Just a few moments ago, I saw the news of the passing of the great evangelist, Jimmy Swaggart. Just two months ago, Brother Swaggart celebrated his 90th birthday. I must say that his passing is personally a loss-a loss from childhood, and one that affects the wider Pentecostal/Charismatic movement. Few can appreciate how powerful Jimmy Swaggart’s ministry was with regards to the preaching of the Gospel and the Pentecostal experience.
He was our “answer” to the Baptists’ great Evangelist Billy Graham. Many will not appreciate that idea today, but one should consider the first century (the first two generations) of the Pentecostal Movement, specifically the main line denominations like the Assemblies of God, Church of God-Cleveland, Foursquare, and others. The movement of people in the modern era who experienced the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with the initial evidence of Speaking in Tongues began with a few students in a small Bible School started by a methodist holiness preacher named Charles Parham. While divided into various denominations, Pentecostals shared doctrines, practices, and experiences within our denominations, and oftentimes ostracism, rejection, mockery, and even persecution, from the outside world as well. This was common not just to people in the United States but the rest of the Pentecostals around the world. Pentecostals banded together not just for the formation of churches, but for the survival of the Divine Experience that God in His grace returned to the Church after almost 2000 years. (Still a major concern.)
Our churches were knowns for pursuit of Holiness, charismatic Biblical preaching, lively and vibrant worship services and music, tarry meetings, camp meetings, tent revivals, and emphasis on evangelism in the home front as well as in world missions. In this context, the ministry of the Evangelist was vitally important.
Pentecostals were (generally speaking) not from ‘high society’. Mostly our people were poor and without the best education. But they were devout and dedicated to the Faith and the Pentecostal experience. Many families considered it the greatest privilege to dedicate their children to the ministry.
Jimmy Swaggart was part of the second generation of Pentecostalism which saw the largest impact and evangelism in the history, not just of the movement, but in all of Christianity. His contemporaries included such men as Oral Roberts, C.M. Ward, R.W. Shambach, A.A. Allen, David Wilkerson-just to name a few.
Pentecostal preachers were loud, dogmatic, and charismatic. Some emphasized the demonstration of signs and wonders (that certainly brought in the crowds). But this underscores Jimmy Swaggart’s ministry. He preached the Gospel unapologetically with a strong focus of seeing souls saved and receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. At the same time, he used his pulpit to forthrightly address the issues of the time plaguing the Church, the United States, Israel, and other parts of the world. Everything from Roman Catholicism and secular humanism, homosexuality, abortion, to prosperity doctrine and other errors in the Church; no topic was off limits.
To say that Jimmy Swaggart was a lightning rod for controversy was an understatement. But then again, most of the Pentecostal preachers of the time preached like that! The difference between most of these preachers and Jimmy Swaggart was that the average audience of most Pentecostal preachers was a Sunday morning audience of about 150 people. Jimmy Swaggart filled arenas in the United States and Canada with tens of thousands of people. In the 1980s, his weekly television and radio audience was in the tens of millions in North America, and multitudes more in other parts of the world.
He was born on March 15, 1935, in the small town of Ferriday, Louisiana. His parents were members of a small Assembly of God church in that town. Born during the Great Depression, his parents were sharecropper farmers (he would later share his story how his mother went into labor with him while working in the field). Throughout his crusade days, he mentioned an uncle (his mother’s sister’s husband) who was one of the few people during the Depression to become a wealthy millionaire, and through whose generosity, Jimmy’s family survived during the depression years. That uncle was important to the Swaggart family for another important reason. The man saw two Pentecostal ladies clearing a plot of land to build a church. Whether with respect or sympathy, Jimmy’s uncle took the initiative and built the church building of his own volition and with his own money. It was at this church where the Swaggart family worshiped, where Jimmy’s life of faith would start, and where, as a teen preacher, his ministry would start. Jimmy Swaggart accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior at the age of eight and before his teenage years received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit all at that church-the First Assembly of God in Ferriday, Louisiana.
Another person who was important in his life in Ferriday was his cousin, the late Rock’n’roll legend, Jerry Lee Lewis. Lewis and his family were in the same Assembly of God church, and both shared an affinity for music, particularly the piano. I do not have time to go into exhaustive detail about their lives. But regarding their musical talent, a point must be made. It was a gift given by the Holy Spirit. That talent was not only beneficial to the Church, but it also lifted these men and their families out of the dust of poverty.
The ministry was their ultimate calling. Jerry Lee Lewis went to Bible school at what later became known as Southwestern Assemblies of God University (now Nelson University) but later turned away from that calling into a career in the secular world at the rise of Rock’n’roll era of music. Jimmy Swaggart heard the call of God to become a preacher and continued into the ministry.
By his own testimony, the early years were anything but glamorous. He was 17 when he married his wife Francis (who was 15) at the time. They would eventually have one son (Donny Swaggart). The work of an itinerant Pentecostal preacher in those days meant traveling to churches or places where they would invite you to preach or extend to you a program if you asked (that was done begrudgingly because money was sparse). Someone would put you up at their home (to be put up at a hotel meant you were a very upscale church!) or if that was unavailable, then in the church building. You ate at the house of whoever invited you, and if they were kind enough, that was where you did the laundry. In extended preaching tours, during the school year, (Donnie Swaggart shared), their son moved schools several times from one region to another. The love gifts were often not enough or elaborate. Swaggart would say years later from a crusade stage, “I paid my dues.”
Jimmy was my father’s favorite preacher when I was growing up. We would watch his program on Sunday nights at our home and there were times I would watch the tears flow down my dad’s eyes as he watched the broadcast. We knew almost everyone’s name on the crusade team. Who could forget John Starnes and Janet Paschal and Dudley Smith?
I only realized how big the Swaggarts were when I attended the Dallas crusade (during the early 80s) at the old Reunion Arena (the arena where the Dallas Mavericks first played). Ten Thousand people were there on the night my family and I attended. I had never seen that many people in one place! When he preached at the dedication of Calvary Temple (the church of the late AG Pastor J. Don George-their previous building) in Irving, Texas, the massive auditorium was so packed that the only place I could find to sit was the on the staircase of the center aisle in the balcony. When he preached the dedication of Church on the Move (formerly pastored by Mike Evans-Jerusalem Prayer Team), they held the service outside of the building, even with the threat of rain. And still the parking lot was filled with tens of thousands of people! We were firsthand witnesses to the greatness of that ministry that God had done through Jimmy Swaggart.
Jimmy and Frances Swaggart were the first couple in the world of ministry. Donny Swaggart was at his father’s side at every moment. His three children (Jimmy and Frances’ grandchildren) were often introduced at crusades. Their church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana was one the biggest in the United States. He started a Bible college, and their ministerial resources and infrastructure was incomparable. And then came the events of 1987-1988. A story that is difficult to reduce to a simple form.
The principal characters were three Assemblies of God preachers with several other personalities as “supporting cast” in this story: Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, and Marvin Gorman. All three were once powerfully used by God in their respective ministries.
Jim and Tammy Faye were students in North Central Bible College (an AG Bible college in Minneapolis, Minnesota-currently known as North Central University). They entered ministry as itinerant evangelists after their marriage in 1961. After working with Pat Robertson and his CBN Christian network for a few years, and also for a few months with Paul and Jan Crouch at the start of the TBN network, in 1974, they started Praise the Lord (PTL) network- and introduced the model which every Christian channels follows to this day. The intention was to share the gospel message but knowing that the non-profit nature of Christian media, and especially with regards to Television, and that an audience had to be attracted, Jim and Tammy incorporated a version of spectacle. Glamor and glitz were needed to acquire the largest audience possible. When that was achieved, the simple gospel would be put forward.
Whatever their intentions and ministerial background, the Bakkers (especially Tammy Faye) were thought of as charlatans and comic characters who demeaned the ministry and put a bad stink on the Pentecostal world with their constant telethons and begging for support for their ministry, and several other ministerial pursuits. It all was seen as scheme to raise a personal kingdom rather to share the Gospel and extend the Kingdom of God.
At least that was the idea that most of the Pentecostal circles I frequented held. I would not learn till years later that Jim Bakker had indeed had a truly wonderful ministry and was as kindhearted and sensitive a man as there ever was in the ministry at that time. He began PTL with a very sincere desire to see the ministry medium bring souls to Jesus Christ, but the discerning laity and ministers in Pentecostal denominations and the wider evangelical felt that there was spiritual rot taking place behind closed doors. Jimmy Swaggart did not hesitate to rally the Pentecostals against Bakker whom he later called a “cancer in the Body of Christ.”
Jim Bakker in many ways was a head of his time as a pioneer in Christian television but the glamour and glitz, the prosperity gospel, the theatrics were considered outrageous in that era of the Pentecostal movement. (I do not know how true this is in today’s Pentecostal environment, but it certainly was true in the first and second generation.)
Dr. Thomas Zimmerman during his 26-year tenure as the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God made it one of his prime directives to preserve the sanctity of the Pentecostal experience. Anything that was deemed outrageous, fanatical, exploitative, or embarrassing to the Body of Christ and/or the Pentecostal Experience would be called to account. Preachers would be held accountable by their fellow preachers in the AG for their actions, words and deeds. They would be given every chance to defend themselves. But when a directive was given for correction or simply to tone down rhetoric, if the assent was not done in the fear of God and general respect for the Church, one could lose his ordination. While many would have a problem with that kind of spiritual discipline, that era saw the greatest growth of the Pentecostal denomination, particularly the Assemblies of God.
With the advent of the 1980s and the gigantic growth and exposure of the ministries of Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker, dare I say that both were near uncontrollable. What’s more, both gave millions of dollars to the Assemblies of God World Mission. Their national and global ministerial footprint was enormous. And that is why what happened next was a catastrophe akin to the detonation of a hydrogen bomb in the Church world.
Jim Bakker’s ministry came to the attention of the American government, and the Federal Communications Commission and the IRS investigated PTL on suspicion of embezzlement and fraud. But the Justice Department declined to prosecute for insufficient evidence. Then came the revelation of sexual infidelity with ministry secretary Jessica Hahn and the further finding that some of the ministerial funds had been diverted to her for her silence. The investigations took on a new life and power of their own with the local and national media entering the fray and increasing pressure coming from the government as well as church circles. Jimmy Swaggart and other like-minded preachers and personalities kept up the pressure up and even increased it to the breaking point. And they would succeed in breaking Jim Bakker.
Bakker confessed to the adultery and later stepped down from the chairmanship of PTL with the hope that the ministry would be salvaged. He probably thought the wider church world which made up PTL’s viewership understood that the network was a tool for Christian ministry and influence and that it would be beneficial to the Church. So he asked Dr. Jerry Falwell (pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, Founder of Liberty University, head of the Moral Majority-a conservative Christian political action group) to take the helm of PTL in the hope that this would stanch the hemorrhaging of donors who were needed to keep this ministry operating until situations became stable again. But as new allegation of illicit behavior and financial misconduct were coming out, Falwell barred Bakker from returning, and as the investigations became more intrusive into the inner workings of PTL, the ministry imploded. Right or wrong, Jerry Falwell and the Board of Directors did not exactly stall that implosion, though he raised $20 million to keep PTL afloat for some time. There are too many details to be revealed here, but by October of 1987, PTL was finished. Falwell and the Board of Directors filed for bankruptcy. In the aftermath, Falwell echoed Jimmy Swaggart’s sentiments of Jim Bakker and openly referred to him as “the greatest scab and cancer on the face of Christianity in 2000 years of church history.”
According to some sources, Bakker brought in Jerry Falwell because he feared that Jimmy Swaggart was attempting to take over PTL. It does not stretch the imagination. The Son Life Broadcasting Network could have come into existence back in 1987.
Jim Bakker’s ministry and life was completely destroyed. His arrest, and the mental breakdown during it, was nationally televised, and he would be sentenced to 45 years in prison on several counts of fraud and conspiracy. This sentence was later commuted to 5 years after an appeals court found that the judge in the criminal case was biased against Bakker. During that time, his wife Tammy Faye divorced him and PTL was wiped away from existence.
I was there when many a church leader along with millions of their parishioners celebrated Jim Bakker’s fall. The mantra from many, particularly from Jimmy Swaggart, was to look at the people in their massive churches as well as into the camera at their gigantic worldwide audience and say, “I take no joy at a preacher’s fall, but the Body needed to be cleansed.”
The cacophony became worse as other luminaries both within the Church world and outside of it weighed in. Dr Zimmerman’s worst nightmare was realized as Pentecostal preachers, and the Pentecostal experience became an object of scorn and a subject to be lampooned on late night comedy. But for most of the folk in the Church (particularly the Pentecostals) they were under the impression that a “war had been won”, and that our lead preacher was the “undisputed champ”.
Jimmy Swaggart could be considered at this point to be at the very summit of the Pentecostal/Charismatic/Evangelical world. Only Billy Graham had a greater influence and audience. Though the fight with PTL was notorious, Jimmy Swaggart was bold enough to confront the Islamic world boldly to the point of engaging infamous Muslim apologist Dr. Ahmed Deddat in a debate as well as challenging Roman Catholicism as un-biblical religion providing a false salvation to millions.
Tens of thousands heard and responded to the Gospel message in this country and around the world. New doors were opening for greater crusades in far corners of the world as well as in the United States and Canada.
His church was enormous, and the Bible college had a large student body. His media ministry was the biggest and best with not only his television and radio programs but also with a music recording company and book publishing. Hundreds of thousands subscribed to his ministry’s monthly magazine, The Evangelist.
And then came February of 1988.
Re-enter Marvin Gorman. Marvin Gorman was an AG preacher from New Orleans, Louisiana and a friend and ministry colleague to Jimmy Swaggart for several years. Gorman’s success in the ministry propelled him into the national spotlight as well. He pastored First Assembly of God in New Orleans, growing that church from 100 to 6000 people during his 21 years of ministry there. He was elected to the leadership of the Louisiana District Council of the Assemblies of God as Assistant District Superintendent and came very close to succeeding the great Dr. Thomas Zimmerman as the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God in 1985.
Gorman and Swaggart, while initially friends and ministerial colleagues, became rivals which led to a great falling apart when the latter accused the former of having several adulterous affairs. The accusations resulted in the destruction of Gorman’s ministry and reputation and would play a large part in the tragedy that climaxed in 1988. Like any person who is wounded like this, the temptation for payback is always lingering.
Seething perhaps from his own fight with Swaggart, or perhaps angered by what happened to Jim Bakker, he had the evidence that Jimmy Swaggart had solicited prostitutes in New Orleans. (The details of that are not worth telling for it would demean the memory of both men.) The evidence was turned in to Louisiana District Council’s presbytery, the executive presbytery of the Assemblies of God, and to Jimmy Swaggart personally by Marvin Gorman. The tragedy that unfolded was a nightmare.
In a nationally televised service at the Family Worship Center church (which probably had its biggest crowd ever) in February of 1988, before his wife, his colleagues, and tens of millions, Jimmy Swaggart confessed his sin of moral failure. How he got through that service is something that I cannot to this day fathom. It was only by the Grace of God. The tears flowed not only from Jimmy but from all the preachers on that platform as well as the people who saw that service. But there is a reason why leadership in Pentecostal denominations is difficult. Spiritual Discernment is a gift that is a rare commodity in the church as a whole but absolutely essential for those who have to exercise discipline in the Body of Christ.
Dr. G Raymond Carlson (the man who succeeded Dr Thomas Zimmerman) was serving as the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God. He and the executive presbytery of the AG felt the need to countermand the three-month suspension given by the Louisiana District Council of the AG and suspend Jimmy Swaggart for two years for sexual immorality. Brother Swaggart did not accept that verdict and as a result the fellowship between the AG and his ministry ended. The protests that erupted were unbelievable but ultimately that decision, though very unpopular at the time, proved the correct one. In 1991, there was a second incident with a prostitute, this time in California. Donny Swaggart later said later that the Jimmy Swaggart ministries were in pieces after that second failure.
For all practical purposes, his ministry was over. Everything collapsed. The crusades stopped. The once gigantic crowds that overflowed the Family Worship Center disappeared (to this day they have never been able to get the kind of crowds that they had back in the 1980s). The once popular television program disappeared. Swaggart’s fall made it to the front page of every newspaper and magazine in the world. It was the lead item on the Big 3 news networks of the time. The Muslim world celebrated his destruction as did much of the Roman Catholic world, especially in places like central and south America. Ministry venues which in the past waited for years to secure his accepting their preaching invitations, cancelled overnight. The man who was the foremost preacher of the Pentecostal Experience in his time was ostracized by many Pentecostal denominations and ministries to the point he was not invited for the Azusa Street Centennial in 2006.
Relationships that had taken a lifetime to cultivate were totally shattered. And one can only wonder what kind of personal toll it took on the Swaggart family. No one could come back from a destruction like this.
And yet Jimmy Swaggart did.
And so did Jim Bakker and Marvin Gorman. I do not know if these men every communicated with each other ever again, but I am sure that they were repentant that things had fallen so far as it did during their fights in the 80s.
Some fine men of God took the initiative to reach out and minister to Jim Bakker while he was in prison and afterwards, most notably Dr Billy Graham (whom God would use to draw the attention of the world away from these scandals and back to the Gospel), Pastor Tommy Barnett (Phoenix First Assembly of God), and Pastor Dan Betzer (Revivaltime Radio preacher/Fort Myer First Assembly of God). After a period of rehabilitation, Baker would marry once again to a woman name Lori Beth Graham and he would reenter television ministry, this time based out of Branson, Missouri. And this time, he pledged things would be different. He wrote an autobiography detailing the fall of PTL entitled I was wrong. He continues in his ministry.
Marvin Gorman “mended fences” with the Assemblies of God and later finished his life in 2017 involved in ministry in Louisiana involved with world missions ministries as well as in Teen/Life Challenge ministries for those coming from a life in the streets afflicted with drugs and violence.
All three of these men lived with the thought of “what if” with regards to the past.
Jimmy Swaggart, by the grace of God, rebuilt a ministry. (The way that it happened is a miracle, but that’s for another time.) The seminal moment of restart happened in the mid-1990s with a refocus on what he called the Preaching of the Cross and the perennial Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Soon he was back on radio and television via cable and satellite channels. In recent years the ministerial campus has been renovated and upgraded. The Bible college had a resurgence. His music was (and still is) high demand. God brought in a new team people to help with his ministries, and yet Jimmy Swaggart was the best preacher of them all till the day he died. (Let there be no doubt that this is a Swaggart family ministry operation. Donny Swaggart is the President and Gaberial Swaggart is President of the Bible College.) The ministry was just a continuation of what he did in the 1970s and 80s, except for the crusades. God opened doors of fellowship and ministry with many, particularly from the Church of God (Cleveland).
When he had his 90th birthday celebration in March, many luminaries sent greetings, including President Trump, Franklin Graham, Dr Tim Hill (former General Overseer of the Church of God) and Jentzen Franklin.
One of the most moving tributes came from the late Dr Charles Stanley, via his successor at FBC Atlanta, Dr Anthony George. Dr George testified that in the later years of Charles Stanley’s life, his ministry was under heavy assault. His wife who had been separated from him for many years filed for divorce, and his son Andy Stanley used his pulpit to scorn and attack his father personally as well as all that he stood for theologically. “The press both in Atlanta and nationally showed up inside the church not to be supportive but to be spectators”. The pressure was coming from everywhere for Dr Stanley to resign or collapse, but he did not. During those years, Dr George told the congregation, he woke up everyone morning listening Jimmy Swaggart sing, and he said to himself, “if God can bring Brother Swaggart through his storm, He will bring me through mine!”
There are many who will never be reconciled to Jimmy Swaggart or his ministry. That cannot be helped but no one can say that he did not finish well.
When I thought about how I would finish this article, I was struck by the story of another man which provides an ironic counterpoint to Jimmy Swaggart. He too was born in 1935, two months earlier in a small town in the state next to Louisiana-in Tupelo, Mississippi. That family too was part of a small Assembly of God church in that town. At the age of 8, that child accepted Jesus Christ as his person Lord and Savior. At the age of 12, during a children’s choir practice at the church, that boy received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with the initial evidence of speaking in other Tongues. And with it, that boy was also blessed with musical talent. His name was Elvis Presley.
Elvis, like Jimmy’s cousin Jerry Lee Lewis, turned to the greatness and glory of the secular world and away from what the Apostle Paul called the “high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Can one even imagine Elvis the preacher!) Presly acquired the summit of the secular music and wider entertainment industry, but at the end he was a shell of himself bound with addictions and tormented with personal failures while a perennial group of vultures who lived off of him. There were endless attendants who saw his physical and mental implosion and yet catered to every indulgence which destroyed him. He did affect the world and left a legacy, but I wonder if the title, “King of Rock n Roll” really appealed to him at the end. Even with a magnificent mansion like Graceland and the adoration of millions. At the end, most of his admirers focus on the young film star immortalized on film rather than the overweight drug addict who died on his bathroom floor.
Jimmy Swaggart leaves a legacy of the Grace and Touch of God. And the reality that God can restore anyone who cries out to Him no matter how terrible failures may be.
To quote the words of Andrei Crouch’s song Through it All:
I've had many tears and sorrows
I've had questions for tomorrow
There's been times I didn't know right from wrong
But in every situation
God gave me blessed consolation
That my trials come to only make me strong
I've been to a lot of places
And I've seen millions of faces
But there were times that I felt so all alone
But in my lonely hours
Yes, those precious lonely hours
Jesus let me know that I was his own
That's the reason I say that
Through it all
Through it all
I've learned to trust in Jesus
I've learned to trust in God
Let me tell you that
Through it all
Through it all
I've learned to depend upon his word
So I thank God for the mountains
And I thank him for the valleys
And I thank him for the storms he brought me through
For if I'd never had a problem
I'd never know that God could solve them
I'd never know what faith in his word could do
God bless you Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart! Go and take your rest!