Jim Bakker - Philosophy

Philosophy

Bakker has renounced his past teachings on prosperity theology, saying they were wrong. In his 1996 book, I Was Wrong, he admitted that the first time he actually read the Bible all the way through was while he was in prison, and that it made him realize he had taken certain passages out of context — passages which he had used as "proof texts" to back up his prosperity teachings. He wrote:

The more I studied the Bible, however, I had to admit that the prosperity message did not line up with the tenor of Scripture. My heart was crushed to think that I led so many people astray. I was appalled that I could have been so wrong, and I was deeply grateful that God had not struck me dead as a false prophet!

In 1998, he and Lori Graham were married. Bakker released another book that same year, Prosperity and the Coming Apocalypse ISBN 978-0-7852-6987-8, and, in 2000, he published The Refuge: The Joy of Christian Community in a Torn-Apart World ISBN 978-0-7852-7459-9.

His son, Jay, who is now a minister at Revolution Church in New York City, wrote of the PTL years in his book, Son of a Preacher Man: "The world at large has focused on my parents' preaching of prosperity, but ... I heard a different message — one of forgiveness and the abundance of God's love. I remember my dad always seating a mentally handicapped man in the front row and hugging him. And when vandals burned an African American church down, Dad made sure its parishioners got the funds to rebuild. His goal was to make PTL a place where anyone with a need could walk in off the streets and have that need met."