Falwell Throws In the Towel

By Richard N. Ostling

"I've never been a quitter," said the Rev. Jerry Falwell, choking back tears. But quitter he was last week, exhausted by unending financial woes and attacks from believers who opposed his rule at the PTL Christian conglomerate. The final straw was a decision by Federal Bankruptcy Judge Rufus Reynolds that Falwell's financial rescue plan did not accommodate creditors and contributors. Reynolds suggested that Falwell should control only, say, five of nine PTL board members. Convinced that new board members might help restore the defrocked Jim Bakker, Falwell resigned, along with top administrators and current board members. The entire affair, said Falwell, washing his hands of it, has become the "Watergate of Evangelical Christianity."

Or the tar baby. Ever since Bakker was caught in an adultery scandal and gave Falwell custody of his empire, the two have been flailing away at each other. At stake, beyond whatever should be rendered to God, are the sprawling Heritage USA theme park, a large cable network, a daily TV show, two hotels, a shopping mall and other oddments based in Fort Mill, S.C. The empire is worth $170 million but has debts of $62 million. During his 204-day rule, Falwell managed to raise $23 million but failed to rally the 114,000 "Lifetime Partners." They had sent Bakker contributions of $165 million in return for a lifelong guarantee of three nights' free lodging a year at Heritage USA. Bakker had hopelessly oversold available space. Some Partners objected to Falwell because they are Bakker admirers; more did so because they are Pentecostals. They saw Falwell as a usurper who had long opposed that exuberant style of faith.

After Falwell filed his bankruptcy plan, creditors carped over the slow repayment schedules. The Lifetime Partners agitated for a return on their investment, and were not mollified by such offers as discounts on Heritage enterprises or stock in a new for-profit corporation that would develop real estate and begin selling ads on the TV network. The judge's ruling, said Falwell angrily, made it likely that "barring a miracle of God," the disgraced Bakker would return to run PTL within six months. In the febrile world of evangelistic TV fund raising, as in TV generally, the show cannot go on without a star like Bakker.

Some suspected that Falwell's move was a ploy to get the judge to back down. But the Fundamentalist minister has ample reason to escape the PTL quagmire and pay closer heed to his troubled operations in Lynchburg, Va. Faced with a recent decline of $5.4 million in contributions to his own TV ministry, Falwell has just stopped purchasing time from 50 of the 340 stations that carry his show. Bakker and his wife Tammy Faye, basking in the resignation news at their mountaintop home near Gatlinburg, Tenn., said they were certainly willing to return if the creditors wished. Of course, Bakker could face a court hearing or two of his own, what with a federal grand jury and various investigators on the prowl.

What if neither Falwell nor Bakker returns? Falwell's last action was to try to head off Bakker by turning control over to Bakker's Pentecostal denomination, the 2.1 million-member Assemblies of God, subject to Judge Reynolds' approval. An Assemblies spokesman was dumbfounded. The judge must now decide not only who should run the place but how to keep it alive. Falwell says PTL's cash-starved cable network may survive only three more weeks. The outgoing team has offered to assist in an orderly transition, assuming anything orderly is possible, when someone is found with the temerity to try managing PTL.

With reporting by Levona Page/Fort Mill