TV Evangelist Dies

CONTROVERSIAL TV EVANGELIST TAMMY FAYE MESSNER DIES

Sources: BosNewsLife, Christian Etailing

Controversial television evangelist, singer and author Tammy Faye Messner (formerly Bakker) died in her home the morning of Friday, July 20. She was 65. Messner had surgery for colon cancer in 1996. By 2004 the disease had spread to her lungs, and this May doctors stopped her treatment. Messner appeared on CNN’s “Larry King Live” show on Thursday, the day before she died. She told King she couldn’t swallow food, weighed only 65 pounds and looked forward to “going straight to heaven” after her death. A family graveside service was held at a private cemetery where Messner’s ashes have been interred.


Born Tammy Faye LaValley in International Falls, Minn., to Pentecostal preacher parents, she married Jim Bakker in 1961. Together they co-hosted “The 700 Club” and began “The PTL Club” in 1974. Praise the Lord (PTL) expanded and became a network with 13 million cable subscribers, bringing in close to $130 million annually at its height in the 1980s.


Tammy Faye was a fixture of her first husband’s ministry, her heavy mascara running as she tearfully beseeched television viewers to open their hearts to Jesus. After being convicted of fraud in 1989, Jim Bakker served five years in prison, and during that time he and Tammy Faye were divorced. In 1993 she married Roe Messner, a contractor whose company built the now-defunct Heritage USA theme park in Fort Mill, S.C., which became a popular attraction.


“Our family is deeply saddened by the news of the passing of Tammy Faye,” Bakker said in a statement. “She lived her life like the song she sang, ‘If Life Hands You a Lemon, Make Lemonade.’ My heart aches for my two children, Jamie Charles and Tammy Sue, who loved their mother dearly. They both told me their mom was so full of life that it is hard to believe she is gone.”

(HCJB)