Last Friday, May 3, 2019, Jim Bakker aired a “special” telecast of his “Jim Bakker Show”. It was explained that it was “special” in that Bakker had received a directive straight from the almighty creator of the whole universe that he had to pass on to everyone, especially Christians.

“Oh, my; oh my” – as Rexella Van Impe might say. What sort of communication from “God” could have stirred up Jim Bakker to produce a special telecast on this date? After all, does not Bakker claim that he receives word from “God” on a regular basis? Why would this one be so important?

Bakker almost immediately launched into his diatribe, at times interrupted by brief comments from others or when he strayed onto some other subject, by stating that he is now certain that “we’re in the beginning of the very last days”. Well, if that was all it was about, then it would earn a very big yawn from me, just as Jack Van Impe’s announcement that he was the “final prophet” before the return of Christ had. After all, it’s not like Bakker hasn’t said this exact thing before on multiple occasions.

But no, no, this time it was different, Bakker stressed. He stated that he literally woke up the previous evening and started writing things down as fast as he could. He was “downloading” from “God”. As he related this he started in on some news of the day which he called “unbelievable’, which is only related to Bakker’s rantings here only in that he sees it as a clear sign of persecution. Thus, there is no need to get into all of that except to state that “persecution” is somehow always a sign that things are going to become hard for the Christian.

His main point (again); “The election has already begun”. Of course, Bakker is referring to the upcoming 2020 elections which have, in fact, already produced a decent crop of democratic candidates for president. Bakker went on to delineate a series of five points that he said “God” told him every serious Christian should ask anyone running for office to see where they stand and if they can be supported. As he stated, If one is really “God-fearing”, then “God said give them a test to see if they stand up to the Bible standard”.

Five points that “God”, through Bakker, is instructing all serious Christians to ask every candidate for office before determining whether they can support their candidacy or not.

The first of the five points, predictably, was that politicians must “be not in favor of killing babies” (as he put it). He continued, “You vote for those who believe in the word of God. You’ve got to have that standard”. From here Baker went off onto one of his rants, citing headlines, to which he added (much like Frances Swaggart does) “Christians are the most persecuted people in the world!” to which Mondo De La Vega added, quite incorrectly, that the recent church bombings in Sri Lanka “wasn’t even talked about on the news”.

All of this must have been a segue to his second point, which was that Christians have to vote for politicians who will “stand up for the cross; for freedom of religion. . . . The cross must be respected and never removed from public view!” He went on to make the tirelessly repeated claim that “they want to outlaw the Bible”! That, as he and others ranted about crosses being removed everywhere, in China and even here, and churches failing or being torn down all over Europe and the US. In addition, he ranted about church membership and attendance declining rapidly, never considering that, perhaps, Christian TV may be part of the cause for this trend.

The third point is really something that one can readily see the “God of the whole universe” being intimately concerned with. Bakker stressed that “candidates must be willing and able to fix problems at the border”. Yes, indeed; I see “God” from the farthest reaches of starry heaven looking down on this earth and singling out the USA and its border issues. We’ve just got to keep them out! Of course, at that point Mondo again chimed in, claiming that he understands those who want to come to the US, but that he and his family “did it the right way”. He also claimed that the headlines demonstrated that American Hispanics are turning to Trump to a great degree exactly because of this issue – because they want everyone to come in the “right way”. No doubt, conservative media is spinning things in this exact way.

Then, on to the fourth point: “We must elect leaders who will keep and follow our Constitution”. All well and good on this one, except that, again, I can’t see the “God of the universe” caring who we elect or whether they follow our Constitution or not. Bakker added that the “founders prayed”. As he ranted about this I was forced to ponder how praying and reason might go together, since the Constitution is a document founded on reason, and prayer, well, is never mentioned in said Constitution. Neither is “God”, by the way, contrary to what some posit.

And, interestingly, no one on the program so much as mentioned Trump. This is a clear sign that these televangelist types are quickly seeking to ditch Trump, but still quite intent upon continuing their agenda of taking over American government and society by whatever means possible.

Finally, Bakker’s (I mean, “God’s”) fifth point: “Socialists must not be accepted. It will cause America to die”. Then he quoted 2 Thessalonians 3:10 “If a person won’t work; he shouldn’t eat.” in support of his point here, then adding, “We’re not to take care of lazy people! The falling away is here!” Of course, poor Jim Bakker likely has no idea that 2 Thessalonians was, according to most biblical scholars, probably not written by the apostle Paul and, by acceptable standards, therefore should not be part of the New Testament canon. But, he thinks that the book of 1 Enoch should be included in the Bible, so the reader should take that for what it’s worth.

In any case, among the asinine rantings between each point, and after he was finished making these five points, Bakker interjected “The devil wants America”, stating that others are “about to turn America over to Satan”. To this he added “They want to take Christian television from us”.

Yes, “they” are out to destroy his baby (Christian television), which he practically birthed all by himself when Pat Robertson asked him to do a children’s program, to hear Jim tell it.

Then it was on to abortion again (the one topic that they all rally around): “Don’t kill babies. Adopt them out!” after which he went on about how he and Lori live in this large, virtually empty, house because all of their children have moved away, stating that if things go back they can move back in. “We’ve prepared our house for the last days” by storing food, etc., there.

The point of posting Bakker’s five points in this blog is to demonstrate how far these fanatics have moved toward engineering their own political outcomes. They are determined to move the US toward a Christian theocracy, and they make no secret of it anymore. And, after all, it’s a directive from “God”!

Thus, even though the televangelists and others have been subtly moving away from Trump ever since the release of the Mueller Report (for, apparently, even they are smart enough to understand what it really says), they are by no means moving away from their full endorsement of what they consider to be “conservative American Christian” values. So, they will support any conservative Republican candidate who will keep things moving in the direction they want it to go in. And, if anyone doesn’t vote their way, then they aren’t a real Christian.

It should concern everyone that things have actually moved to the point that lunatics like Bakker can openly try to sway voters, knowing that they have impunity because Trump has dictated that the Johnson Amendment will not be enforced against them. This is truly alarming! And it’s not so much that people like Bakker feel free to spout this nonsense, but that so many Americans will actually heed what he says.

Religion needs to stay the hell out of our politics! Psychotic superstitions have no place in an enlightened society or its government, period.