American Idol
Twenty years ago he was a ditchdigger living on welfare. Today he’s one of the most powerful— and one of the richest—preachers in America. Can T.D. JAKES get an amen?
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As these efforts indicate, Jakes never strays far from the themes that first brought him to fame and wealth: women, men, and the complicated relations between them. He remains a strong advocate for women, defending their right to preach and serve as pastors and featuring them prominently in his conferences. He urges them to take leading roles in the church and in other realms of their lives, as they do at the Potter’s House, and he pokes sarcastic fun at patriarchal situations in which women “can virtually do anything that needs doing as long as they let men have the voice and take credit for it.” Yet he tells men, “as the man and priest of [their] house,” that they should exercise spiritual authority in the home.
Similarly, he insists that women should receive equal pay for equal work, but he warns that a man with a successful wife may feel intimidated by her achievements. “Anytime the woman is the primary breadwinner,” he has written, “it destroys the man’s self-esteem.”
Few topics are more important to Jakes than having men take responsibility as husbands and fathers. In He Motions, he decries the high fatherless rate among African Americans, notes that nearly three quarters of juvenile and adult inmates are fatherless, and points to the destructive effects on future generations. Given this sensitivity, Jakes shows justifiable pride in the fact that, unlike in most black churches, men make up 45 percent of the Potter’s House congregation, and a visitor immediately notices that almost all of them are dressed for success, wearing suits and other accoutrements of the upwardly mobile American male.
Jakes conceded that, despite the encouragement he gives to women, “I probably am pretty traditional [with respect to gender roles]. I divide the roles of the family much like the Scriptures do. In a corporation, if you don’t have an organizational chart, you have chaos. There has to be some structure, some order as to who’s going to do what, no matter what. It doesn’t mean one is any better or worse than the other. There is equality in terms of worth and value and contribution.” His view of gender roles, however, goes well beyond organizational charts and division of labor, beginning with what he perceives to be a close connection between biology and psychological and emotional inclination. “The receptacle is the female and the plug is the male,” he wrote in Woman, Thou Art Loosed. “Women were made like receptacles. They were made to be receivers. Men were made to be givers, physically, sexually and emotionally, and by providing for others. In every area, women were made to receive.” He describes women as naturally soft, tender, and delicate and longs for the “gentle femininity that once sat on porches and sipped tea in the gentle breezes of softer times.” Men, by contrast, are naturally hard, aggressive, closed, yet vulnerable and in need of reassurance. “Ask any woman who has ever loved a great man, and she will tell you that she has seen a little boy peeking out of the window of his soul… . He is wrapped in hard muscles, but beneath this rugged exterior are the ingredients that teddy bears are made of.”
He urges men to free themselves from the burden of macho stereotypes. He has ordered subscriptions to GQ magazine for all the men in his organization to expose them to a healthier form of masculinity and praises them for indulging in pleasures such as gourmet meals, massages, and pedicures. Yet elsewhere he says, “Let the male be masculine and the female be feminine! It is a sin for a man to misrepresent himself by conducting himself as a woman. I am not merely speaking of homosexuality. I’m also talking about men who are feminine in their mannerisms.” He regards masculine women in the same light and asserts that gender confusion may well be traced to an abusive upbringing: “Every time you see a bra-less woman in men’s jeans, choosing to act like a man rather than to sleep with one; every time you see a handsome young man who could have been someone’s father, walking like someone’s mother—you may be looking child abuse in the face.”
Although Jakes believes homosexual behavior is sinful and refers to it as a choice, he argues that the sin is no worse than heterosexual sin and repeatedly condemns the mistreatment of gays. “The church has done a poor job in many cases of not standing up when there has been the abuse of gay people,” he told me. “I think that strengthens the position some gay people have that the church doesn’t care. We should care whenever anybody is beaten, killed, or bashed in any way. We should speak out, whether we agree with them and their choices or not.”
Jakes is not prudish about sex, and his writings provide frequent evidence that he has given the matter considerable thought. He writes of “climbing into bed for a little after-dark fun” and reminds wives, “You must realize that sex is important to a man. Rationing out sex to him in the same way you give a dog a bone if he sits up or rolls over may have dire consequences.” He also reminds men that good sex is more than plugs and receptacles: “Being a good lover is more than hips, lips, and fingertips … I am convinced that the woman’s special spot is in her heart. It is there that her nerve centers flash lights and honk horns.” He recommends sensual baths and slow dancing to sultry love songs and acknowledges that “as people age there is need for more ‘ramp-up time.’” He does not recommend satin sheets, noting that they are cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and their slipperiness destroys all semblance of balance and leaves men “grabbing for the bedpost … to turn around in the sack, much less try an acrobatic feat of passion.”
Though he believes sex should be reserved for the marital bed, Jakes does not ask people to deny their sexuality but suggests they direct that energy toward God. He exhorts single women to pamper themselves: “Light a candle in the bathroom, play some soft notes, and slip into a hot tub with scented bath beads. Lie in the water and raise your hands in the air and praise the God that blessed you to be alive … ” Elsewhere he writes, “The Lord wants to make sweet love to you … He wants you to come in at the end of the day and say, ‘Oh, Lord … I’m so glad I have You in my life … Hold me. Touch me, strengthen me. Let me hold You … I’ve set the night aside for us. Tonight is our night … My body is Yours. Nobody touches me but You.’” Jakes knows a truth that the secular world has long understood: Sex sells.
WHEN I ASKED Jakes the standard question about Jesus’ pronouncement that it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19:24), he gave what has been for centuries the standard answer: The “eye of the needle” was an opening in the wall of Jerusalem sufficiently small that to pass through it, a camel had to get down on its knees. “I think what Jesus was teaching was humility,” he said. “We have a responsibility, like the camel, to humble ourselves, by giving back to people, by helping people who are less fortunate. I think God doesn’t mind you having things; he minds things having you.” In fact, there is no historical evidence for such an opening in the wall of Jerusalem, and it seems plausible that Jesus used this hyperbolic metaphor less to lay down an impossible rule than to emphasize a point made in the previous verse—“A rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.” That is to say, wealth has an uncommon ability to divert one’s attention from matters of the spirit.
One of the strongest, though seldom openly voiced, criticisms of Jakes is that his embrace of capitalism extends to a monopoly of a profitable market. According to Lee, Jakes is generous about sharing the platform with other preachers and musicians who appear at his conferences and typically offers an impressive honorarium, but he controls the rights to tapes and videos of their performances. When a stunning woman known as Prophetess Juanita Bynum delivered a riveting sermon at a Jakes conference for singles in Dallas in 1998, confessing her powerful sexual longing and lustful pursuits, the video, “No More Sheets,” quickly caught fire and sold more than a million copies, making it the most popular sermon ever given at a Jakes conference. After Bynum mounted a legal challenge to Jakes over rights to the sermon, she soon found herself shut out of the lucrative preaching appointments to which she had grown accustomed. “It is a known fact in ministry circles that Jakes blacklisted her,” Lee told me.
In his book, he quotes an anonymous pastor who observed that “Juanita Bynum thought she had the power to stand up to Jakes but didn’t realize how truly powerful he is.” Eventually, Jakes and Bynum made peace, culminating in her getting down on her knees before tens of thousands of women at a 2003 women’s conference in Houston’s Reliant Stadium and asking Jakes to forgive her, noting that her behavior had moved God to cut off opportunities for her to preach, to rid her of her pride. “She projected it onto the Lord,” Lee said, “but insiders know that it was Jakes.”
Lee, who regards Jakes as enormously talented and unquestionably sincere in his beliefs, insists that any treatment of the man that overlooks his calculating business side is inadequate. “At the very core of his identity,” he said, “he is both a businessman and a preacher. If you minimize either one, you miss Bishop Jakes. Bishop is one of the greatest metaphors of the American experience—not just the capitalism but the tenacious spirit that transcends life’s situations and also seeing yourself and everything you do as needing to be commercialized and commodified.”
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