The country rightly deserved God’s judgment, Swaggart assured his audience with fury. The Reagan-era televangelist was ‘tapping some powerful resentments here he is speaking to the disenfranchised’. A reporter at the New York Times took note. Americans had lost interest in the Bible, he warned with deadly seriousness. With his southern drawl, he thundered against Hollywood celebrities, evolutionary scientists, communists, homosexuals, Catholics, feminists, secular liberals and other ‘enemies’ of the faith. Like many other Pentecostal preachers – who were moving into politics at a rapid rate – Swaggart believed that the Holy Ghost emboldened him to witness the arrow-straight truths of the Bible. Some stations even took him off the air for his religious and cultural bigotry. Critics reviled his holier-than-thou pulpit posturing and his bellicosity.
He had honed a brash, bold, loud style of preaching that made him a revered figure, both in the context of the Assemblies of God – a group of affiliated churches that formed the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination – and in the broader world of evangelicalism. At its peak, his ministry was taking in over one million dollars a week. His popular crusades and regular services appeared on television sets across the United States and around the world. In 2010, Jimmy Swaggart Ministries launched its own cable channel, SonLife Broadcasting Network, which airs 24 hours a day to a potential viewing audience of more than 1 billion people around the globe.īrother Swaggart also pastors Family Worship Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the church home and headquarters of Jimmy Swaggart Ministries.The television preacher Jimmy Swaggart became a Christian megastar in the 1980s broadcasting from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For nearly six decades, Brother Swaggart has channeled his preaching and music ministry through multiple media venues including print, radio, television, and the Internet. Jimmy Swaggart is a Pentecostal evangelist whose anointed preaching and teaching has drawn multitudes to the Cross of Christ since 1956.Īs an award-winning musician and singer, Brother Swaggart has recorded more than 50 Gospel albums and sold nearly 16 million recordings worldwide. Today, the SonLife Broadcasting Network has a potential viewing audience of more than 1 billion people around the globe.
SBN programming includes the live broadcasts of the Sunday and Wednesday services, Frances & Friends, The Message of the Cross, A Study In The Word, and Generation of the Cross, hosted by grandson, Pastor Gabriel Swaggart. All programming generates from the ministry’s headquarters in Baton Rouge, Louisiana-also home to Family Worship Center, a 7,000-seat church, pastored by Jimmy Swaggart and his son, Donnie. In 2010, Jimmy Swaggart Ministries started the SonLife Broadcasting Network (SBN) which plays Christian programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As an award-winning musician and singer, Brother Swaggart has recorded more than 50 gospel albums and sold nearly 16 million recordings worldwide.Īs an author, Brother Swaggart has written more than 50 books, commentaries, study guides, and The Expositor’s Study Bible, which has sold more than 1.5 million copies. Music and worship remain an integral part of Brother Swaggart’s ministry. The result of their faithfulness to the Great Commission and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ is a worldwide ministry that uses every major communication venue-print, radio, television, and the Internet-to share the gospel message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified with people around the world. Jimmy and Frances Swaggart started in evangelistic work 60 years ago, preaching and teaching the uncompromised Word of God.