Review: The Rise and Fall of Jim and Tammy Bakker's Evangelical Empire by John Wigger

 The sex and financial scandal of PTL creator and leader devolved into a battle between two versions of Christian evangelicalism: Pentecostal (represented by Jimmy Swaggert who wanted to bring down Bakker’s Empire) and A more standard for of evangelicalism represented by Jerry Falwell, who thought he could save and thus inherit everything.  To his dismay, probably because he had not done due diligence, he discovered the situation was far more dire than he had imagined.

The creation of PTL and Heritage USA followed a well-established trajectory in American evangelicalism as it evolved from field preaching, to camp meetings, to big tent revivals, to radio and television and eventual financial scandal. Bakker began small in 1974 and soon exploded in popularity as Bakker early on recognized the power of TV at getting his message – and requests for funds – across to thousands of people around the world. They weren’t the first to use broadcast.  Bakker’s genius was to create the Christian talk show – it didn’t look like a church service unlike broadcasts by Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, etc. With celebrity, however, came temptation and the desire for more.

Heritage USA was to become the Christian alternative to Disneyland. To be constructed on 2300 acres it would have hotels, water parks, restaurants, theme parks, and TV studios. It would also cost many millions to build.  To finance it, Bakker came up with the idea of selling partnerships.  Partners would be guaranteed that for a “gift” of $1000 they have lifetime access to a hotel room for 4-5 days and all the facilities each year. Problem was that these were very popular and as soon as the need for more funds grew, they had more partners than could ever be accommodated when they wanted in the hotels.  So Baker wanted to build more hotels which needed more money which needed more partners, ad infinitum, especially as he kept adding more theme parks and attractions, none of which they could afford.

PTL’s board provided no oversight whatsoever and Dorcht and other Bakker lackeys kept giving the bakers (and themselves) more and more lavish bonuses (all with extra money so they were tax-free) that were off the books.  They had millions coming in each month but it was nowhere near enough to keep everything afloat. (Prosperity gospel preached by Bakker and others paid no attention to debt and accounting. “The facts of accounting applied only to those who lacked faith. Second, it allowed ministries to aggressively raise funds, since by taking their followers’ money they were really doing them a favor. The more believers gave, the more God would give them in return.”  If in doubt spend and buy, and if you give enough to the “church”, i.e. Bakker, Swaggart, etc., you will reap “tenfold.”  Worked for a while for Bakker, although I’m pretty sure God had nothing to do with it. If he needed more money he would just have another telethon and the cash poured in. [Bakker} ““we knew the principle of giving, and those people that were watching the [PTL] satellite [network] have been fed on the word of God and God has prospered them. Oh, people, you can’t beat God giving, no matter how hard you try.”  Accounting be damned.

By 1984, just 10 years after their start, financial cracks were becoming crevices.  “The main concern…is whether PTL will be able to continue as ‘a going concern’ based on current assets of only 8.6 million against 28.5 million in current liabilities. Part of the problem… was that the lifetime partnership program had shifted how people gave to PTL. “More and more of our funds were coming from lifetime partnerships” while “monthly contributions dropped off drastically,” he later said.”  Bakker’s response to this negative view was to turn “ to an old trick that he had used many times in the past: launch a new project and use the funds raised for the new project to pay old debts. It was like getting a new credit card to make payments on an old card that was maxed out. Though the Heritage Grand was still several months away from opening, in September 1984 Bakker announced a new lifetime partnership program for a second hotel, the Heritage Grand Towers. “When in doubt, build something more!”

Then the Jessica Hahn scandal hit. Bakker had had a tryst with Hahn, a church secretary.  She claimed she was drugged and raped. She was paid off with PTL money to keep quiet.  That information and persistent rumors that Bakker was indulging in gay sex with some PTL staff he had hired, finally led to his resignation as PTL began to circle the wagons to prevent a very hostile takeover by Jimmy Swaggart who didn’t like the Bakker form of evangelism.

Of course in typical Trumpian fashion, Bakker turned all blame away from himself.  It was the Fault of the media, especially the Charlotte Observer that had written numerous stories detailing the financial house of cards he had built. The IRS had begin an investigation into the use of funds that had been allocated for specific purposes by donors but were bing used for personal bonuses and other projects. The IRS was Satan (always handy to be able to blame a nonentity.)  “He portrayed the IRS audit as an attack of Satan. “The larger a ministry grows the more you become an enemy of Satan,” he declared on the air. Satan’s tool was “government agencies” that were “anti-Christ and anti-God,” Bakker said.”

Heritage USA is no more.  It closed in 1989.  Oral Roberts’ City of Faith, medical facility Roberts claimed to have been ordered by God to build following the death of his daughter in a plane crash, also closed in 1989.  (You may remember Roberts said he would die if people didn’t send money to keep it going; instead, it just siphoned money from his TV ministry. Falwell’s son who took over after the death of Jerry became involved in his own sex and fiscal mismanagement crisis.*** 

The numerous scandals resulted in serious drops in giving; people were tired of giving money only to discover it was enriching the celebrities rather than helping or converting people around the world.  Go online, though and you can still find lots of ways to buy prayer requests, etc. Hard to tack them to a church door, though. 

Following his release from prison, Bakker has reinvented himself rather brilliantly, shifting from the prosperity gospel to an apocalyptic one, i.e., fitting following 9/11 the world will soon be coming to an end.  (His prediction on air was 2019, guess they missed that one.)  Bakker's new ministry sells survivalist supplies, e.g., camping supplies, freeze-dried foods, all over-priced and low-quality.  Bakker gushes, "And it's low in cholesterol." Certainly a major worry as the world collapses around you.

"Bakker has always had a talent for identifying cultural trends and crafting a message to fit. Had his role at PTL been limited to this, the ministry might have fulfilled more of its promise. But religious groups have a way of elevating prophets beyond their abilities, a tendency made worse by our modern fascination with celebrity."

***https://www.vox.com/2020/8/25/21399954/jerry-falwell-jr-resigns-scandal-liberty

Historian's Pickaxe

Conventional wisdom has Roe v Wade playing the primary role in the rise of the religious right, yet that’s not the case. In the early seventies, most evangelicals considered abortion a non-issue, or, at best a Catholic one. The precipitating event was President Carter’s implementation of anti-segregation policies using the IRS as a weapon. Bob Jones University, an evangelical college,  was adamantly opposed to any kind of integration and when the IRS threatened to pull tax-exempt status from all segregated schools, it became a catalyst for action against the federal government and their “control of private education.”

At a conference of  conservative religious groups in 1990, when the standard line was outlined in a speech by someone, “[Paul} Weyrich forcefully disputed that assumption, recounting that ever since Barry Goldwater’s run for the presidency in 1964, he had been trying to enlist evangelicals in conservative political causes, but it was the tax exemption for religious schools that finally caught the attention of evangelical leaders. Abortion, he said, had nothing to do with it.”  It was Green v Connally, and Coit v Green, both 1971 decisions, not Roe v Wade that provided a catalyst to the movement. Both of them affirmed  that tax exempt status could not be granted to segregated schools, of which there were still many even 15 years after Brown v Board of education that struck down separate but equal schools.

In fact, Southern Baptists, hardly pastions of liberalism, were promoting loosening up restrictions on abortion. “Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, during the summer of 1971, the messengers (delegates) to the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution that stated, ‘we call upon Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.” They reaffirmed that position in 1974, the year after the Roe decision.**

W.A. Criswell, former president of the Southern Baptists and one of the most famous fundamentalists of the twentieth century said, in 1973, “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person,” and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.” ***

Reaction to the IRS dedcision, particularly the demand that schools have a quota of minorities, was swift and angry. ““Jerome Kurtz [IRS Commissioner] has done more to bring Christians together than any man since the Apostle Paul.” Numerous organizations were from, Christian coalitions, to fight this intrusion into the Christian school subculture that feared inegration. “Evangelical leaders, prodded by Weyrich, chose to interpret the IRS ruling against segregationist schools as an assault on the integrity and the sanctity of the evangelical subculture, ignoring the fact that exemption from taxes is itself a form of public subsidy. And that is what prompted them to action and to organize into a political movement. “

The problem they faced was adding another issue that would engage a broader segment of society than just tax exemption. The elections of 1978 provided a clue. Pro-life advocates (primarily Catholics) had targeted Dick Clark in Iowa, considered a shoe-in for reelection. He was defeated by a pro-life candidate to the surprise of everyone following a vigorous anti-Clark campaign that distributed thousands of leaflets in church parking lots just before the election. Analysts agreed abortion made the difference.

The defeat of Clark and the triple win for Republicans in Minnesota in 1978 convinced Weyrich that abortion was a winning issue for conservatives.  Helped by Frances Schaefer, a Presbyterian minister and activist who had been liaising with Catholic bishops, abortion became a rallying cry on the right.  Ironically, it hurt Jimmy Carter, who had a more consistent anti-abortion belief than Reagan, but even though Carter had nothing to do with the IRS actions, he became associated with it as president dooming his presidency. Reagan became the darling of the right and the rest is history.

*The Historian's Pickaxe by Randall Balmer See also Randall Balmer’s (Historian of Religion) book, Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America (2006)

**And again in 1976, if a bit more measured:  calling on “Southern Baptists and all citizens of the nation to work to change those attitudes and conditions which encourage many people to turn to abortion as a means of birth control”; but it also affirmed “our conviction about the limited role of government in dealing with matters relating to abortion, and support the right of expectant mothers to the full range of medical services and personal counseling for the preservation of life and health.” Annual of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1976 (Nashville, Tenn.: Executive Committee, Southern Baptist Convention, 1976), 58.  Precisely the opposite of the position being taken by current radical anti abortionists.

*** Quoted in Christianity Today, March 2, 1973

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Not entirely tongue-in-cheek

Given the recent immunity decision by SCOTUS, and given that Trump presents an existential threat to democracy, Biden should use his police powers to 1. arrest Alito and Thomas on bribery charges, 2. send police to shut down the GOP convention to prevent the nomination of Trump, 3.  arrest Trump on whatever they feel like along with MTG and Mike Johnson for treason.  All these actions would be declared to be under national emergency and official actions 

Then Biden should just say we are postponing the November election.  Don't like it, sue me.

 

References:

 

"Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts." 

 

Supreme Court Decision on Immunity