jimmy swaggart

I've noticed that Jimmy Swaggart is back on TV in a big way. When I was growing up he was a big influence in our home. My parents bought his records, subscribed to his magazines, gave to his ministry, watched his TV shows, listened to him on the radio and put a lot of stock in his biblical teachings. I went to one of his crusades once when he was in Louisville back in the mid 1980s. Tens of thousands filled the same building the National Quartet Convention is held in today. He was a real celebrity preacher, and he wasn't compromising his strict message to be popular either. That was something he was very proud of - and being traditional Pentecostals so were we, his devoted followers.

Other than his later confessions, the only time I really remember the spiritual people closest to me having an issue with Jimmy Swaggart was when he mentioned during one of his television programs that God had appeared to him and told him that he was the ONLY man in the entire world who was preaching the real gospel. All the other preachers were simply wrong and misleading people into Hell. That presented a real issue for us. That meant we had to denounce everyone else including our own pastor and all of the great evangelists and missionaries we thought God had called. You can see our reasons for hesitation and concern. We didn't dwell on it long, certainly didn't take it too seriously, and Jimmy Swaggart remained an influencer in our Christian lives.

A lot of us were devastated in the late eighties when Brother Swaggart confessed that he had been hiring prostitutes. We were shell-shocked by it all. But we knew that God's ability to restore was just as potent as His ability to save. We also believed that big time, celebrity preachers deserved it as much as the most inconspicuous believer. Still do. I remember my dad saying that he was glad that Granny Bishop was not alive to be so disappointed. She had such tremendous trust in Jimmy's biblical wisdom and teaching.

It has been substantially noted and it's very well known that Rev. Swaggart was a tremendously jealous man when it came to the "ministry." He did not see fellow preachers as joint fighters for the Cause, especially the Pentecostal ones. To him, they were competition, and they had to be eliminated. He was quick to find and exploit their "sins." If he could discount their authenticity and erode their base of financial support, he would be left as the sole "full-gospel" TV preacher. The market would be his alone. He attacked everyone from Mother Teresa to Jim Bakker. He successfully exposed and destroyed most anyone who got in his way and declared himself the worthy judge, jury and jailer until the day his own stuff caught up with him.

He tried to keep things going. His denomination asked him to step aside and take some time to just focus on his own relationship with God without all of the pressures of public ministry. But to follow those suggestions would jeopardize the massive business and brand he'd developed and the huge campus he'd built down in Louisiana. So he made the decision to reject their plan of restoration and set out on his own. Not long after that he was found in the company of another prostitute, told all of us that it was none of our business, then pretty much disappeared, from our view anyway.

A few weeks ago I turned on the television and saw that familiar face again. He was still in his church sitting at the piano and singing just like I remembered from so long ago. It was sort of nostalgic. Nothing had changed. I could put on a thirty year old Jimmy Swaggart record and hear identical piano licks with that steady rhythm guitar and mellow mix of BGVs and organ. The ministry staff, who are mostly family, were sitting in the honored seats on the platform, away from the congregation. Although the choir is a lot smaller, they were wearing the robes I remember from years ago. The audience shots back then showed a lot more people, but the congregation is more sparse now, so they keep them tighter these days. The show starts with a long product pitch, has a cut in commercial somewhere in the middle and ends with another pitch and a plea for financial support. Not much has changed.

Another thing that hasn't seemed to change is the angry sense of pride and arrogance in their presentation. The whole Swaggart family is still as convinced as ever that they are God's one and only chosen vessel of truth. I've made it a point to watch and listen these past several weeks since I came across their Sunday morning TV show. They've railed with tremendous disrespect and pithiness against President Bush, the guys running for the office now, the Pope, African-Americans, Baptists, Methodists, Charismatics, Christian TV, a guy who converted a bar into a church, every denomination that has a name, and anyone who doesn't do ministry under the banner of or see things exactly like a Swaggart. And the tone is whiny and just hateful.

These days Jimmy Swaggart is known more as modern evangelical Christianity's most famous hypocrite than anything else. That's sad, because I really do believe that his ministry began with the goal of honoring God and loving people. Nowadays I don't think he's doing either.