(AP) BATON ROUGE, LA Jimmy Swaggart, a televangelist who gained widespread fame, a sizable fan base, and a multimillion-dollar ministry until his love affair with prostitutes brought him to ruin, passed away.
Decades after his formerly sizable fan base shrank and his name became a joke on late-night TV, Swaggart passed away. His public Facebook profile confirmed his passing on Tuesday. Although he had been in poor health at 90, a cause was not immediately stated.
Before being caught on camera with a prostitute in New Orleans in 1988, the Louisiana native was well-known for being an enthralling Pentecostal preacher with a sizable fan base. She was one of several popular TV preachers who were brought down in the 1980s and 1990s by sex scandals. For decades, he persisted on preaching, albeit to a smaller audience.
Swaggart’s sad 1988 speech, in which he repented and grieved but made no mention of his relationship with a prostitute, perfectly captured his downfall.
Swaggart informed parishioners all around the country, “I have sinned against you.” I humbly ask for forgiveness.
Later that year, after the church declared it was defrocking him for refusing to accept the punishment it had prescribed for moral failure, he announced his retirement from the Assemblies of God. The church had requested that he participate in a two-year rehabilitation program that included a year-long ban from preaching.
Swaggart said at the time that he had no choice except to leave the church in order to save his ministry and Bible college, even though he knew his dismissal was inevitable.
Swaggart, a preacher’s son, was raised in poverty in a musically inclined household. He was a gifted pianist and gospel singer who performed and sang with gifted cousins who followed other careers: Rock ‘n’ RollMickey Gilley, a country singer, and Jerry Lee Lewis.
Swaggart claimed that at the age of eight, he received the call of God in his birthplace of Ferriday, Louisiana. He claimed that the voice made his hair quiver and gave him goose bumps.
He told the Jacksonville Journal-Courier in Illinois in 1985 that everything appeared different following that day in front of the Arcade Theater. On the inside, I felt better. It’s similar to taking a bath.
Up until the age of 23, he worked part-time in oil fields and preached. After that, he fully committed to his ministry, preaching, playing the piano, and singing gospel songs at camp meetings and revivals of the Assemblies of God with the barrelhouse fervor of cousin Lewis.
Related Articles
-
An American tradition : Strong demand for fireworks locally, nationally
-
A retail apocalypse : Big box and chain retailers undergo wave of closures
-
Jury deliberating at Sean Diddy Combs sex trafficking trial asks to review Cassie s testimony
-
The man accused of killing 2 Idaho firefighters had once aspired to be one
-
Mystery surrounds the Jeffrey Epstein files after Bondi claims tens of thousands of videos
With strong opinions, Swaggart began a radio program, a magazine, and then a television show.
Roman Catholicism is a fraudulent religion, according to him. It is not the Christian method, and it asserted the Jews’ rejection of Christ caused them to suffer for hundreds of years.
At his Family Worship Center in Baton Rouge, where his lectures inspired his congregation to get up and speak in tongues as though under the influence of the Holy Spirit, he once said, “If you don’t like what I say, talk to my boss.”
By the late 1980s, Swaggart had become well-known thanks to his preaching, which moved millions of TV viewers and thousands of congregants. Jimmy Swaggart Ministries was developed by donors into a company that generated an estimated $142 million in 1986.
He still has a worship center and recording and broadcasting facilities at his Baton Rouge complex.
Due of similar controversies involving other well-known preachers, Swaggart’s downfall occurred in the late 1980s. The sex scandal involving rival televangelist Jim Bakker and a former church secretary at Bakker’s PTL ministry organization impacted Swaggart’s profits in 1987, he publicly stated.
Swaggart and Debra Murphree, an admitted prostitute who claimed reporters that the two did not have intercourse but that the preacher had paid her to pose naked, were pictured together at a hotel the following year.
Later, she reaffirmed the assertion when posing naked for Penthouse magazine.
It appears that Swaggart’s quarrel with preacher Marvin Gorman, whom he had accused of sexual misconduct, was the source of the surveillance images that destroyed his career. The photographer that took pictures of Swaggart and Murphree was hired by Gorman. Later, in order to resolve a lawsuit involving Gorman’s sexual accusations, Swaggart paid Gorman $1.8 million.
When Swaggart and another prostitute were arrested by California authorities in 1991, more problems arose. The missionary was accused of operating an unlicensed Jaguar and driving on the wrong side of the road. Rosemary Garcia, his companion, claimed that Swaggart swerved when he attempted to cram pornographic magazines beneath a car seat and became anxious upon seeing the police vehicle.
Later, the late TV comedian Phil Hartman made fun of Swaggart by playing him on NBC’s Saturday Night Live.
In later years, the evangelist mostly avoided the headlines but continued to speak at Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, frequently with his fellow preacher son Donnie by his side. Swaggart’s ministry boasted a global online following, and his radio station carried gospel music and church services to 21 states.
My father is the best example of a good and devoted servant there is. There are no ifs, ands, ands about it. In a video tribute posted on social media on Sunday, Donnie Swaggart described his father’s last days as a man who dedicated his life to serving Christ.
In 2004, the preacher’s comments about being admired by a gay guy provoked yet another small uproar.
To the congregation’s laughing, Jimmy Swaggart declared, “And I’m going to be blunt and plain: If one ever looks at me like that, I’m going to kill him and tell God he died.” Later on, he expressed regret.
With the exception of performing “Amazing Grace” at the 2005 burial of Louisiana Secretary of State Fox McKeithen, a well-known figure in state politics for many years, Swaggart rarely appeared in public outside of his church.
He spoke during a memorial service for his cousin and rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Lewis in 2022. Earlier that year, the two had recorded a gospel album called The Boys From Ferriday.
