Tammy Faye Shovels Blame In Her Version Of Ptl Fiasco

NEW YORK - For the thousandth time, the doghouse was not air-conditioned. It was only heated.

In the PTL television evangelism scandal according to Tammy Faye, Jessica Hahn was a "professional" seductress, Jerry Falwell a double-crossing man of mammon and Jim Bakker a poor schnook whose trust in others led to his downfall.

Tammy Faye Messner - she divorced Bakker while he was in prison and married his best friend from his PTL days - paints a blistering portrait in a new book of fellow evangelists kicking Bakker while he was down.

"Jim, if you're reading this, here's my advice: Get on with your life and don't worry what people think. Hold your head up high," she writes in "Tammy: Telling It My Way."

The book, coming out this month from Villard, follows one released by her ex-husband, who takes more of the blame in "I Was Wrong: The Untold Story of the Shocking Journey from PTL Power to Prison and Beyond," published by Thomas Nelson.

Bakker was convicted on federal fraud charges after bilking 116,000 followers of his PTL ministries out of $158 million in the 1980s. He resigned in 1987 amid a sex and financial scandal. The PTL empire Bakker and Tammy Faye built was turned over to Virginia evangelist Jerry Falwell. Bakker was released from prison in 1994 after serving about five years.

The two books offer differing perspectives on the sexual encounter with Hahn that led to Bakker's ultimate fall from grace. Hahn, a former church secretary, has charged that Bakker sexually assaulted her in a Florida hotel room.

Bakker says: "Most of all, I did not rape Jessica Hahn. The sexual encounter for which we are both now infamous was completely consensual."

But the tryst as told in Messner's book is the story of a reluctant Bakker being urged into having sex with Hahn by a minister friend who introduced the two, then goaded Bakker when he was ready to back out by saying, "Come on, Jim, prove you're a man."

With the Hahn incident about to become public in 1987, Bakker resigned, turning the ministry over to Falwell. Both Bakker and Messner said Falwell deceived them.

In her book, Messner said Falwell convinced Bakker he was sincerely trying to help him, while his real interests were wresting away the television network for himself.

In a written response, Falwell said he "would expect that Tammy has her own theory about the history of PTL, and she is certainly entitled to write about it. However, I don't intend to revisit that chapter of my life or theirs."

Falwell is only one of a number of evangelists Messner criticizes. She also accuses Jimmy Swaggart of trying to undermine Bakker and says a host of others to whom Bakker had given hundreds of thousands of dollars and television exposure would have nothing to do with the Bakkers in their times of trouble.

One notable exception was Billy Graham, whose integrity helped guide television evangelism through this turmoil. He called the Bakkers and visited Jim in prison.

Did anything good come out of the scandal? Messner says yes. "I think an awful lot of people got their eyes opened and faced reality . . . and realized no one's perfect," she said. "And in a way that's been good. It's caused people to look to God."