The daughter of Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker has broken years of silence and issued a public apology “to anyone who has been hurt by the church or my family’s ministry over the last 60 years.”
Unlike her brother, Jay Bakker, who has been publicly visible in his own ministry that is very different from his father’s, Tammy Sue Bakker worked with her father until 2022.
“I quietly left my father’s ministry in 2022 because the message that was being delivered was not mine,” she said. “I have spent the years since estranged from my father.”
Tammy Sue Bakker (Via Facebook)
She did not know he was ill or was in hospice care until three hours before his death: “I learned he had passed from a friend who saw it online and didn’t realize I hadn’t been told.”
Jim Bakker died Oct. 5 at age 86. Although most famous for his role in the rise and fall of the PTL broadcast and Christian village, the elder Bakker returned to religious broadcasting after serving prison time for fraud. His latest program, The Jim Bakker Show, trafficked in conspiracies and fake cures for COVID and other illnesses.
Tammy Sue Bakker has been so quiet that it was not widely known she had left her father’s ministry.
In the statement shared on social media Oct. 10, she said inspiration from her mother caused her to break her silence. “Throughout my life, I have stayed silent, not wanting to hurt my family or the church. … I am a peaceful and private person, but today I need to be transparent, and I hope that transparency will help someone.”
What she had to say was bold: “I want to publicly apologize, from the depths of my soul, to anyone who has been hurt by the church or my family’s ministry over the last 60 years. I know that millions of lives were positively changed by PTL, and for that I’m grateful. I have also read the letters and comments — and have been told in person many times — that so many gave their last dime to the ministry.
“It breaks my heart to know that the church has been responsible for millions of people suffering, being rejected by their families, living with depression, being kicked out of their family homes, feeling like outcasts, dealing with suicidal ideation, or dying by suicide.”
She has carried this burden since childhood, she wrote.
“It is time for Christians to stand up and show the true love of Christ. It is time to stop judging. To stop hating.”
And she had one request for anyone wanting to remember her parents in their deaths: “In lieu of flowers or gifts, I am encouraging you today, from my heart, to donate funds or your time to your local LGBTQ community. No amount is too big or too small to make a real change and possibly save someone’s life. It is time for Christians to stand up and show the true love of Christ. It is time to stop judging. To stop hating. To unconditionally wrap your arms around your brothers and sisters and say, ‘I love you just the way you are.’
“Jesus said, ‘Come as you are.’ His love was not conditional. He did not command anyone to change who they were born to be. It is time to show love and compassion.”
Writing this statement was “the hardest and easiest thing I have ever done in my life,” she said. “It is the thing I have been most frightened of. I hope you will join me today in true love, acceptance, understanding and peace. You are loved exactly as you are.”
Tammy Sue Bakker’s inclusion of the LGBTQ community mirrors the spirit of her mother, who in the 1980s amid the AIDS crisis became an icon of acceptance.
Jay Bakker (Via Facebook)
Her brother, Jay Bakker, has a public ministry as a preacher and teacher on the cutting edge of progressive Christianity.
He explicitly identifies as a gay-affirming pastor and in a 2011 interview told TIME his congregation had become “completely affirming” and described performing a same-sex wedding on the first day it became legal in California.
Jay Bakker also rejects the evangelical claim that homosexuality is inherently sinful. He advocates full LGBTQ inclusion, not merely tolerance.
Since Jim Bakker’s death, Jay has said a few things publicly but mainly has asked for privacy to mourn and has lamented the hatred spewed toward his father even in death.
He called theirs a “complicated relationship” full of “nuances, contradictions and hopes never realized.”
Related:
Jim Bakker, who transformed televangelism, dies at 86