by Alan Langstaff

Jim Bakker will not be known to a lot of younger people today. But in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was one of the leading evangelists in the world. Yes, he did do wrong things. He was controversial. He spent time in jail, but none of it takes away from the role he played in pioneering Christian Television.

During a period of nearly four years, I worked with him. I was his Australia Director and the host of the Australian version of the P.T.L. (Praise the Lord) Club, which he financed during that time.

So let me tell you the story of my involvement with Jim Bakker and the P.T.L. Club.

GOD SPEAKS ABOUT TV

In the late 1970s, I was in California and Jim Spillman, a friend of mine and an evangelist, asked me to go on a TV show he was guest hosting for the T.B.N. Ministry. I had never been on a TV show, and it was an exciting time. With Jim Spillman, we discussed during the show what God was doing in Australia at the time.

After my part in the program was finished, I sat and watched the last part of the show. As I did so, God spoke to me and said, “He wanted a TV program like this in Australia, and you will be part of it.” At that stage there was virtually no Christian Television in Australia.

I quickly realized the enormity of the challenge, and it took the Board of the Temple Trust time to think about it too. We quickly realized that we needed help; we did not have the experience or the resources for such an undertaking.

We then decided to take a team to the USA and see what could be done. We visited a lot of places, and at one stage we thought we might work with CBN (Pat Robertson), but that didn’t work out.

“We visited a number of ministries, including the 700 Club, and we thought we could even get that on TV in Australia, but the networks thought it was too American for Australian audiences. Then unexpectedly, I received a letter from the PTL Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, asking if the Temple Trust would be interested in being its representative in Australia. As a result, we began to produce an Australian version of the PTL Club in Jim Bakker’s studio in Charlotte. The PTL Club was extremely generous, supplying all the resources and the finances to make it happen. During 1980, we produced 30 one-hour programs, and later that year we went on our first station in Australia, Channel 4 in Wollongong, which also broadcast into the southern suburbs of Sydney. 

Later on, when we thought all was going well, a misunderstanding arose when the PTL Club vice president for world missions thought Jim Bakker wanted me out of hosting the Australian program because we had relocated to America. Coming to Australia in 1981, he demanded to meet with my board of directors and required me to resign this position. Initially, I wouldn’t agree to do it. I had given years of “blood, sweat, and tears” to get this far, and I wasn’t about to give it all up.

Wrestling with all this, I went for a walk on a country road near Gordon Gibb’s home. Gordon hosted the TV program with me. Staring down at the gravel, I cried out to God, “I can’t believe this is happening. Why is this being taken from me when we have only just begun to make a breakthrough? You promised we would be on Christian TV. I don’t understand what You are doing God. Why did You open the door, only to close it in my face?”

Eventually, reluctantly recognizing that it was the PTL Club that was completely financing the whole venture, I agreed to step down. I told Dorothy it was the hardest thing that I ever had to do in ministry in my whole life. My voice choked with grief.”

(from “The Best is Yet to Be” available for purchase on Amazon)

THE SCANDAL

Now, I resigned from the PTL Club and handed it over to another minister. Later, Jim Bakker was charged with 24 counts of fraud relating to the sale of apartments. Heritage USA was a Christian theme park which at one point drew a million people each year to the resort.

He was also guilty of sexual misconduct with Jessica Hahn. He was defrocked by the Assemblies of God, and in 1989 he was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison. (Personally, I believe the sentence was wrong. Years later I got access to the papers from Jim Bakker himself, and I am convinced they used his case to make an example of him to others.) His 45 years was later reduced to about 5 years in prison.

He was sent to the federal prison in Rochester, Minnesota. On two occasions, evangelist Bob Gass and I spent a whole day with him. I can honestly say that the first of these two days was a holy time.

He was released from federal prison in Rochester, and on the first Sunday he was taken to Church by Billy and Ruth Graham. What an encouragement that was to him.

Jerry Falwell became the leader of the PTL Club.

After he left prison, his wife, Tammy Faye, and Jim were divorced in 1992, and eventually she married Roe Messner, a family friend and business associate of the Bakkers in 2007.

Jim returned to North Carolina in 1999 and took over a ministry run by his daughter. He claimed remorse for his sexual encounter with Hahn. He shared in detail about this encounter when we met with him in jail. By the way, I have not shared this information with other people.

In 1996, he published the book “I Was Wrong.” I am mentioned in the book as one of the people who visited him while in prison.

Jim and Laurie, his second wife, launched “The Jim Bakker Show” in 2003.

On October 5, 2026, Jim Bakker died at 86 years old.

REACTION TO BAKKER’S DEATH

A number of Christian leaders have written recently of Jim’s death. Here is a statement from Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, who was saddened by Bakker’s passing.

“Jim was responsible for giving Samaritan’s Purse our first major television exposure, and I will be forever grateful for his support and help,” Graham posted. “Jim enjoyed helping other people. He showcased many ministries on his program and introduced numerous preachers of the Gospel to a much broader audience.”

Graham recalled seeing Bakker for the last time a few days before his father’s funeral, with Bakker offering his “personal condolences.”

I asked him if he would be at the funeral, and he said, ‘Am I invited?’ I told him that he was absolutely invited and that my father would be disappointed if he wasn’t there,” Graham added. “Jim was a friend, and he will be missed. My prayers are with his family.”

(From Christian Post)

MY PERSONAL THOUGHTS

I can’t say I was a close friend of Jim Bakker. We were together at various times during Jim’s time at the PTL Club. My thoughts concerning him:

1) He was a great evangelist, one of the pioneers of Christian Television in this country and around the world. He not only helped me, but he assisted people like Benson Idahosa in Nigeria and many others around the world. He helped so many ministries.


2) He was very generous in helping us get started in producing an Australian version. When we started producing PTL shows, he made his studio and guests available to us for the program. He paid for the lot. We made about 30 programs in 1980.

3) He was a humble man to talk with at a personal level. He never exalted himself to me, but sought to use the PTL Club as a means of sharing Jesus with the world.

So I, too, am saddened by the death of Jim Bakker. He was, in my opinion, a great man of God who had flaws, even serious ones. I thank God for Jim Bakker.