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Summary
Summary
In 1974 Jim and Tammy Bakker launched their television show, the PTL Club, from a former furniture store in Charlotte, N.C. with half a dozen friends. By 1987 they stood at the center of a ministry empire that included their own satellite network, a 2300-acre theme park visited by six million people a year, and millions of adoring fans. The Bakkers led a life of conspicuous consumption perfectly aligned with the prosperity gospel they preached. They bought vacation homes, traveled first-class with an entourage and proclaimed that God wanted everyone to be healthy and wealthy. When it all fell apart, after revelations of a sex scandal and massive financial mismanagement, all of America watched more than two years of federal investigation and trial as Jim was eventually convicted on 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy. He would go on to serve five years in federal prison. PTL is more than just the spectacular story of the rise and fall of the Bakkers, John Wigger traces their lives from humble beginnings to wealth, fame, and eventual disgrace. At its core, PTL is the story of a group of people committed to religious innovation, who pushed the boundaries of evangelical religion's engagement with American culture. Drawing on trial transcripts, videotapes, newspaper articles, and interviews with key insiders, dissidents, and lawyers, Wigger reveals the power of religion to redirect American culture. This is the story of a grand vision gone wrong, of the power of big religion in American life and its limits.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Professor of History at the University of Missouri Wigger (American Saint) starts this captivating exploration of the rise, stumble, and fall of the PTL evangelical empire founded in 1973 by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker-one of the first major televangelist operations in the United States-with a brief review of the Pentecostal evangelical religion in America and the early biographies of both Bakkers before plunging into the development of the PTL business empire. The scandal-ridden downfall of the Bakkers was front-page news in the late 1980s and early '90s, but the story starts in the early '60s with the just-married Bakkers setting off to travel by car as evangelical preachers. The Bakkers started on television with a children's show on a network headlined by Pat Robertson, the Bakkers' expansion to owning studios and stations came quickly. Jim Bakker's spin on what is broadly known as "the prosperity gospel," a particularly American evangelical take on the relationship between God and money, was what led both to the couple's spectacular success and, eventually, ruin. Wigger does an outstanding job of untangling and following the various threads of the PTL, only briefly allowing himself a moment of ahistorical judgment when discussing the 45-year prison term eventually passed on Jim Bakker. Anyone interested in the theological underpinnings of certain contemporary strains of right-wing American politics, as well as those more particularly interested in the Bakkers or televangelism, should find this book rewarding. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A history professor recounts and updates the scandals revolving around the PTL Club and its guiding lights, evangelical preachers Jim Bakker and his then-wife, Tammy Faye Bakker.In this deeply researched combination of recent history and biography, Wigger (History/Univ. of Missouri; American Saint: Francis Asbury and the Methodists, 2009, etc.) builds on a number of historical threads from the 1970s and '80s, when the Bakkers were first famousas well as vastly and ostentatiously wealthyand then infamous due to the PTL Club, their televised "religious" enterprise. (PTL stands for either Praise the Lord or People that Love.) The author's main themes are hubris and greed as well as financial fraud, sexual exploitation, phony religion, the siren song of celebrity, and the dangers of the prosperity gospel. Wigger acknowledges the far-reaching investigation during the 1980s by Charles E. Shepard, a Charlotte Observer reporter who wrote Forgiven: The Rise and Fall of Jim Bakker and the PTL Ministry (1989). In many ways, Wigger's book serves as a skilled, informative update of Shepard's expos. Tammy Faye Bakker is now dead, but Jim Bakker is back after serving five years in prison for multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy. He has remarried and is now running an enterprise called Morningside, which serves people who want to buy supplies for a predicted apocalypse. One of the most damning parts of the book concerns Jessica Hahn, a young admirer of Bakker who was raped by the preacher and a colleague, and the horrifying detail provided by the author remains as upsetting as it was when originally disclosed. The Bakkers started out with good intentions when they chose to become itinerant preachers, but the monsters they became make it difficult to feel any sympathy for them despite Wigger's thoughtful presentation. Many of the other high-profile evangelicals in the bookincluding Billy Graham, Jimmy Swaggart, and Pat Robertsonalso inspire very little admiration. A worthy, clearly written account of a movement and its downfall. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Choice Review
Wigger (English, Univ. of Missouri) explicates critically but fairly the story of Jim Bakker and PTL ("Praise the Lord" or "People That Love"). In 1966, with few resources to draw on, Bakker, assisted by his wife Tammy Faye, began the first televised Christian talk show; in 1978 they launched a satellite network that connected eventually with millions of viewers attracted to a version of the prosperity gospel. Telethons raised money to pay for programming, but Bakker increasingly diverted funds to build Heritage USA, a ministry, entertainment, and resort near Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1986, Heritage USA had six million visitors (only Disneyland and Disney World attracted more). The following year, in an epic crash, PTL collapsed after exposure of blatant financial and sexual corruption. Jim Bakker went to prison in 1989 and served five years for fraud. Without Bakker's television presence, PTL went into bankruptcy and liquidation. In the end, as Wigger writes in the epilogue, PTL was "corrupted by its own success." Wigger's larger theme is "the intersection of faith and popular culture," and that is where he places PTL, together with such charismatic religious leaders and innovators as Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, and Jerry Falwell. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers. --William B. Bedford, Crown College
Library Journal Review
Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were evangelical icons of the 1980s-two charismatic and coiffed church leaders who embraced their wealth and celebrity as God's will. They were central to the Evangelical movement, influenced the Religious Right and the current roads of American faith, and seemed to be on top of the world as they built condos, theme parks, and churches, largely funded by $1,000 "lifetime memberships" peddled to their followers. Wigger (history, Univ. of Missouri; American Saint: Francis Asbury and the Methodists) describes the period of the late 1970s to 1987, as PTL (Praise the Lord) grew from humble beginnings to a mammoth cultural force, much like its founders. The ripple effects of PTL's momentous rise and fall continue to effect modern religion today. Verdict Wigger succeeds in providing a three-dimensional view of the one-dimensional figures of American television and a greater understanding of the Bakkers and their followers. Unfortunately, the dated cover could discourage library or patron circulation.-Erin Entrada Kelly, Philadelphia © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgments | p. ix |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| 1 The DJ and the Queen | p. 9 |
| 2 A Show of His Own | p. 25 |
| 3 Everyday in the USA | p. 41 |
| 4 Abundant Life | p. 61 |
| 5 The Emperor's New Groove | p. 77 |
| 6 Look Me in the Eye | p. 92 |
| 7 Time Bomb | p. 107 |
| 8 Special Math | p. 125 |
| 9 Secret Lives | p. 149 |
| 10 Four Days and Three Nights | p. 160 |
| 11 Cover-Up | p. 193 |
| 12 Saturday Night | p. 222 |
| 13 Scandal | p. 247 |
| 14 Holy War | p. 272 |
| 15 Judgment Day | p. 301 |
| Epilogue: Apocalypse Chow | p. 329 |
| Notes | p. 339 |
| Index | p. 393 |