Televangelist Jim Bakker knows the end is near. But he’s got just what you need to survive the apocalypse, and he will gladly send it to you – for a price.
Jim, 78, his white hair cropped closely, and white beard neatly trimmed, speaks to viewers every day on The Jim Bakker show, broadcast from the Ozark Mountains near Branson, Missouri.
His co-host is his second wife Lori Graham Bakker. The show’s website describes it as ‘…an hour-long daily broadcast featuring prophetic and Biblical revelations brought to light in today’s world. In these end times God is providing answers and wisdom to be revealed at just the right time. And the time is now!’
Jim Bakker and his second wife Lori host the daily Jim Bakker Show
Jim believes that recent events like Hurricane Harvey Irma and Maria are signs that we are coming to the end. He often tells viewers ‘we are in the final days’. And on the show, and the show’s website, he touts the importance of being prepared.
And being prepared means having a generator package ($4,100), seven years of food for $2,200, the When Nature Calls offer ($100) which includes a bucket with a toilet seat and six rolls of tissue, and a fruit bundle with a 20-year shelf life ($450).
There are also shovels, solar powered flashlights, and everything you might need on his website.
Jim himself has first-hand knowledge of the world coming to an end.
On the website for The Jim Bakker Show, food choices include the Tasty Pantry Deluxe – seven years of food
The generator package comes with everything you need for the end times
The website includes everything a survivalist could need, including ‘when nature calls’
Another assortment of food buckets costs followers $450 – but can’t be shipped to Canada
In the 1980s he and his first wife built a ministry called PTL (Praise The Lord). His wife, Tammy Faye Bakker was known not as much for her faith, but how much makeup she wore.
On the PTL show the pair hosted together, Tammy Faye was often brought to tears, which made her dark mascara flow down her face.
The PTL Ministry, funded by contributions, also built a Christian theme park, Heritage USA, in Fort Mills South Carolina. The park sat on 2,300 acres, had a water slide, and was the third most visited theme park in the US in 1986 behind Walt Disney World and Disneyland.
During those heady years, it turns out that PTL was also serving as a personal fund for the Bakkers. According to the Charlotte Observer, the couple bought more than $900,000 worth of cars between 1983 and 1986, along with real estate – including two homes in Palm Springs, CA.
In 1986, PTL paid Jim $265,000 in salary and $810,000 in bonuses. Tammy’s compensation that year: $90,000 in salary and $270,000 in bonuses.
Tammy Faye Bakker was known for her makeup choices, especially the mascara
Jessica Hahn was catapulted into the limelight after a one night tryst with Jim Bakker was exposed
The following year, Jim resigned the PTL Ministry. A sex scandal was about to be exposed by his ‘treacherous friends’ who the Observer reports ‘conspired to betray me’. The sex scandal was a 1980 tryst with then church secretary Jessica Hahn.
Jim was prosecuted for fraud and conspiracy in 1989. He served nearly five years in prison, and while he was incarcerated, Tammy Faye divorced him to marry the man who built Heritage USA, Roe Messner. Tammy Faye Messner died in 2007 of cancer.
Now Jim is back at the television ministry. No longer preaching prosperity, instead he’s talking doom, and selling everything you’d need for Armageddon.
He has launched the Morningside Church, near Branson Missouri, which some say looks like a smaller version of Heritage USA. He also has The Jim Bakker Show, and also the PTL Network.
Jim is careful though, in this second incarnation, to avoid the appearance of inpropriety.
When he offers his survivalist fare, he is quick to point out that a purchase is a ‘donation’.
Jim Bakker served almost five years of his sentence. Tammy divorced him while he was behind bars
The exterior of the Morningside Church, where the Bakkers tape their show and hold Sunday services