Ex-wife of evangelist Jim Bakker dies
Pastor Dale Morgan
Ex-wife of evangelist Jim Bakker dies*
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By William M. Welch, USA TODAY
Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, who died Friday, was a former TV preacher's
wife whose flamboyant appearance and ready compassion made her a media
star after the collapse of the evangelism empire she helped build.
Messner, 65, had successfully fought colon cancer that was diagnosed in
1996, but announced in 2004 that cancer had returned and spread to her
lungs. She died peacefully Friday at her home near Kansas City, Mo.,
said Joe Spotts, her manager and booking agent.
A family service was held Saturday in a private cemetery, where her
ashes were interred, he said.
Widely recognized for her heavy makeup and false eyelashes, Messner was
the author of several books, the subject of movies and a character in a
reality television show, The Surreal Life.
She built a fan following among gays who appreciated her early displays
of nonjudgmental compassion for those with AIDS as well as her
theatrical life.
"She was never condemning of other people. There was a real genuine care
for other people that came through, even on television,'' said Randall
Balmer, professor of religion at Bernard College.
While she figured in what came to be seen as financial and cultural
excesses in fundamentalist Christian broadcasting in the 1980s, he said,
she emerged as a sympathetic figure in contrast to her disgraced first
husband, Jim Bakker, who went to prison for fraud.
"Beneath all those levels of makeup, there was a real person,'' Balmer said.
Messner said in interviews and statements on her website that her weight
had dropped to 65 pounds and doctors had stopped treating the cancer.
She said in May that she looked "like a scarecrow.''
"I've been very ill," she said. "You just have to trust the Lord."
"Every single day I get up and I say I am going to live and not die,''
she said.
"Now it's up to God and my faith. And that's enough! But please continue
to pray for the pain and sick stomach," she wrote on her website,
www.tammyfaye.com.
Known as Tammy Faye Bakker, she and her then-husband built a hugely
successful evangelism empire in the 1970s until its collapse in scandal
in the late 1980s.
They were co-hosts of the PTL Club, for Praise the Lord, and the PTL
Television Network, becoming was one of the first religious programmers
to tap the growth of satellite transmission and cable television. They
built a national platform for Pentacostal preaching and frequent appeals
for viewers to send in money. They preached a message that God would
reward donors with prosperity.
Jim Bakker said in a statement that his ex-wife "lived her life like the
song she sang, If Life Hands You a Lemon, Make Lemonade."
"She is now in Heaven with her mother and grandmother and Jesus Christ,
the one who she loves and has served from childbirth," he said. "That is
the comfort I can give to all who loved her."
In 1987, Jim Bakker was forced to give up his empire and admitted to
paying $265,000 in hushmoney to cover up a sexual relationship with a
former church secretary, Jessica Hahn. In 1989 he was convicted of fraud
and spent nearly five years in federal prison for overselling "lifetime
memberships'' that included lodging at the 2,000-acre Christian theme
park and resort they developed at Fort Mill, S.C.
She was not charged and divorced Bakker in 1992 while he was in prison.
Her second husband, Roe Messner, owns a company that builds churches and
had been developer of the PTL resort, Heritage USA.
Tammy Faye played a central role in the success of religious programs
with her first husband. She often sang, talked, prayed and even
conducted puppet shows on camera.
"She once described herself as the first lady of religious television,
and that's hard to dispute,'' Balmer said. "More than her husband, she
was the real entertainment.''
Kim Martin, general manager of Women's Entertainment television network,
which has aired a 90-minute documentary about Messner's battle with
cancer, called her "without a doubt one of the most positive,
charismatic people I've ever met.'' Martin said she had an ability to
remain positive even in the face of a worsening medical condition.
"She is really inspiring to women,'' Martin said. "When she finds out
bad news she says she was depressed for about 30 seconds. ... I think
she is a genuine and sincere person -- and people recognize it.''
During her PTL years with Bakker, however, some critics questioned the
sincerity of both. When the Bakkers said PTL also stood for "People that
Love,'' skeptics dubbed it "Pass the Loot."
Terry Mattingly, a religion writer and senior fellow at the Council for
Christian Colleges and Universities in Washington, D.C., once appeared
as a guest on their TV show in the 1980s and observed that while they
held hands and appeared close on camera, they were distant and apart
backstage.
"They were the first Christian reality show and just as phony, just as
staged as TV reality shows today,'' Mattingly said.
Tammy Faye LaValley was born in International Falls, Minn. She attended
North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, where she met her first
husband. They married in 1961. The Bakkers jointly hosted TV shows on
the Christian Broadcasting Network that Pat Robertson was building in
Virginia before moving briefly to the Trinity Broadcasting Network in
California. They moved to Charlotte and started PTL in 1974.
As their television empire grew to an estimated 12 million viewers and
$10 million a month in revenue at its peak, attention focused on their
lifestyle -- big salaries, bonuses, multiple homes, a boat, and oppulent
tastes.
According to her biography on her website, she recorded more than 25
music albums and wrote several books about her life. A 2000 film, "The
Eyes of Tammy Faye,'' broadened her following, and in 2005 a documentary
about her struggle with cancer, Tammy Faye: Death Defying aired on cable
television. Her most recent book was I Will Survive ... And You Will Too!
In one of her website notes in May, she wrote that her daughter with
Bakker, Tammy Sue, had been caring for her. She also had a son with
Bakker, Jamie, a minister who holds services in a Brooklyn bar. Jim
Bakker, 67, is building a new television ministry in Branson, Mo.