Jimmy Swaggart, the televangelist who died Tuesday at age 90, saw his stature diminished by a sex scandal in the 1980s but remained a force on the religious right. He was noted for antigay, anti-Catholic, and anti-Semitic statements, and had a close relationship with Donald Trump.
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The rise and fall of Jimmy Swaggart
Swaggart was born in Ferriday, Louisiana, in 1935. He started his religious career with revival meetings in the South in the 1950s and ’60s, then became a radio preacher. He established the Family Worship Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the 1960s, and started his television ministry in 1975, according to various media outlets. He was affiliated with the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal Christian denomination. It teaches that salvation is possible only through Jesus Christ and that believers can have the gift of speaking in tongues — unknown languages.
“At its peak in the mid-1980s, Jimmy Swaggart Worldwide Ministries had a television presence in more than 140 countries and, along with its Bible college, took in up to half a million dollars a day from donations and sales of Bible courses, gospel music and merchandise,” The New York Times reports. Swaggart had an emotional style of preaching that electrified his congregants. He also recorded gospel albums and wrote books.
In October 1987, however, Swaggart was photographed outside a New Orleans motel with a female sex worker. The woman later said she had several sexual encounters with Swaggart, but they did not have intercourse.
Swaggart apologized to his wife, Frances, and followers in a televised sermon in February 1988. “I have sinned against you, my Lord, and I would ask that your precious blood would wash and cleanse every stain,” he said. This came after he had criticized two other prominent Assemblies of God ministers, Jim Bakker and Marvin Gorman, for their involvement in illicit affairs.
He was suspended and eventually defrocked by the Assemblies of God, but he continued to preach without a denominational affiliation. His influence was diminished, however.
He was less contrite after he was caught with a female sex worker and pornographic magazines in his car during a traffic stop in Indio, California, in 1991. “The Lord told me it’s flat none of your business,” he told attendees at the Family Worship Center.
He then gave his son, Donnie Swaggart, control of his ministries, but he still preached. In 1995, he founded the SonLife Radio Network, then the SonLife Broadcasting Network, including television, in 2009.
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Prejudices and politics
Swaggart was not as prominent an anti-LGBTQ+ figure as his contemporaries Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell Sr., but his views were clear. In a 2004 broadcast, he asserted his opposition to marriage rights for same-sex couples by saying, “I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry.”
He continued, “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.” That led to a complaint to a Canadian broadcaster and an apology of sorts from Swaggart.
Talking about killing someone and telling God he died is “a humorous statement that doesn’t mean anything. You can’t lie to God — it’s ridiculous,” he told the Associated Press. “If it’s an insult, I certainly didn’t think it was, but if they are offended, then I certainly offer an apology.”
A post on the Jimmy Swaggart Ministries website shortly before last year’s presidential election condemned “same-sex marriage, transgenderism, human trafficking, drug trafficking,” abortion, and socialism. The post implored Christians to vote but did not say who to vote for. It’s not clear if it was written by Swaggart, his son, or someone else.
Also leading up to the election, Donnie Swaggart denounced Black ministers who endorsed Kamala Harris. “When the largest African American Pentecostal leader, when that leader stands up and said I endorse that woman, he was saying I endorse murder, I endorse homosexuality, I endorse lesbianism, I endorse transgenderism, I endorse every evil,” he said in a sermon, referring to John Drew Sheard, the presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ, according to Louisiana TV station WBRZ. That led to backlash from Black religious leaders. Donnie Swaggart also said he and his father attended an event with Donald Trump before the election.
In a Truth Social post Tuesday, Trump called Jimmy Swaggart “an incredible Man of Faith” who “inspired millions with his Great Love of God and Country.”
Jimmy Swaggart had other prejudices. He called Judaism, Catholicism, and Mormonism “false cults,” and he said Christian Science was “neither ‘Christian’ nor ‘scientific.’” He also said the suffering of Jewish people was due to “their rejection of Christ.”
Swaggart was a first cousin of two music stars — rock-and-roller Jerry Lee Lewis and country musician Mickey Gilley. He said he prayed for the salvation of Lewis, who married a 13-year-old cousin and engaged in numerous sexual affairs. Toward the end of his life, Lewis recorded a gospel album with Swaggart, and the minister preached at Lewis’s funeral in 2022.
Swaggart had been hospitalized since going into cardiac arrest June 15.
Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart preaching, circa 1980Thomas S. England/Getty Images
Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart preaching, circa 1980Thomas S. England/Getty Images
