I will really miss Tammy Faye Mesner. I just loved her. She embodied what Christianity is supposed to be about. She was also incredibly smart, funny, and kind.

Let me know your thoughts about Tammy, a truly marvelous spirit.

I am little happier whenever a major evangelist dies. I feel just a little safer.

LMAO Yep, me too. :heh:

I agree with Mark....even the blondest of blondes would know that solid gold taps/faucets in her spa type bathroom were not affordable on a Minister's salary....c'mon people.....Tammy knew everything! She was putting the hard sell on every week just like Jim for money....and it wasn't just to spread the word of God, it was to keep her in the lavish lifestyle she came to know and love....and she knew just how much that cost and just where the money was coming from....I don't doubt that for one second.

Carol

Hey Sunta, I would never have picked you as a Tammy Faye fan in a miilion years!!!! I had to do a double take when I looked at the thread.

Susannah

I will really miss Tammy Faye Mesner. I just loved her. She embodied what Christianity is supposed to be about. She was also incredibly smart, funny, and kind.

Let me know your thoughts about Tammy, a truly marvelous spirit.

:omg: Huh? :omg:

I don't think Tammy Faye was ever charged with anything regarding the scandal. It was my understanding that Jim Baker was the one behind everything. I know I wouldn't want to be lumped in with anything illicit my husband did without my knowledge. I don't believe that she had intimate knowledge of what was happening.

Bush hasn't really been charged with anything either. What does that have to do with doing something wrong?

Just people watching what was going on knew there was something very very wrong. Not sure how a wife could be oblivious of this.

She sure as hell wasn't channelling Mother Theresa, was she?

Well... yeah, she was. Momma T wasn't a sin free little gem of a Christian when she was alive either. I put Momma T right up there with Tammy's hubby.

Hey Sunta, I would never have picked you as a Tammy Faye fan in a miilion years!!!! I had to do a double take when I looked at the thread.

I guess I owe everyone an explanation for my Tammy Faye obsession.

As you all know, Tammy loved the Gays. She was the first person to reach out to those with AIDS, and the Gay community in general. In the 80's when other so-called "Christians" were saying that AIDS was God's punishment on Gays, Tammy stood with the Gay community and urged compassion. Tammy made many appearances at Gay pride parades around the country and she never said "love the sinner, hate the sin", but rather "God loves you exactly how you are, and I love you too."

Jim and Tammy's son is leading a Christian movement that rejects traditional "Christian" condemnation of Gays, inspired by his mother's love of the community.

That is the first reason why I love Tammy.

The second reason why I love Tammy is because of her personal sense of style and her unwavering commitment to be herself, no matter what. I love her makeup, her clothes, her hair, and her whole manner of speaking. She's the epitome of camp in a totally authentic way. She never tried to be camp, she just was camp. She was a better drag queen than any drag queen who ever graced a stage.

I honetly view Tammy as someone who actually knew what Chrisianity is intended to be. And I do think it's entirely possible that she did not know what was going on. I really do. It's more of a feeling than something I have evidence of. It's a gut feeling.

I remember waching "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" and just falling in love with her even more. It's a great documentary for anyone interested.

I hope I've laid out my reasons for my post in a way that makes sense to those of you scratching your heads because you know me and the post seems out of synch with who I am. It's actually totally in synch with who I am.

I will always miss Tammy because she was an American original.

Well... yeah, she was. Momma T wasn't a sin free little gem of a Christian when she was alive either. I put Momma T right up there with Tammy's hubby.

Yah, come to think of it, I had heard that Mother T was kinda hinky but I can't remember any of the details.

Yah, come to think of it, I had heard that Mother T was kinda hinky but I can't remember any of the details.

Ohhh, I know a LOT of the details but that is for a different thread. :Banane20: Might make for a lively discussion!

Ohhh, I know a LOT of the details but that is for a different thread. Might make for a lively discussion!

Sounds like you should start a thread and fill us in, sez Green who is cackling cynically while she types this. :heh:

Sounds like you should start a thread and fill us in, sez Green who is cackling cynically while she types this. :heh:

You think I should? Really?

While I do agree that it is posssible that Tammy knew nothing about what was going on, I think it is highly unlikely. She was either a complete idiot (which she didn't seem to be) or she was complicit. She may have started out with the purest of intentions, but I think she liked the lifestyle and that she probably convinced herself that she really wasn't doing that much harm. Hell, she probably deluded herself into thinking that she and ol' Jimbo were actually helping people. Denial helps people sleep at night, after all.

Jim, Tammy Faye and their kids lived in a house just around the corner from us in Orlando before he went to prison and before the divorce. They were living rent free because one of their followers made it available to them. Their son went to school with my daughter. Sometimes the traffic around their house (on a cul-de-sac) was a circus.

Tammy Faye was a performer who loved to sing and since she didn't have a great voice, she was well-suited to singing to little kids and that's how her show first started out (as far as I know). My son used to watch them on local TV in Virginia. Jim was exploiting her and the show even then. She loved being exploited though as long as she could be in front of the camera.

After Jim was sent to prison, Tammy Faye and her followers used a new warehouse in Orlando to try to re-start her ministry. It didn't last long and was fodder for all the local radio talk show shenanigans and even some out of state. I knew a young talk show hostess in Atlanta and one morning she had the main, male host on her show, call me for an interview "of one of the neighbors of Jim and Tammy Faye". His questions and insinuations were downright hateful. I simply stuttered inaudible answers to his questions and ruined his kick-the-evangilists-while-they're-down theme du jour.

Tammy Faye didn't do much for Maybelline cosmetics. Hers were tattooed on. When they were doing her documentary, the shocked makeup people weren't sure what to do with it and she just lightheartedly laughed it off. She and her women friends used to go to Mexico to buy their diet pills and whatever else they were hooked on.

She probably knew all along what was going on with the money-making. How could she not, as someone else said. She was living an opulent lifestyle, way beyond how most televangelists were living at the time, even Oral Roberts. Jerry Falwell was pretty cruel and ruthless in his takeover of PTL, but in so many ways they deserved it. But if it weren't for him, they might have been able to come up with an acceptable plan to pay their way out of it. Many televangelists were very jealous of the Bakkers.

I think they probably started out with a little goodness in their hearts (although I am not positive of that) but once the smell of money became so real and so strong, like most people, it consumed them. There are quite of few of them on TV today.

It's people like them that give Christianity a bad wrap. The worst part is that so many people didn't see through them for what they really were.

Rest in peace, Tammy Faye.