Religion: Of God and Greed

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As the week of "Jim vs. Jerry" dawned, Falwell's team was straining to get PTL under control. That meant an exasperating search for missing PTL records and monies, an emergency drive to raise $7 million by May 31 so PTL could keep functioning, and an almost nonstop talk with PTL creditors and inquisitive federal agents. Besides all that, a group of Bakker sympathizers was trying to undermine Falwell's leadership.

On his two Nightline appearances, Bakker offered a new interpretation of the key events that led to Falwell's takeover of PTL. Bakker's version: in the crucial meeting at a Palm Springs hotel on March 17, Falwell precipitated Bakker's resignation with the threat that Swaggart was plotting a "hostile takeover" of PTL. Said Bakker: "I did not choose Jerry Falwell to take my ministry." Bakker noted that Falwell said he would be a "caretaker" to prevent the takeover while Richard Dortch, one of several Bakker aides who were later to be sacked by Falwell for mismanagement, would remain in charge. Subsequently, Falwell "betrayed" him, said Bakker, who added, "I mean, I sit back and I say, 'Dear God, how could we have our ministry stolen from us?' " Bakker said if PTL were a secular business, Falwell would be sent to jail for taking over "under false pretenses."

Tammy Bakker said she had advised her husband, "Something isn't right here. Don't do it, Jim." She asserted that Lawyer Norman Roy Grutman, hired by PTL, pledged that members of Falwell's newly constituted PTL board would submit resignation letters in advance. Supposedly Grutman said that "anytime you and Jim want to walk back in, all you have to do is tell the board of directors."

In response, Falwell scoffed, "To say that Jerry Falwell stole PTL is like accusing someone of stealing the Titanic just after it hit the iceberg." As Falwell told it, Bakker "misled me and lied to me in the meeting in Palm Springs." The Lynchburg televangelist insisted that he did not threaten Bakker with the Swaggart takeover rumor. Rather, Bakker asked him to take over PTL, saying, "You're the only preacher I trust right now."

Bakker, Falwell said, described the adulterous 1980 tryst with Hahn as a 20- minute encounter in which Hahn was the aggressor and intercourse did not occur. According to Falwell, Bakker also said that the $265,000 in hush money came from his personal funds, not from PTL. On that basis, Falwell told Bakker that if he ironed out problems with his church body, the Assemblies of God, "I see no reason why you couldn't get back in the ministry." Falwell declared his willingness to "step aside" at PTL.

Did Falwell renege? He freely admitted changing his mind as the scandal continued to unfold. Falwell charged that he has since learned that on the day in 1980 in Florida when, according to Hahn, Bakker and his companion, Evangelist John Wesley Fletcher, had intercourse with her, a PTL staffer then attempted to do the same, and Bakker later asked the third man, "Did you get her too?" Said Falwell: "That made my blood boil." Falwell-installed auditors subsequently discovered that the $265,000 in hush money had been siphoned from PTL accounts through a false billing.