Where is Jim Bakker now? He continues preaching on the PTL network
Jim Bakker was the top televangelist of the 60s and 70s. Alongside his singing wife, Tammy Faye, Jim created a television show on the PTL (Praise the Lord) network that attracted 20 million viewers across several countries. The pair also built a Christian-themed amusement park named Heritage USA, at the time the third-largest amusement park in the USA.
Bakker and Faye sold prosperity to their listeners, promising that through faith and a donation to the couple, anyone could be as successful as Jim and Faye. The fallout from a sexual assault scandal brought down the power couple as authorities imprisoned Jim for a litany of fraud-related charges.
The downfall of Jim Bakker started after church secretary Jessica Hahn accused Bakker of sexual assault. Jim’s use of tax-exempt church money to pay Hahn for her silence prompted authorities to investigate the church’s finances.
The investigations unearthed egregious mismanagement of funds by Jim and Faye. Faye avoided criminal charges, but Jim received 45 years for one count of conspiracy and 23 counts of fraud. On appeal, a judge reduced the sentence to eight years.
Jim left prison on parole after five years as a single man: Faye divorced him three years into his sentence. Unfazed by his imprisonment, Bakker resumed preaching. However, he failed to attract the millions of viewers he once ministered to.
Maybe people couldn’t get over the scandal, or Jim’s show didn’t possess the same energy without the vibrant Faye by his side. Whatever the reason, The Jim Bakker Show flopped compared to The PTL Club of old.
Jim Bakker still runs The Jim Bakker Show on The PTL Network alongside his wife, Lori. Jim married after his return to television.
Bakker no longer preaches prosperity gospel: he preaches about the apocalypse, which he claims has already begun. His doomsday message has few fans, but Jim shows no signs of letting up.
In the 80s, Jim sold a ‘lifetime membership’ to Heritage USA’s luxury hotel for $1,000. The package included an annual three-night stay, but no one enjoyed the offer as the hotel was never completed.
These days, Jim offers survival supplies that will allegedly help one survive the seven years of chaos and war that will follow two asteroid hits. Twenty-eight buckets of survival supplies at $2,800 should keep you alive for seven years of hell. The package also includes two and half years of meals to share.
“There are two different ones [asteroids], one right after another, that are going to hit the Earth,” Bakker says (per BuzzFeed). “You know what I heard a scientist say? We are living in a galaxy shooting gallery.”
Jim Bakker is not the Jim of old, but he’s still involved in preaching. The 82-year-old still believes that he has much to offer, but few are willing to consume his prophecies of human destruction.
In the early days of the coronavirus spread, Jim Bakker claimed to have found a cure for the disease: Silver Solution.
Jim interviewed Sherrill Sellman, a ‘natural health expert’ and ‘naturopathic doctor’, who talked up the healing powers of Silver Solution. When Jim asked Sherill whether the solution was effective against the virus, Sherrill said:
“Well, let’s say it hasn’t been tested on this strain of the coronavirus, but it has been tested on other strains of the coronavirus and has been able to eliminate it within 12 hours. Totally eliminates it, kills it. Deactivates it.”
Per Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s suit against Jim, Bakker promoted the cure in eleven episodes of The Jim Bakker Show. The solution of silver particles suspended in liquid cost between $85 and $125.
The FDA warned Bakker that the drug violated federal law and posed harm to patients. However, Jim kept peddling the drug, relaying false information that Silver Solution cured coronavirus and boosted the immune system.
Jim’s advertisement of the fake miracle drug cost him $156,000, though he didn’t admit to wrongdoing. The settlement barred Jim and his church from offering Silver Solution as a remedy to any illness.
