American televangelist Jimmy Swaggart dies at 90

A popular United States of America televangelist, Jimmy Swaggart, has died at the age of 90 after a brief illness, his family announced in a post on his verified Instagram page on Tuesday.

According to the statement, the family described him as a preacher who poured his life into the gospel and led many to Christ.

“Today, our hearts are heavy as we share that Brother Swaggart has finished his earthly race and entered into the presence of His Saviour, Jesus Christ. Today was the day he had sung about for decades.

“He met his beloved Saviour and entered the portals of glory. At the same time, we rejoice knowing that we will see him again one day,” the statement said.

Speaking on the ministry, the family said, “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.”

Swaggart, who owns a multi-million-dollar ministry and a huge audience, was born in 1935 into a poor music-enthusiast family in Ferriday, Louisiana, USA.

The Louisiana native was best known for being a captivating Pentecostal preacher with a massive following before he was rocked in a scandal of being caught on camera with a prostitute in New Orleans in 1988, an incident that signified one of a string of successful TV preachers brought down in the 1980s and ’90s by sex scandals.

Following the scandal, he continued preaching for decades, but with a reduced audience.

According to the Associated Press, Swaggart encapsulated his downfall in a tearful 1988 sermon, in which he wept and apologised but made no reference to his connection to a prostitute.

“I have sinned against you,” Swaggart told parishioners nationwide. “I beg you to forgive me.”

He announced his resignation from the Assemblies of God later that year, shortly after the church said it was defrocking him for rejecting punishment it had ordered for “moral failure.”

The church had wanted him to undergo a two-year rehabilitation programme, including not preaching for a full year.

Swaggart said at the time that he knew dismissal was inevitable but insisted he had no choice but to separate from the church to save his ministry and Bible college.

Rise to stardom

Born on March 15, 1935, in Ferriday, Louisiana, Swaggart grew up poor as the son of a preacher, in a music-rich family.

He excelled at piano and gospel music, playing and singing with talented cousins who took different paths: rock-’n’-roller Jerry Lee Lewis and country singer Mickey Gilley.

Swaggart said he first heard the call of God at age eight in his hometown, adding that the voice gave him goosebumps and made his hair tingle.

“Everything seemed different after that day in front of the Arcade Theatre,” he said in a 1985 interview with the Jacksonville Journal-Courier in Illinois. “I felt better inside. Almost like taking a bath.”

He preached and worked part-time in oil fields until he was 23. He then moved entirely into his ministry: preaching, playing piano, and singing gospel songs with the barrelhouse fervour of Cousin Lewis at Assemblies of God revivals and camp meetings.

Swaggart started a radio show, and a magazine, and then moved into television, with outspoken views.

He was a vocal voice against Roman Catholicism, describing it as “a false religion. It is not the Christian way,” and claimed that Jews suffered for thousands of years because they rejected Christ.

“If you don’t like what I say, talk to my boss,” he once shouted as he strode in front of his congregation at his Family Worship Centre in Baton Rouge, where his sermons moved listeners to speak in tongues and stand up as if possessed by the Holy Spirit, according to AP.

Swaggart’s messages stirred thousands of congregants and millions of TV viewers, making him a household name by the late 1980s.

Contributors built Jimmy Swaggart Ministries into a business that made an estimated $142m in 1986.

His Baton Rouge complex still includes a worship centre and broadcasting and recording facilities.

The scandals

Swaggart’s downfall came in the late 1980s as other prominent preachers faced similar scandals. Swaggart said publicly that his earnings were hurt in 1987 by the sex scandal surrounding rival televangelist Jim Bakker and a former church secretary at Bakker’s PTL ministry organisation.

The following year, Swaggart was photographed at a hotel with Debra Murphree, an admitted prostitute who told reporters that the two did not have sex but that the preacher had paid her to pose nude.

She later repeated the claim and posed nude for Penthouse magazine.

The surveillance photos that crippled Swaggart’s career stemmed from his rivalry with preacher Marvin Gorman, whom Swaggart had accused of sexual misdeeds.

Gorman hired the photographer who captured Swaggart and Murphree on film.

Swaggart later paid Gorman $1.8m to settle a lawsuit over the sexual allegations against Gorman.

More trouble came in 1991 when police in California detained Swaggart with another prostitute.

The evangelist was charged with driving on the wrong side of the road and driving an unregistered Jaguar.

His companion, Rosemary Garcia, said Swaggart became nervous when he saw the police car and weaved when he tried to stuff pornographic magazines under a car seat.

Swaggart was later mocked by the late TV comic Phil Hartman, who impersonated him on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”

Out of the public eye but still in the pulpit

The evangelist largely stayed out of the news in later years but remained in the pulpit at Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, often joined by his son, Donnie, a fellow preacher.

His radio station broadcast church services and gospel music to 21 states, and Swaggart’s ministry boasted a worldwide audience on the internet.

The preacher caused another brief stir in 2004 with remarks about being “looked at” amorously by a gay man.

“And I’m going to be blunt and plain: If one ever looks at me like that, I’m going to kill him and tell God he died,” Swaggart said, to laughter from the congregation. He later apologised.

Swaggart made a public appearance outside his church when he sang “Amazing Grace” at the 2005 funeral of Louisiana Secretary of State Fox McKeithen, a prominent name in state politics for decades.

In 2022, he shared memories at the memorial service for Lewis, his cousin and rock ‘n’ roll pioneer. The pair had released “The Boys From Ferriday,” a gospel album, earlier that year.