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Discussion with Bishop T.D. Jakes

Aired September 10, 2001 - 08:37   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Just in "Time" features "America's Best," and Bishop T.D. Jakes is one of them. He's described as a preaching virtuoso, and he joins us now from Columbus, Ohio.

Bishop, good morning.

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Good morning.

PHILLIPS: Wow. Being compared to Billy Graham, what do you think about that?

JAKES: I'm honored. I think he's a tremendous preacher and a great speaker, and in a class all by himself. I'm just honored to be featured in "Time" at all.

PHILLIPS: Well, you're definitely a class in yourself. Seventeen years old -- isn't that when you first starting preaching?

JAKES: Actually at 19.

PHILLIPS: Nineteen?

JAKES: Yes, but I acknowledged my call at 17, and began to prepare myself as much as a 17-year-old can for that kind of calling.

PHILLIPS: How did you know? At 17 years old, you are not the most mature of an individual. How did you know this is a gift and this is where you wanted to go?

JAKES: I think one of the great blessings in my life was to be able to sense the purpose of God in my life. Some people figure out spending lives trying to figure out what they are supposed to do. I had some inkling. Over the years, it certainly evolved more and more who I was and what I was called to do, but I did begin to understand in my teens what I was to do.

PHILLIPS: And you have seemed to establish a very unique trust with a very diverse group of believers. How do you do that? How do you keep that trust? And how do you think you gain that trust?

JAKES: Well, one thing, I don't see people differently. I think people are people, and I think it's very important. Pain is a common denominator. We all have challenge. We are all here struggling in the world together. And to be able to reach out to people without distinction has been a strong suit for me and something that was very, very important to me.

PHILLIPS: You are a very strong speaker. You are very dynamic. How do you respond to folks that say, you know, this is about emotion, emotion is in right now, and thinking is gone, thinking is just out?

JAKES: I think it's a correlation of intellect and emotion, that we are both intellectual and emotional, and I don't think you have to divorce one thing for the other. But we are collaborative act of both ingredients. In every aspect of our lives, we are not able to divorce our feelings, but we don't want to be controlled by them.

PHILLIPS: How do you get the skeptics? Is it with the thinking?

JAKES: I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.

PHILLIPS: How do you pull in the skeptic?

JAKES: Well, you know, what I do is do what I do. I think you are going to have always have skeptics in anything that you do, no matter what it is. But you do what you do, and I think those that have the need for spiritual reinforcement or encouragement, motivation or whatever it is, seeks it and appreciates it, and it's an honor to be appreciated.

PHILLIPS: Bishop, the word spirituality is a pretty -- that's kind of the buzz word nowadays. I'm a very spiritual person. I meditate. I'm in touch with myself. How do you respond to the person that says I'm very spiritual, but I'm not religious?

JAKES: Well, I understand what I'm trying to say, because religion can be man's duty toward god as he perceives them, and yet they try to be spiritual. Amongst the myriad of the community of spirituality is Christianity, and I'm a Christian. I'm proud to be a Christian. Certainly that has spirituality in it. But today, spirituality has become, as you said, a very generic term that can embrace schools of thought. But I'm a Christian.

PHILLIPS: In your book, "Maximize the Moment," you talk about everybody having a God-given talent. How do you convince one that it is a God-given talent, and how do you get them to jump over the number one obstacle, which very much is fear and doubt?

JAKES: You know, every talented, every gifted person who has recognized their gift, soon begins to recognize that they're not responsible for the gift. Whether it is intellectual impropriety, or whether it's in the arts, or drama, or speaking as I do, or writing, as I've also done, you soon begin to realize that there is it thing that god has given you that goes beyond education or training, some innate ability, and you no longer can believe it is just you. You recognize it is something God gave to you as you give it to people. To me, it is a way of giving it back to God. Fear, we all have it, I think it keeps us grounded. Fear can be a good thing. You don't want it to control you, but it does help you to recognize that you are not sufficient of yourself to manage every aspect of your life. And to me, it's a catalyst for prayer. PHILLIPS: Bishop, you know, I have to ask you this, too, you have a beautiful $1.7 million home, your ministry does bring in a lot of money. How do you avoid that rich preacher label, that a lot of people put on folks who are on television, write books, bring in the money?

JAKES: You know, it has not been a major problem for me, because most people who are familiar with know that I own several companies on my own, and I have been very, very successful as a writer, and yet I've been true to ministry and calling. To be able to do one thing be and still be faithful to the other has been so significant in my life. I own three companies. I've got a production company. And entrepreneurial pursuits are very, very important to me, to my culture, to my family, to my community, and yet, I'm still a preacher. And to me, success is being able to do everything that's inside of you, and not just to be stereotypically bound to one aspect, or one talent of your life. Everybody has more than one talent, and they need to dig it out.

PHILLIPS: T.D. Jakes, always a pleasure. Thanks for the bit of inspiration this morning, sir?

JAKES: Thank you, and have a great day.

PHILLIPS: You, too.

Well, David Van Biema, he's a religion writer for "Time" magazine, he contributed to this week's cover story, and he joins us in part of our discussion here from New York.

David, hello.

DAVID VAN BIEMA, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Hi, how are you.

PHILLIPS: Good.

What's the fascination? I was looking back at a lot of my magazines, from "Reader's Digest" to "Newsweek" to "New Yorker," and so many cover stories, even "Time" magazine on something with a religious base. What's the fascination?

VAN BIEMA: The fascination with religion, you mean, or with Jakes? The fascination with religion is, one way or another, we do it, or we remember having done it. There are parts of life that are inexplicable, and we want to try to understand them, and if you can't graph it out on a bar chart or something like that, you being thinking, well, what other way is there? So religion is how we deal with that.

PHILLIPS: This is your beat. How did you feel about Bishop Jakes? What was first impression, and what was it like to write a story?

VAN BIEMA: I think -- and I hope he won't be in any way offended by these comparisons, but I think that he's a virtuoso. I think he's the Michael Jordan of preaching. He's the Marlon Brando of preaching. He has tool that nobody else has. He uses them with a mastery that very few people can approach. And has the benefit of being able to work from the tradition of the black Pentecostal church, which is, as you mentioned, extremely emotional, and there is tremendous communication between the preacher and the congregation, and yet at the same time, he also brings to it an extraordinary discipline and an exquisite organization. There are very few people who can bring those things together. He's a remarkable preacher.

PHILLIPS: I know we'll be talking to and you hearing from him very soon again.

David Van Biema, cover story of "Time" magazine.

Is this the men, the next Billy Graham? Talking about T.D. Jakes.

Thanks, David.

VAN BIEMA: Thank you.

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