They see him as some type of a modern day Elijah or Apostle Paul. There is a group of old school Pentecostals that are part of a cult following surrounding him. However, that message is not talking this person and that person in ministry and how much more “godly” you are than them! I am all for getting back to the preaching of repent or perish. However, I am not convicted the problem is not using the King James or have southern gospel groups in for services in the problem. There is no debate that the Assemblies needs Holy Ghost revival more today than ever. They believe the movement as a whole is poisoned with compromise. They are convinced that the Assemblies is becoming too worldly and has accepted sin as a way of life. They seem to have a special bitterness towards the Assemblies of God. His son and grandson seem to have picked up where he left off. This has the cycle of his ministry for quite some time and to be honest, I do not see it changing. Anyone that disagrees with him must be attacked and have their name ran through the mud. Most of what has come out of Jimmy Swaggart in recent years is slander and gossip in the name of hellfire and brimstone. When your message is more about gossip with other ministries than it is about the need for a Savior there is a problem. My issue is more the condemnation of anyone that disagrees with him. The primary issue that I have with the preaching down in Baton Rouge is not the hellfire and brimstone preaching. As many did at the time, I have to reject that type of behavior in the strongest of terms. His response to them was very simple, “It is flat none of your business.” This is not how you deal with the sin. The worse part of the ordeal was his handling of it before the Family Worship Center. He not only was engaging in adultery, he was committing a crime in the state of California. He was caught with a prostitute by law enforcement. However, the truth be told that the family of Marvin Gorman did some very out of line things and as I said, possible criminal activity.Īs far as the second case in California, there is no getting around what he did. I do not question if Jimmy Swaggart put himself in a very bad place for being a man of Pentecost. Hiring someone to get images out of a hotel room using a telephoto lens on a camera, then letting the air out tires so you can “confront” him is probably criminal. It also seems that the people involved committed crime in order to get their evidence of Jimmy with the prostitute. The details of what happened at that motel on the edge of Baton Rouge just doesn’t seem to add up. It is very possible, especially the first case, that he was indeed setup by a former friend that he was at odds with. It is not as simple as some what people to understand it. Sadly, the name Jimmy Swaggart is more known today by his trips to prostitutes in Baton Rouge and California than it is for the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. An example of this is I only need to wear a suit to preach when in the South but rarely elsewhere. I am not condemning them but realizing that sometimes church in the deep south is just as much about culture as it is about faith express. There is a different set of “rules for the road” in more traditional Pentecostal churches. I see churches like Family Worship Center more of a cultural experience that a spiritual one. It seems this is becoming some things many church preach less and less about. I do not think he is the second coming of Smith Wigglesworth but I do like that he still talk about the need for the baptism in the Holy Spirit. This is something that we are losing in our churches today. I actually like listening to him sometimes and I will say they do put an emphasis on camp meeting style Pentecostal services. He also have his enemies that openly question his gossiping from the platform and demonizing anything that is not traditional. Many older Pentecostal love his ministry because it celebrates what they grew up in at the traditional Assembly of God churches in the 1950’s.