Love thy neighbor.No exceptions.
Love thy neighbor.Update 5/8/20: For the past two months, Faithful America has been running a public-health campaign asking networks to drop the Jim Bakker Show for its past promotion of a false coronavirus cure. We are nevertheless saddened to learn that Bakker has had a stroke, as was announced on his show this morning. Thankfully, his wife says he is okay and resting. Jesus taught us to love our neighbors, no exceptions -- including those we support and those with whom we deeply, deeply disagree. Out of respect for Bakker's illness, we are suspending our campaign until he returns to his show. We do not wish poor health or personal suffering on anyone, and as Christians, we pray for him and for his family.
The morning of Friday, May 1, 2020, the Jim Bakker Show took aim at Faithful America for the second time in two weeks.
We knew something was up when the day started with a sudden deluge of hate mail: "How dare you call yourself Christians." "You are FAKE NEWS!" "You must be affected by demons from Hell." "Satan is the owner of this website." "Hypocritical liberal nuts... Your name should be changed to Faithful Chinese Communist." "You need to be afraid!"
Sure enough, we quickly learned that Bakker's latest broadcast had devoted more than ten minutes to making false claims about us. That's probably because -- thanks to nearly 18,000 Faithful America members and petition signers -- a second network is now taking Bakker's show off the air following its misleading suggestion that silver solution might cure coronavirus.
Bakker claimed Friday morning that the entire basis of our petition is wrong: that neither he nor his show ever implied silver will cure COVID-19. The show did, as we will prove below. We will also correct some of the misinformation Bakker shared about Faithful America.
Here's the truth about silver solution, coronavirus, and the Jim Bakker Show.
On February 12, Bakker asked his guest, naturopath Sherrill Sellman, whether the silver solution sold on his show could be used against coronavirus. He now says her response was that silver solution hasn't been tested on COVID-19 -- but that's a half-truth at best.
Sellman did very briefly note the lack of testing, but also went on to claim (falsely) that silver can cure other diseases -- including other coronavirus strains: "Well let's say it hasn't been tested on this strain of the coronavirus, but it's been tested on other strains of the coronavirus and has been, uh, able to eliminate it within 12 hours. Totally eliminates it. Kills it. Deactivates it. And then it boosts your immune system so then you can support the recovery."
This can clearly lead viewers to think, "Hey, if it works on all that other stuff, there's no reason it won't cure coronavirus too! So what if there's no testing yet? If all the other tests said one thing, the next test will too. I'll buy some now!" Bakker's team has since taken the episode down from his website, but you can see the clip here.
We are not alone in interpreting Bakker's show as calling silver a coronavirus cure, nor is this a politically motivated attack, as Bakker has incorrectly argued. His critics span the political spectrum: Missouri's Republican Attorney General has sued him for selling a fake "cure," and two Trump administration agencies ordered him to stop the sales.
Let's be clear: The FDA, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), WebMD, the Mayo Clinic, and Johns Hopkins have all said that ingesting silver products has no known health benefits or purpose inside the body.
We also want to make it clear that we have never claimed Bakker himself said silver solution can cure coronavirus, despite his false accusations to the contrary. What we have said -- and what happened, as the quote above shows -- is that the eponymous Jim Bakker Show strongly and misleadingly implied that silver solution can prevent, treat, and cure coronavirus. A guest made the statement in support of the show's store, the show briefly profited from her remarks before facing legal action, and the namesake host is responsible for that content.
After the government responded, Faithful America got involved, asking DirecTV to protect public health by taking the televangelist off the air as a preventive measure to stop the spread of any additional health misinformation. AT&T -- DirecTV's owner -- listened to our members' signatures, thanking signers for bringing the matter to its attention and asking its channels to review the programming in light of the FCC's public-interest regulations.
World Harvest Television quickly took the Jim Bakker show off the air, and Oral Roberts University's GEB Broadcasting told us just this week that they are also in the process of dropping Bakker's show from their lineup.
The fact that Bakker can't see why so many have interpreted his show as selling a fake "cure" is why we're worried what else he might say about COVID-19 -- and why, with your financial support, we'll keep resisting Bakker's attacks, advocating for public health, and pushing DISH and Roku to protect their viewers by joining DirecTV in dropping the Jim Bakker Show.
We will give Bakker credit for one thing: We're told he swears by his silver solution in private, not just on his show, and that he personally takes it himself. The Mayo Clinic says that "silver has no known purpose in the body" but can cause a permanent bluish-gray discoloration of the skin, kidney damage, and seizures. Therefore we do not condone anyone's use of the product -- but at least we can say that Bakker was not intentionally trying to con anyone with its dangerous sales.
When we learned about Bakker's personal choices, we removed the word "lie" from our petition. His show's claims are wrong, dangerous, misleading, and not supported by any medical evidence, but if someone believes their own misinformation, at least they're not lying, and we don't want to baselessly question their motives.
What false claims did Jim Bakker make about Faithful America?
Since the government has stopped Jim Bakker from spreading misinformation about coronavirus cures (at least for now), he's now spreading misinformation about Faithful America instead, questioning our motives and misrepresenting our campaigns.
We noted above how Bakker has twisted our complaints against him to create the appearance of lies, falsely claiming that we have attributed non-existent quotes to him personally when we are instead accurately describing implications made by the broader eponymous show and its guests.
Bakker also claimed we are wrong to say he said Christians must support the president to prove we're saved. So that we are clear, his exact original quote was, "You know what? Trump is a test whether you’re even saved. Only saved people can love Trump." Those words speak for themselves, and they're on video. This behavior is reminiscent of President Trump himself: Say something on camera, then angrily deny your own words when they're quoted back to you.
Next, Bakker has twice told his viewers that Faithful America campaigned against Hobby Lobby because of the store's opposition to abortion. This is untrue: Our About page, which Bakker read on-air April 20, very clearly states that our 2012 campaign about Hobby Lobby was over the corporation's "objection to providing insurance coverage for contraception." Birth control is not abortion.
Our more recent March 2020 campaign against Hobby Lobby was due to the company's refusal to care for its workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Paid COVID-19 leave is also not abortion -- yet nearly every email we receive from Bakker's supporters yells us at us about the issue.
Nothing in our Hobby Lobby campaigns even mentioned abortion. Is Bakker intentionally misrepresenting our work to fire up his viewers and manipulate their emotions?
Another of Bakker's biggest falsehoods about Faithful America is that we "come under… a major church denomination."
We can only assume that Bakker is referring to the fact that our staff's campaigns director is an ordained Episcopal priest -- but that does not mean Faithful America is part of the Episcopal Church in any way, shape, or form. It is not, and we have never once suggested otherwise.
We have always been very clear about this: Faithful America is entirely independent, and is not affiliated with any church or denomination. Our members come from every major denomination, and our staff and board members also represent multiple Christian traditions. We can't help but wonder: Is Bakker intentionally misrepresenting us in the hopes of turning our team members' personal churches against them?
Lastly, Bakker has repeatedly questioned our motives, suggesting that our campaign has a hidden political agenda. If our goal was to criticize his support for Donald Trump, we would have no problem saying so, as we have done in the past with other petitions about the religious right. The truth is that this -- the first time we have featured Bakker in one of our campaigns -- is a public-health petition. As noted above, our views on this are shared by many Republicans, including at least two Trump administration agencies and the state Attorney General of Missouri.
Following the government's orders, Bakker has stopped selling silver solution for now, and that is a good thing. However, given that he remains defensive, defiant, and unapologetic -- unable to understand why so many people with diverse views have interpreted his February 12 segment as suggesting the silver might cure coronavirus -- we are worried that this is not the last time he will unintentionally endanger public health. That is why we continue to ask DISH, Roku, and individual networks to drop his program from the air.
If Bakker were to say something along the lines of this suggested apology, we might reconsider parts of our campaign: "While it was not the goal of our show to falsely suggest that silver solution can prevent, treat, or cure coronavirus, we have listened to many diverse people with many different perspectives, and we now realize our show did indeed give that misimpression on February 12. For that, as host of this program I take responsibility and I apologize. Everybody makes mistakes, including us. Let me be clear: Silver solution will not prevent, treat, or cure coronavirus, and we will keep a close eye on our language to avoid giving you that kind of misimpression about your health again. I am truly sorry."
We won't even ask Bakker to apologize to Faithful America for the false statements he has made about us; just to his viewers for giving the dangerously wrong impression about silver solution and COVID-19.
Read and sign our original petition here: "Tell DirecTV, DISH, and Roku: Drop televangelist for selling fake coronavirus cure"
Posted May 1, 2020
"Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account." -- Matthew 5:11