January 2, 1940

Swindler

Married for thirty-one years, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker turned their charismatic evangelism into cash through the “Praise the Lord” (PTL) ministry. The Bakkers enjoyed a period of great prosperity in the 1980s only to fall from grace when Jim was implicated in a scandalous cover-up. After investigation, he was charged and convicted of twenty-four counts of fraud for misusing funds raised through his ministry. The Bakkers divorced while he was serving his prison sentence.

A history of holy rollers

Arriving five weeks premature, Jim Bakker was the last of four children born to Raleigh and Furnia Irving Bakker. His thirty-three-year-old mother reportedly cried the day he was born because she wanted another daughter. As a boy, Bakker was close to his maternal grandmother, who gave him the New Testament of the Bible to read at night. Short and uncoordinated, he did...