'i'll Be Out On The Street!' Right-wing Televangelist Begs Viewers For $1m

Conservative televangelist and convicted felon Jim Bakker is now urging his viewers to send him $1 million, and threatening that his ministry will shut down if he doesn't get the money.

On Tuesday, the group Right Wing Watch posted a video of Bakker from his PTL [Praise The Lord] Network show, telling a guest that he needed 1,000 viewers to donate $1,000 apiece (for a total of $1 million) in order to save both his business and his home. And he likened donating to his ministry to being in alignment with God.

"If they foreclose on this ministry, they will take my house too. So I will be on the street," Bakker said. "But I don't care. I've never been in the street."

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"God will stand with you if you stand with Him," Bakker continued. "That's why it's important that you obey God. And I just, I need about a thousand people that will give right now. Maybe not give a thousand but you can give a hundred dollars. And I want you to mail it in, right now."

Bakker is one of the most prominent televangelists of the 20th century, launching the PTL Network with his then-spouse Tammy Faye Bakker, which peaked in the 1980s with the construction of the Heritage USA theme park. According to the History TV network, Heritage USA was the third most-visited theme park in 1986 with six million visitors, behind only Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida and Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

However, Bakker's enterprise unraveled in the late 1980s, when former aide Jessica Hahn admitted that she and Bakker had an affair, prompting condemnation from other well-known televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart. Bakker was also indicted on federal charges of mail fraud and wire fraud in 1988, with the Department of Justice alleging that the money used to build Heritage USA had come from the Bakkers defrauding their audience.

The 85-year-old televangelist was ultimately found guilty and sentenced to 45 years in prison, though his sentence was reduced to eight years and he was eventually released in 1994. Tammy Faye Bakker died in 2007.

Watch the video of Bakker below, or by clicking this link.