Emergency Goal Met, Falwell Says

The Rev. Jerry Falwell said Monday that the PTL met its $7-million “May Emergency” goal to keep the ministry afloat.

“June 1 has finally arrived,” Falwell said during Monday’s “PTL Club” show. “I’m happy to tell that the May Emergency was indeed a May miracle. We reached our goal.”

Falwell said the $7-million goal had been reached and that as more mail is opened he hoped the donations would be in excess of $10 million for the month of May.

Falwell, a fundamentalist Baptist, took over the PTL on March 19 when PTL founder Jim Bakker resigned in a sex scandal. Falwell said Bakker asked him to take over the ministry, but Bakker subsequently alleged that Falwell duped him and stole the $172-million Christian entertainment empire here.

Meanwhile, Tom Lee, head of the Assn. of Partners of PTL, said he sent Falwell a telegram Monday asking him to double the PTL’s directors to 10 members, allow the Assemblies of God denomination to select the five new members and require all board decisions to pass by a two-thirds vote.

Lee, who claims his group represents 5,000 of the ministry’s 500,000 members, said such a move would allow charismatics equal representation on the board of directors.