Jim Bakker: podcast appearances and interviews

James Orsen Bakker is an American televangelist born on January 2, 1940, in Muskegon, Michigan. He attended North Central University in Minneapolis, where he met Tammy Faye LaValley; they married in 1961 and became itinerant evangelists. Bakker played a significant role in Christian broadcasting, working at Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network where he contributed to the growth of shows including The 700 Club. He later co-founded the Trinity Broadcasting Network with Paul and Jan Crouch but departed after disagreements. Bakker then established his own ministry, PTL (Praise The Lord), and its cable network, PTL Satellite Network, which became well-known in the 1970s and 1980s. During this period, he hosted The PTL Club with Tammy Faye and developed Heritage USA, a Christian theme park in South Carolina that is now defunct. In the late 1980s, Bakker resigned from PTL following a cover-up involving hush money paid to Jessica Hahn for an alleged rape. Subsequent revelations of accounting fraud led to felony charges; he was convicted of fraud and conspiracy in 1989 and served nearly five years in prison before being paroled in 1994. Bakker later remarried and returned to televangelism, founding Morningside Church in Missouri and reestablishing the PTL ministry. After his divorce from Tammy Faye in 1992, he married Lori Beth Graham in 1998, with whom he adopted five children. In the 2000s, Bakker resumed broadcasting, hosting The Jim Bakker Show, focusing on apocalyptic themes and survivalist products, and making controversial claims that have drawn criticism and legal scrutiny.