saved by Swaggart

Jimmy Lee Swaggart was born in 1935 in Ferriday, Louisiana.  He is a cousin of rock

pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis and country singer Mickey Gilley.  The musical DNA in his

family served him well. He’s won numerous honours for his gospel records, including

two Grammy nominations.

 

In the 70’s he became a televangelist.  In 1984, he founded what is now the World

Evangelism Bible College.  Swaggart has written many books.  One of them revealed

that rock  and roll is the music of the devil.

 

This might have concerned kinfolk Jerry Lee, but he was busy marrying seven times.

His third wife, Myra Gale Brown, was his 13-year-old first cousin once removed.

 

Swaggart upped the ante in 1986, when he called rock music “the new pornography”.

 

Two years later, however, Jimmy Lee put his own imprint on the sex trade.  He had

exposed a rival preacher, Marvin Gorman, for allegedly having several affairs.  Gorman

was defrocked.  In retaliation, he had his son Randy and his son-in-law Garland Bilbo

stake out a motel in New Orleans he suspected Swaggart frequented.

 

When Swaggart arrived, Randy and Garland took a photo of him with a hooker, Debra

Murphee.  Then they let the air out his tires and called the recently-Reverend Gorman.

He confronted Swaggart and demanded that he publicly apologize to him and help him

be reinstated in the church.

 

Swaggart failed to do so.  About a year later, Gorman contacted the Executive Presbytery

of the Assemblies of God.  Members were shown several photos of men coming out of a

room at the motel.  Swaggart was one of them.  His TV program was suspended for three

months.  Eventually he was defrocked.

 

A few days after his initial suspension, he appeared on his show with a tearful but non-

specific confession to his transgressions.  He asked God that “Your Precious Blood would

wash and cleanse every stain until it is the seas of God’s forgiveness, not to be remembered

against me anymore.”

 

We’ll likely never get any more details.  Murphee said she only posed for Swaggart.  They

never had intercourse.  But she also failed a polygraph test required to be paid $100,000

to sell her story to the National Enquirer.

 

It got more specific in 1991.  A California Highway patrolman in Indio stopped Swaggart

to inquire as to why he was stopped on the wrong side of the road.  Rosemary Garcia, a

hooker with Swaggart, explained “He asked me for sex.  I mean, that’s why he stopped me.

That’s what I do.  I’m a prostitute.”

 

Swaggart was less forthcoming.  He informed his congregation that “The Lord told me it’s

flat none of your business.”  He then stepped down “for a time of healing and counseling”.

 

On a personal note, I can share that I was once saved by Swaggart.  I was moving from

L.A. to Kansas in late March of 1988, just after the first scandal.  My daughter and I got

caught in a snowstorm on I-40 near Santa Rosa, New Mexico.

 

We had to pull into an abandoned gas station just off the Interstate.  Fortunately, I had all

my clothes hanging in the back seat.  We were able to adequately insulate ourselves.  I

awoke to a National Guardsman rapping on the windshield the next morning.

 

It was a Sergeant Swaggart, asking if we were okay.  The storm had blown snow under the

hood of my car, befouling the electrical system.  It wouldn’t start.  The good sergeant gave

us a lift to Santa Rosa, where we got the last motel room.

 

We stayed there overnight and well into the next day.  I had to get the car towed and

repaired, and it took quite awhile to clear the roads and gridlock.  I spent the down time

watching TV and chuckling about the coincidence.

 

 

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U.S. readers, I’d like to encourage you to vote tomorrow if you haven’t already.  The

campaign craziness is almost over.  Hang in there.