At the height of the Jimmy and Tammy Bakker PTL (Praise the Lord) TV ministry scandal in the late 1980s, PTL senior vice president and second in command, Richard Dortch, acknowledged in an interview:
’We made many mistakes. Sometimes I think the church doesn’t know anything about true success. It’s all tied down to how many stations we have on our network or how big our building is. It is so easy to lose control, to compromise without recognising it. At PTL, there was not time taken for prayer or family because the show had to go on. We were so caught up in God’s work that we forget about God. It took a tragedy, a kick in the teeth to bring us back to our senses. A television camera can change a preacher quicker than anything else. Those who sit on the sidelines can notice the changes in people once they get in front of a camera. It turns a good man into a potentate. It is so easy to get swept away by popularity: Everybody loves you, cars are waiting for you, and you go to the head of the line. That is the devastation of the camera. It has made us less than God has wanted us to become.’
(Christianity Today, 18 March 1988, pp.46-47)
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