The Shady Side Of Jim Bakker

As one of the most notorious figures of the '80s, televangelist Jim Bakker re-emerged from a headline-making scandal to stir the pot with multiple other controversies over the next few decades. This is the shady side of Jim Bakker. Back in the late 1970's long before fellow televangelist Joel Osteen founded his megachurch — Jim Bakker and then-wife Tammy Faye Bakker were traveling Pentecostal preachers who created an evangelical puppet show for a Minnesota TV station. Their modest production caught the eye of popular televangelist Pat Robertson and, as Christianity Today reported, he helped launch their own talk show, The PTL Club. An acronym for "Praise the Lord," The PTL Club was compared by some to The Tonight Show, but for Christian audiences. As the series' popularity grew, so did viewer donations. The show's former security chief, Don Hardister, recalled to Christianity Today, "We had a cash office and at times there was certainly more money in than [...] I could imagine. People would send us mink coats, diamond rings, deeds. I mean, we got all sorts of donations." For their part, the Bakkers didn't necessarily try to conceal their newfound wealth. By the consumeristic 1980's, their purchases rivaled those of the Trump family, with The Los Angeles Times reporting on, quote, "gold-plated swan-shaped bathroom fixtures" and "an air-conditioned dog house." Keep watching to learn about The Shady Side Of Jim Bakker! #JimBakker Banking on The PTL Club | 0:16 The Heritage USA timeshare scam | 1:34 Jim Bakker's scandal | 3:02 Jim Bakker's shadier tax deductions | 4:07 Bakker forced out of PTL | 5:06 Federal fraud charges | 6:17 Convicted and sentenced | 7:24 Divorce while in prison | 8:14 A tell-all book | 9:16 Post-prison ministry | 10:14 TV studio and theme park | 11:09 Apocalypse food buckets | 11:59 Cashing in on the coronavirus | 12:53