# Jim Bakker of PTL Club fame, dead at 86 **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Tags:** celebrity-death\ **Created:** [October 6, 2026, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620 "2026-10-06T15:51:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/1 "2026-10-06T15:51:12Z")
And so it goes. Not sure what to say about this other than, hopefully he and Tammy Fay are reunited in their proper place. > **[Jim Bakker, who lost his ‘PTL Club’ televangelism empire in sex and money...](https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/jim-bakker-built-ptl-club-041516502.html)** > > Jim Bakker, who built a huge TV following and evangelical empire with his first wife, Tammy Faye, which later collapsed in a sex scandal and financial crimes, has died.Bakker died Monday, his second w... ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/2 "2026-10-06T15:54:08Z")
He sure got my vote in the Abe Vigoda contest. Had you asked me yesterday I’d have said I thought he’d been gone a decade. “Better late than never” is always a good saying. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/3 "2026-10-06T16:02:39Z")
Around 1976 or 1977, I was a pre-teen in Green Bay, at a time before my family had cable TV, and there were only four TV stations in the city (CBS, NBC, ABC, and PBS); only one of those stations went on the air before 7am, and they usually showed old sitcom reruns. I’d be awake and out of bed by 6am, and I’d turn the TV on, because there was little else to do before I got ready for school. Jim and his “PTL Club” bought time on that station, and that show was what ran at 6am for a year or so. Despite not being an evangelical Christian, and having zero interest in becoming one, I watched the silly show. Lots of fundraising pleas, lots of Tammy Fae singing, and, as I remember it, regular updates on how the faithful’s donations were helping them to expand the PTL campus, to “do God’s work.” ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/4 "2026-10-06T16:08:25Z")
Sometimes I’m a little sorry that I don’t believe in Hell. ---
**Author:** ![mozchron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mozchron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mozchron)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/5 "2026-10-06T16:11:20Z")
I thought he died years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/6 "2026-10-06T16:12:12Z")
I view him as a prototype version of Trump. ---
**Author:** ![dougrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@dougrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougrb)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/7 "2026-10-06T22:58:02Z")
My favorite quote from Jim, which I posted about before… > [@Did Jesus really exist? And what's with the Shroud of Turin?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jesus-really-exist-and-whats-with-the-shroud-of-turin/686353/113): > > I remember Jim Baker on 60 minutes, in probably mid 70’s, being questioned about his mansions and airplanes. He said “GOD doesn’t like junk” That’s around the time I became an atheist. ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/8 "2026-10-06T23:27:57Z")
I worked at a small UHF television station in the early-to-mid 1980s when Jim and Tammy Faye were probably at their peak. Both PTL and 700 Club paid big bucks to be on local TV stations all over the country that otherwise wouldn’t have had the money to fill odd times with syndication. It was easy cash. Just plug in, praise the Lord and wait for the check. One day Jim Bakker’s co-host “Uncle” Henry Harrison made a personal appearance locally. He was to Bakker kind of what Ed McMahon was to Johnny Carson. Lo and behold, hundreds of people showed up to meet him. It was creepy but not at all surprising for the area. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/9 "2026-10-06T23:31:16Z")
> [@XOldiesJock](#): > > Both PTL and 700 Club paid big bucks to be on local TV stations all over the country What I had not known, until I read Bakker’s Wikipedia entry today, is that he started out working with Pat Robertson at his Christian Broadcasting Network in the late '60s; Bakker was the first full-time host of _The 700 Club_, before he and Tammy Faye left CBN in 1973. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/10 "2026-10-07T00:16:10Z")
On his 1981 album _You Are What You Is_, Frank Zappa wrote a couple songs about Jim Bakker and others of his ilk. And the songs are not complimentary. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/11 "2026-10-07T01:05:22Z")
Tammy Faye actually turned into a reasonable facsimile of a human being after PTL collapsed because she felt abandoned by her people. Since she was a camp icon, she tried to give them the same grace they gave her. She was also friends with Jm J. Bullock, who taught her that gays aren’t the devil. Her ex-husband, on the other hand, never stopped being a grifting piece of crap. I saw some of his pitches for that food in a bucket stuff and it was a straight-up con. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/12 "2026-10-07T02:10:26Z")
There are a number of YouTube videos of people who purchased that swill, and prepared it and tried to eat it. Yeah, there are reasons why genuine preppers do not recommend things like this. ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/13 "2026-10-07T03:16:12Z")
He was a minor celebrity in my town for a while. From Wikipedia: > At the Federal Medical Center, Rochester in Rochester, Minnesota, he shared a cell with activist Lyndon LaRouche and skydiver Roger Nelson.[51] Alas, I never got a chance to meet him. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/14 "2026-10-07T03:41:16Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Jim and his “PTL Club” bought time on that station, and that show was what ran at 6am for a year or so. Despite not being an evangelical Christian, and having zero interest in becoming one, I watched the silly show. … “Silly show” sums it up well. It used to be on before the late movie on a local UHF channel, and I’d tune in because I wanted to watch the movie, and it was just easier to manually change the channel (no remote) after the late news and not worry about changing it at movie time. It actually wasn’t too bad a show. Very well produced, with entertaining music. I’m not much on Christian music, but as background noise while I read the paper before the movie, it was fine. But the come-ons, and pleas for money, and selling timeshares in Heritage USA. Holy hannah! So Jim Bakker has passed. I cannot say that I am sorry to hear of his passing (I knew a few people his PTL Club conned), but he had a long life. I hope his passing was peaceful. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/15 "2026-10-07T15:51:43Z")
> [@MsRobyn](#): > > Tammy Faye actually turned into a reasonable facsimile of a human being after PTL collapsed because she felt abandoned by her people. Since she was a camp icon, she tried to give them the same grace they gave her. She was also friends with Jm J. Bullock, who taught her that gays aren’t the devil. Yes, she got to have a curious final act redemption arc after dumping Bakker. Her prolonged ill health in her final years also earned much sympathy. Jim on the other hand even after doing time remained an unrepentant grifter taking advantage of the vulnerable. So a reunion on the Other Shore may not be in the cards, if such were a possibility. > [@JohnGalt](#): > > > he shared a cell with activist Lyndon LaRouche Goodness gracious, what a Reality Show that could have been… ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/16 "2026-10-07T16:11:53Z")
Well before the scandals a lot of my family moved to Charlotte to work for the PTL club. Nobody really talks about Jim Bakker, but Tammy Faye is remembered fondly by them, for things like visiting my uncle when he was on his deathbed with cancer. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/17 "2026-10-07T16:31:54Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Despite not being an evangelical Christian, and having zero interest in becoming one, I watched the silly show. Lots of fundraising pleas, lots of Tammy Fae singing, and, as I remember it, regular updates on how the faithful’s donations were helping them to expand the PTL campus, to “do God’s work.” I was partial to the [Reverend Gene Scott](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Scott) who was…something. His widow is notoriously litigious and controls access to all of his old video clips, so a lot of the “good stuff” isn’t on YouTube. But dude could get WACKY particularly if he had been up for many hours in one of his epic marathons. I never could take too much, but me and my step-brothers would occasionally check him out on whatever fuzzy public access channel he happened to be on to see if he was wearing a plumed helmet while ranting about viewers not donating enough in between a long-winded exegesis about ancient Aramaic translations of the bible. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.winston_oboogie/32/2945_2.png) [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Winston_OBoogie)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/18 "2026-10-07T16:47:07Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > > [@MsRobyn](#): > > > > Tammy Faye actually turned into a reasonable facsimile of a human being after PTL collapsed because she felt abandoned by her people. Since she was a camp icon, she tried to give them the same grace they gave her. She was also friends with Jm J. Bullock, who taught her that gays aren’t the devil. > > Yes, she got to have a curious final act redemption arc after dumping Bakker. Her prolonged ill health in her final years also earned much sympathy. She was also on one season of a “reality” show - The Surreal Life - and became close friends with Ron Jeremy. Watched “The Eyes of Tammy Fae”, and got a little respect for her. Once PTL died, it seems that she really did find reality. Her championing homosexual rights and for AIDS patients endured her to the LGBTQ+ community. Jim, on the other hand, went back to being a grifting POS. If there is a Hell, he’s there. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/19 "2026-10-07T17:33:15Z")
> [@MsRobyn](#): > > She was also friends with Jm J. Bullock, who taught her that gays aren’t the devil. They briefly co-hosted a syndicated talk show called _The Jim J. and Tammy Faye Show_. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620/20 "2026-10-07T18:12:27Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#): > > From Wikipedia: > > > At the Federal Medical Center, Rochester in Rochester, Minnesota, he shared a cell with activist Lyndon LaRouche and skydiver Roger Nelson.[51] > > Alas, I never got a chance to meet him. > [@JRDelirious](#): > > Goodness gracious, what a Reality Show that could have been… Perhaps I’m dense, but I’m trying to imagine what “skydiver Roger Nelson” could have done to earn years of torture like that. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-bakker-of-ptl-club-fame-dead-at-86/1033620.md?page=2)