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Sandi Patty

There's a moment in one of the popular Bill Gaither Homecoming videos where all the greats of gospel music are onstage at Carnegie Hall in New York. Sandi Patty is belting out the song "I've Just Seen Jesus" with her old friend and sometime singing partner Larnelle Harris. They are performing in that glorious, over-the-top style that Sandi brought to church music two decades ago. The orchestra builds to a crescendo as Sandi sings the refrain, "All I've ever done before won't matter anymore." It is a powerful declaration of the healing and redemption found in an encounter with Christ.

Ten years have passed since Sandi Patty's divorce from John Helvering, since revelations that she had an adulterous relationship during her marriage, and since she married the married backup singer she was involved with and submitted to a long process of restoration through her church. But the sordid controversy continues to haunt the singer.

It doesn't seem to bother the Homecoming crowd, though. Sandi wipes away a tear as she and Harris take a bow to a thunderous round of applause. Bill's wife, Gloria Gaither, emerges from the throng of onstage luminaries to embrace Sandi. Then she turns and Vestal Goodman—sometimes dubbed "the Queen of Gospel Music"—hugs her tight and mops Sandi's brow with her famous lace-trimmed hanky.

Flanked by two of southern gospel's most respected women, it appears the fallen diva has come home again. But the real test is not onstage in famous halls. It's in the churches where the Sandi wannabe's of the '80s and '90s performed her music to recorded accompaniment tracks and where choirs sang expansive arrangements of her many best-selling hits—classics like "We Shall Behold Him," "More than Wonderful," and "In the Name of the Lord."

In the five years since Artist of My Soul, her first "comeback" album, was released, Sandi has stayed busy fronting symphony orchestras for holiday concerts and invoking patriotic anthems at civic events.

Still, years after her fall, some Christian radio stations continue to blacklist her music and Christian magazines like this one receive complaint letters from readers who are upset to see ads for Sandi Patty's CDs. For many Christians who were once Sandi's faithful fan base, the singer's past failures are too scandalous to forget.

A pert woman in a denim skirt and peasant blouse opens the door. "Hi, I'm Sandi," she says, extending a hand.

She seems smaller than I expected. This woman who fills a stage with her voice and her presence is downright diminutive, even in the foyer of her home. She's also reserved at first, like a three-way bulb that's saving its wattage for a bigger room.

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