Downsized Bakker returns to TV pulpit in Branson, Mo.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch/November 18, 2003
By Bill Smith

Note: This article has been republished with the permission
of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

To much of America, Jim Bakker was the preacher with the Midas touch.

Everything seemed to turn to gold in his hands, from his massive PTL Club ministry to his squeaky clean, fun-for-the-whole-family, Christian-based Heritage USA theme park. At the height of his popularity in the mid-1980s, he owned six mansions and a Rolls-Royce and was pocketing an annual salary of nearly $2 million. God, it seemed, was good business - very good business.

Today, the nation's most famous fallen electronic preacher is in Branson, Mo., the family entertainment capital of America's Bible Belt. He's older and wiser, Bakker says, and scraping to make ends meet at a little cafe-TV studio just north of the town's famous "strip." He hawks whipped cream-topped pies and barbecue sandwiches, pleads for a new piano and begs for volunteers to operate his TV cameras.

"This is the lowest-budget show in America," he said last month during a taping of "The New Jim Bakker Show," set in the 260-seat Studio City Cafe. "It's just a miracle that we're even on the air."

Bakker's hourlong, five-day-a-week program, which first aired Jan. 2, marks the evangelist's first tentative steps back into the life that cost him his first wife, Tammy Faye, his fortune and his freedom. Convicted of 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy for taking more than $3 million from his followers, Bakker spent five years in prison before winning an early release.

"I didn't ever plan on being on television again," Bakker said last month from the basement office of the restaurant. "And I thought I could never move to Branson.

"This is a show town. I know that every move I make is being analyzed."

Bakker, 63, and his second wife, Lori, moved to Branson and the Studio City Cafe at the urging of Branson businessman Jerry Crawford, who credits Bakker's old PTL ministry with helping to save his marriage. Crawford says he was born again during a PTL visit in 1986. It was Crawford who built the cafe, paid for the TV equipment and offered them to Bakker for his program. Crawford lets Bakker and his family live rent-free in a home he built near his own.

Bakker says he made $16,000 last year and still owes the government about $7 million in penalties and interest tied to his conviction.

A Joyce Meyer fan

Bakker said that most mornings, as he and his wife are getting dressed to come to the cafe for the show, they watch a videotape of their favorite TV preacher: Joyce Meyer. He says Lori Bakker began listening to Meyer on the radio 13 years ago.

"She has such a practical teaching," Jim Bakker said.

He says he worries about so-called prosperity preachers - men and women who have followed in his ministry's "give and you shall receive" philosophy.

"It's very, very dangerous when we focus on material things," Bakker said. "Especially the church - to focus on material things is opposite of what Jesus taught."

He says he is amazed by the good will he has received from the community since his move to Branson.

He talks of praying with Andy Williams, Tony Orlando and the Osmonds. He says the Lennon sisters have embraced him and his family "like we're old friends."

He is so comfortable here, he says, that he never wants to leave. He hopes to stay "until death or rapture, whichever comes first."

Some hype remains

Bakker's show, which features religious music, interviews with guests and party hats for diners celebrating birthdays, is aired in more than 150 countries, according to a ministry news release. The cafe walls are hung with gold-framed religious paintings, and photos of Bakker with celebrities and former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush. A framed picture of a Rolls-Royce hangs in the cafeteria men's room.

Bakker also spends part of the show selling his and his wife's books and soliciting donations. For a $100 contribution, visitors from the cafe audience are invited onto the set to pose for photos with the Bakkers.

Many of those who come to the diner are the same people who watched Bakker on the old PTL Club program. Some lost money to Bakker and his ministry when a plan to offer lifetime memberships to Heritage USA went sour.

Among the ministry's volunteers are Stan and Diana Stuart, who followed Bakker when they lived in Colorado in the 1980s. Stan Stuart maintains that Bakker was railroaded by the government.

"At the time," Stuart said, "it seemed almost like a crucifixion."

When Bakker talks of the old days, there is a hint of regret in his voice. Still, he says, he would not want to return to them. Even now, he sometimes worries that things are happening too quickly.

"There are times I say to Lori, 'Let's just go back to the ghetto ... people loved us there,'" he said, referring to the post-prison days at the Los Angeles Dream Center. "I tell you what, riches and things are just not all they're cracked up to be. The more you have, the more stress you have."

The "New Jim Bakker Show" is not available on St. Louis-area TV, but programs can be viewed live at jimbakkershow.com, the show's internet Web site.

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