A Biographical Sketch: Jim and Tammy Bakker

By Daniel W. Petty Bakker was born in 1940, the son of a poor Muskegon, Michigan factory worker. In his autobiography, Move That Mountain (1976, 1985), Bakker tells of suffering from an inferiority complex as a child. He attributes his conversion to a tragic experience in high school at the age of eighteen. While playing hooky …

A Biographical Sketch: Rex Bombard

By Daniel W. Petty Alpha Rex Humbard, born in 1919 in Little Rock, Arkansas, and raised mostly in Hot Springs, grew up in a family of itinerant Pentecostal evangelists. As a child, Rex traveled regularly with the family, singing and playing the guitar in the family’s evangelistic performances. After graduation from high school, Rex joined his …

A Biographical Sketch: Jimmy Swaggart

By Steve Wolfgang The fastest-growing “televangelism ministry” in the United States today belongs to Jimmy Swaggart. His 270-acre complex in Baton Rouge, LA, includes his million-dollar home, a 7,000-seat church, a state-of-the art television production studio, a 15,000-square-foot printing/mailing operation employing more than 1,000 people, and a 1000-student which will Bible college (which received 18,000 applications …

Biographical Sketch: Ernest Angley

By Daniel W. Petty Ernest Angley was born and reared in rural North Carolina in the Charlotte area. Angley’s family was Baptist by denominational affiliation, and he was raised in the Baptist church. He believed that he experienced a “born-again” experience at eighteen years of age, and a few months later left the Charlotte area to …