Breaking: Televangelist Jim Bakker Dies at 86
Jim Bakker, a pioneering Christian broadcaster whose ministry spanned more than six decades, has died at the age of 86.
Bakker was one of the most recognizable figures in Christian television, helping shape a form of broadcasting that would eventually reach millions of people around the world.
His life included extraordinary success, a very public fall, time in federal prison, and ultimately, a return to ministry that lasted for decades.
James Orsen Bakker was born Jan. 2, 1940, in Muskegon, Michigan.
He attended North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, where he met Tammy Faye LaValley. They married in 1961 and began traveling together in ministry.
Bakker found his calling in television early.
He and Tammy Faye joined Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network in the 1960s, where Bakker helped develop programming and became one of the early hosts of “The 700 Club.”
He later spent time working with Paul and Jan Crouch during the early years of what became the Trinity Broadcasting Network.
In 1974, Jim and Tammy Faye launched “The PTL Club,” short for “Praise the Lord.” The program grew from a small Christian television show into a national ministry and made the Bakkers two of the best-known Christian broadcasters in America.
Bakker dreamed big, and eventually that vision extended well beyond television.
PTL built Heritage USA in South Carolina, a sprawling Christian retreat that included hotels, shops, television studios, a church, and other attractions.
At its height, the ministry and the community surrounding it drew enormous crowds and made Bakker one of the most prominent Christian leaders in the country.
That chapter of his life came to a painful end in 1987.
Bakker resigned from PTL amid scandal, and a subsequent federal investigation into the ministry’s finances led to his conviction in 1989 on fraud and conspiracy charges.
He was initially sentenced to 45 years in prison. That sentence was later overturned and reduced, and Bakker ultimately spent nearly five years in federal prison before his release in 1994.
Bakker never tried to erase that part of his story.
In fact, after leaving prison, he spoke and wrote openly about how deeply the experience had changed him.
His 1996 book was simply titled, “I Was Wrong.”
During his years in prison, Bakker returned to Scripture and began questioning some of the things he had previously believed and taught, particularly about prosperity and money.
He would later describe those years as a period in which God stripped away much of what had once defined his life and ministry.
There was no television empire waiting for him when he got out. He had to start over.
Bakker married Lori Graham in 1998 after the two met through ministry connected to the Los Angeles Dream Center. Several years later, he found himself back on television.
“The Jim Bakker Show” began broadcasting in 2003, 16 years after his final PTL broadcast.
Eventually, Jim and Lori established their ministry at Morningside, near Branson, Missouri.
From there, Bakker spent years interviewing pastors, authors, ministry leaders, and other guests while teaching about Scripture, biblical prophecy, current events, and the return of Jesus Christ.
It was a very different season of ministry from the one that had made him famous.
Bakker’s later years still brought controversy, but they also gave him an opportunity few public figures ever receive: the chance to spend decades living and working after his greatest failures had already become public knowledge.
For those who followed his ministry, that became an important part of his testimony.
His was not the story of a man who got everything right. Bakker himself would have been the first to say that.
It was the story of a man who reached extraordinary heights, lost nearly everything, went to prison, and then came back to spend the remainder of his life preaching the Gospel.
Whatever conclusions people reached about the different chapters of his life, Bakker’s influence on Christian broadcasting is undeniable.
He was part of the generation that saw television not simply as entertainment, but as a way to bring Christian teaching, worship, interviews, and testimony into homes across America. Many of the formats that became commonplace in Christian television were being developed while Bakker was helping build the medium.
But perhaps the most fitting way to remember his life is through the message he increasingly embraced after losing everything.
Grace is for people who need it.
Bakker’s life had chapters he was proud of and chapters he deeply regretted. He experienced success most people could never imagine and failure in front of the entire country. Yet neither prison nor disgrace became the end of his story.
He came home.
He returned to ministry.
And for decades afterward, Jim Bakker kept preaching about the God who had given him another chance.
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