Jim Bakker, the televangelist who rose from a traveling preacher to lead one of the most influential Christian broadcasting operations in America before a sex scandal and financial crimes brought it all down, has died at the age of 86. His second wife, Lori Bakker, confirmed his death in a statement on Monday, describing her husband as "a pioneer of Christian television" while adding that, to her, he was above all "my husband, my best friend, and the man I was honored to walk beside through so many seasons of life and ministry." No cause of death was immediately disclosed.
The news closes the book on a figure whose career traced the remarkable rise, spectacular fall and quieter second act of one of the best-known names in American religious broadcasting. For much of the 1980s, Bakker and his first wife, Tammy Faye, were household names and cultural touchstones — celebrated by devoted followers, lampooned by late-night comedians and parodied on "Saturday Night Live." Their lives were dramatized in the 2021 feature film "The Eyes of Tammy Faye," which reintroduced the couple to audiences decades after their empire collapsed.
Bakker was born in Muskegon, Michigan, and went on to study at North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, where he met his future first wife. The couple married in 1961, then made the unconventional decision to leave college behind and start their own traveling ministry. In those early years, he did the preaching while she sang and played the accordion as the pair crisscrossed the country, visiting churches and tent revivals.
Their itinerant work attracted the attention of televangelist Pat Robertson. In 1965, the couple launched a children's program on Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, marking Bakker's entry into the medium that would define his life. The following year, he was hosting "The 700 Club," the Christian talk show that became a flagship of the network and helped establish the template for modern televangelism.
Bakker departed the Christian Broadcasting Network in 1972. Two years later, he established the PTL Satellite Network, and "The PTL Club" — with the initials standing for "Praise the Lord" — quickly became its signature program. The show's blend of preaching, music and personal testimony proved enormously popular with viewers, and at its mid-1980s peak it was drawing as many as 13 million viewers each night.
The ministry's ambitions extended well beyond the studio. At the height of its influence, the Bakkers' operation included the Christian-themed Heritage USA theme park and hotel in Fort Mill, South Carolina, attractions that drew visitors who saw a trip there as an act of faith as much as a family vacation. Bakker himself was photographed at the sprawling complex, posing in front of its water park in March 1987 — an image that captured both the scale of his success and the commercial machinery behind it.
That machinery eventually faltered. The empire unraveled amid a sex scandal and financial crimes, a downfall that was as public as the ministry itself had been. The collapse turned the Bakkers from symbols of religious aspiration into cautionary tales about the dangers of mixing faith, fame and money — a subject that continues to shadow the world of celebrity ministry.
Yet Bakker's story did not end with his fall. In later years, he and Lori Bakker settled near Branson, Missouri, an entertainment town in the Ozarks, where they filmed "The Jim Bakker Show" beginning in 2003. The program gave him a second pulpit and a new audience, and he continued to work in broadcasting even as his health declined. In 2020, he suffered a stroke, a setback from which he was described as having recovered enough to continue his ministry.
Lori Bakker's statement reflected a partnership that spanned many phases of her husband's life, including his final years away from the national spotlight. Her words highlighted the personal identity behind the public name — a man remembered by his congregation and viewers, but also by the family who stood beside him long after the network cameras and theme park crowds were gone.
Jim Bakker's legacy remains complicated. To supporters, he was a pioneer who helped shape the look and reach of Christian television and who brought religious programming into millions of homes. To critics, his career illustrates how quickly spiritual authority can be compromised by scandal and financial excess. Both views are likely to persist, and both are embedded in the record of a man who built a media ministry from a traveling pulpit and saw it rise and fall on a national stage.
Tammy Faye Bakker, his first wife and co-star in the ministry, died in 2007. Their partnership remained the defining chapter of his public life, the subject of documentaries, films and endless cultural commentary. Jim Bakker is survived by Lori Bakker, his wife of many years, who announced his death and asked, in effect, that he be remembered not only for the empire he lost but for the faith he professed.
(0)