FORT MILL, S.C. -- Jim Bakker feels misunderstood and undercherished these days, yet he wants you to know God loves you and so do he and his wife Tammy.
Bakker (pronounced 'baker') says he was called by God to found 'The PTL Club,' a Christian talk-and-variety show seen daily by millions and now billed in the television listings simply as 'Jim Bakker.'
His supporters say PTL means 'Praise the Lord.' Bakker's critics gibe that the acronym could well stand for 'pass the loot.'
His detractors charge that Bakker spends large amounts of the money he raises for overseas missions on personal luxuries.
PTL survived unscathed from a three-year investigation by the Federal Communications Commission, which sent some of its evidence to the criminal division of the U.S. Justice Department, which in turn found the evidence did not warrant criminal prosecution.
Bakker said through a spokesman he was pleased the FCC and the Justice Department had 'cleared PTL of any wrongdoing.'
Bakker's operations still are under the scrutiny of the Internal Revenue Service and a voluntary watchdog group called the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.
PTL has passed the word that 'Jim and Tammy, with enthusiastic support from their church and ministry partners, have decided to no longer respond to negative criticism from the press.'
Bakker declined through a spokesman to be interviewed by UPI on the ground that he was 'too busy.'
Bakker's devotees flock to Fort Mill from throughout the United States to his Heritage USA, a 1,200-acre retreat a 20-minute drive south of Charlotte, N.C.
On a recent spring day, about 300 of them comprised the audience for the videotaping of a show in a modern television studio.
A warmup speaker coached the audience on when to applaud and on the importance of smiling into the cameras. He recruited volunteers to staff a bank of telephones. Cameras taping the show focus on volunteers answering calls from people who presumably want to donate money.
Tammy, a bubbly matron wearing lots of makeup, finished rehearsing a song with the PTL orchestra. The warmup man began a countdown. There was a blast of music and a drum roll. The Jim Bakker show was on the air.
As usual, Bakker presented an upbeat show promising health and wealth to the faithful. There were songs by Tammy and jokes and conversation with a couple of guest evangelists. There also were pleas for money that to the unconvinced might have seemed interminable.
When it was over, Bakker stepped off the set and strode over to his audience to continue his appeal for donations.
To be a 'Partner,' he explained, one must pledge to donate $15 or more a month. Staffers passed out pledge envelopes that quote from II Corinthians, which promises that those who 'soweth bountifully shall also reap bountifully.' Men reached for wallets. Women opened purses.
Bakker attacked reports in the Charlotte Observer that the PTL Network recently spent more than $440,000 on his personal luxuries, including an oceanfront condominium in Florida for him, Tammy and their two children and a dressing room featuring gold-plated bathroom fixtures.
Bakker was preaching to the converted, so to speak. His audience accepted without question that the Bakkers needed that Florida hideaway to get away from the pressures of running a worldwide ministry.
'I've got to bring in $50 million a year just to keep preaching,' said Bakker, who at 43 looks younger and trimmer than Tammy. Both were coiffed and dressed expensively, Bakker in a three-piece gray suit. They have come a long way since the days they traveled as a team, preaching and singing in Assemblies of God churches.
Bakker, raised in Muskegon, Mich., son of a machinist, told his approving audience he holds nothing in his own name except mortgages on apartments for his and Tammy's parents. He said he had given everything he owned, even his boat, to support his ministry.
Bakker said it was not his idea but the PTL board's to buy the condominium, which is now up for sale.
Since giving up the condominium, which had floor-to-ceiling mirrors, he said supporters have offered him the use of even fancier accommodations in Palm Springs, Calif., and Vail, Colo.
If the board were to fire him, he said, 'Tammy and I would leave here tomorrow with nothing but the clothes on our backs and her jewelry.'
Bakker said that without him the PTL ministry -- which celebrates its 10th anniversary on July 4 -- could not keep ahead of its debts.
'The board doesn't want me to leave,' Bakker said confidently.
The audience applauded as the slightly built man with the impish grin departed the studio which carries his message of love and pleas for money into homes of Americans ranging from the affluent to poor widows on Social Security.
Bakker gave his devotees a final wave. There were shouts of 'Praise the Lord.'
Bakker evidently has been successful in putting some distance between his ministry and the politically active religious right led by the Moral Majority's Jerry Falwell, although he professes friendship with Falwell and television evangelists such as Billy Graham.
The criticism of Bakker is that his materialism gets in the way of his message of God's love. The message is accompanied with the promise that with His help -- and, implicitly, Bakker's -- 'You can make it.'
PTL was built with donations from thousands of people who believe absolutely in that promise. It supports foreign missions and a national network of People That Love centers, which offer help to the poor.
In addition to hosting his television show, Bakker is pastor of Heritage Village Church, located in what is called the 'Barn Auditorium' at Heritage USA, which offers retirement homes and campgrounds for Bakker's supporters.
The congregation provides Bakker with what it describes as a 'parsonage,' a house his neighbors in the posh resort community of Tega Cay estimate is worth $350,000 and features a heated swimming pool.
'It's my favorite home in Tega Cay,' said a woman who lives in the affluent community. 'It's also probably the most expensive.'
She and many other residents of Tega Cay do not approve of Bakker and the way he raises and spends money. Some of Bakker's key staffers also live in Tega Cay homes purchased by PTL.
'I used to play tennis with the wife of one of his financial people,' said a young matron who asked not to be identified. 'Every time she served she yelled 'Praise the Lord.' It got on my nerves.'
Bakker and his PTL operations get on the nerves of a lot of people in and around Fort Mill but Mayor Harry L. Hallman, who is in the real estate business, does not count himself among them.
'People in this community have begun to realize they're a Christian organization,' said Hallman. 'They help the economy. Jim told me himself that if our post office could handle his mail he'd have it sent here.'
The mayor said the estimated 13,000 additional pieces of mail a day could mean a new post office for Fort Mill, a textile town that has lost jobs steadily in recent years.
Hallman said Bakker has tried hard to be a good neighbor and has promised that PTL, which is constantly building new facilities, will buy what materials it can locally.
The mayor, a Presbyterian, said he was not worried about the flap over the Florida condo.
'I don't hold it against Jim,' said Hallman. 'After all, he's running a multimillion-dollar investment.'
The Rev. George R. Dye, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Fort Mill, takes a different, and dimmer, view of Bakker.
'What reduces his credibility with local people is his affluent life style,' Dye said. 'He drives a Lincoln Continental. Tammy drives a Cadillac. How does that fit in with the lifestyle of Jesus? We are not critical of the gospel he preaches but we are concerned about the life style he demonstrates.'
Dye finds much in Bakker to admire.
'He's a nice guy, a great motivator,' the minister said. 'He has charisma. He's a supersalesman. He comes on television in a recession and says God loves you. People need to hear that. It's true. It strikes a responsive chord. But where is the sacrifice in his own life?'
Could PTL spokesman Brad Lacey have been suggesting sacrifice when he said the Bakkers have given up the Cadillac and the Lincoln and now drive Buicks leased by PTL?
Lacey said that when he was an anchorman for Channel 9 in Charlotte he put some tough questions to Bakker and became convinced of his sincerity before signing on with PTL.
Lacey, raised as a Baptist in Rhode Island, said Bakker has been 'deeply hurt' by criticism.
'He's a very sensitive man. He's emotional.'
Bakker has been known to cry on camera when pleading for donations to keep his ministry afloat.
'Most of those who criticize us don't know us,' Lacey said. 'They've never visited us.'
To visit Heritage USA, it is first necessary to park at a security gate and state your business.
Just say you want to look around and an exceptionally pretty girl will wave you through.
Visitors can eat at one of several restaurants, including the Wagon Wheel, where the food is good and prices are reasonable. Partners get a 10 percent discount.
Several shops sell souvenirs, including a frisbee with the PTL logotype, which at 99 cents could be considered a bargain. Tammy's records and tapes are for sale. So, too, are hard-cover and paperback books with religious themes. There is an eclectic selection which includes biographies of Bakker, Pope John Paul II and many other religious leaders.
There also is for sale a comic book that portrays in color how Chuck Colson did some hard time for dirty tricks during the Watergate years and was born again.
At the campgrounds, American flags fly over trailers and recreation vehicles. There is not a beer can in sight.
People at Heritage USA are friendly. Nod to a stranger and the response is likely to be 'Praise the Lord.'
There is an old-fashioned ice cream parlor, an Olympic-size swimming pool and 'Tammy's Shoppe,' where 'fashionable clothing is available for the entire family at zable prices.' At the 'Rec Room,' youngsters play pool, pinball and video games.
Visitors can pray and receive communion in a building called the Upper Room, which houses a telephone prayer center staffed by volunteers, as are many of the facilities on the grounds.
Classes are held in the Total Learning Center, which offers marriage counseling and seminars on financial planning, which includes instruction in 'will planning.'
All of it was made possible by the technology of the satellite which, according to PTL spokesmen, has helped make the Jim Bakker show 'the most watched Christian television program in the world.'
In addtion to the United States and Canada, PTL claims '29 other nations are being evangelized.'
'Together,' the magazine for PTL Partners, has said, 'In the last five years, PTL has given well over $11 million to literally hundreds of foreign and home missions projects.'
Spokesman Lacey, asked for a financial statement dealing with PTL's operations for the past fiscal year, agreed to produce one but failed to do so.
PTL was based in Charlotte when Bakker broke ground in Fort Mill on Jan. 2, 1978, and began construction of Heritage USA. It was granted the first private network license ever issued, enabling it to blanket the United States with religious programming from The PTL Satellite, the Inspirational Network.
Besides the Jim Bakker program, the network also carries such evangelists as Falwell, Oral Roberts, Rex Humbard, Kenneth Copeland, Robert Schuller, Jimmy Swaggart and Pat Robertson, for whom Bakker once worked.
PTL depends on an IBM computer system to to handle the letters it receives from Partners.
