He was born into the glare of televangelist parents Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. Then the “Praise the Lord” empire collapsed in scandal. His father went to jail for fraud.
Jay Bakker spent his teens rebelling and bent on self-destruction from alcohol and drugs.
But now, nearly 31, this tattooed, multipierced pilgrim is on a right- eous path: preaching God’s grace to a flock of young, downtrodden and disillusioned parishioners most any other church would turn away.
Jay is the focus of “One Punk Under God: the Prodigal Son of Jim & Tammy Faye,” a reality series about the back-to-basics church he calls Revolution, which, notwithstanding his decade-long sobriety, holds services in an Atlanta bar.
Keeping the faith while keeping Revolution going will prove to be a challenge for Jay.
“I think Revolution is kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place,” he muses in the first episode (airing at 10 tonight on Sundance Channel, Comcast digital cable channel 505). “With some groups we’re too Christian, and with the Christ- ians we’re not Christian enough.” But Jay has other concerns as the six-episode series unfolds.
His mom is gravely ill from cancer; Jay will be traveling to her North Carolina home for tender visits. His dad, now remarried and with a new TV ministry, is estranged from him – a rift Jay will make great strides repairing. And after several years’ devotion to his church, he will be uprooted when wife Amanda, a young woman with fluorescent red hair and a beatific smile, is accepted by New York University for its doctoral program in psychiatry.
In short, 2006 is eventful for Jay Bakker, far more than he imagined when “One Punk Under God” began filming in February. “I feel like I’m just a guy who has a church with 15 people that meets in a bar,” says Jay, who left the Atlanta church in another minister’s care to start a new branch that meets in a Brooklyn pub.
Five years ago his first book, “Son of a Preacher Man: My Search for Grace in the Shadows,” testified to his troubled past and deliverance from it.
“One Punk Under God” finds Jay continuing a crusade for an alternative to the God he never could make peace with: a wrathful God who hated him for all the flaws he hated in himself.
“God loves us for who we are,” contends Jay, explaining that it comes down to “grace”: “God’s love for all people, and his unconditional love.”
Jay is an affable, unassuming chap who happens to sport tattoos and a lip ring. He never set out to be the punk anti-Bakker for a lost generation. Neither has he disavowed his parents, whose past disgrace could fuel skepticism about his ministry.
“Me and my dad have a hard time getting along, and now, with my mom being as sick as she is, that’s hard – but I love them, and they did a lot of great things, as well as make mistakes.”
At the end of “One Punk Under God,” Jay’s life remains full of challenges: his mom’s worsening condition; the new city for him and Amanda to navigate; a new congregation to forge.
“You put one foot out in front of the other and you say, ‘OK, this is what I believe, this is what I’m seeing in the Word.”‘ He smiles. “It’s a struggle. But what have I got to lose?”
