This is beautiful and thanx for sharing this vid. This was when Heritage USA PTL was at a peak and this amazing Heritage Tower was inspirational. 1986 and now like 2022 MorningStar Ministry already restored the Grand Hotel and Main Stream and all that and have been dealing with hate and shut down concerning then finished this amazing 21 floor Heritage Tower. This Tower must be completed and not just demolished.
I was born in May of '85, I'm a year shy of being 30. But in my mind, the teenagers of my dad's old youth group from those years will always be teenagers in my mind, even though most of them are almost 50 now.
This show was becoming a threat to the media who wanted people to watch some black lesbian tv talk show host not the Bakkers with their light religious entertainment.
I was very young when all this was going on so I do not recall much of PTL. I do live in SC and have visited the site when it was abandon and I have read Jim's autobiography. I am pretty sure that this was near the end of PTL because the tower was never finished. If you look you You Tube there are videos from inside the tower of the unfinished rooms with the wallpaper and things that Jim talks about on here.Thank for the video.
HUSA began to unravel shortly after the New Year. The New Year's Eve event was to be one of the last live telecasts from the site in which all four Bakkers were present.
PTL employed 2000 people; Tammy Faye was the 1st to Hug AlDS patients, back when they didn't know how it was spread. Jim got a Massage with a Happy Ending and did a Circle Jerk with some other guys in a Sauna....big deal.
I grew up his south of Charlotte when PTL was a big deal. One bit of information I can add to his story is this, the major paper in Charlotte at the time (The Charlotte Observer) was offering money for inside information on the Bakkers as far back as 1981. The editor at the time was literally obsessed with taking them down. We got the paper everyday back then and I remember my dad talking about them offering money for info and the borderline slanderous editorials the Observer would run on Jim and Tammy. Turned out the editor was right on just about all of it.
You know, I don't care what Jim Bakker did 25 years prior to this beautiful theme park and his and Tammys' ministries. The way I see it, it all started with Jessica Hahn and her blackmail. I don't think she was the injured party. She brought down something great and hurt so many many people. 5 years after Jim Bakker was humiliated and broke and this beautiful place was gone, they decided Jim Bakker hadn't done anything wrong after all but the media has forever changed peoples opinion of these people and it's all gone forever. Such a great waste and a terrible shame.
@rskbamer yep, her extortion basically brought the whole things down. Millions of dollars of construction destroyed, jobs lost, people losing what they invested mostly because of her. No doubt she thinks nothing of it.
