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On this day, March 19, 1987, Jim Bakker resigned from PTL.
Thu Mar 19, 2020: On this day, March 19, 1987, Jim Bakker resigned from PTL.
Source: http://closely68.rssing.com/chan-33160886/all_p3.html
Jim Bakker
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James Orsen Bakker (/ˈbeɪkər/;[1] born January 2, 1940) is an American televangelist. Between 1974 and 1987, Bakker hosted the television program The PTL Club and its cable television platform, the PTL Satellite Network, with his then wife, Tammy Faye. He also developed Heritage USA, a now-defunct Christian theme park in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
In the late 1980s, Bakker resigned from the PTL ministry over a cover-up of hush money to church secretary Jessica Hahn for an alleged rape. Subsequent revelations of accounting fraud brought about felony charges, conviction, imprisonment, and divorce. Bakker later remarried and returned to televangelism, founding Morningside Church in Blue Eye, Missouri, and reestablishing the PTL ministry. He currently hosts The Jim Bakker Show, which focuses on the end times and the Second Coming of Christ while promoting emergency survival products. Bakker has written several books, including I Was Wrong and Time Has Come: How to Prepare Now for Epic Events Ahead.
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Career
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Sexual misconduct and resignation
A $279,000 payoff for the silence of Jessica Hahn, who alleged that Bakker and former PTL Club co-host John Wesley Fletcher drugged and raped her, was paid with PTL's funds through Bakker's associate Roe Messner. Bakker, who made the PTL organization's financial decisions, allegedly kept two sets of books to conceal accounting irregularities. The Charlotte Observer reporters, led by Charles Shepard, investigated the PTL organization's finances and published a series of articles.
On March 19, 1987, after the disclosure of a payoff to Hahn, Bakker resigned from PTL. Although he acknowledged that he had a sexual encounter with Hahn at a hotel room in Clearwater, Florida, he denied raping her. Bakker was the subject of homosexual and bisexual allegations made by John Wesley Fletcher and PTL director Jay Babcock, which he denied under oath. Rival televangelist John Ankerberg appeared on Larry King Live and made several allegations against Bakker, which both Bakkers denied.
Bakker was succeeded as PTL head by Southern Baptist pastor Jerry Falwell. He chose Falwell as his successor because he feared that fellow Pentecostal pastor Jimmy Swaggart was attempting to take over his ministry. Swaggart had initiated a church investigation into Bakker over allegations of Bakker's sexual misconduct.
Bakker believed that Falwell would temporarily lead the ministry until the scandal died down, but Falwell barred Bakker from returning to PTL on April 28, 1987. Later that summer, as donations declined sharply in the wake of Bakker's resignation and the end of the Bakkers' PTL Club TV program, Falwell raised $20 million to keep PTL solvent and took a promised water slide ride at Heritage USA. Falwell and the remaining members of the PTL board resigned in October 1987, stating that a ruling from a bankruptcy court judge made rebuilding the ministry impossible.
{snip}
{snip}
James Orsen Bakker (/ˈbeɪkər/;[1] born January 2, 1940) is an American televangelist. Between 1974 and 1987, Bakker hosted the television program The PTL Club and its cable television platform, the PTL Satellite Network, with his then wife, Tammy Faye. He also developed Heritage USA, a now-defunct Christian theme park in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
In the late 1980s, Bakker resigned from the PTL ministry over a cover-up of hush money to church secretary Jessica Hahn for an alleged rape. Subsequent revelations of accounting fraud brought about felony charges, conviction, imprisonment, and divorce. Bakker later remarried and returned to televangelism, founding Morningside Church in Blue Eye, Missouri, and reestablishing the PTL ministry. He currently hosts The Jim Bakker Show, which focuses on the end times and the Second Coming of Christ while promoting emergency survival products. Bakker has written several books, including I Was Wrong and Time Has Come: How to Prepare Now for Epic Events Ahead.
{snip}
Career
{snip}
Sexual misconduct and resignation
A $279,000 payoff for the silence of Jessica Hahn, who alleged that Bakker and former PTL Club co-host John Wesley Fletcher drugged and raped her, was paid with PTL's funds through Bakker's associate Roe Messner. Bakker, who made the PTL organization's financial decisions, allegedly kept two sets of books to conceal accounting irregularities. The Charlotte Observer reporters, led by Charles Shepard, investigated the PTL organization's finances and published a series of articles.
On March 19, 1987, after the disclosure of a payoff to Hahn, Bakker resigned from PTL. Although he acknowledged that he had a sexual encounter with Hahn at a hotel room in Clearwater, Florida, he denied raping her. Bakker was the subject of homosexual and bisexual allegations made by John Wesley Fletcher and PTL director Jay Babcock, which he denied under oath. Rival televangelist John Ankerberg appeared on Larry King Live and made several allegations against Bakker, which both Bakkers denied.
Bakker was succeeded as PTL head by Southern Baptist pastor Jerry Falwell. He chose Falwell as his successor because he feared that fellow Pentecostal pastor Jimmy Swaggart was attempting to take over his ministry. Swaggart had initiated a church investigation into Bakker over allegations of Bakker's sexual misconduct.
Bakker believed that Falwell would temporarily lead the ministry until the scandal died down, but Falwell barred Bakker from returning to PTL on April 28, 1987. Later that summer, as donations declined sharply in the wake of Bakker's resignation and the end of the Bakkers' PTL Club TV program, Falwell raised $20 million to keep PTL solvent and took a promised water slide ride at Heritage USA. Falwell and the remaining members of the PTL board resigned in October 1987, stating that a ruling from a bankruptcy court judge made rebuilding the ministry impossible.
{snip}
On March 19, 1987, televangelist Jim Bakker resigned as head of the PTL Club, after admitting that he was ‘wickedly manipulated’ into engaging in a sexual encounter and then ‘succumbed to blackmail... to protect and spare the ministry and my family.’
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