Baton Roose, La. (AP)-Teliyavannist Jimmy Swagart, who became a domestic name, has become a huge and multi-dal ministry only for prostitutes to undo a giant and multi-dollar ministry for prostitutes.
Once the huge audience declined, Swagart died and his name became a punchline on late night television. His death was announced on his public Facebook page on Tuesday. One reason was not given immediately, although at 90 he was in poor health.
Louisiana natives were known for being a large -scale panoramic pencostal preacher before being caught on camera with a prostitute in New Orleans in 1988, which was one of the successful TV campaigners brought in the 1980s and by sex scandals in the 90s. He continued to campaign for decades, but with fewer spectators.
Swagart surrounded his downfall in a tear -filled sermon of 1988, in which he cried and apologized, but did not give any reference to his relationship for the prostitute.
“I have sinned against you,” Swagart told the nationwide era. “I request you to forgive you.”
He later announced his resignation from God’s meetings that year, the church said that he was ordered for “moral failure” to reject the punishment. The church wanted him to undergo a two -year rehabilitation program, including not preaching for the whole year.
At that time, Swagart said that he knew that the dismissal was unavoidable, but insisted that he had no choice but to separate from the church to save his ministry and the Bible college.
From poverty and oil fields to domestic names
In a music-rich family, the son of a preacher, Swagart, became poor. He excelled in piano and gospel music, playing with talented cousins and songs, who took different ways: Rock-‘N-Roller Jerry Le Lewis And country singer Mickey Gilli,
He said that in his hometown Ferid, Louisiana, Swagart said that he first heard the call of God at the age of 8. The voice laughed at him and tricked his hair, he said.
In an 1985 interview with Jacksonville Journal-Coreer in Illinois, he said, “Everything seemed different after that day in front of the Arcade Theater.” “I felt better inside. Almost like to bathe.”
He worked partially in oil fields by the age of 23 and worked. He then went completely into his ministry: preaching, piano playing and God revival and camp meetings were singing gospel songs with cousin Lewis’s barrelhouse.
Swagart started a radio show, a magazine, and then went into television, with vocal ideas.
He called the Roman Catholic religion “a false religion. It is not a Christian method,” and claimed that the Jews faced “due to the rejection of Christ for thousands of years”.
“If you don’t like what I say, talk to my boss,” he once shouted because he entered his family’s puja center in front of his congregation in the boss, where his teachings went to speak in the tongue to the listeners and stood near the Holy Spirit.
Swagart’s messages shook thousands of circles and millions of TV audiences, giving them a domestic name by the end of the 1980s. The contributors made the Jimmy Swagart ministries in a business that earned an estimated $ 142 million in 1986.
His baton Roose Complex still includes a puja center and broadcast and recording facilities.
Swagart waste due to scams
Swagart collapsed in the late 1980s as other major campaigners faced similar scams. Swagart publicly stated that his earnings were hurt by scam around the sex scam in 1987. Rivivor Televil List Gym Bakr And a former church secretary in the PTL Ministry organization of Bakr.
The following year, Swagart was photographed with Debra Murphy in a hotel, a recruitment prostitute, who told reporters that both did not have sex, but the preacher paid him in a naked currency.
Later he repeated the claim – and naked – for the Penthouse magazine.
Monitoring photographs that cripping Swagart’s career clearly stems from his rivalry with preacher Marwin Gordeman, who was accused of sexual rape by Swagart. Gordeman hired the photographer who captured Swagart and Murffrey. Swagart later paid $ 1.8 million to Gordeman to prosecute sexual allegations against Gordeman.
There was more trouble in 1991, when the police in California detained Swagart along with another prostitute. The agelist was accused of driving the wrong part of the road and running an unregistered Jaguar. His partner, Rosemary Garcia said that when he saw a police car and when he tried to make the pornographic magazines under the car seat, Swagart was nervous.
Swagart was later joking by the late TV comic Phil Hartman, who put him on NBC’s “Saturday Knight Live”.
From the public point of view but still in the pulp
The Gymi remained out of this news to a large extent later in later years, but Jimmy remained in Pulpit in the Ministries, often joined his son, Doni, a fellow preacher. His radio station broadcast church services and gospel music in 21 states, and the Ministry of Swagart claimed audiences worldwide on the Internet.
Dony Swagart said, “There is no big example of a good and loyal servant than my father. Not about it, and not about it. Shared video message About his father’s last days on social media on Sunday.
In 2004, the preacher created another brief movement with a comment on “seen” by a gay person.
“And I am going to be blunt and plain: If someone ever sees me like this, I am going to kill him and tell God that he died,” Jimmy Swagart said, for laughter from the congregation. He later apologized.
Swagart performed some public demonstrations outside his church, Sev for the song “Amazing Grace” at the funeral of 2005 Louisiana Secretary State Fox McThane, a prominent name in state politics for decades.
In 2022, he shared memories Memorial service For Lewis, his cousin and rock ‘N’ roll pioneer. The pair released a gospel album “The Boys from Ferid” earlier that year.
The Associated Press