7-7-25<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This week I share an article I wrote for <\/em>The American Spectator magazine. It was occasioned by the death of Jimmy Swaggart, one of Christianity\u2019s great evangelists and certainly the premier \u201ctelevangelist.\u201d I knew him slightly \u2013 more specifically, I interviewed him several times as I worked some years ago on a projected book about him and his cousin Jerry Lee Lewis.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n More than that, I was a follower of his ministry and was baptised in the Spirit \u2013 became a Pentecostal \u2013 under his teaching. My family and I attended many crusades. Through \u201cups and downs,\u201d as people will ask; and my wife and I are weekly worshipers today. His son Donnie and grandson Gabriel carry the message admirably, teaching and preaching.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cUps and downs\u201d? I almost would rather learn from a human being who has been redeemed then\u2026 well, someone who suggests that he or she never has fallen. As Theodore Roosevelt said, <\/em>It is not having been in the Dark House, but having left it, that counts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n + + +<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many <\/em>(Hebrews 9:27-28).<\/p>\n\n\n\n America was largely founded, substantially settled, and essentially established on Christian foundations. The models for colonies\u2019 governments, and the blueprints for \u201cframing\u201d documents, were Biblical. Even Deists among the Founding Fathers generally acknowledged the Bible as their guide for designing constitutions and the governing documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n America\u2019s spiritual moorings were derived from more than such influences, however. The nation often has had \u201cparallel leadership\u201d from among Christian figures. Pilgrims came to the New World in search of religious freedom. Among them were Puritans. Before the Revolution \u2013 and helping to fuel its liberty-loving fervor \u2013 was the Great Awakening. Preachers like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and the Wesley brothers were enormously influential throughout the colonies and new United States. In the next generations the Second Great Awakening, and religious figures like Henry Ward Beecher and his sister Harriet Beecher Stowe persuasively argued against slavery and for social reform. Open-air revival meetings were conducted on Wall Street and other major sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026 and so through much of American history. No matter the tenor of political changes and social trends, preachers, evangelists, and Gospel songwriters influenced broad swaths of American culture. Camp-meetings as Americans moved Westward; massive urban revivals; new denominations. Clergy as best-selling authors and influential lecturers have always been prominent in public debates. The D L Moodys, Billy Sundays, Aimee Semple McPhersons, and Father Coughlins of yesterday prefigured \u201cAmerica\u2019s Pastor,\u201d Billy Graham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While one segment of America was discovering Jesus in California in the 1960s and \u201870s \u2013 the \u201cJesus Movement\u201d on the beaches \u2013 another revolution was sweeping through more traditional neighborhoods, families, and denominations: Pentecostalism. There were many leaders, including Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, and Jim Bakker. They sustained ostracism from mainstream denominations, yet they flourished. Many of them built huge empires that eventually were undermined by corruption and scandals, frequently self-inflicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The death of Reverend Jimmy Swaggart, who died on July 1, 2025, is a case in point. He became a figure of major influence in American religious life and even politics, endured scandal and self-abasement, and was an actor in a sad but not uncommon scenario\u2026 but his last chapters reflected redemption and \u201covercoming.\u201d His flock remained with him, or regrouped. He rebuilt his major Pentecostal movement through fidelity to its basic tenets, but also by shifting the focus and presentation of his message, or God\u2019s message as He received it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Forty years ago Jimmy Swaggart was invited to the White House by Ronald Reagan; and last year a new president, Donald Trump, placed calls to his office. In the 1980s Swaggart graced the covers of weekly news magazines; recently he was feted at his 90th birthday celebration by the likes of Bill Gaither and Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham who once disdained his style of preaching and much of its substance. Between the \u201cfirst and second\u201d Swaggarts he also overcame near-universal opprobrium after being caught with prostitutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time of his death Swaggart was the longest-running televangelist and possibly the most prominent expositor of Protestant Christianity in the world; certainly the leading exponent of Pentecostalism, which is sweeping the globe, especially south of the Equator. His ministry of frequent and massive crusades across America and in numerous overseas countries was supplanted by a media ministry, the only 24\/7 Christian cable channel offering exclusive programming of a single ministry. Myriad worship services originate in his large headquarters in Baton Rouge LA; he published a monthly magazine and produced dozens of CDs and DVDs featuring his own distinctive performances and those of his large and talented worship team. Scores of published books and tracts written by Swaggart are ministry staples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over his career Swaggart inadvertently provided an additional meaning to the Biblical phrase \u201cBorn Again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n + + +<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jimmy Lee Swaggart was born on the Ides of March, 1935, within months of his cousins Jerry Lee Lewis, a pioneer of rock and roll; and Mickey Gilley, the popular country-music star whose nightclub Gilley\u2019s was the setting of the movie Urban Cowboy.<\/em> The clan \u2013 whose family tree resembles, rather, a twisted vine \u2013 counts other piano-playing preachers and recording stars. Linda Gail Lewis (Jerry Lee\u2019s sister), for instance, began her career in the 1960s and still records and performs, with a large following in Europe as a rockabilly queen. That family tree, planted and nurtured around little Ferriday LA, is replete with inter-marriage, multiple marriages (Jerry and Linda Gail each having tied the knot seven times through the years), adultery, and illegitimate siblings and cousins. In that medley, Jimmy and Jerry Lee were double first-cousins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jimmy Swaggart himself had one marriage, to Frances Anderson of Wisner LA; and one child, Donnie, who was named after Swaggart\u2019s older brother who died in infancy. It is curious to note that Swaggart, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Ray Charles all had older brothers who died in accidents when they were boys. The rural South of the 1930s dished up a strange, but common, set of touchstones \u2013 tragedy, poverty, violence, music, religious fundamentalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After his hardscrabble family of drinkers, roustabouts, and lawbreakers got saved in a tent revival, young Jimmy felt a calling to be an evangelist. After his marriage at age 17 (Frances was 15), they travelled with Donnie and a lone accordion, singing Gospel songs and preaching \u2013 initially to sparse groups, and sleeping in their car or in church basements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1957 his cousin Jerry Lee Lewis, recently signed to a recording contract with Elvis\u2019s label Sun Records, mightily defined rock \u2018n\u2019 roll with massive hit songs like Whole Lotta Shakin\u2019 Goin\u2019 On<\/em> and Great Balls Of Fire<\/em>, making tens of thousands of dollars a night and appearing on network TV. Jerry Lee and Sam Phillips of Sun Records arranged to launch a Gospel line with Swaggart its featured performer. But the young evangelist declined the offer, believing that God wanted him to preach, not sing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Swaggart was destined \u2013 called \u2013 to do both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n + + +<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the late \u201850s Swaggart gradually expanded his ministry from small churches and modest tent revivals to larger crusades, recording traditional Southern Gospel songs and attracting radio air time. The dynamic music was \u201cbait,\u201d he said, to draw people to the preaching; and vice versa in other cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through the 1970s and \u201880s, Jimmy Swaggart Ministries grew exponentially. He established a church in Baton Rouge, Family Worship Center; he founded a Bible College; his radio empire expanded to television, buying time on stations to form a de facto <\/em>network; crusades became major events in major venues in major cities\u2026 expanding to mass meetings in many countries around the world, often filling entire stadiums. Many of his singers and musicians, like Janet Paschal and John Starnes, graduated to successful solo careers. By the mid-1980s his telecast, now a full hour in length, was carried on 250 stations. Swaggart\u2019s template for crusades was a Friday evangelistic message; a Saturday \u201cinvitation service\u201d for people to respond to altar calls; and a Sunday service explaining the Gifts of the Spirit for those eager to receive them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The on-stage evangelist Jimmy Swaggart was electric \u2013 a handsome, talented, exuberant musician, singer, and preacher. Inevitably his anointed messages were accompanied by sweat and tears and \u201chard\u201d preaching \u2013 against sin, apostasy, liberal theology, \u201cdead churches,\u201d and such. He had little trouble criticising rival preachers, some by name; and he received criticism back. The Christian Right was ascendant in politics at the time; Pentecostal and Charismatic ministries were naturally compatible with those social and political impulses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But \u201cPride goeth before a fall,\u201d and a spate of scandals soiled the Pentecostal movement in the mid-1980s. Jim Bakker had sex with a church secretary and was later sent to jail for financial improprieties at the tacky Christian theme park established by him and his tacky wife Tammy Faye. Jerry Falwell, who had successfully penetrated the political world through his Moral Majority, embarrassed himself in the scramble for Bakker\u2019s empire. Oral Roberts said that God would kill him if supporters fell short of donation-goals. (The goal was met, and the Lord did not immediately take Roberts\u2019s life.) Ministers engaged in \u201cName It and Claim It\u201d promises, and invented a seductive \u201cProsperity Gospel.\u201d Many other ministries were embroiled, seemingly every other month, in sex or financial or doctrinal scandals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An Elmer Gantry-type if there ever were one, Swaggart continued his hellfire preaching at the time, severely criticizing many of his fellow evangelists on moral and theological grounds. Many rapacious \u201creporters\u201d like Geraldo Rivera and CNN\u2019s John Camp devoted themselves to finding chinks in Swaggart\u2019s armor. Beyond defending himself and the Gospel, his attitude and body language in interviews signalled the Pride about which Scripture warns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed it foreshadowed a fall \u2013 from grace, from a mass following, and from respect and respectability in the Christian world. In 1988 a rival Louisiana preacher with whom Swaggart had tussled caught Jimmy with a prostitute, in a cheap motel outside New Orleans. The preacher\u2019s men took photographic evidence and slashed Swaggart\u2019s tires. A nation-wide scandal ensued; Swaggart confessed in an apology to God and Frances and Donnie that was picked up by a multitude of TV stations and magazine covers. His tear-stained face and contorted expression were cemented in the public\u2019s mind as the new face of Pentecostalism. Swaggart\u2019s denomination, the Assemblies of God, rebuked him and ordered corrective steps designed to rehabilitate the preacher and rescue his ministry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Swaggart accepted some discipline, ignored other recommendations. He self-exiled, but returned to his pulpit sooner than the AG ruled. The denomination eventually revoked Swaggart\u2019s ministry credentials. Offerings and donations drastically dropped. Enrollment at the Bible College fell from 1451 to 370. Grass grew in the cracks of Family Worship Center\u2019s parking lots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n + + +<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n During these very times I was working on a project about the Cousins Swaggart, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Mickey Gilley. I had interviewed all three and many of their relatives, associates, even students at Swaggart\u2019s Bible College. Even a prostitute he was caught with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His confession aligned with the facts. Whether his apologies \u2013 more correctly, signs of repentance \u2013 were sincere, became a matter of fierce debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the service at which he returned to the pulpit, I approached him and expressed the hope that his failing, and what I assumed would be his repentance and rehabilitation, could make for a powerful message to a public comprised, after all, of sinners and flawed people. And that I would tell that story without tabloid flavors. He replied with what I have since called a Pentecostal No: \u201cBrother Marschall, I\u2019ll pray about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Jimmy Swaggart\u2019s message that day, the theme centered on the Biblical figure of King David \u2013 that he too (I add the \u201ctoo,\u201d because it was obvious Swaggart drew a comparison to himself) engaged in lust and adultery, and was guilty of much. But none of that, Swaggart noted, changed the fact that God had a call on David\u2019s life. With that anointing, David eventually carried out amazing tasks that God had set before him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was a facile argument, given the circumstances in Baton Rouge that morning, and yet it was theologically sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The road that Jimmy Swaggart walked thereafter, whether out of desperation or by design \u2013 his or God\u2019s \u2013 has been unique. Perhaps it was a strategic withdrawal from the ministry\u2019s program. The overseas crusades largely ended, as did many stateside crusades. The face-to-the-world aspect of his ministry became the home church, Family Worship Center, featuring three services a week and various camp meetings and special conferences. An extensive media ministry was established through his new outlet, SonLife Broadcasting. A core group of staffers, musicians, singers, and teachers remained, loyally. A children\u2019s ministry was expanded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ministry outreach grew, particularly exegetical material (Swaggart\u2019s Bible studies total more than 7500 pages). He claimed a divine revelation that directed him to address \u201cthe message of the Cross,\u201d asserting that aspect of Jesus\u2019s sacrifice as the proper focus of Christians\u2019 faith. In the course of his latter-day ministry activities I have joined those who believe his ultimate repentance was sincere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Swaggart was joined in the pulpit by his son Donnie and grandson Dr Gabriel Swaggart. In the years before his death they assumed virtually all the ministry duties, excellently \u2013 breaking a pattern of many televangelists\u2019 kids being weak shadows of their fathers, with the exception of Franklin Graham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n + + +<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In Jimmy Swaggart\u2019s last decades his fervent delivery mellowed, but not his message. Hellfire themes continued. He never softened his Pentecostal distinctives (his son and grandson emphasize the Gifts even more than he had), and his publications and sermons continued to attack false doctrines and flawed theology in some denominations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If parts of the general public did not know, or forgot, who Jimmy Swaggart was, it was due to his decision to \u201cfeed the sheep\u201d and focus on his congregation; on SonLife\u2019s media outreach; and sharing his theological brand. Appeals for, say, hospitals in India were supplanted by campaigns to provide thousands of Expositor\u2019s Study Bibles to countries around the world. These were important goals of Swaggart until the end, and along the way he acquired new friends (as calls from Donald Trump, Bill Gaither, Mike Lindell and a wide variety of others attest) and in new fields of activity. Gabe, and especially Donnie, became increasingly active and vocal in conservative politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026 which brings to the fore, full-circle perhaps, the traditional and essential place of Christianity in American life. Jimmy Swaggart\u2019s ultimate re-emergence and influence, and a new (or renewed) America where Donnie Swaggart is invited to White House prayer meetings, and Gabe Swaggart is honored at the Louisiana State Senate, testifies to an important aspect of faith \u2013 ultimately, \u201covercoming\u201d in this corrupt world. The perseverance that lifted the piano-playing preacher from Ferriday, Louisiana was largely spiritual but also spoke of definition and redefinition; of dispensing and seeking forgiveness; of knowing God and making Him known. Somehow, an American story too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jimmy Swaggart\u2019s struggles, victories, and personal \u201covercoming\u201d will be a testament living beyond his grave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n