T.D. Jakes lets loose

And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. Luke: 13:11-12
NEW YORK -- It's not often that a phrase traces the trajectory of someone's life. But the biblical "woman thou art loosed" does just that for Bishop T.D. Jakes. He used it as the name of his first self-help book for women in 1993 when he was the leader of a storefront church in his native Charleston, W.Va. By the time Jakes's sermons at that church became Sunday morning staples airing on BET, he was taking "Woman Thou Art Loosed" workshops to a growing number of female fans across the country.

When Time magazine named Jakes "America's Best Preacher" three years ago, the play inspired by Jakes's "Woman Thou Art Loosed" had already helped him gain a larger following as it toured the country. Now that play is a film about a woman whose rape at the age of 12 begins a downward spiral that finds her working as a stripper, becoming a drug addict, and ultimately shooting someone.

What made the man who's authored 29 books, released 12 gospel CDs, and founded the 28,000-member nondenominational Dallas church the Potter's House in 1996 set his sights on the movie industry? "It seemed that the medium," says Jakes, 47, "is highly effective and becoming the marketplace where people gather for more information. So I thought this was a good format to put a face to the statistics."

The statistics that concern Jakes have to do with the rising rate of child sexual abuse. To raise awareness about the film and the subject, Jakes followed a path similar to the one Mel Gibson walked to promote this year's "The Passion of the Christ." During a summer trek that stopped in Chicago, Atlanta, New York, and other cities, Jakes whipped up interest by showing the film not only to religious leaders but to counselors, psychologists, and advocates toiling in the area of abuse. He capped the marketing blitz with an hourlong appearance on "Oprah" on Oct. 1 -- the day "Woman Thou Art Loosed" premiered in 408 theaters nationally.

The good news: People magazine, The New York Times, and other major media outlets reviewed the small film. The bad news: Some of the more negative critiques used the words "trite" and "preachy" to describe it. That didn't stop "Woman Thou Art Loosed" from taking in $2.3 million in its first weekend, landing at No. 7 on the box office chart. Variety magazine called it the first film since Steven Spielberg's 1997 outing, "Amistad," to crack the top 10 while opening on so few screens.

Tomorrow "Woman Thou Art Loosed" opens in 150 more theaters, including three in the Boston area. Pastors at churches such as Dorchester's Greater Love Tabernacle Church are encouraging their congregations to see the film in groups.

"There's definitely a buzz," says the Rev. William E. Dickerson II, Greater Love Tabernacle's pastor. "Everyone's talking about it."

'Shepherd to the shattered'
No wonder Jakes can't help chuckling during an interview at a midtown hotel as he remembers that the project was initially conceived as a direct-to-video film. That changed when Reuben Cannon, the Hollywood veteran who produced "Woman Thou Art Loosed," attended one of Jakes's conferences in Houston two years ago and realized Jakes's reach.

"When I saw [about] 80,000 women three days in a row," says Cannon, "plus satellite feeds from around the world and testimony from prison, I knew that this was a big movie."

He and Jakes's for-profit company, T.D. Jakes Enterprises, shared financing with a group of 20 investors including Johnny Cochran, Danny Glover, and Cedric the Entertainer. Neither Jakes nor Cannon will disclose the film's budget. But after seeing the first weekend's box office results, Cannon crowed that everyone will make a "handsome" return on his or her investment.

The day before the film opened, Jakes worked hard to make sure those returns were realized. He spent the entire morning talking to one journalist after another about the film he calls "my baby." So forgive him for ordering lunch and eating it during the interview. His kindness shows in the way he offers to share half his steak with a reporter.

Jakes wears his success. When he raises his left hand you catch the reflective flash of the hefty diamond ring on his finger. He and his wife, Serita, live in a pillared $1.7 million mansion in Dallas. The wealth hasn't helped him evade what a religious leader might consider a personal hardship; one of his daughters had a child out of wedlock. Don't expect Jakes to reveal that information. The most he'll say about his five children is that they range in age from 10 to 24. They've had trouble dealing with his fame, so he chooses not to talk about them publicly.

Their father, on the other hand, expertly works the media. You can find press releases with comments from Jakes about subjects ranging from Sept. 11 to affirmative action. But before you dismiss his role starring as himself in "Woman Thou Art Loosed" as a publicity ploy, he begins to tell you about how important the issue of child sexual abuse is to him. The film's characters are composites of the people he's counseled in the past 28 years as part of his pastoral work.

"I think that it's an epidemic," he says bluntly. "In the years that I have been doing this the stats have escalated, you know, from initially one in five women being molested before they reach 18 to one in three. . . . It's not just a Christian problem or an African-American problem. Unfortunately, this kind of pain has no prejudice. It affects everybody."

People in the Christian community call Jakes "the shepherd to the shattered." His congregation includes ex-cons, prostitutes, drug addicts, and the homeless. It's not a group that many pastors reach out to, says Dickerson, who invited Jakes to preach at a family conference at the Strand Theatre in 1994. Dickerson bumped into Jakes again a few years ago in Washington, D.C., and was struck by Jakes's cordiality.

"He's one person I can say that has handled stardom very well," says Dickerson, "based on what I know of him. Because it's not every day that a preacher from West Virginia becomes a spiritual [and] religious icon in our age."

Jakes forges a different path than Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton. This is a preacher who sidesteps politics.

"When we opened the door to my church," he says flatly, "we didn't just open it to Democrats. We opened it to all people. And I don't want them to be inundated with divisive material from the pulpit. That's counterproductive to the purpose of why we come to church."

The stance draws criticism from people accustomed to the age-old relationship between preaching and politics. But for Jakes, remaining neutral acknowledges that this is a new era with new needs. "Both parties need to know," says Jakes, "that there is an upwardly mobile African-American generation whose vote is up for grabs. [Politicians] should no longer assume we were born Democratic and therefore give us nothing because they're thinking we'll always be with them."

Overcoming obstacles
To discover the forces that created the independent- and entrepreneurial-minded Thomas Dexter Jakes, you must go back to a childhood pitted with loss, pride, and anguish. He cared for his father for five years as Ernest Jakes withered away with a kidney ailment, dropping from 280 to 130 pounds. The elder Jakes died when his son was 16.

A year later, Jakes's mother entered the hospital with stomach tumors. Jakes dropped out of high school to take care of her. "I can remember," he says, "looking out the window saying, `I can't do this twice,' you know. It was a tough year, but I was going to be there for her."

Odith Jakes pulled through -- she died five years ago -- and her son got his GED. It was in his genes to succeed, just as his grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents had done before him. "The moment my ancestors were cut loose from slavery," says Jakes, "they started owning their own stuff."

They raised produce and mined timber. His father went from possessing a mop and bucket to heading a 52-person janitorial service. It's a mind-set his son passes on to others today.

"I've never had to depend on the mercy of the people to survive," says Jakes. "I have a phobia about that to this day. We're very proud people. We were taught to take care of ourselves, to fight back to survive, and I teach that to my children, and I teach that to my church. I believe that anybody can make it if you fight hard enough."

At age 8, Jakes told his mother that he would gain fame one day for his public speaking. At the time, Jakes was watching her win acclaim as a traveling spokesperson for her sorority, Delta Sigma Theta.

You could say that preaching was in his blood. His mother, he says, "dabbled" in it. His grandmother was a missionary.

"They didn't allow women to be called preachers," says Jakes, "but if they called them a preacher my grandmother would have been [one]."

Jakes learned his own skills by proselytizing audiences of squirrels. After he moved on to humans, he held a number of jobs to earn money. He's been a manager at a Sears store, a professional cook at an airport restaurant, and a buyer at a men's clothing store.

"I was go-o-od," he sings out boastfully of his ability to throw outfits together. And still is, judging by his present attire: His rotund figure looks trim in a tan and cream striped shirt, a silky tan vest, and a print tie.

Jakes still works. The only difference between then and now, he says, is that his jobs outside the ministry pay well. The shadow of the swindler preacher stereotype makes his independent wealth raise eyebrows. At least until critics speak to Jakes.

"I often ask people," says Jakes, " `If you were interviewing Patricia Cornwell or Tom Clancy, would you ask about their house?' People generally say, `No.' Well, they're top writers at Penguin Putnam, and I'm [a best-selling author there as well]. . . . Now what's different is I'm African-American and I'm clergy. Which one of those differences should make me not get paid for my work?"

He calls acting "my new job."

"It was fun," he says smiling mischievously. And demanding for a man used to riveting his congregation by talking off the top of his head: "I was intimidated about learning the lines," he says. "I'm not used to being scripted, you know. I'm not used to learning what other people write."

He did have creative control, working with screenwriter Stan Foster to create a cinematic hybrid that straddles the secular and Christian genres. The result was an R rating, which caused some heart palpitations in the Christian community, says Dickerson. The film hints at the rape of the lead character, Michelle, by her mother's boyfriend. One scene shows people taking drugs. Another shows someone getting shot.

"He's not sweeping anything under the rug," says Eamonn Bowles, president of Magnolia Pictures, the company co-owned by Texas billionaire Mark Cuban, which is distributing "Woman Thou Art Loosed." "He's looking at people and how they live their lives."

Still, Jakes calls the rating "a disappointment, because I don't think it was any more graphic than any other things I see on TV. My youngest son is 10, and he's seen it. . . . The ages that they're concerned about seeing it are the ages that are being molested. So that seems kind of crazy to me."

Will the man who's for-profit company has toured three plays across the country continue to make films? The day before "Woman Thou Art Loosed" opened, Jakes professed he didn't have specific plans. Instead he was following his religious instincts and reaching for a higher goal.

"I'm hoping," says Jakes, "that we can establish possibly a new genre of film. There will be other films coming, whether from me or from other people. I think we're tired of Hollywood telling us what we want rather than asking what we want."