TAMMY FAYE BAKKER

Video Interview

Dear God of All Preachers and all peoples,

A modern Aimee Semple McPherson, Tammy Faye was an extraordinary presence in television religious broadcasting, and to me an enigma.

She was bigger-than-life and perfect for TV, in her smart clothes, extravagant hair-dos, and her tear-streaked mascara, as she cried, seeking donations for her ministry, for the unsaved and the poor, in Your name. How much of the enormous amounts, which she and her husband raised over many years actually made it to the poor, is an unanswered question.

It is hard to know how seriously, or how very unseriously, to take Tammy Faye, dear Lord. Was she deeply religious? or was she only a cynical actor employing crocodile tears as a money-raiser?

It is not mine to judge. But whatever
the case may be, I feel pity for her. She was eventually deserted by Jim Bakker her fellow TV-evangelist husband, who found a new love, but was eventually imprisoned for egregious accounting fraud.

A deserted wife, she became a tragic, even pathetic figure, caught somewhere between glamour, innocence, venality and faith.

You are her judge, and I pray for her soul.

Amen