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Forgiven: The Rise and Fall of Jim Bakker and the PTL Ministry
The Man: the puzzle of Jim Bakker, the enigmatic youngest son of a machinist – he rose from college dropout to the enthusiastic host of the "700 Club" for Pat Robertson, and finally to president of the ill-fated PTL ministry.
The Money: Bakker's "Lifetime Partnerships" became a $160 million engine that propelled his ministry into national prominence. Simultaneously, his moral and management failures veered PTL toward financial collapse, setting the stage for indictment and criminal trial.
The Faithful: Hundreds of thousands of trusting, charismatic, and Pentecostal Christians found in Bakker, PTL, and Heritage USA a hero fo their own, a church in their living room, and a loving community of like-minded believers.
Bakker's Lieutenants: The Pentecostal bishop for whom the ends justified the means; the effeminate one-time piano player who wielded Bakker's proxy; and the succession of idealists who tried to keep Bakker's ministry on a righteous course.
The Press: The Charlotte Observer's exclusive behind-the-scenes pursuit of the Jessica Hahn payoff and PTL's efforts to keep its cover-up from unraveling.
The Money: Bakker's "Lifetime Partnerships" became a $160 million engine that propelled his ministry into national prominence. Simultaneously, his moral and management failures veered PTL toward financial collapse, setting the stage for indictment and criminal trial.
The Faithful: Hundreds of thousands of trusting, charismatic, and Pentecostal Christians found in Bakker, PTL, and Heritage USA a hero fo their own, a church in their living room, and a loving community of like-minded believers.
Bakker's Lieutenants: The Pentecostal bishop for whom the ends justified the means; the effeminate one-time piano player who wielded Bakker's proxy; and the succession of idealists who tried to keep Bakker's ministry on a righteous course.
The Press: The Charlotte Observer's exclusive behind-the-scenes pursuit of the Jessica Hahn payoff and PTL's efforts to keep its cover-up from unraveling.
652 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1989
5 people are currently reading
116 people want to read
About the author
Charles E. Shepard
3 booksAs a reporter for The Charlotte Observer, Shepard tirelessly investigated and reported on televangelist Jim Bakker's misuse of funds and deceptive practices, even as the PTL television ministry sought to discredit his work and pressure his newspaper to remain silent. As a result of Shepard's reporting, Bakker and three associates were imprisoned for fraud, and in 1988 the Observer was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service. The next year Shepard published "Forgiven: The Rise and Fall of Jim Bakker and the PTL Ministry," a biography of Bakker.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See:
Charles E. Shepard
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See:
Charles E. Shepard
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 8, 2012
I must admit to watching the fall of Jim and Tammy with some glee in the late eighties. It was the classic case of the pompous, arrogant , holier-than-thou, rich evangelist getting his due in a sex and greed scandal that brought down his religious television empire.
Bakker was one of the pioneers of the television ministry and his rise was similar to that of the Pentacostal Church in the United States. He profited to a large extent from that revival. But his story also is a parable for the dangers inherent in television ministries which accumulate huge sums of money, most of it exempt from any kind of taxes and prosecution for fraud, because of its "sacred" tinge, is almost unheard of lest the prosecutors be accused of being anti-religion.
Following a stint working for Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, Bakker struck out on his own. Even from the beginning he would get his way by relying on the old standby, "God told me so." He would often completely disregard financial and legal realism saddling PTL with more and more debt. He was impulsive, controlling, and chronically impractical. He would just charge off and plan the most grandiose projects and then fail to follow through with promises, often embarrassing his friends and staff (whom he would fire at will for lack of loyalty.)
Bakker's theology was what has become standard in the pentecostal circuit: the prosperity gospel, otherwise known as "seed-faith," i.e., you give to the ministry and God will reward you financially. In the meantime, Bakker was buying bigger cars and houses for himself, usually with PTL funds. Irregularities surfaced everywhere. Attempts at budgeting failed because Bakker would charge off, buy a new boat or house or begin a new project and money had to be siphoned off from other accounts to cover hie expenditures.
Evidence of Bakker's sexual proclivities were apparent almost from the start. He began paling around with John Wesley Fletcher, a supposed faith healer, who also had a penchant for the ladies. In one case Fletcher brought Jessica Hahn down from New York, procured, I should say, for Bakker. Several male staff were asked to give Bakker massages and then were solicited for sex; most were too embarrassed to report anything. He sent one friend at CBN (Pat Roberstson's Christian Broadcasting Network) a case ! of condoms.
One of my favorite stories surfaced in this book. Bakker sold his remaining TV station to avoid an FCC investigation into his financial dealings (the FCC could regulate TV station owners, but not those who supplied content.) The buyer was a rather shady character who had taken over Billy James Hargis's ministry. (Hargis was known for his Bible thumping anti-communist and anti-gay rhetoric.) Hargis got into trouble when the story surfaced he had had sex with five students at his college and that two of those students discovered on their wedding night that both of them had slept with Hargis.
When the Charlotte Observer began writing articles critical of PTL and their prevarication and mismanagement, the PTL response was a series of shows proclaiming victimhood and claimning it was a conspiracy to prevent them from getting the Word out. Typical. Ignore the facts and marshal the forces against the truth. And marshal they did. The reporters were soon subjected to phone calls and letters detailing the miseries God would wreck upon them. Of course, nothing happened except to reveal the mental degeneracy of most of Bakker's followers.
Bakker, constantly under financial pressure because of his erratic and grandiose building projects, hit on a plan to fund his endeavors while his regular PTL operations were running a $1.2 million per month loss. For $1,000 (later $2,500) you could purchase a partnership in his Heritage Park hotel that would guarantee free lodging, first for two nights then three, every year. The problem was that the partnerships soon exceeded the capacity of the hotel which need at least 50% paying occupancy just to come close to breaking even, let along make money, which was the original intent. So each partnership "sold" became a long-term liability. Soon the IRS became interested in how the money was being spent. The board and Bakker had ignored their auditor's recommendations to use money collect for religious purposes that instead was being used to support an extravagant Bakker lifestyle, and the IRS soon began to question PTL's religious tax exemption.
By this time, some PTL staffers had observed that the structure of the organization resembled the Soviet Union, i.e., it was run by a small bureaucracy which controlled all the money, urged the "rank and file to sacrifice", held all the privileges and manipulated the flow of information about the organiztion, "individuals were expendable, that everything existed for the good of the state."
The Assembly of God leadership was also becoming concerned. Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert were dueling on-air, Bakker complaining that Swaggert was coming down too hard oin a Texas ministry who had been caught, literally, with his pants down. In light of what happened to Swaggert later on (see...), perhaps he should have listened to Bakker. Be that as it may, the church leadership was also very concerned about the financial irregularities becoming increasingly apparent at PTL. In addition "...the denomination mainstream found the ministry superficial. gaudy, self-aggrandizing--and perhaps guilty of using religion as a cover for greed. . . Bakker had manufactured a ministry with an adjustable moral compass." One might argue that's not so unusual, but that's another debate.
It was, as everyone knows,the Jessica Hahn affair that brought down the walls around Bakker and he served some prison time. No need to recount the sordid details. I find it interesting that Bakker is still on cable, and I tuned in the other day. Looked like the same old crap to me. Guess he didn't learn.
Bakker was one of the pioneers of the television ministry and his rise was similar to that of the Pentacostal Church in the United States. He profited to a large extent from that revival. But his story also is a parable for the dangers inherent in television ministries which accumulate huge sums of money, most of it exempt from any kind of taxes and prosecution for fraud, because of its "sacred" tinge, is almost unheard of lest the prosecutors be accused of being anti-religion.
Following a stint working for Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, Bakker struck out on his own. Even from the beginning he would get his way by relying on the old standby, "God told me so." He would often completely disregard financial and legal realism saddling PTL with more and more debt. He was impulsive, controlling, and chronically impractical. He would just charge off and plan the most grandiose projects and then fail to follow through with promises, often embarrassing his friends and staff (whom he would fire at will for lack of loyalty.)
Bakker's theology was what has become standard in the pentecostal circuit: the prosperity gospel, otherwise known as "seed-faith," i.e., you give to the ministry and God will reward you financially. In the meantime, Bakker was buying bigger cars and houses for himself, usually with PTL funds. Irregularities surfaced everywhere. Attempts at budgeting failed because Bakker would charge off, buy a new boat or house or begin a new project and money had to be siphoned off from other accounts to cover hie expenditures.
Evidence of Bakker's sexual proclivities were apparent almost from the start. He began paling around with John Wesley Fletcher, a supposed faith healer, who also had a penchant for the ladies. In one case Fletcher brought Jessica Hahn down from New York, procured, I should say, for Bakker. Several male staff were asked to give Bakker massages and then were solicited for sex; most were too embarrassed to report anything. He sent one friend at CBN (Pat Roberstson's Christian Broadcasting Network) a case ! of condoms.
One of my favorite stories surfaced in this book. Bakker sold his remaining TV station to avoid an FCC investigation into his financial dealings (the FCC could regulate TV station owners, but not those who supplied content.) The buyer was a rather shady character who had taken over Billy James Hargis's ministry. (Hargis was known for his Bible thumping anti-communist and anti-gay rhetoric.) Hargis got into trouble when the story surfaced he had had sex with five students at his college and that two of those students discovered on their wedding night that both of them had slept with Hargis.
When the Charlotte Observer began writing articles critical of PTL and their prevarication and mismanagement, the PTL response was a series of shows proclaiming victimhood and claimning it was a conspiracy to prevent them from getting the Word out. Typical. Ignore the facts and marshal the forces against the truth. And marshal they did. The reporters were soon subjected to phone calls and letters detailing the miseries God would wreck upon them. Of course, nothing happened except to reveal the mental degeneracy of most of Bakker's followers.
Bakker, constantly under financial pressure because of his erratic and grandiose building projects, hit on a plan to fund his endeavors while his regular PTL operations were running a $1.2 million per month loss. For $1,000 (later $2,500) you could purchase a partnership in his Heritage Park hotel that would guarantee free lodging, first for two nights then three, every year. The problem was that the partnerships soon exceeded the capacity of the hotel which need at least 50% paying occupancy just to come close to breaking even, let along make money, which was the original intent. So each partnership "sold" became a long-term liability. Soon the IRS became interested in how the money was being spent. The board and Bakker had ignored their auditor's recommendations to use money collect for religious purposes that instead was being used to support an extravagant Bakker lifestyle, and the IRS soon began to question PTL's religious tax exemption.
By this time, some PTL staffers had observed that the structure of the organization resembled the Soviet Union, i.e., it was run by a small bureaucracy which controlled all the money, urged the "rank and file to sacrifice", held all the privileges and manipulated the flow of information about the organiztion, "individuals were expendable, that everything existed for the good of the state."
The Assembly of God leadership was also becoming concerned. Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert were dueling on-air, Bakker complaining that Swaggert was coming down too hard oin a Texas ministry who had been caught, literally, with his pants down. In light of what happened to Swaggert later on (see...), perhaps he should have listened to Bakker. Be that as it may, the church leadership was also very concerned about the financial irregularities becoming increasingly apparent at PTL. In addition "...the denomination mainstream found the ministry superficial. gaudy, self-aggrandizing--and perhaps guilty of using religion as a cover for greed. . . Bakker had manufactured a ministry with an adjustable moral compass." One might argue that's not so unusual, but that's another debate.
It was, as everyone knows,the Jessica Hahn affair that brought down the walls around Bakker and he served some prison time. No need to recount the sordid details. I find it interesting that Bakker is still on cable, and I tuned in the other day. Looked like the same old crap to me. Guess he didn't learn.
June 4, 2017
Very concise and detailed book on Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker rise to the top and their ultimate downfall with a very in-depth look at the PTL organization, the Bakkers and those that believed in them and their ministry. It takes the reader from the initial meeting of Jim and Tammy, building of the ministry, their life and the demise of the PTL. This book held my interest and I could not wait to pick up reading from where I left off. The book details many of the mis-deeds that transpired and it also gives y a good look at the people that were associated with Jim Bakker and PTL and how they dealt with him, and tried to do the best they could for the PTL organization. When I finished up with this book, that old saying came to my mind: "Pride goeth before the fall".Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review.
November 8, 2010
Great inside story of PTL, told by the reporter who covered it. Features the disputes and infighting within The Charlotte Observer about the coverage and public reaction.
Want to read
May 4, 2019Synopsis: in the 1980s, Jim Bakker, charismatic Christian televangelist at the PTL Ministry, had an affair with Jessica Hahn. It was his downfall.
May 13, 2020
What a bunch of creeps. That's all I can say. Still relevant today. Not one thing has changed and nothing has been learnt. A great book about a lesson still not learnt.
July 15, 2024
I’ve never been a huge fan of televangelists, but I remember these two and another guy who did faith healing in Orlando. There always seems to be a shoebox vibe that distills the gospel for me.
February 10, 2013
I was dimly aware of the Jim Bakker PTL scandal when it was brewing in the eighties and thought, given the focus of the media attention, that it mostly had to do with his sexual liaison with Jessica Hahn and the subsequent hush payment. It didn't--or, rather, the litigation which followed and Bakker's subsequent years in prison mostly had to do with financial irregularites and misrepresentations, not with Bakker's rank hypocrisy about drinking, drug abuse, extramarital sex, masturbation and homosexual sex, all of he practiced except for the drug abuse. That was Tammy's speciality.
This book is what appears to be a thorough, balanced biography of Jim Bakker and his various ministries culminating in his forced resignation from PTL and replacement by Jerry Falwell et alia. The author was a local reporter who had followed the story from about the time of the first FCC investigation (an investigation quashed by Reagan appointees) and who introduces himself in the first person as his own involvement developed. The story ends as the litigation which led to Bakker's imprisonment began in 1989.
Most of Bakker's legal, as opposed to moral, crimes were financial. Not much of a businessman, he kept PTL afloat by ceaseless deceptive fund appeals as his own income and corporate waste and debts increased exponentially. Hundreds of millions were stolen in the sense that the bulk of the moneys were not directed to the charities he said they were intended for.
The greatest weakness of the book is that one gets very little sense of the Bakker worldview or theology beyond his prosperity gospel, i.e. that Jesus and faith in Jesus was all about being rich and happy. Of course, it is quite possible that there wasn't much theology involved other than a vague notion of an indulgent and uncritical god supremely concerned about the welfare of Jim Bakker. Bakker was later to renounce his prosperity teaching, admitting that he actually had never gotten around to reading the whole bible until his years in prison.
The author avoids cheap shots. If anything, he underplays the personal aspects of the scandal, really only mentioning the sexual accusations insofar as they came up in suit and countersuit or when Hahn herself contacted him for help in reaching a settlement. The book would have been more fun, certainly, if the various prostitues (only mentioned in a footnote) and men who claimed to have had relations with the bible college dropout were given more voice, but then the serious points about the abuse of tax exempt religious status might have been overshadowed.
Overall, a considerable accomplishment for a journalist without prior experience in writing a book.
This book is what appears to be a thorough, balanced biography of Jim Bakker and his various ministries culminating in his forced resignation from PTL and replacement by Jerry Falwell et alia. The author was a local reporter who had followed the story from about the time of the first FCC investigation (an investigation quashed by Reagan appointees) and who introduces himself in the first person as his own involvement developed. The story ends as the litigation which led to Bakker's imprisonment began in 1989.
Most of Bakker's legal, as opposed to moral, crimes were financial. Not much of a businessman, he kept PTL afloat by ceaseless deceptive fund appeals as his own income and corporate waste and debts increased exponentially. Hundreds of millions were stolen in the sense that the bulk of the moneys were not directed to the charities he said they were intended for.
The greatest weakness of the book is that one gets very little sense of the Bakker worldview or theology beyond his prosperity gospel, i.e. that Jesus and faith in Jesus was all about being rich and happy. Of course, it is quite possible that there wasn't much theology involved other than a vague notion of an indulgent and uncritical god supremely concerned about the welfare of Jim Bakker. Bakker was later to renounce his prosperity teaching, admitting that he actually had never gotten around to reading the whole bible until his years in prison.
The author avoids cheap shots. If anything, he underplays the personal aspects of the scandal, really only mentioning the sexual accusations insofar as they came up in suit and countersuit or when Hahn herself contacted him for help in reaching a settlement. The book would have been more fun, certainly, if the various prostitues (only mentioned in a footnote) and men who claimed to have had relations with the bible college dropout were given more voice, but then the serious points about the abuse of tax exempt religious status might have been overshadowed.
Overall, a considerable accomplishment for a journalist without prior experience in writing a book.
April 17, 2008
Really good retelling of a scandal that rocked the Christian world by the reporter who led the charge.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews