keep promises and had forsaken him during tough times. But Fletcher did not, during those calls, say what he later said during the “Pearlygate” media storm—that he, too, had been sexually involved with Bakker. “I never knew a more corrupt person in my life, period, than Jim Bakker,” Fletcher told me. “Now I see him for what he is.” Bakker has since contended that his years in prison were his salvation. He re-read all the scriptures and crucially concluded that the so-called "prosperity preaching" of his PTL days - wherein he equated dollar-wealth with godliness - was misguided. For a while, Bakker lived by his new creed that God also attended to the poor. He moved to Los Angeles where he worked for a ministry working in a city ghetto. It was there that he met his new wife, with whom he is now raising seven Hispanic foster children. Later the couple moved to Florida where they founded a Christian camp for inner-city teens, called the New Covenant Fellowship. And, as he did so, Bakker discovered that he was not quite the pariah he imagined. When he addressed a Christian leadership conference in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1995, when he was barely out of prison, 10,000 clergymen cheered and gave him a 15-minute standing ovation. "I thought people would spit on me," he later recalled. "Instead they received me with open arms." But there is one number, above all, that Jim Bakker, will never forget. It is 07407-058. Put "Inmate" in front of it, and you will see why. Bakker was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison for his crimes, even though some of the counts against him were later reversed and in 1994 he was released after only five years behind bars. By then, Tammy Faye had divorced him and 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. He did write a book, however, simply called I Was Wrong. And then, lo and behold, Bakker was wrong again. Not only is he preaching once more, but he is doing it before the cameras. Second chances are encouraged in Christian teaching and, for sure, they are allowed in America. For proof, you need look no further than a joint called the Studio City Café in Branson, Missouri, a folksy tourist town that peddles God and country music to Middle America in roughly equal measures. [2] Timeline 2 Jan 1939 Born as James Orsen in Muskegon, Michigan. 7 Mar 1942 Tammy Faye Bakker born, International Falls MN. 1 Apr 1961 Marries Tammy Faye. And it's not April Fool. 1964 Ordained as a minister. 1974 PTL show begins. 6 Dec 1980 Jim Bakker fucks church secretary Jessica Hahn at the Sheraton Sand Key hotel in Clearwater, FL. His line: "When you help the shepherd, you're helping the sheep." Later she receives $265,000 in hush money. 19 Mar 1987 Jim Bakker resigns from PTL, the television ministry he founded. He claims he was "wickedly manipulated by treacherous former friends and colleagues 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." 24 Apr 1987 Televangelist John Ankerberg accuses Jim Bakker of having engaged in sex with prostitutes and homosexuals, encouraging wife-swapping between PTL employees, and embezzling millions from the business. 17 May 1987 Jimmy Swaggart explains why Jerry Falwell is obliged to return PTL to Jim Bakker: "If I tell you I'm going to keep your truck for five days and then I'm going to give it back to you, and then someone finds out you're a homosexual, I still owe you your truck." 26 May 1987 Jim Bakker goes on Nightline and announces that it had been a "terrible mistake" to relinquish control of his PTL ministry to Jerry Falwell. 27 May 1987 During a 90-minute press conference, Jerry Falwell admonishes Jim Bakker: "I have sat across the table from men who have told me of your homosexual advances." 27 May 1987 During a joint appearance on Nightline, Tammy Faye Bakker declares: "I've been married to this man for 26 years, and I can tell you one thing: he's not homosexual, or is he bisexual. He's a wonderful, loving husband." May 1987 Defrocked as a minister. Sep 1988 Sullied church secretary Jessican Hahn appears in a Playboy pictorial. 5 Dec 1988 Jim Bakker indicted for fraud and conspiracy, after embezzling $158 million from the PTL ministry. Jan 1989 Article "The Devil in Jim Bakker: His Homosexual Lover and Pimp Tells All" appears in Penthouse. 28 Aug 1989 Jim Bakker's trial for fraud and conspiracy begins in Charlotte, NC. 5 Oct 1989 Jim Bakker convicted of 23 counts of fraud and one count of conspiracy for stealing donations from the PTL ministry. 24 Oct 1989 Televangelist Jim Bakker receives 45 years and a $500,000 fine for defrauding investors of $3.7M. Bakker had already been dismissed from his PTL ministry, so the criminal penalties probably just added insult to injury. 1992 Tammy Faye Bakker divorces Jim Bakker. 1 Jul 1994 Jim Bakker paroled to a halfway house run by the Salvation Army in Asheville, NC. 1997 Jessica Hahn ranked among People's 25 Most Intriguing People of 1987. (God, why...) Jun 2003 Jim Bakker returns to the televangelism racket, in The New Jim Bakker Show. [1] Jim Bakker's back, Independent (England), June 15, 2003 [2] Jim Bakker's back, Independent (England), June 15, 2003

I believe people should forgive Jim Bakker just as Jesus does us no matter what sin we commit.

Jim Bakker on his "New Jim Bakker Show" that aired April 15, 2004 had guests who were all former PTL employees, and who shared with Jimmy in reflecting on the good ole PTL days. By the way, on the same program, in addition to begging for contributions, Bakker also stated they were "about 2,000 gifts behind" in sending out items people had ordered. Is the old dog up to the same old tricks?

Dear Sir, I am sending you a warning regarding Mr. Jim Bakker. You may not be a beliver or may not like jim Bakker. but I Must say you are walking on thin Ice. The Bible warns aganist the running down of a Minister of the Gospel. My Family were members of PTL and we spent Many days at PTL in NC. nobody was ripped off. If you were a lifetime Member and did not come down here and see the place then you didn't get your money's worth. I spent only a 1000.00 for a membership. I thought it was Cheep. I like to go on Hunting trips that cost 5000.00 a thousand bucks is nothing. for the 5 vacations we spent there. I think it is a shame that there are people still trying to drag jim Bakker through the Mudd. YOU BETTER BE CAREFUL, BECAUSE IN THE END GOD WILL DEAL WITH YOU FACE TO FACE.

"The Bible warns aganist the running down of a Minister of the Gospel" Are you off the wall? Jim Bakker is a minister of the gospel? What gospel? The one of robbing, raping and using the sheep? Jesus Christ the Chief Shepherd and Chief Apostle never did or would condone what bisexual pervert lying thieving deceiving Jim Bakker did! On the contrary Jesus told us: MT 7:15 "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 7:16 "You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 7:17 "Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 7:18 "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 7:19 "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 7:20 "Therefore by their fruits you will know them. 7:21 "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Mark 12:38 Then He said to them in His teaching, "Beware of the scribes, who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, 12:39 "the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts, 12:40 "who devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation."

I am a Christian women who believes that we are not to judge anyman because we are all sinners. I believe Jim Bakker did mess up badly. I also believe God lets things happen in our lives so he can get our attention. I believe Jim Bakker Is on a better track with Jesus and we have to listen. God wants us to love everyone even our enemies. Please just have a open mind with Jim Bakker and his ministry and pray for him to stay on the rightious path. God Bless You. Please ask God to take away any hurt and bitterness you might have.