Ex-Con Televangelist Jim Bakker Returns to TV With a New Real Estate Scheme

Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone at 7:32 AM on February 18, 2008.

The faith depicted in this next story seems strong to me, sweet in its forgiveness, and ever so gullible and malleable. There is a beauty and goodness in those first two qualities, but that latter quality shows us why Christian conservatives bow down and kiss the rings of the Radical Religious Right Wing Christian Clerics in this country. The report is about Jim Bakker, disgraced televangelist from the late eighties, who is making a comeback in Branson, MO. He's had a TV show (the Jim Bakker Show) for a while on some pretty local outlets, and now he's built himself a megachurch called Morningside, a name his followers often slip up on, calling it "Heritage."

The real story here is not about the comeback of Jim Bakker, whose empire collapsed in shame, indictments, convictions and a successful class action suit in the late eighties. It is certainly not about tear-stained eye shadow -- that's in the past, and God rest Tammy Faye Meisner. This story is about the followers of Jim Bakker, the women who have forgiven him or think he was railroaded during that time nearly two decades ago when his empire named Heritage USA came crashing down. This is about the sweetness of the faith of those women, and also about the power of those women to convince their husbands to go along, after the couples lost so many thousands a couple decades ago. Yes, they "con"vince their husbands. I'm guessing this is yet another con job in the making. Check it out. From STLToday.com:

Visitors stream in, and Darylene Howard eagerly greets them.

"Welcome to Heritage!" she calls out. She realizes her mistake and laughs. "Oh my, I mean Morningside!"

Howard, who also works as a Wal-Mart greeter, is a chipper woman with a quick smile and bright blue eyes. She has been a fan of Bakker's since his glory days with the Praise The Lord ministry. And she, like many people here, lost money when the PTL collapsed. She and her husband each paid $1,000 for "lifetime partnerships" granting them limited free lodging at Heritage USA. Bakker spent almost five years in prison for diverting millions of dollars in partner fees for his personal use and promising more free lodging than the PTL ever could have provided.

But Howard dismisses Bakker's conviction as "a miscarriage of justice." And when a court settlement granted each of the 165,000 lifetime partners a check for a paltry $6.54, she and hundreds of others signed those checks over to Bakker in a show of support.

"There's a lot of love left for Jim Bakker," Howard says between greetings. "There is."

Bakker could not have gotten this far without these supporters. They have forgiven him -- or argue his prosecution was unfair. Bakker has admitted that he made mistakes while heading the PTL Club, which at its peak claimed 13 million viewers on 180 television stations and 1,300 cable outlets across the nation. He even wrote a book titled, "I Was Wrong." He has renounced the "prosperity gospel" he once preached. He claims a change of heart.

Beyond the front door, a woman samples the pink Spikenard Magdalena hand cream being sold to support the ministry. Rubbing her hands, she remarks how excited she is to be here. But her husband is cautious.

"We invested our money with them and lost everything," he grumbles.

"Oh, don't say that!" she says.

"Well, we did."

"I don't feel that we lost anything," she responds, walking ahead to find a table.

"Norma is head over heels on this thing," her husband whispers as he follows behind. "I tell her, 'Tread easy.'"

A few tables away, Rex Lorence acknowledges that he was slower than his wife, Wanda, to warm to Bakker.

"I still have some resentment for his past actions," Lorence, 75, says. "But I've pretty much forgiven him."

Man, can you just imagine being one of those husbands? I think it is all well and good to forgive and even support Jim Bakker in some humble ministry, but it looks on the face of it that this guy is reaching for an empire again, and he's gathering the sweet-hearted and trusting souls he had before. I'll repeat that sweet-hearted and trusting is all well and good. But the GULLIBILITY! I'm stunned, and would be even more stunned if I didn't see the numbers racking up for Mike Huckabee. It's not a coincidence, I suppose, that Bakker is based just across the border from Huckabee's home state of Arkansas. It all seems ominous to me, especially this bit from an article about a year ago in the Muskegon Chronicle (reprinted on Rick Ross's site):

His journey to Branson started soon after his release from prison. In 1998, he was volunteering in an inner-city ministry of the Dream Center in Los Angeles where he was introduced to a youth minister named Lori Graham. He likes to say it was love at first sight. They married within the year and moved to Lynn Haven, Fla., where they started a camp for inner-city children -- and he yearned to preach again on television.

"But we couldn't figure out a way to do it," he said.

There were changes on the horizon. In 2002, he and his wife, Lori, adopted five children, all siblings -- Maricella, now 17; Lori, 16; Clarrisa, 15; Marie, 11; and Ricky, 9 -- whom Lori Bakker had befriended when she worked in an inner-city ministry in Phoenix.

"They are the most wonderful children," he said. "They make life worth living."

About that same time, he was invited to speak in Branson, Mo., by a former PTL Club "partner," Jerry Crawford, who credits Bakker's ministry for patching up his marriage during a difficult time. Bakker said he almost didn't accept the invitation.

"I was in a fearful time," Bakker said. "I didn't think people would want to hear me speak."

Much to his surprise, he was not only welcomed, he was embraced by the people of Branson -- a city that calls itself "The Live Music Capital of the World."

"Everywhere we went, people were so kind," he said.

Almost immediately, Crawford started talking to Bakker about moving his ministry to Branson and promised to help him get back on television.

"I thought: That's all I need for people to hear (that) Jim Bakker's going into show business," he said.

But Branson -- with its 40 theaters and 100 shows -- is a perfect fit for the televangelist, he said.

"Show business people have had their ups and downs, too. They've been broken and disappointed and don't judge," Bakker said. "Like the Bible says, love covers you."

Once a man in exile, Bakker is once again in a building phase.

This year, he and Crawford have started building Morningside Church: A Place of Refuge -- a Christian retreat center and retirement community being built on 600 acres of land owned by Crawford just outside of Branson, Mo. The main building will serve as world headquarters for the Jim Bakker Show and its related ministries.

"One of my dreams is to have a live network again," he said.

The current show will move out of Studio City Cafe and into Grace Chapel, where Bakker will conduct Sunday services, as well as the TV show. Anyone who's seen his new show sees a different Jim Bakker today than the guy who preached "the gospel of prosperity" 20 and 30 years ago.

There is a familiar feel to his show, whether he's teaching from the Bible or hosting a roundtable discussion with his wife, Lori. At the end of his hour-long program, Bakker asks for $1,000 "Builders' Club" donations to help make the down payment on Grace Chapel and promises a Builders Bible sent as "a love gift." A $5,000 gift will get a donor's name placed on an "Amazing Grace" plaque. He also asks people to send in donations to help keep the program on the air.

"We need to preach the Gospel now," he told an audience during an April 10 broadcast. "These are the times of the Bible."

"These are the times of the bible?" Oh, give me a break! And then I think. This is ripe for another scandal to strike the radical right wing Christian end of the political spectrum. Sure, Jimmy Bakker does not have the national following like he did when his first scandals broke. And there's no evidence at this time that there's any salacious girlfriend kink going on this time, either. But those "love gifts" certainly echo Jim Bakker's scandal of two decades ago. And the fundraising apparatus, with the "Builder's Circle" and other levels of giving seem as slick as, well, as slick as Dubya's fundraising machine, now going to work for John McCain. What's the difference really between the faith-based politics of gullibility and the faith-based con of a big real estate investment scheme, after all. Both are exploitive of a bankrupt dream sold to sweet-hearted ladies who twist the arms of their henpecked husbands.

Oh, this is going to come to no good, at least for the Republicans. No, I'm not saying there is Republican involvement here, but it is undeniable that the Republican brand is firmly connected with televangelism and the kind of megachurch Bakker is resurrecting there in Branson, MO.

Bottom line is that I'm not going to be feeling sorry for any of these people when Jim Bakker gets caught digging into the till again. I'll not feel sorry for even the most sweet-hearted of little ladies who have forgiven him, either.

Steven Reynolds is a regular blogger for the All Spin Zone