The PTL founder and one of the original architects of Christian television leaves behind a undeniable legacy of innovation, technology, entertainment and ministry.
Jim Bakker, one of the last remaining pioneers from the original generation of Christian television, entered Heaven on Monday at the age of 86.
His wife, Lori Bakker, announced the news, writing that her husband “went home to be with the Lord this evening” after 66 years of preaching the Gospel. “Jim finished his race with faith,” Lori wrote. “His voice, his vision, and his legacy will never be forgotten.”
His son, Jay Bakker, shared a more complicated and deeply personal message. Jay acknowledged that his relationship with his father had been difficult and asked for the freedom to experience both anger and loss privately.
“He was also my father and a grandfather and I need to mourn in my own time,” Jay wrote.
That request deserves to be honored. Above everything else tonight, pray for the Bakker family.
Before Streaming, There Was Jim Bakker
It is impossible to tell the story of modern Christian media without Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. Long before churches livestreamed Sunday services, worship artists premiered songs on YouTube and ministries could reach millions from a phone, Bakker was among a small group of pioneers who recognized that emerging technology could become a vehicle for the Gospel.
Beginning in the 1960s, Bakker worked in Christian television at CBN, helping develop The 700 Club, and later alongside Paul and Jan Crouch in the formative days of TBN. Eventually, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker created PTL. What made Bakker different was his understanding that Christian television could actually be television.
There could be music, interviews, comedy, elaborate sets, personalities, entertainment and spontaneity alongside preaching and prayer. PTL often felt more like a Christian variety or late-night show than televised church.
Bakker embraced satellite technology when it was revolutionary, helping Christian programming reach homes around the world. Then came Heritage USA, his enormous experiment combining faith, broadcasting, entertainment, music and family attractions. At its peak, millions visited annually.
Whatever one thinks about what followed, the innovation was undeniable.
Today’s churches stream globally as a matter of routine. Christian artists build audiences through YouTube, podcasts and social media. Ministries operate sophisticated studios and digital networks.
That infrastructure has ancestors, and Jim Bakker was one of them.
Failure Wasn’t the Final Chapter
An honest remembrance cannot erase the painful parts of Bakker’s story. Then came an unlikely second act. Bakker married Lori in 1998 and eventually returned to Christian television, once again embracing new forms of distribution as broadcasting moved into the digital and streaming era. His life became a story of second chances.
From Christian Television to Christian Punk
Perhaps the most unexpected continuation of the Bakker legacy came through Jay.
During the massive rise of Christian punk and alternative culture in the 1990s, Jay Bakker and Revolution Church became part of Atlanta’s grassroots Christian punk community, creating space for people who often felt completely disconnected from conventional churches.
Punk kids, musicians, skaters, tattooed outsiders and people carrying complicated stories found a ministry that didn’t demand they first look like everyone else.
There is something remarkably full-circle about it.
Jim looked at television and asked how it could reach people for Christ.
Jay looked at punk and alternative culture and asked a similar question.
Different generations. Different audiences. Same willingness to go somewhere the Church hadn’t always gone.
The End of an Era
With Jim Bakker’s entrance into Heaven, perhaps the final chapter closes on the original generation of American Christian television innovators. Paul & Jan Crouch, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Tammy Faye Messner, and now Jim Bakker.
Those pioneers were imperfect as all of us. But they took enormous risks with technologies and forms of entertainment that many Christians initially distrusted.
Every church streaming around the world today owes something to the generation that first decided the Gospel belonged on the TV in the house.
Tonight, however, the legacy discussions can wait.
Jay has specifically asked people not to send him stories or commentary about his father. Honor that request. Pray for Lori. Pray for Jay. Pray for Jim’s children and grandchildren. Pray for healing where wounds remain, reconciliation wherever it is possible, and peace for a family experiencing a deeply personal loss in public. Christianity, after all, rests upon the radical possibility that our failures do not have to write our final chapter.
After 86 years of extraordinary heights and unexpected second acts, Jim Bakker has entered Heaven.
May the entire Bakker family be surrounded by prayer, grace and peace tonight.