Marcus Lamb

Marcus Lamb (October 7, 1957 – November 30, 2021) was an American televangelist, prosperity theologian, minister, and Christian broadcaster. He was the co-founder, president, and CEO of the Daystar Television Network, the second-largest Christian television network in the world. The estimated value of the network is $230 million.

Marcus was born October 7, 1957, in Cordele, Georgia, and raised in Macon, Georgia. He grew up attending the East Macon Church of God. He became a Christian at the age of five and continued in church attendance and work as he grew older. He began to preach as an evangelist at age fifteen. He graduated from high school and enrolled at age sixteen in Lee University (then known as Lee College), Cleveland, Tennessee-based Christian university. He graduated three years later. In 1982, four years after graduation, he married Joni Trammell of Greenville, South Carolina. The couple spent their early years of marriage as traveling evangelists, visiting churches in the Southeast to teach the gospel. Marcus was ordained as a bishop with the Church of God of Cleveland, Tennessee.

In 1980, the same year that Marcus met his wife Joni, he founded The Word of God Fellowship, the company that would eventually start the Daystar Television Network. In 1984 Lamb moved to Montgomery, Alabama to begin WMCF-TV. This was the first full-power Christian station in the state. The Lambs sold the station to Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) in 1990 and moved to Dallas, Texas. Lamb launched the Daystar network at the end of 1997.

In November 2010, Lamb admitted on the Daystar Network that he had an extramarital affair that had ended several years before. In his admission, Lamb took "100 percent responsibility" for his actions. He and his wife were able to fully reconcile with the help of marriage counselors.Due to the advice of their marriage counselors, the decision was made to keep this matter private as long as they could, in order to heal adequately. The Lambs decided to publicly disclose the infidelity shortly after they claimed that three women asked for US $7.5 million in exchange for silence on the matter. The Lambs shared their story publicly on television and refused to pay anything. No criminal charges were filed, although civil suits and counter-suits between Daystar and the three former employees were filed over the matter. By December 2011, all three employee claims had either been dropped or dismissed. Daystar subsequently dismissed its countersuits against each of the women.

Lamb and his wife lived in Dallas. They have three children. Marcus Lamb died from COVID-19 complications on November 30, 2021, at the age of 64 during the COVID-19 pandemic in Texas.

Lamb's Daystar TV applied for and was granted a United States government Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan to help pay employees' salaries; it received $3.9 million. Soon after receiving the funds, the church purchased a 1997 Gulfstream aircraft. In 2020 Daystar TV paid back the loan after the television show Inside Edition investigated the private jet purchase.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lamb and Daystar preached an anti-vaccine message, hosting many anti-vaccine notables such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and posting on the Daystar website that vaccines are the "most dangerous thing" for children. When Lamb fell ill with COVID-19, his son called the infection "a spiritual attack from the enemy." Lamb, who was diabetic and had earlier said he had been taking ivermectin to protect against covid, ultimately died of the disease.