Falwell bars Bakker’s return to ministry

Press, 30 May 1987, Page 11

Falwell bars Bakker’s return to ministry

NZPA-Reuter Fort Mill, Soutb Carolina The evangelist, Jim Bakker, has been barred from returning to his popular television ministry on the grounds that he engaged in adultery, had "homosexual problems” and possibly misused millions of dollars. In a new round of television evangelism’s “Holy War,” Bakker was barred from returning to the Praise the Lord (P.T.L.) ministry by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who took over the organisation in March after Bakker admitted a sexual encounter with a former Church secretary and resigned. Mr Falwell told a press conference that since he has headed the P.T.L, “I have learned of fiscal ir-

regularities and, Jim, I must tell you that I would be doing a disservice to God ... and to the Church at large to allow you to come back here now or ever.”

He was responding to charges made by Mr Bakker in an A.B.C. television interview that Mr Falwell had stolen his ministry from him.

“To say I have stolen the P.T.L. is like saying someone stole the Titanic after it hit the iceberg,” Mr Falwell said. He said he had at first believed that Mr Bakker alone had sex with the former secretary, Jessica Hahn, in a Florida hotel room and that she had enticed him. But Mr Falwell said he later learned that one of

Mr Bakker’s associates had also had sex with Ms Hahn and that a third man had tried. Mr Falwell said he learned that Mr Bakker later approached the third

man and asked, “Did you get her too?”

He said Mr Bakker needed to ask for God’s forgiveness.

"Secondly, he needs to acknowledge those homosexual problems dating from 1956 to the present time as they have been alleged to us and say, ‘Yes, I have been wrong.’

“And he needs to return the millions of dollars that have been taken from the coffers of this ministry at the cost of widows and supporters who built this Christian ministry.”

After Mr Bakker’s departure, P.T.L. officials discovered that the ministry was SUS6O million ($103.8 million) in debt and there were hundreds of thousands of dollars missing.