Jimmy Swaggart leads local pentecostal mega-church Family Worship Center to international fame.
Erin Chambers
“Dad took a .45 caliber gun to his head,” visiting preacher Johnny Lee Clary told a Family Worship Center congregation Sunday evening. “I witnessed that when I was 11.”
Clary said his mother’s alcoholism and cheating led his father, a “washed-up country singer,” to commit suicide. In the aftermath of this trauma, Clary dropped out of high school. But he eventually followed in the footsteps of his hero Jimmy Swaggart and pursued a religious, pentecostal path. Clary counts Swaggart among his role models — a list which also includes Jesus, John Wayne and Ronald Reagan.
“I had no idea I’d be in the pulpit with this man,” Clary said. “I have looked up to him even before I got saved.”
But Swaggart isn’t just an ordinary man of God — he’s inspired a monumental media movement. From print products to broadcast programming to educational institutions, his reach is ever expanding.
According to the Jimmy Swaggart Ministries website, live and taped Christian programming, including Family Worship Center services, are broadcast across the globe via Swaggart’sSonLife Broadcasting Network. SBN, the website boasts, broadcasts “nationwide on over 78 stations and around the world via the Internet.”
“From all over the world they tape it and view it at their convenience,” Swaggart said. He acknowledged that his influence reaches “worldwide in scope.”
Along with audiovisual productions, JSM also publishes The Expositor’s Study Bible, 12 study guides, 28 Biblical commentaries and the monthly magazine “The Evangelist.” The JSM complex, located on World Ministry Avenue just off of Bluebonnet, also houses multiple production buildings and educational facilities including Family Christian Academy, a private primary school and preschool, and World Evangelism Bible College.
JSM is a family affair — Swaggart’s wife Frances, son Donnie and grandson Gabriel are involved in his ministry. Gabriel leads the Crossfire Youth Ministries, Donnie preaches and Frances hosts a SonLife radio program.
Clary expressed great respect for the Swaggart family. He said it’s “no wonder” that Jimmy Swaggart’s relatives have been successful “because they’re a product of that man there.”
Clary also called Swaggart’s international media church base, Baton Rouge’s Family Worship Center, “the number one church in the world.”
Swaggart himself couldn’t help but agree.
“This effort that we’re making here is the single most important effort in the entire world,” Swaggart said during the FWC Sunday service. “You have an opportunity today to be a part of something a million times more important than you can imagine.”
FWC is an inter-denominational, multicultural, gospel church. Swaggart’s musical background and informal, conversational preaching style render worldwide audiences transfixed.
David Borg, World Evangelism Bible College professor and Family Worship Center pastoral staff preacher, said the congregation often becomes filled with the Holy Spirit and members frequently respond to sermons with shouts of amen and hallelujah. Individuals in the crowd can also be seen crying and lifting their hands toward the heavens throughout FWC meetings.
“Most pentecostal preachers are emotional, exuberant, powerful preachers,” Borg said.
Swaggart definitely fits the bill. Peppered with jokes about LSU football, politics, cell phones, his granddaughter’s antics and his wife’s nagging, his services are wildly entertaining and riotously funny. For the charismatic pastor, spreading the Good News also involves controversial worship methods like speaking in tongues, banishing demonic influence and faith healing.
“This is Family Worship Center,” Swaggart said. “Old fashioned, true blue, hot, indoor Jesus loving. There’s no telling what’s gonna happen here this morning.”
OTHER TONGUES
Borg said pentecostal churches are separated from other Christian denominations by the uncommon practice of speaking in tongues.
“Most of the church world doesn’t believe in that,” Swaggart said. “If you hang around this church long enough, you’ll get used to it.”
Borg agreed that pentecostal services often evoke excessive emotion and passionate outbursts in church members. He said the urge to speak in tongues is the natural “outflow of a spirit-filled life” and helps individuals express their experience of the Holy Spirit’s power.
“Not a day goes by when I don’t speak with other tongues,” Swaggart said. “It just flows through me.”
DEMONIC INFLUENCE
Swaggart said he firmly believes that God “pulled away the veil” many years ago and saved his soul from damnation.
“Since that glad day, since the Lord helped me to see the cross,” Swaggart said, “I have not experienced one moment of demonic oppression.”
Swaggart sees a distinction between demonic possession and oppression. Evil spirits inside a person cause demonic possession, a type of insanity no child of God can suffer. But all men are susceptible to demonic oppression, the influence of external forces.
According to Swaggart, demonic oppression causes emotional disturbance, illness and nervous disorders. Oppression creates “a constant seething anger that makes life miserable.”
Luckily, he said, Jesus heals all who are sick and weary.
“Your answer is not psychological therapy,” Swaggart cried. “It’s the holy cross!”
FAITH HEALING
“Many of you could be in the grave today, but you changed your lives and came to Jesus,” Swaggart said Sunday, shortly before inviting those who wished to experience faith healing to approach the podium.
Daniel O’Dell, a Family Worship Center usher, said he suffered a serious spinal injury but was healed. He believes a notch in his bones previously visible in x-rays disappeared due to Swaggart’s intervention.
Clary also believes in miracles.
“My Jesus is a healing Jesus,” Clary said. “He made the crippled walk. He made the blind see. He even rose people from the dead.”
Faithful church members both young and old approached the stage at Swaggart’s prompting. Elderly men and women in wheelchairs and walkers slowly descended the aisles. A shriveled African-American woman clutching a red, heart-shaped, “cardiac recovery patient” pillow covered in signatures was led toward Swaggart by multiple family members.
“If the devil could have killed you he would have done it a long time ago,” Swaggart cried. “You got an angel watching over you. He can’t do it! He can’t do it!”
Ushers directed the flow of traffic to crowd around the pastor, who stood praying with his head bowed.
“Father, touch this little lady. I ask you to touch her, strengthen her, in the name of Jesus,” Swaggart said, laying his hands on members of his congregation. “May healing and delivering power flow into [her] heart. In the name of Jesus be healed and be delivered.”
Clary and many others are convinced of Swaggart’s sincerity and ability to authentically channel God’s power.
Clary, who said he recently returned to Baton Rouge after an extended stay in Australia, saw many examples of what he considers phony mega churches overseas. He lamented the replacement of preachers with motivational speakers and the trend of replacing historically accurate biblical translations with supposedly reader-friendly, purpose-driven, message Bibles.
“I have seen the smoke and lights,” Clary said. “We need to stick to the Word.”
Despite Jimmy Swaggart Ministries’ size and scope, he feels Family Worship Center appeals to a diverse audience while still remaining true to the fundamentals of Christianity and the mission of spreading the gospel truth. Clary continues to put his faith in his traditional pentecostal pastor-turned-hero.
According to Clary, we’re all headed to one of two places — heaven or the lake of fire, the smoking or the nonsmoking section. And Swaggart can lead sinners toward God.
“This man has the best record for winning souls,” Clary said. “He is the greatest preacher the world has ever known.”
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