While tearfully pleading for more funds to complete the project, the Bakkers lived in luxury: multiple lavish homes, gold-plated bathroom fixtures, air-conditioned doghouses. Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker constructed a massive theme park, Heritage U.S.A., in Fort Mill, S.C., which became the third most popular tourist attraction in the United States, after Walt Disney World and Disneyland. It was the first known instance of the Almighty taking anyone hostage and demanding ransom. Oral Roberts, based in Tulsa, Okla., declared to his followers that the Lord would call him “home” unless God’s people ponied up something like $4.5 million. Whereas during their earlier heyday, the 1980s, they competed in a less crowded field and several had the advantage of access to satellites, now the televangelists have burrowed their way into dark corners of the internet, where they apparently have captured new audiences.įor those of us old enough to remember, an earlier generation of televangelists ruled the airwaves in the 1980s until their spectacular downfall.
They may be less obvious than before, because they have taken advantage of a fractured media landscape. In case you hadn’t noticed, the televangelists are back.
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