Jimmy Swaggart, one of the most popular and enduring of the 1980s televangelists, died on July 1, 2025, but his legacy lives.
‘The LORD told me it’s flat none of your business’: Jimmy Swaggart’s Scandalous Legacy
Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart died yesterday. He’ll be remembered in many ways—as a charismatic preacher and talented singer (Swaggart was Jerry Lee Lewis’ cousin). But perhaps his most lasting legacy is as a creative pioneer in the art of managing a…
How Jimmy Swaggart shaped my life
Jimmy Swaggart has died at the age 90. Swaggart was born and raised in the heart of Louisiana and ended up being rooted there to do what he and his followers would call “the Lord’s work” in Baton Rouge. As…
Q&A with Leslie Dorrough Smith on American attitudes about sex scandals
Sex scandals are nothing new to American politics and yet have an uncanny ability to rouse the American public. Religious studies scholar Leslie Dorrough Smith’s recent work, Compromising Positions: Sex Scandals, Politics, and American Christianity, argues that this phenomenon is…