Jim Bakker Claims The Religious Right To Sell Fraudulent Cure To The Coronavirus

Jim_Baker_-_PTL_Broadcast_(1986)We have been discussing most recent case against televangelist Jim Bakker.  Bakker was mentioned in my recent column on why some religious claims raised in the pandemic are dubious.   Now, Bakker is making sweeping claims that he has a religious right to sell a fraudulent cure for the coronavirus.  His new lawyer, former Gov. Jay Nixon, is arguing that the free exercise clause gives Bakker the right to sell (for profit) a cure that could discourage the stricken from getting medical treatment or taking real precautions.

Republican Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt sued Bakker and Morningside Church Productions Inc. to enjoin Bakker to stop selling Silver Solution as a treatment for the coronavirus on his streaming TV program.  Nixon has declared “Jim Bakker is being unfairly targeted by those who want to crush his ministry and force his Christian television program off the air. The video recording of The Jim Bakker Show clearly shows the allegations are false. Bakker did not claim or state that Silver Solution was a cure for COVID-19.”

However, here is a broadcast on February 12th with Sherill Sellman:

Bakker: This influenza that is now circling the globe, you’re
saying that silver solution would be effective.

Sellman: Well, let’s say it hasn’t been tested on this strain of the
coronavirus, but it has been tested on other strains of the coronavirus and has been able to eliminate it within 12 hours.

Bakker: Yeah.

Sellman: Totally eliminate it, kills it. Deactivates it.

Bakker: Yeah.

Sellman: And it boosts your immune system so then you can
support the recovery, ‘cause when you kill the virus then the
immune system comes into action to clear it out, so you want a
vibrant immune system as well as an ability to deactivate these viruses.

Sellman: Silver Sol has been proven by the government that it
has the ability to kill every pathogen it has ever been tested on
including SARS and HIV.

Bakker used broadcasts like this to pitch Silver Sol products to viewers for
donations such as $80 or $125.

The fact that Bakker is offering a fraudulent cure as part of a religious pitch does not insulate him from civil or criminal laws.  If that were the case, criminals could simply adopt religious forums to defraud people with false investments, cures, or products.  This is precisely the type of conduct that led me to write an academic work entitled “Laying Hands On Religious Racketeers” some thirty years ago.

This was not a faith healing pitch. This was a product pitch that this “silver solution” could “eliminate” and “kill” the virus in 24 hours.  Many could assume that such a claim would not be allowed if it were untrue.  It was untrue but Bakker is claiming that such fraud is constitutionally protected.  Bakker has dedicated his life to defrauding people in the name of religion. He is now going to create bad law as part of his already disgraceful legacy.

39 thoughts on “Jim Bakker Claims The Religious Right To Sell Fraudulent Cure To The Coronavirus”

  1. Read what was actually said. It DOESN’T say it kills COVID-19. This is like the Trump “ingest disinfectant” claim, except it’s a government agency using it rather than the media and Nancy Pelosi.

  2. While we’re on the subject of husband-and-wife grifters, did you catch this?

    https://disrn.com/news/michelle-obama-having-kids-was-a-concession-that-cost-me-dreams

    BO and Mooch have whatever deal they have (which seems to keep them together), but can you make sense of this self-understanding (or, more precisely, how she wants to appear)? This is a woman who had no interest in practicing law and who was for 17 years paid good coin ($300,000 a year at one point) for no-one-knows-quite-what by one institutional employer after another. What ‘dreams and aspirations’ could she have in mind? And why do you figure her response to her husband was a predominantly competitive one, concerned with ‘equal partnership’ blah blah?

    1. Michelle said, “”My relationship with Barack was all about our partnership. If I was going to have an equal voice with this very opinionated man, I had to get myself up and set myself off to a place where I was confident that I was going to be his equal.”

      What a weird way to talk about your husband and your kids. What, she had decide between having children and being rich and important??? What a shallow person.

      Squeeky Fromm
      Girl Reporter

      1. There’s something really off about this commentary. She was the primary earner in the household because her husband’s attention was so scattered. He doesn’t land a job with a firm until two years after he finishes law school, then only works there for three years. He’s elected to the legislature and declared ‘of counsel’.

Comments are closed.

Res ipsa loquitur – The thing itself speaks

Discover more from JONATHAN TURLEY

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading