University of Virginia Library

Jim Bakker

"It's not listed in the Bible," said Jim Bakker in a 1979 article in Christianity Today, "but my spiritual gift, my specific calling from God, is to be a television talk-show host. That's what I'm here on earth to do. I love TV. I eat it, I sleep it." Bakker (pronounced "baker") is host of "The PTL Club," a daily talk and variety show distributed by satellite to stations and cable systems all over the country. PTL means both "Praise the Lord" and "People That Love. " The show emanates from a building at the PTL Network's multiacre Charlotte, North Carolina, complex.

On the outside the building looks like a huge colonial church. Inside is a modern multimillion-dollar TV studio.

The live audience is composed of tourists and guests at PTL's campground. Before the show they are warmed up by a speaker who leads them in rousing songs and coaches them on when to applaud during the two-hour show. During the warm-up volunteers are recruited to staff the banks of telephones on the set.

Jim Bakker is introduced in Johnny Carson fashion. He even has a sidekick like Johnny's. Jim's Ed McMahon is Henry Harrison, a robust man several years Bakker's senior, who is usually addressed as Uncle Henry, a sobriquet he acquired when he assisted Jim and Tammy Fay Bakker with a puppet show during Bakker's CBN days. A parade of guests and singing stars moves through the taping session. Jim interviews them about miracle healings, faith success stories, and their own religious lives or ministries. The proceedings are punctuated with lots of exclamations of "Glory!" and "Praise God!" On occasion Jim Bakker preaches a sermonette—especially if PTL is experiencing one of its regular financial crises—and breaks into tears if matters are grave.

Tammy Fay Bakker is also a regular on the show, talking with Jim and singing. Her singing career is getting a big push these days; her records are being distributed to radio stations all over the country in the hope that she will catch on in the burgeoning gospel music market.

Jim Bakker's predilection for speaking in tongues and faith healing is soft-pedaled on camera, although Uncle Henry has been known to break into unknown tongues a couple of times on the air.

Bakker preaches, and presents through the guests he selects, a gospel of shiny-eyed success in the spirit. His health-and-wealth theology holds that God wants to bless believers materially as well as spiritually. He is convinced that Christ can make life work and that his gospel will bring people to higher standards of living. He thought it significant, when he traveled through India and Africa, that the Christians' homes were bigger and more comfortable than the non-Christians'. He preaches a Christianity that is not just a religious experience, but a life-style of success. This life-style is reflected in the extensive PTL Heritage USA, a

1,200-acre campground and vacation complex. PTL also began a full-fledged Heritage University but has had to limit its courses of study to evangelism and communications.

"The PTL Club" has a history of financial mismanagement and crisis, which is perhaps now being brought under control by business managers who have taken the financial reins out of Bakker's hands. The show's finances have received so much publicity that a Charlotte radio station broadcast a parody called "The Pass the Loot Club."

Some of this must at times seem strange and distant to Jim Bakker, the son of a Michigan factory worker. Jim was a poor, extremely shy child. He was small in stature but had a large inferiority complex. As a young adult he once had the misfortune to run over a child. The child recovered completely, but the fright of the accident caused Jim to take seriously his parents' Assemblies of God religion. He entered North Central Bible College to prepare for the ministry but dropped out to marry Tammy Fay. He was ordained anyway, and he and Tammy Fay lived the life of traveling evangelists for several years. Their puppet show for children eventually got them on Pat Robertson's struggling young TV station, where Bakker starred for several years. After leaving CBN, the Bakkers went to California and worked with Paul Crouch at the fledgling Trinity Broadcasting Network station. Bakker claims that relations with Pat Robertson were always good but frankly admits that he and Paul Crouch fell out. It wasn't long before Bakker accepted the invitation of North Carolina laymen to come to Charlotte to be president of PTL. Thus, Bakker became the only person to be involved in the beginnings of all three of America's religious broadcasting networks—not bad for the scared little kid from Muskegon Heights, Michigan.

Indigenous versions of "The PTL Club," using local hosts who engage guests from the countries in which the show appears, are being produced for Japan, Thailand, Australia, France, Italy, Brazil, Haiti, and Mexico, and for distribution in Central and South America and Africa.