Chicago, USA - The young man draped over the microphone has a cigarette in one hand, tattoos up and down his arms and a metal ring in his lip.
Though he's in front of a sizable crowd at a rock club, he's not about to launch into a spiky punk song. He's getting ready to preach the Gospel.
Jay Bakker, star of the engaging "One Punk Under God" (8 p.m. Wednesday, Sundance Channel) and the head of the Revolution Church, is the unconventional man at the mic. And the tattoos, the Social Distortion T-shirt and the chunky black glasses are a giveaway that he's not your average Dockers-clad preacher. His church, which meets at an Atlanta rock club, is for those who feel put off or rejected by mainstream religion.
He should know about being rejected by religion. Bakker's parents, Jim and Tammy Faye, were the architects of an opulent televangelism empire that came crashing down in the 1980s when Jim admitted to an affair and went to prison for fraud.
Even before the Bakkers were cast out of the PTL empire, Jay Bakker was a lonely little boy. On a visit to the shuttered Heritage USA theme park, built with money from his parents' television ministry, he recalls that, as a child, he often wandered around the vast complex by himself, feeling both entitled and alone.
After years of drug use and disillusion, Bakker began his Revolution ministry a dozen years ago. And anyone with preconceptions about Bakker's brand of Christianity is in for a shock: He slaps stickers advertising Revolution Church on everything in sight, and the stickers read, "As Christians, we're sorry for being self-righteous judgmental [expletives]."
Bakker struggles hard to keep his shoestring church going -- when the idea of passing a collection plate comes up, he resists the idea, mindful to a fault of his family's reputation.
His earnest struggle with that history is the engrossing core of this six-part series. He obviously still loves both parents, who live on only as punch lines for most Americans. And he clearly has a calling to preach, but his liberal worldview puts him at odds with the more conservative elements in his community and in his church.
His parents, in their own ways, support Bakker. In one episode, he visits the eternally eccentric but somehow lovable Tammy Faye Messner, who is as grotesquely caked in makeup as ever. She's dealing with advanced cancer, and Bakker's pain over the illness of his compassionate -- even sensible -- mom infuses the show with a bittersweet tone.
Bakker's relationship with his father is complicated, but as Tammy Faye points out, the men have more in common than they realize. And despite their differing beliefs, Jim shows both pride and surprise at what Jay's been able to accomplish.
"If I did what [Jay's] doing, nobody would support me," Jim says. "The longer I've lived, the more I've realized he is going to pay a high price."
Sundance's Web site calls Bakker "the prodigal son." It's a slick marketing idea, but the fact is, Jay Bakker, who's earnest without being humorless, is doing all he can to live up to his deeply considered Christian ideals. The tattooed preacher is more a good shepherd than a prodigal son.