At Home with Jim

By Jon D. Hull

After appearing on ABC's Nightline last week, ousted PTL Leader Jim Bakker invited TIME Correspondent Jon D. Hull into his Palm Springs home. Hull's report:

Bakker sits in a corner of the white couch in his trinket-filled Spanish- style living room, looking like a schoolboy with bad grades. His hands are clasped between his knees, and his eyes remain fixed on the large black leather Bible spread before him. His pasty white face carries a sad, dazed expression. He is plainly shaken by his fall from grace. "We've almost died," he says. "I want to tell you . . . the first five weeks was like living hell." He pauses and touches the Bible. "At times we really wished they would have put a bullet in our head." Almost inaudibly he sighs. "I'm tired."

Dressed in tan slacks and a check shirt, Bakker had issued his greeting at the adobe gateposts of his palm tree-lined driveway. "If this be a holy war, I am declaring a cease-fire and a truce," he said. "I'm just going to step out of the arena. I made a mistake by ever stepping out and trying to tell our side of the story."

Apparently disturbed by his Nightline appearance, Bakker declines to discuss details of the PTL controversy. Nor, he says, is Wife Tammy Faye available. "This whole time she's been shopping," he says, noting that she visits at least two flea markets a week. Until recently, both Jim and Tammy Bakker went five days a week to the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., where they were both outpatients. "I went because of Tammy," he says, explaining that his wife was addicted to a prescription tranquilizer as well as an over-the-counter allergy medicine.

Cut off from his TV audience, Bakker relies on his Bible and his fan mail, the closest thing he has to a ministry. He says he has received more than 500 letters just from other ministers, as well as offers to serve as a pastor or appear on TV shows. "I've been invited to be a clergyman in, I think, half the world's religions."

For now, Bakker contends, money is the most pressing problem. Asked who owns his house, which is held in a still unexplained trust, he says about one-half is his. Where are the cars, the fur coats, the alleged secret funds from PTL? He refuses to answer. "I have about $50,000 cash to my name, and my daughter has $50,000 saved from her music work, which she'll probably loan me if I need it." The thought makes him erupt into laughter. Then the sad face again. "Together our family has about $100,000," he says. He reddens at this sudden turn in the conversation and reaches for his Bible. The flash of anger across his cheeks is palpable.

As Bakker would have it, the coffers are nearly empty. There is no more maid service, and PTL is to cut off all money as of June. Even so, the house is still redolent of wealth: the shiny black Schaefer & Sons grand piano with a golden candelabrum on top, the Chinese porcelain tea service, the collection of figurines, the bodyguards and bustling assistants. If the Bakkers are running dry, it certainly doesn't show yet.