At long last, the velvet-tongued emperor of Christian celebrity culture, Bishop T.D. Jakes, has announced his exit from the pulpit of The Potter’s House—the crumbling empire he built atop the rotting carcass of the Word of Faith movement and anti-Trinitarian heresy.

And no, this isn’t a sacred moment of solemn reflection. This is the final act of a man who should’ve never worn a stole, never ascended a pulpit, never even pretended to crack open a Bible without issuing a public apology first.

For decades, Jakes preached not the gospel of Jesus Christ, but the gospel of T.D. Jakes—a gospel fattened on greed, puffed up by heresy, and wrapped in the glitzy, sequined cloth of self-worship. His legacy? A career of setting fires to the foundations of biblical Christianity and then selling tickets to the blaze.

It started, of course, with his embrace of modalism—the ancient, condemned heresy that says God isn’t triune but just plays dress-up depending on the mood. Trinity too complicated for Jakes? Of course it was. He needed a God who could shape-shift as easily as his own sermons morphed from prosperity pep talks to motivational speeches fit for TEDx stages. He didn’t feed sheep, he fattened goats for the slaughter.

And yet the heresies don’t end with his theological butchery. No, Jakes spent decades perfecting the art of religious grift, hawking the prosperity gospel like a snake oil salesman in silk robes.

“Sow your seed, reap your reward,” he crooned from a golden pulpit, as if God were some celestial slot machine waiting for the right coin to drop. While the broken and the desperate emptied their pockets, Jakes built a kingdom of marble foyers, private jets, and backroom deals—all under the grinning lie of “kingdom building.”

But even the greatest charlatans don’t work alone. Steven Furtick was the adoring apprentice, the eager mimic, the dollar-store knockoff of Jakes’ ministry of self. Together, they didn’t so much shepherd the flock as they fleeced it, turning churches into circuses where the name of Jesus was a marketing slogan and the offering plate the main attraction.

Remember Jakes’ infamous “She can still twerk for the Lord” quip? Delivered, fittingly, in Furtick’s house of mirrors known as Elevation Church. If ever there was a clarifying moment, it was this: sacred things dragged into the sewers and baptized in the sludge of pop culture. Holiness traded for a cheap laugh. Righteousness swapped for relevance.

Their bond isn’t forged by shared love of Christ—it’s built on mutual admiration for their own reflections. Furtick’s Elevation is just a glossier version of Jakes’ Potter’s House… all smoke machines, empty platitudes, and sermons as nutritious as cotton candy dipped in battery acid. It tastes sweet for a second, then burns a hole right through the soul.

And now, as the ticker tape of premature adulation falls like confetti from the rafters, Jakes exits stage left to thundering applause. Health concerns? Maybe. A gracious handoff to the next generation? Laughable. Or, and let’s phrase this carefully for the sake of tender legal ears, could it be that something allegedly brewing behind the scenes has nudged him toward the shadows?

Because when your name starts turning up in the margins of federal lawsuits, and your photo albums feature you clinking glasses with Sean “Diddy” Combs—an avatar of decadence and depravity—you have to wonder: is the bishop stepping down, or is he getting the quiet shove out the back door before the roof caves in?

Coincidence? Not likely. This smells less like a dignified retirement and more like the spiritual equivalent of a rat scuttling off a ship before the first plank gives way.

And what a “legacy” he leaves. A man who could have lifted high the name of Christ but instead spent a lifetime erecting monuments to himself and his false god. A man who could have defended the gospel but chose to sell it off piecemeal at the prosperity pawn shop. A man who could have been a shepherd, but instead became a carnival barker—hawking spiritual snake oil to desperate crowds and counting his coins while souls were led to ruin.

The tragedy here isn’t that T.D. Jakes is stepping down. The tragedy is that he was ever allowed to step up.

And now the stage is being handed off to his son ut the damage still lingers, a smoldering wreckage of confused faith, fattened egos, and millions led astray.

God will judge it all.

And He will not be amused.