Jimmy Swaggart
Jimmy Swaggart (born March 15, 1935 in Ferriday, Louisiana) was a popular televangelist in the 1980s and a pioneer in that medium.
He is the cousin of rock and roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis and country musician Mickey Gilley, all three of whom played the piano.
Swaggart accumulated power and fame while picking fights with virtually anyone who didn't view the world in his own way. He picked fights with Catholics, Calvinists, and the then new contemporary Christian music scene through his monthly magazine, The Evangelist.
Swaggart was also involved in two public controversies with other evangelists. When the PTL scandal destroyed fellow Assemblies of God minister Jim Bakker, Swaggart publicly denounced Bakker as "a cancer on the body of Christ." Later that year, Swaggart destroyed a rival evangelist, Marvin Gorman, over an affair Gorman had. Gorman retaliated because he knew Swaggart was doing the same thing. In 1987, Swaggart was involved with a prostitute at a Baton Rouge hotel when Gorman and some associates flattened Swaggart's tires, went and got cameras, and took photographs of Swaggart exiting the hotel with the prostitute. Gorman confronted Swaggart and told him he would have to come clean. Swaggart said he would but then refused to do so. Only after much wraggling did Gorman take copies of the photographs to the Assemblies of God headquarters in Springfield, Missouri. The story broke on February 20, 1988, four months after Swaggart had promised to confess his sin.
On February 21, 1988, on his television show taped in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Swaggart confessed that he was guilty of an unspecified sin and would be temporarily leaving the pulpit. The "unspecified sin" was an affair with a prostitute. Swaggart lost much of his audience and much of his influence. To add to the comedy of televangelist errors, Swaggart blamed his problems on "demons" and claimed that controversial evangelist Oral Roberts had "cast out the demons" over the phone, thus assuring Swaggart was now free of moral defect. (This story is told in Mike Horton's, "The Agony of Deceit").
In November 1991, he was stopped for speeding. In the car with him was another prostitute. Soon after, he was told to leave the church he pastored, but he did not do so. Swaggart kept his church and began preaching again years later. In 1995, Swaggart was again pulled over this time in California with a prostitute in the car.
On a positive front, it was noted he was among one of the few dedicated Pirates' fans. He had season tickets for the CFL's Shreveport Pirates. It was noted that he would drive two hours from Baton Rouge to Shreveport to watch the team play.
In 2002, the heirs of Pentecostal Bible teacher Finis Jennings Dake filed a plagiarism suit against Swaggart for failing to gain their permission before publishing some of Dake's materials. That lawsuit is pending at present.
Now he has "made his life right with God" and preaches a message called "the Cross" which says that the only way to Heaven is through the death of Jesus. He opposes such movements as "G12 Vision" and "Purpose Driven Life."
Controversial comments
In mid-September 2004, Swaggart, in a politically charged sermon, said that he would kill gay men:
- "I'm trying to find the correct name for it this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I'm gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I'm gonna kill him and tell God he died." [1]
Gay rights groups quickly demanded that other right-wing religious leaders at the service, including James Dobson and Tony Perkins, repudiate his comment.
External links
Categories: 1935 births | Christian ministers | Television evangelists