Jimmy Swaggart, who was one of the most popular televangelists of the 20th Century until sex scandals made him the butt of jokes, died July
Greg Evans at Deadline:
Jimmy Swaggart, one of the most popular televangelists of the 20th century until his tear-streaked televised confession to a sex scandal all but dashed his career and turned him into late-night comedy fodder, died this morning, July 1. He was 90. His death was announced by his SonLife Broadcasting Network. He had been hospitalized at the Baton Rouge General Medical Center after suffering a cardiac event two weeks ago.
[...] Swaggart’s strutting, sweaty, fire-and-brimstone style was a throwback to earlier eras of evangelism, a seeming rejection of the slicker, smiling approach popularized in the 1980s by fellow televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and Jerry Falwell. By the end of that decade Swaggart’s televised sermons — he sometimes was accused of being antisemitic and anti-Catholic, charges that Swaggart denied — had a global audience and were raking in more than $100 million a year in donations. The downfall came fast. After being photographed with a prostitute in a New Orleans-area motel (the photographer was the son of a preacher that Swaggart had accused of having extramarital affairs) and suspended by his church’s presbytery leadership, Swaggart appeared on live television on February 21, 1988, to deliver what would be an extraordinary confession. [...] Three years after his confession, on October 11, 1991, Swaggart was pulled over by a police officer in Indio, California for driving on the wrong side of the road. He was with a woman who self-identified as a prostitute. He temporarily stepped away from his ministry but soon would resume his work as pastor of his Family Worship Center in Baton Rouge. Although he never regained a platform as widespread as his 1980s peak, he would continue as pastor of his worship center until his death, sermonizing on radio, TV and on the web.
Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, who had two prostitution scandals that knocked him off his perch as a top-tier televangelist and even got his AoG ministerial license revoked during the late 80s and early 90s, died at 90.
Swaggart continued to preach until his death, but didn’t fully regain his crown as one of the top televangelists during his peak of influence in the 70s and most of the 80s.