Jim Bakker died on October 5, 2026, at 86. Paul M. Neuberger uses his death not to mock a man whose fall from grace became a national scandal, but to ask a harder question: why did the theology that built Bakker’s empire survive him?
This episode traces the PTL Club from its peak, an estimated 13 million nightly viewers and a sprawling Christian resort called Heritage USA, through the 1987 scandal involving church secretary Jessica Hahn, the discovery of a ministry drowning in debt despite enormous fundraising, and Bakker’s eventual conviction on 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy. But the history is really a setup for Paul’s real target: the prosperity gospel itself, and how comfortably it still lives inside modern American Christianity, including, he admits, inside his own ambition.
This is one of the more self-critical episodes of the show. Paul turns the lens on his own history as a self-described “recovering workaholic,” connects it to the same 2018 season of depression and suicidal thoughts he’s referenced before, and asks listeners (and himself) where ambition quietly becomes idolatry.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
Key Scripture referenced:
1 Timothy 6:10, Mark 8:36, Galatians 6:7, James 3:1, Luke 9:23, Matthew 6:24, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Philippians 4:12, John 16:33, 2 Timothy 4:3, Acts 17:11, Galatians 1:10, Matthew 6:21, Proverbs 27:17, Ephesians 2:8, 2 Corinthians 9:7, 1 John 4:1, Ephesians 5:11, Matthew 16:26
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