Jimmy Swaggart’s rise and fall shaped the landscape of American televangelism
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(The Conversation) — Jimmy Swaggart, one of the most popular and enduring of the 1980s televangelists, died on July 1, 2025, but his legacy lives.
Along with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, he drew an audience in the millions, amassed a personal fortune and introduced a new generation of Americans to a potent mix of religion and politics.
Swaggart was an old-time evangelist whose focus was “saving souls.” But he also preached on conservative social issues, warning followers about the evils of abortion, homosexuality and godless communism.
Swaggart also denounced what he called “false cults,” including Catholicism, Judaism and Mormonism. In fact, his denunciations of other religions, as well as his attacks on rival preachers, made him a more polarizing figure than his politicized brethren.
As a reporter, I covered Swaggart in the 1980s. Now, as a scholar of American religion, I argue that while Swaggart did not build institutions like Falwell’s Moral Majority or Robertson’s 700 Club, he helped to spread right-wing positions on social issues, such as sexual orientation and abortion, and to shape the image of televangelists in popular culture.
Swaggart’s cousins
Born into a hardscrabble life in a small Louisiana town, Swaggart grew up alongside his cousins Jerry Lee Lewis, the future rockabilly pioneer, and future country singer Mickey Gilley.
All three loved music and singing. They polished their playing on an uncle’s piano and sneaked into African American nightclubs to hear the jazz and blues forbidden by their parents.
While Gilley and Lewis turned their musical talent into recording and performing careers, Swaggart felt called to the ministry. He dropped out of high school, married at 17, began preaching at 20 and was ordained at 26.
Content retrieved from: https://religionnews.com/2025/07/14/jimmy-swaggarts-rise-and-fall-shaped-the-landscape-of-american-televangelism/.
