Bakker Says God Forgives His Sex Tryst

Fallen PTL leader Jim Bakker says his tryst with a church secretary has caused him no embarrassment and says that God has forgiven him, it was reported in an interview published here Christmas Eve.

Bakker, forced out of his PTL television ministry earlier this year for his 1980 liaison with Jessica Hahn and subsequent payments of hush money, also told the Desert Sun that he and his wife Tammy want to restore and rebuild the ministry.

“I think it’s time that we went back,” Bakker said. “Jim and Tammy have the right to go back and defend what they did or did not do. We are willing to face all that.

Wants to Restore PTL

“We are not embarrassed by my sin of eight years ago, which God has forgiven, and we are not embarrassed by the PTL and its beautiful dream. It ought to be restored and rebuilt and we want to do it.”

The Bakkers and their 12-year-old son, Jamie, earlier this month returned to Palm Springs, where the couple had lived intermittently for 16 years until last summer, when money problems forced them to sell their Spanish-style home.

“The desert is the most peaceful place we know,” Bakker said. “People here are used to having well-known people in the community, which makes it much easier to move about. We have our favorite restaurants and stores and people treat us kindly.”

Home Sold for $600,000

The Bakkers’ previous home in Palm Springs, the last of two they owned in the desert resort, was sold for $600,000 to Sam Apodaca, a Los Angeles pie magnate.

The family most recently had lived in a home at Malibu, where Bakker said the rent was paid by an agency that hired them to do “some work.” While he did not specify what that work involved, he later spoke of a phone-message service for callers to get daily updates about the couple’s ordeal.

Bakker said the rent on the walled home where he, Tammy and Jamie now live has been paid for through February by an unidentified friend who also has loaned them a car.

Bakker said he and his wife may attend the “Rockin’ the Night Away,” a New Year’s Eve show at the Palm Springs Convention Center as guests of their friends, entertainer Sonny Bono and his wife, Mary. Bono, a candidate for mayor of the desert resort, will emcee the show.