American Notes TELEVANGELISM

The financially troubled PTL ministry that Jim and Tammy Bakker abandoned amid scandal last spring heard from its biggest creditor last week. As thousands of claims were filed against the ministry to meet a deadline imposed by a federal bankruptcy court, the Internal Revenue Service came in with its long-awaited bill. PTL accountants had estimated the organization's tax debt at $5 million. That is peanuts compared with the Government's primary claim: $61.8 million, nearly a third of the ministry's $170 million in assets -- a sum that more than doubles the PTL's debt load.

The ministry is also involved in a dispute over its tax-exempt status. Depending on how much of the operation is declared exempt, the IRS says, the PTL could owe as much as $82 million for unpaid taxes on business income from its Heritage U.S.A. theme park and other ventures.

Meanwhile, Jim Bakker, who was defrocked by the Assemblies of God last spring, has been ordained as a minister in the Tulsa-based Faith Christian Fellowship International. Bakker, who lost his ministry after it was learned that he had had sex with a church secretary, did not indicate when he will try to return to the pulpit.