Jay Bakker’s road to redemption

Jay Bakker is a Christian rebel, said Alex Morris in New York. The son of televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, he grew up at Heritage USA, his parents’ Christian residential compound and theme park. “I thought my dad ran the world,” says Bakker, now 34. That world came crashing down in 1987, when tabloids revealed his father had had a sexual affair with his secretary; two years later, Bakker senior was convicted of fraud and sent to prison. “Everything I knew was just completely gone overnight,” says Jay. Angered by his father’s hypocrisies, he experimented with drugs and took to wearing his mother’s infamous eyeliner in order to look like a goth.

After getting sober, he opened a small ministry called Revolution in the hipster neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “I’ve been called the punk rock pastor,” says Bakker, who sports several tattoos, one of which reads “Religion Destroys.” He preaches an alternative reading of the Bible that emphasizes Christ’s love but disavows moral judgment and war. “Christianity has been on the wrong side of a lot of issues,” he says. He’s forgiven his father, though their relationship remains strained. “I think my dad’s a pretty sincere guy—when he’s on TV,” says Bakker. “He just needs an audience.”

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