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USA Today
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Pioneering televangelist Jimmy Swaggart's rise and fall remembered
Swaggart embodied the transition from traveling evangelist to radio preacher and then televangelist, garnering huge audiences along the way. Before his career ended in shame, televangelist Jimmy Swaggart was a pioneering legend, a magnetic preacher and performer whose mastery of both pulpit and piano earned a groundbreaking national and global following. Along with Robert Schuller and Jerry Falwell, the Louisiana-born televangelist was among the primary trailblazers and, at his 1980s peak, one of the most familiar faces in Christian television, bringing an expressive Pentecostal-style of worship into the evangelical mainstream. 'His preaching on television was particularly powerful because of his facial expressions,' said Quentin Schultze, professor emeritus of communication at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 'He helped lead many viewers to a more charismatic style of worship.' Swaggart, who died Tuesday morning at age 90, was a riveting and dramatic preacher, said Randall Balmer, a professor of religion at Dartmouth College, a private university in Hanover, New Hampshire. 'He pulled out all the stops – the tears, the exclamations,' Balmer said. 'He understood pacing and had an innate sense of how to manipulate people.' Swaggart, he said, embodied the transition from traveling evangelist to radio preacher and then televangelist, garnering huge audiences along the way. 'He was phenomenally successful at each one of those iterations,' said Balmer, author of 'Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture of America.' Swaggart pursued full-time ministry in 1955 and in 1969 launched 'The Campmeeting Hour,' broadcasting on more than 700 radio stations around the country. Four years later, 'The Jimmy Swaggart Telecast' would pivotally put him in front of a television audience. At the time, well-financed preachers could purchase nationally syndicated, Sunday morning airtime with the potential of reaching large audiences, Schultze said. Swaggart was among the few able to significantly capitalize on that opportunity, mastering the small screen with his intensely emotional delivery. In the 1970s and 1980s, television was really 'a medium of the face,' said Schultze, author of 'Televangelism and American Culture.' 'Not so much anymore, because of big screens, but back then most visual expression came from the face, and he had a very expressive face, along with his musical voice.' Swaggart's show would eventually air in more than 100 nations weekly. At his peak, according to the publication 64 Parishes, Swaggart's TV ministry would reach more than 2 million Christians around the globe. 'There was a time when 30% of all Americans who had their televisions on, on Sunday mornings, were tuned into Swaggart,' Schultze said. Pray for the family of Rev. Jimmy Swaggart who passed away today at the age of 90. He had been hospitalized since June 15 when he suffered cardiac arrest. In life and in death, we can thank God for His great mercy and His offer of salvation if we repent and put our faith in His… By the time sex scandals sledgehammered Swaggart's career in the late 1980s and early 1990s, cable and satellite TV, and eventually the internet, would make it 'virtually impossible' to attract the volume of viewership he achieved in his heyday, Schultze said. Religious audiences had become balkanized and many stations had discontinued paid programming. 'There was a short window where if you were a great television entertainer and could hire an advertising marketing agency to promote you, you could get some tremendous audiences,' Schultze said. "That's gone now, and there won't be anyone on TV or on the internet who's as popular as these guys were.' Preacher's rise and fall 'a cautionary tale' Swaggart, Schultze said, was a gifted singer with an affected, heartfelt style. As a younger man, he'd pondered a secular music career; his cousins were rock-and-roll icon Jerry Lee Lewis and country star Mickey Gilley. Instead, he chose the ministry, infusing traditional hymns with emotionally delivered, country music arrangements, upending notions of what Christian music could be and bringing mainstream legitimacy to Pentecostal-style worship. Swaggart sold 17 million gospel albums, though his enduring 'Southern gospel version of contemporary music' continues to divide churches today, Schultze said. 'Pentecostalism was always kind of tribal and seen as outside mainstream evangelical faith,' Schultze said. 'He brought it more into the center, and what became a lot of its faith and worship music was partly of his influence.' Had his career not been felled by his own missteps, Swaggart likely could have continued on, Schultze said. In 1988, Swaggart was embroiled in a scandal involving a sex worker, leading to his legendary 'I have sinned' apology delivered on live television. The incident led to Swaggart's suspension and then defrocking by the Assemblies of God, though he would eventually continue preaching without a denomination. 'He realized that unless he got back to TV he would lose everything,' Balmer said. 'He needed that huge influx of money and made a calculated decision to defy suspension and go back on his own as an independent. It didn't work out all that well for him.' A second scandal in 1991 would set Swaggart back for good. Balmer, who visited him in Baton Rouge while researching a 1998 magazine piece about the disgraced preacher, said Swaggart struggled mightily after his fall from grace. 'The whole enterprise was a shadow of its former self,' Balmer said. 'He'd had a whole empire, a bible college and various missionary organizations. I don't know how many acres he had in Baton Rouge but it was a large complex. And it was a ghost town by then.' Ultimately, Balmer said, Swaggart's legacy may be a cautionary tale. 'Here's somebody who rose to the pinnacle of evangelical stardom and through a series of missteps utterly destroyed his reputation and ministry,' he said. 'There were a few hangers-on to be sure, but by the time I got there 10 years later, the crowds of thousands were down to dozens.' While Swaggart's rise had been concurrent with the rise of the Moral Majority, the political organization founded by Falwell that helped elect Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and made the religious right a political force, politics was never his game. 'He was all about preaching and the music,' Schultze said. 'Sitting at the piano and doing an emotional hymn. None of the other TV evangelists could do that.' Contributing: Natalie Neysa Alund; Greg Hilburn, USAT Network
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Yahoo
Jimmy Swaggart, fire-and-brimstone preacher, dies at 90
As he barnstormed across America, Jimmy Swaggart would prowl the stage like a born-again Mick Jagger, all swagger as he strutted, bellowed, banged on a piano, spoke in tongues and — in a pitch he perfected to a near art form — urged the faithful to double down on their relationship with the Lord by contributing to his ministry. A fire-and-brimstone Pentecostal preacher, Swaggart bragged he had more followers than Oral Roberts or Jim Bakker, lived a luxuriant life on a 100-acre compound in Baton Rouge, La., and whooshed off to evangelistic crusades in a private jet with a fleet of 18-wheelers, loaded with musical instruments and television equipment, rumbling down the highway below. But his ministry was upended in the 1980s when photos surfaced showing Swaggart with a prostitute at a New Orleans motel and again when he was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol in the Mojave Desert while traveling with a woman who told officers she was a prostitute. Defrocked and disgraced, Swaggart clawed his way back to the pulpit, but attendance at his church shrank, his television ministry withered and the Bible college he founded stripped away his name. Unbowed until the end, Swaggart died Tuesday at Baton Rouge General Medical Center after suffering a cardiac event on June 15, according to a statement from Megan Kelly, a family spokesperson. He was 90. Much like his rock 'n' roll cousin Jerry Lee Lewis, Swaggart was comfortable onstage and confident at the piano, working the masses into a fervor when he invited those who were physically and spiritually ailing to approach the altar, where a team of ministers would lay their hands on the worshipers to begin the healing. "If you think Miller Lite is going to carry you home, you're wrong," he howled during one service in his native Louisiana. "If you think the president is going to carry you home, you're wrong," he said, pausing, and then gently adding: "It's Jesus Christ, that's your savior." His brand of populist hellfire played well in the U.S. and beyond in the 1980s when "The Jimmy Swaggart Telecast" reached nearly 2 million viewers a week on 500 stations and his monthly magazine, the Evangelist, was shipped to more than 800,000 households. His gospel albums sold millions, and when he hit the road, his followers would pour in by the thousands. Dan Rather once called him "the most effective speaker in the country." "I really don't look at it as success or lack of success," Swaggart told the Associated Press in 1985. "It's just mostly the Lord. I feel he wants me to do what I'm doing." Jimmy Lee Swaggart was born March 15, 1935, in Ferriday, a small crossroads eight miles from the Mississippi River in northeastern Louisiana. It was a tired-out town of just a few thousand, but it's likely that every soul there knew Swaggart, Lewis and their other cousin Mickey Gilley. The Ferriday Three, town folk called them. Swaggart said he was 8 when the Lord first spoke to him as he stood outside the Arcade Theater in downtown Ferriday, waiting to watch a Saturday matinee. "I felt better inside," Swaggart said years later. "Almost like taking a bath continuously." Like his cousins, Swaggart grew up with a burning desire to get out of Ferriday. He dropped out of high school, just like his cousins, and started preaching on street corners, then took a position as a pastor at a small church. The Bible had been his companion for years. But if Lewis' ascent was explosive as he rocketed to fame with "Great Balls of Fire" and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On," Swaggart did the Lord's work in near poverty. While Lewis was earning up to $80,000 a month from record sales and concerts, Swaggart was lucky to scratch out $30 a week. Finally, Lewis bought his cousin a beat-up Plymouth and loaned Swaggart his backup musicians and studio time to record a gospel album. Swaggart finally hit the road, traveling the back roads of Louisiana and Mississippi, holding revivals. His gospel albums were good enough and his baritone voice strong enough that he settled in Baton Rouge in 1969 and started the "Camp Meeting Hour" radio show, a blend of gospel, dire warnings and road maps to redemption. By the time he was 49, Swaggart had overtaken Robert Schuller and Oral Roberts as the king of television preachers, reaching 2 million households a week and appearing on more than 500 stations. The money poured in. By 1985, his ministry was bringing in roughly $120 million a year from collections, magazine sales and merchandise from his World Ministry gift catalog. The trappings of it all were impressive: the 100-acre compound; the 7,500-square-foot house; the matching Lincoln Town Cars for his wife, Frances, and himself; the assembly hall that seated 1,000; the Bible college; the immaculately tended gardens; and the 28 relatives on the payroll. But the higher the ascent, the greater the fall. And for the Ferriday Three, there was to be a day of reckoning. Lewis had been a hell-raiser since he was a youth, and he was no different as an adult. He drank, took amphetamines and cheated on his wives. Lewis also seemed to have a tight relationship with death. A son drowned in a swimming pool, another was killed in a Jeep accident, and his fifth wife died of a drug overdose under suspicious circumstances. His fans rolled with his excesses and pitied his life tragedies. But when he married a 13-year-old cousin, they melted away. Gilley, who launched his career as a country artist but had greater success when he embraced pop, lost much of his fortune when he got into a legal dispute with his partner in a Pasadena, Texas, nightclub called Gilley's. Shuttered, the place burned to the ground in 1990 in a fire that authorities determined was arson. Swaggart's success with the collection plate occasionally raised suspicions. Former employees went to court, accusing the preacher of misappropriating donations, and lawsuits were filed against his ministry over tax exemptions and contested wills, which brought in millions. Swaggart's downfall, however, was born from a religious war of sorts that erupted in the 1980s among three pop-star evangelists — Bakker, then soaring high with "The PTL Club," New Orleans preacher Marvin Gorman and Swaggart himself. Swaggart took the first swing when he went after Bakker, accusing him of having an affair with a church secretary named Jessica Hahn. Bakker was eventually expelled from the Assemblies of God denomination and was sentenced to 45 years in prison for fraud. The sentence was later reduced to eight years, and Bakker was paroled after serving just five. But the outcome was far different when the preacher went after Gorman, who like Swaggart had an international television ministry. Swaggart accused the New Orleans preacher of having affairs with various parishioners, as well as another minister's wife. It was enough to get Gorman tossed from the Assemblies of God. Incensed, Gorman sued Swaggart for defamation and won a $10-million judgment that was later reduced to $6.64 million, then finally settled out of court for $1.8 million. Gorman's revenge, though, was not yet complete. Suspicious that Swaggart himself was an adulterer, Gorman asked his son to tail Swaggart one night. The son found Swaggart at a run-down motel on Airline Highway in New Orleans and took photos of the preacher checking into a room with a prostitute. Gorman handed the photos over to the Assemblies of God, which ordered Swaggart suspended for two years. Uncertain that his ministry could withstand such a long break, Swaggart gave it three months and returned to the pulpit, preaching under the auspices of the Jimmy Swaggart Bible College. On a bright Baton Rouge morning in 1988, Swaggart bounded up the steps of his worship center and — as thousands gazed on — spoke vaguely about his "trying time," his "burden" and his struggles with "Satan." When a women in the pews called out, "Do you want some money?" Swaggart smiled broadly. "I sure do." Three years later, Swaggart was pulled over for driving on the wrong side of the road in the Coachella Valley. His passenger told officers that she was a prostitute and that the preacher had picked her up while cruising the streets of Indio. This time, rather than face parishioners, Swaggart stepped down as head of his ministry in order "to reflect." His son Donnie took over Sunday services. Most days, Swaggart retired to his study and wrote or played the piano, singing his favorite gospel songs. During the length of his career, he wrote nearly 50 books and dozens of study guides and commentaries on the Bible. When he did preach, it was in a smaller church, where the gatherings would seem larger and his presence more commanding. When pressed about his sins, he was often direct. "The Lord told me it's flat none of your business," he said during one prayer service. Swaggart is survived by his wife, son, three grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. Times staff writer Grace Toohey contributed to this report. Sign up for Essential California for the L.A. Times biggest news, features and recommendations in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
USA Today
01-07-2025
- General
- USA Today
Iconic televangelist Jimmy Swaggart's rise and fall remembered
Swaggart embodied the transition from traveling evangelist to radio preacher and then televangelist, garnering huge audiences along the way. Before his career ended in shame, televangelist Jimmy Swaggart was a pioneering legend, a magnetic preacher and performer whose mastery of both pulpit and piano earned a groundbreaking national and global following. Along with Robert Schuller and Jerry Falwell, the Louisiana-born televangelist was among the primary trailblazers and at his 1980s peak one of the most familiar faces in Christian television, bringing an expressive Pentecostal-style of worship into the evangelical mainstream. 'His preaching on television was particularly powerful because of his facial expressions,' said Quentin Schultze, professor emeritus of communication at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 'He helped lead many viewers to a more charismatic style of worship.' Swaggart, who died Tuesday morning at age 90, was a riveting and dramatic preacher, said Randall Balmer, a professor of religion at Dartmouth College, a private university in Hanover, New Hampshire. 'He pulled out all the stops – the tears, the exclamations,' Balmer said. 'He understood pacing and had an innate sense of how to manipulate people.' Swaggart, he said, embodied the transition from traveling evangelist to radio preacher and then televangelist, garnering huge audiences along the way. 'He was phenomenally successful at each one of those iterations,' said Balmer, author of 'Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture of America.' Swaggart pursued full-time ministry in 1955 and in 1969 launched 'The Campmeeting Hour,' broadcasting on more than 700 radio stations around the country. Four years later, 'The Jimmy Swaggart Telecast' would pivotally put him in front of a television audience. At the time, well-financed preachers could purchase nationally syndicated, Sunday morning airtime with the potential of reaching large audiences, Schultze said. Swaggart was among the few able to significantly capitalize on that opportunity, mastering the small screen with his intensely emotional delivery. In the 1970s and 1980s, television was really 'a medium of the face,' said Schultze, author of 'Televangelism and American Culture.' 'Not so much anymore, because of big screens, but back then most visual expression came from the face, and he had a very expressive face, along with his musical voice.' Swaggart's show would eventually air in more than 100 nations weekly. At his peak, according to the publication 64 Parishes, Swaggart's TV ministry would reach more than 2 million Christians around the globe. 'There was a time when 30% of all Americans who had their televisions on, on Sunday mornings, were tuned into Swaggart,' Schultze said. Pray for the family of Rev. Jimmy Swaggart who passed away today at the age of 90. He had been hospitalized since June 15 when he suffered cardiac arrest. In life and in death, we can thank God for His great mercy and His offer of salvation if we repent and put our faith in His… By the time sex scandals sledgehammered Swaggart's career in the late 1980s and early 1990s, cable and satellite TV, and eventually the internet, would make it 'virtually impossible' to attract the volume of viewership he achieved in his heyday, Schultze said. Religious audiences had become balkanized and many stations had discontinued paid programming. 'There was a short window where if you were a great television entertainer and could hire an advertising marketing agency to promote you, you could get some tremendous audiences,' Schultze said. "That's gone now, and there won't be anyone on TV or on the internet who's as popular as these guys were.' Preacher's rise and fall 'a cautionary tale' Swaggart, Schultze said, was a gifted singer with an affected, heartfelt style. As a younger man, he'd pondered a secular music career; his cousins were rock-and-roll icon Jerry Lee Lewis and country star Mickey Gilley. Instead, he chose the ministry, infusing traditional hymns with emotionally delivered, country music arrangements, upending notions of what Christian music could be and bringing mainstream legitimacy to Pentecostal-style worship. Swaggart sold 17 million gospel albums, though his enduring 'Southern gospel version of contemporary music' continues to divide churches today, Schultze said. 'Pentecostalism was always kind of tribal and seen as outside mainstream evangelical faith,' Schultze said. 'He brought it more into the center, and what became a lot of its faith and worship music was partly of his influence.' Had his career not been felled by his own missteps, Swaggart likely could have continued on, Schultze said. In 1988, Swaggart was embroiled in a scandal involving a sex worker, leading to his legendary 'I have sinned' apology delivered on live television. The incident led to Swaggart's suspension and then defrocking by the Assemblies of God, though he would eventually continue preaching without a denomination. 'He realized that unless he got back to TV he would lose everything,' Balmer said. 'He needed that huge influx of money and made a calculated decision to defy suspension and go back on his own as an independent. It didn't work out all that well for him.' A second scandal in 1991 would set Swaggart back for good. Balmer, who visited him in Baton Rouge while researching a 1998 magazine piece about the disgraced preacher, said Swaggart struggled mightily after his fall from grace. 'The whole enterprise was a shadow of its former self,' Balmer said. 'He'd had a whole empire, a bible college and various missionary organizations. I don't know how many acres he had in Baton Rouge but it was a large complex. And it was a ghost town by then.' Ultimately, Balmer said, Swaggart's legacy may be a cautionary tale. 'Here's somebody who rose to the pinnacle of evangelical stardom and through a series of missteps utterly destroyed his reputation and ministry,' he said. 'There were a few hangers-on to be sure, but by the time I got there 10 years later, the crowds of thousands were down to dozens.' While Swaggart's rise had been concurrent with the rise of the Moral Majority, the political organization founded by Falwell that helped elect Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and made the religious right a political force, politics was never his game. 'He was all about preaching and the music,' Schultze said. 'Sitting at the piano and doing an emotional hymn. None of the other TV evangelists could do that.' Contributing: Natalie Neysa Alund; Greg Hilburn, USAT Network
IOL News
01-07-2025
- General
- IOL News
Jimmy Swaggart, America's longest-running televangelist, dies at 90
Jimmy Swaggart, one of the most influential figures in American televangelism, has passed away at the age of 90, following a cardiac arrest last month. His family announced the news via a heartfelt post on Swaggart's official Facebook account on Tuesday. "For over seven decades, brother Swaggart poured out his life preaching the gospel, singing songs of the faith, and pointing millions to the saving power of Jesus Christ and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. His voice echoed through nations, his music softened hearts, and his message never changed: Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He was not just a preacher—he was a worshiper, a warrior, and a witness to the grace and mercy of God. He was a man whose faith was steadfast and always entered whatever door the Lord opened. And the Lord honored that faith," said his family. Born on March 15, 1935, in Ferriday, Louisiana, Swaggart began his ministry in the 1950s. His charismatic preaching style and passionate delivery quickly garnered a following, leading to the launch of 'The Jimmy Swaggart Telecast' in 1975, which reached millions of viewers worldwide. At the peak of his career, Swaggart's broadcasts were seen in over 100 countries, making him a household name and a potent force in the world of religious media. His influence extended beyond the pulpit, shaping the televangelism landscape and inspiring a new generation of ministers and church leaders.
USA Today
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart dies at 90, weeks after going into cardiac arrest
Famed teleevangelist Jimmy Swaggart died on Tuesday, July 1, according to an announcement on his Facebook page. He was 90. The Pentecostal preacher and pioneer of televangelism was in critical condition at a Louisiana hospital after going into cardiac arrest on June 15, family members said during a recent prayer service. Family of the late musician, author and broadcaster previously announced they had not expected him to survive. "I wish I could tell you that (he's) recovering and things are going better but there has been no change," his son Donnie Swaggart, co-pastor at Family Worship Center in Baton Rouge, said in a June 17 video released online after visiting his father in the hospital. "The bottom line is that without a miracle ... that's the only thing we can hope for." Swaggart's hospitalization Swaggart's 70-year-old son said his father was found about 8 a.m. at his home and revived before being taken to a local hospital. At the time of his death, he was co-pastor of the Family Worship Center, which he founded. Where was Jimmy Swaggart born? Swaggart was born on March 15, 1935 to the late Willie Leon and Minnie Belle Swaggart in Ferriday, Louisiana. He had one sister, the late Jeanette Ensminger, who family confirmed died in 1999. A prominent evangelist for decades, Swaggart grew up in Ferriday, a town in Concordia Parish which borders the Mississippi River on the central eastern border of Louisiana. According to Swaggart's family, his cousins included rock-and-roll icon Jerry Lee Lewis and country music star Mickey Gilley. Swaggart, who authored more than 100 books and commentaries, held evangelistic crusades in more than 40 countries, his family said, filling stadiums with tens of thousands of worshippers. As a musician, he sold 17 million gospel albums. More than 100 countries and a dozen languages Swaggart "faithfully attended small Assemblies of God churches in Ferriday and Wisner, Louisiana, where his passion for ministry first began to take root," according to family. His full-time ministry kicked off in 1955 and the preacher grew to become "one of the most recognized voices in Christian broadcasting," family reported. In 1969, he launched "The Campmeeting Hour," which aired on more than 700 U.S. stations and in 1973, "The Jimmy Swaggart Telecast" started, eventually growing to reach more than 100 countries each week, being translated into more than a dozen languages. During the height of his 1980s exposure, Swaggart became involved in various prostitution scandals leading to his suspension and defrocking. In 1988, Swaggart delivered his infamous "I have sinned" speech on live television. In 1995, at age 60, Swaggart founded SonLife Radio Network, expanding gospel programming across North America which currently broadcast to more than 300 million TV homes across the globe. In addition to his son and cousins, the preacher is survived by his wife of 70 years, Frances Swaggart. He also leaves behind his daughter-in-law, Debbie Swaggart; his grandchildren, Gabriel Lee Swaggart and his wife, Jill; Jennifer Swaggart Mullis and her husband, Cliff; and Matthew Aaron Swaggart and his wife, JoAnna. In addition, he leaves behind his nine great-grandchildren: Samantha, Ryder, Abby, Lola, Harper, Navy, Harrison, Caroline Frances and Mackenzie. Contributing: Fernando Cervantes Jr. Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@ and follow her on X @nataliealund.
