an announcement<\/a> by Jimmy Swaggart Ministries. . He was 90.<\/b><\/p>\nMuch like his rock \u2019n\u2019 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think Miller Lite is going to carry you home, you\u2019re wrong,\u201d he howled during one service in his native Louisiana. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think the president is going to carry you home, you\u2019re wrong,\u201d he said, pausing, and then gently adding: \u201cIt\u2019s Jesus Christ, that\u2019s your savior.\u201d<\/p>\n
His brand of populist hellfire played well in the U.S. and beyond in the 1980s when \u201cThe Jimmy Swaggart Telecast\u201d reached nearly 2 million viewers a week on 500 stations and his monthly magazine, the Evangelist, was shipped to more than 800,000 households.<\/p>\n
His gospel albums sold millions, and when he hit the road, his followers would pour in by the thousands. Dan Rather once called him \u201cthe most effective speaker in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI really don\u2019t look at it as success or lack of success,\u201d Swaggart told the Associated Press in 1985. \u201cIt\u2019s just mostly the Lord. I feel he wants me to do what I\u2019m doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019s likely that every soul there knew Swaggart, Lewis and their other cousin Mickey Gilley. The Ferriday Three, town folk called them.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
\u201cI felt better inside,\u201d Swaggart said years later. \u201cAlmost like taking a bath continuously.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
But if Lewis\u2019 ascent was explosive as he rocketed to fame with \u201cGreat Balls of Fire\u201d and \u201cWhole Lotta Shakin\u2019 Going On,\u201d Swaggart did the Lord\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Finally, Lewis bought his cousin a beat-up Plymouth and loaned Swaggart his backup musicians and studio time to record a gospel album.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cCamp Meeting Hour\u201d radio show, a blend of gospel, dire warnings and road maps to redemption. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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, Francis, and himself; the assembly hall that sat 1,000; the Bible college; the immaculately tended gardens; and the 28 relatives on the payroll.<\/p>\n
But the higher the ascent, the greater the fall. And for the Ferriday Three, there was to be a day of reckoning.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
He also seemed to have a tight relationship with death. A son drowned in a swimming pool, another 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s. Shuttered, the place burned to the ground in 1990 in a fire that authorities determined was arson.<\/p>\n
Swaggart\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Swaggart\u2019s downfall, however, was born from a religious war of sorts that erupted in the 1980s between three pop-star evangelists \u2014 Bakker, then soaring high with \u201cThe PTL Club,\u201d New Orleans preacher Marvin Gorman and Swaggart himself. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s wife. It was enough to get Gorman tossed from the Assemblies of God.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s revenge, though, was not yet complete.<\/p>\n
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 then took photos of the preacher checking into a room with a prostitute.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
On a bright Baton Rouge morning in 1988, Swaggart bounded up the steps of his worship center and \u2014 as thousands gazed on \u2014 spoke vaguely about his \u201ctrying time,\u201d his \u201cburden\u201d and his struggles with \u201cSatan\u201d. <\/p>\n
When a women in the pews called out, \u201cDo you want some money?\u201d Swaggart smiled broadly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sure do.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
This time, rather than face parishioners, Swaggart stepped down as head of his ministry in order \u201cto reflect.\u201d His son Donnie took over Sunday services.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Lord told me it\u2019s flat none of your business,\u201d he said during one prayer service.<\/p>\n
Swaggart is survived by his wife, son, three grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. <\/p>\n
Times Staff Writer Grace Toohey contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As he barnstormed across America, Jimmy Swaggart would prowl the stage like a born-again Mick Jagger, all swagger…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":30301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,25849,25853,25846,25850,25848,25844,2961,17725,25851,224,5337,25847,24987,8763,25852,25845,18913,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-30300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-ferriday","11":"tag-god-denomination","12":"tag-gorman","13":"tag-gospel-album","14":"tag-jim-bakker","15":"tag-jimmy-swaggart","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-lewis","18":"tag-lord","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-losangeles","21":"tag-ministry","22":"tag-preacher","23":"tag-son","24":"tag-success","25":"tag-swaggart","26":"tag-wife","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114778936636421697","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}