Jimmy Swaggart Totally Explained

Everything about Jimmy Swaggart totally explained

Jimmy Lee Swaggart (born March 15, 1935 in Ferriday, Louisiana) is a Pentecostal preacher and pioneer of televangelism who reached the height of his popularity in the 1980s. Swaggart is first cousin to recording artists Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley. The sons of three sisters, all of them share the same middle name and play the piano. All were born within a year of one another.

Early life and early ministry

Jimmy Swaggart's parents, Sun and Minnie Belle, had been fundamentalist Baptists. His father was a deacon in their small fundamentalist church. They became Pentecostal in 1943 while Jimmy began to preach on street corners and lead congregations in singing at age nine. In 1952, at age seventeen, he married Frances Anderson. They have one son, Donnie, who has also become a minister. In 1958, Swaggart became a full-time traveling preacher and began developing a substantial revival-meeting following throughout the south. He became a licensed minister in the Assemblies of God in 1959. In 1960, Swaggart began recording gospel music record albums while he was building another audience via Christian-themed radio stations. In 1961, after attending bible college, he was ordained with the Assemblies of God. By 1969, his radio program, “The Camp Meeting Hour,” was being aired over numerous radio stations throughout the American Bible Belt. He also founded a church called Family Worship Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which was also under the Assemblies of God. He also began airing a weekly 30 minute telecast over various local television stations in that city. He also purchased a local AM radio station.

Ordination and a new focus

In the 1970s, his radio ministry grew and he purchased a couple other stations. His television ministry gradually grew to more stations as well by 1975. It was at this time that Swaggart decided to use television as his primary preaching medium. He also began to preach to large audiences by traveling around the southern region of the Unites States. In 1978, his weekly telecast was expanded to an hour. In 1980, he began a daily weekday telecast. His weekday telecast featured Bible study and some music. His weekend hour long telecast was either a sermon from Family Worship Center or from a traveling crusade. In the early 1980s, he expanded his crusades nationwide, visiting major cities. By 1983, he'd become the most popular television preacher in the United States. Upwards of 250 television stations broadcast his program; “The Jimmy Swaggart Telecast” was regularly watched by two-million households. Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, at this time headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, grew from a small local congregation of 100 people in the 1970s at the Family Worship Center to more than four-thousand members, a printing and mailing production plant, a television production facility, a recording studio, and later a Bible college in 1984. The college had been formerly named Jimmy Swaggart Bible College ("JSBC"). Presently, it's renamed as the World Evangelism Bible College & Seminary. The Seminary opened in the fall of 1983.
While the Assemblies of God is conservative, Jimmy Swaggart was by far one of their most conservative ministers. While the church endorsed (and still does) Contemporary Christian Music, fellowshipping with mainline branches of Christianity (even Catholicism to some extent), Christian Psychology, and going to public motion pictures, Jimmy Swaggart shunned such practices. At one point he even said his own sometimes turned against him. On more than a few occasions he even stated that there were some Assembly Of God Churches that he'd never send anyone to. He was critical of Billy Graham because of his willingness to fellowship with Catholics. While Jimmy Swaggart has great disdain for Roman Catholicism, he stops short of calling them a cult in league with the Mormons, for example. Musically, Jimmy Swaggart records and plays Southern Gospel music. He also embraces Black Gospel and Inspirational music. Swaggart also is opposed to the health and wealth gospel while still accepting signs and wonders.

Controversy and criticism

Sex scandals

In 1986, Swaggart exposed fellow Assemblies of God minister Marvin Gorman, who was having an affair with one of his parishioners. Some said this was done out of fear that Gorman was taking away from Swaggart's audience and donations. Gorman was based out of New Orleans and was adding stations throughout the southern region and was beginning to add stations on the west coast and the northeast. Gorman was also in the planning stages for a weekday telecast. Once exposed, Gorman was defrocked form the Assemblies of God and his ministry all but ended.
   The following year, Swaggart exposed fellow Assemblies Of God televangelist Jim Bakker's sexual indiscretions and appeared on the Larry King Show, stating that Bakker was a "cancer in the body of Christ." He and similar-minded (in terms of Biblical morality and lifestyle but different in terms of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and unconditional eternal security) Baptist evangelist Jerry Fawell investigated Jim Bakker and eventually discovered his indiscretions. In 1987, Jim Bakker's ministry was falling apart as a result.
   As a retaliatory move, Marvin Gorman hired a private-detective to follow Swaggart. The detective found Swaggart in a Louisiana motel on Airline Highway with a prostitute, Debra Murphree, and took pictures of the tryst. Gorman presented Swaggart with the photos in a blackmail attempt to force Swaggart to come clean, but Swaggart refused. Gorman then presented the pictures to the presbytery leadership of the Assemblies of God, which decided that Swaggart should be suspended from broadcasting his television program for three months. This fact was heavily satirized by musician Frank Zappa in his theme "Louisiana Hooker with Herpes".
   On February 21, 1988, without giving the details of his transgressions, Swaggart tearfully spoke to his family, congregation, and audience, saying, "I have sinned against you, my Lord, and I'd ask that your precious blood would wash and cleanse every stain until it's in the seas of God's forgiveness." On a New Orleans morning news show four days later, Murphree stated that while Swaggart was a regular customer, they'd never engaged in intercourse.
Against the ruling of the governing body of the Assemblies of God, Swaggart returned to his television pulpit long before his three-month suspension expired. He stated, "If I don't return to the pulpit this weekend, millions of people will go to hell." Believing that Swaggart wasn't genuinely repentant in not submitting to their authority, the Assemblies of God immediately defrocked Swaggart, removing his credentials and ministerial license.
   On October 11, 1991, Swaggart was found in the company of another prostitute, Rosemary Garcia, when he was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol in Indio, California, for driving on the wrong side of the street. According to Garcia, Swaggart stopped to proposition her on the side of the road. When the patrolman asked Garcia why she was with Swaggart, she replied, "He asked me for sex. I mean, that's why he stopped me. That's what I do. I'm a prostitute." Rather than confessing to his congregation, Swaggart told his flock this time that "The Lord told me it's flat none of your business." His son Donnie then announced to the stunned audience that his father would be temporarily stepping down as head of Jimmy Swaggart Ministries for "a time of healing and counseling."

The Ozzy Osbourne Conflict

Prior to the prostitute controversy, Jimmy Swaggart was a heavy opponent to heavy metal legend Ozzy Osbourne

, who released the infamous song "Suicide Solution" in 1980. Castigating Osbourne vehemently, Swaggart christened Osbourne as a satanist who ordered teenagers to accept Lucifer as their savior and/or to commit suicide. Following Jimmy's newfound dilemmas, Ozzy decided to retaliate. On October 22nd, 1988 Ozzy Osbourne released the album No Rest for the Wicked

. The first song and single from the album is entitled "Miracle Man" (see the music video here

. "Miracle Man" was nothing short of a slap-in-the-face to Jimmy's tarnished image. The music video was shot in a cross between a church and a pig sty while Ozzy opens the video wearing a "Jimmy Swaggart" mask, mocking his public plea for forgiveness. The lyrics hint to real anecdotes in the fiasco: Jimmy "got busted" "with his pants down" and after, he went "on TV cryin'" confessing to his sins. The song, which refers to Jimmy throughout as "Jimmy Sinner," ends with the repetitious line, "Miracle Man got busted," a fitting conclusion to the perceived hypocrisy that was Jimmy Swaggart's life.

Criticism of Christian rock and metal

Swaggart wrote a book criticizing the Christian rock and metal movements entitled Religious Rock n' Roll – A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing in 1987. The book criticized the scene for using heavy metal music to preach the gospel of Christianity, calling rock music the music of the devil. Ironically, it was Swaggart that helped convert Michael Sweet and Robert Sweet, two of the founding members of the band Stryper. Also criticized by Swaggart is Larry Norman (the "father of Christian rock"), Petra, and other notable Christian rock and metal bands.
In 1986, Swaggart called rock music "the new pornography." That comment has been cited as the inspiration for the naming of the Canadian indie-rock band the New Pornographers, but frontman Carl Newman claims not to have heard the quote until after having named the band.

Print and recorded media

Swaggart is the on-record author of several Christian works offered through his ministry, as well as an autobiography To Cross a River and a personal account of the 1988 scandal The Cup Which My Father Hath Given Me: A Biblical Revelation of Personal Spiritual Warfare.
He has also sold over 15 million Gospel albums.

Current ministry

A world-wide multi-million-dollar ministry, Jimmy Swaggart Ministries today mainly comprises The Jimmy Swaggart Telecast, radio and television programs called A Study in the Word, (SonLife Radio Network),, and a website, JSM.org. Jimmy's wife, Frances (very much behind the scene); and son, Donnie, control the ministry's preaching and leadership. Jimmy's grandson, Gabriel, is a preacher, and leads the Family Worship Center youth ministry, "Crossfire". Sonlife radio is heard in 22 states

In popular culture

One of the most famous samples in industrial music is Swaggart thundering "No sex until marriage!", as heard on the Front 242 track "Welcome to Paradise" -- released, ironically, in 1988, the year his first sex scandal broke.

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