Primetime Preacher$, from Academy Award nominee Joe Berlinger (Paradise Lost; Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) investigates the greed, ego, and rivalry that was building behind the pulpit during the golden age of televangelism.
In the 1980s, three of the most powerful televangelists in America – Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell, and Jimmy Swaggart – harnessed the power of television to build vast media ministries, reaching millions of viewers during coveted primetime hours and turning everyday preachers into household names. As these religious programs grew into international broadcasting empires built in God’s name, these men transformed evangelical Christianity from a largely nonpartisan movement into a powerful force in American politics whose influence still reverberates today. When a shocking and very public sex scandal erupted, it ignited an all-out holy war among the three men — one that captivated the nation and exposed what lay beneath the empires they’d built.
