John Linklater and Jim McCandlish catch up with evangelist Jim Bakker whose spell in jail does not seem to have dampened his enthusiasm for that old-time religion

TELEVISION evangelist Jim Bakker is back and this time he is his own sinner.He wants to tell the world he's sorry. It has been a tough haul for the former king of ``prosperity preaching'' who lost his wife, Tammy Faye, to his best friend.

He watched his PTL (Praise The Lord) ministry collapse into bankruptcy and was forced to turn in the fancy cars, expensive homes, and flashy jewels.

The air-conditioned kennels he installed for the Bakker dogs were in bad taste, but his sexual dalliance with Jessica Hahn was his worst error of judgment. Vengeance wasn't just the Lord's. Almost everybody was out to topple Bakker in the end.

He found himself up on 24 counts of fraud and corruption, and was set up as a scapegoat example that when American justice confronts stolen lives or stolen cash it always comes down heaviest on the money. Bakker was estimated to have conned his followers out of $158m.

If they had just invested in God it might have been different, but they were supposed to be entitled to lifetime lodging guarantees at the ministry's Disneyland of a 2300-acre complex in South Carolina.

Bakker was seriously out of line. He would have double booked into the Kingdom of Heaven if the PTL faithful had agreed to pay for enough time-shares.

He received a 45-year sentence in 1989 from a testy judge that folks called ``Maximum Bob'' because when he sent a man down he preferred him to stay down. The stretch was overturned on appeal, on the grounds of Judge Robert Potter's bias, but Bakker still did four-and-a -half-years inside.

His release in 1994 was to a Salvation Army halfway house and last year he scurried into reclusive retreat on a farm at Hendersonville, North Carolina. There are cows on one side, a cemetery on the other and neither gives Bakker trouble. He doesn't do interviews. He has been writing a book.

It is this autobiography that is the focus of a carefully planned comeback. The forthright title, I Was Wrong, promises to become a valuable addition to what might be best described as the confessional school among America's undiminishing fraternity of disgraced evangelists.

The theme, and doubtless the content, of this forthcoming tome, due for publication in October by Thomas Nelson of Nashville, specialists in what the imprint likes to call "inspirational" titles, have been given a dry-run by Bakker in a series of sermons and lectures in under-publicised guest appearances at evangelical churches in Tulsa, Phoenix and New Orleans. The National Enquirer, will publish exclusive extracts from the colourful confessions of Jim Bakker over two weeks from this coming Tuesday. The source is transcripts of tapes of the penitent preacher's performance, which we obtained after he made six appearances before 500-capacity audiences at the Temple Of Praise in New Orleans recently.

According to witnesses, Bakker cried like a baby, got down on his knees and begged the congregation for forgiveness. The audience loved it. Nothing like a good piece of stage-managed repentance to warm an American evangelist's heart. But Bakker was also juicy.

He told his new fans that as inmate No.07407-058 his appearance was reduced to ``The Wild Man of Borneo''. His prison duties included toilet cleaning and erecting Christmas trees.

After he asked his family to stop taking up their visiting rights. Miraculously, this personal darkness was lightened by mercy missions from the Biggest Two a suffering Christian could dream. Billy Graham came to give him a supportive embrace and express brotherly love.

Then Jesus turned up unannounced to pull him out depression. Doubtless both visitations will be confirmed by federal prison authorities in Minnesota and Georgia after the book comes out.

Bakker also revealed that he had at least enjoyed the compensation of the company of a bunch of fellow preachers also doing time. ``There was a nice little group of us,'' he reported touchingly.

Declining to name names, or at least saving some of the good bits for the book, he clearly thought more of America's top preachers ought to have been in there with them. One was a ``raging alcoholic,'' he cliped, possibly turning God's evidence. Another was a cocaine fiend, supplied by another pastor. ``Why would a pastor take cocaine?'' he asked his audience at the Temple of Praise.

``Because we're in showbusiness instead of God's business. We gotta perform like trained monkeys.'' This possibly raises a query about the training, but nobody is arguing about the thrust of Bakker's thesis.

The non-denominational Temple of Praise was an ironic venue for Bakker to appear, given the diligent record of its leader, Brother Marvin Gorman, in dealing with unrighteousness and iniquity in the pulpit. It was he who turned amateur sleuth to expose Jimmy Swaggart, tracking him and a prostitute to a sleazy motel here and leaking the photographic evidence.

``I invited Jim Bakker because I believe the Scripture that we must forgive and love our neighbour,'' said Brother Gorman this week. ``Even if he was guilty, I would still have an obligation to forgive him. But he was wronged, brother. He was wronged.''

Bakker's supporters will have an ample opportunity to demonstrate compassion and solidarity when he launches a PTL reunion at his Hendersonville farm on July 4. The comeback leader will be joined on the platform by his gospel-singing daughter Tammy Sue and his preacher-in-training son, Jamie. As they hold hands in prayer, a predicted 50,000 will make the pilgrimage from all over America to share in the spectacle of contrition and reconciliation.

There might not be any Tammy Faye around, but nobody here is counting out the possibility of the Jimmy and the Kids Show taking up where he left off.