Ousting Two from the Clergy

By Richard N. Ostling.

Many a Protestant parson caught up in scandal has quietly been found guilty by an ecclesiastical panel and has then slipped from view. But last week a double defrocking was proclaimed to the world by the national head of the ministers' denomination. The ousted preachers are Jim Bakker, who confessed to adultery last March and then gave up his multimillion-dollar PTL television network and theme park at Fort Mill, S.C., and his former top executive, Richard Dortch, who was accused of orchestrating a cover-up of Bakker's lapse.

District officials of the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination with 2.3 million U.S. followers, reached the decision on the two clergymen during two days of discussions in Fayetteville, N.C. Their findings were endorsed in a telephone conference by the national denomination's 13-member Executive Presbytery and announced at Assemblies headquarters in Springfield, Mo.

The Assemblies expelled Bakker not only for committing adultery with Jessica Hahn, a former church secretary from West Babylon, N.Y., but also for "alleged misconduct involving bisexual activity." Two weeks ago, at his residence in Palm Springs, Calif., Bakker declared to reporters, "I'm not a homosexual." However, sources familiar with the Assemblies investigation of PTL (for Praise the Lord or People That Love) reported that incriminating testimony came from witnesses who claimed to have participated in such sexual activity with Bakker.

G. Raymond Carlson, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, said "many people" were willing to confront Bakker and Dortch with their charges but the accused clergymen declined to participate in the investigation. "There is a very large file on this," said Carlson. "Other evidence could be used," but the officials "felt this was sufficient." Church observers noted that adultery alone justified defrocking. The homosexual charge may have been put on the record so that Bakker would have to respond to it if he ever sought to regain ministerial credentials. Under Assemblies bylaws, a minister ousted for adultery can apply for reinstatement after two years, but homosexual activity brings permanent banishment.

Dortch briefly succeeded Bakker as PTL president and host of its TV show until he was forced out last month. Dortch was found guilty of failing to notify church leaders of Bakker's misconduct and of subsequent deceit (the two men arranged hush-money payments of $265,000 to Hahn and her advisers). Dortch's downfall after 33 years in the ministry was especially awkward. He had been the Illinois superintendent for the denomination and had served 14 years on the very body that ordered his defrocking. Bakker and Dortch, who had no immediate response to the action, have 30 days to file an appeal to the Executive Presbytery, although that is considered unlikely.

Badly shaken by the scandals, PTL last week put its debt at $65 million and began laying off 220 of its 2,000 employees. Assemblies Superintendent Carlson said the scandal "has been most painful, very difficult, embarrassing and humiliating" for his group, the fastest-growing Protestant denomination in the U.S. The Assemblies have ordered a special day of prayer and fasting for all 10,886 congregations on May 17.

With reporting by Barbara Dolan/Detroit and B. Russell Leavitt/Atlanta