Word: evangelistics
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...Robertson Former Television Evangelist...
...without question, the most dramatic sermon ever aired on television. There stood Jimmy Swaggart, 52, the king of evangelistic video, ready to confront the ugly rumors that were encircling his busy, buzzing gospel conglomerate. As he approached the pulpit, the octagonal Family Worship Center in Baton Rouge, La., was packed for the occasion with 8,000 worshipers, 1,000 of them standees, while followers nationwide watched the weekly telecast. This day there was to be none of Swaggart's trademark piano riffing or gospel singing, none of his jig stepping, strutting or shouting. Clad in a severe suit...
...Swaggart scandal began to unfold on Feb. 18, three days before his climactic confession service, when the evangelist and his entourage rushed by private jet to Springfield, Mo., for a secret meeting with church leaders at Assemblies of God headquarters. It was a sorry moment for the denomination, which had seen attendance jump by 23.3% between 1979 and 1985. Adherents now number 2.1 million in the U.S., 16.4 million worldwide. Swaggart has been the group's most electrifying TV preacher and road revivalist, and his ministry has expanded lavishly overseas, providing $10.4 million of the denomination's 1987 mission budget...
...crisis of Swaggart's conscience that brought peril to this empire. The evangelist confronted his sin only because Assemblies' leaders had been provided with sordid information. Their chief evidence was incriminating photos taken last fall outside New Orleans at a down-at-the-heels motel called the Travel Inn. The pictures showed a prostitute welcoming a series of men; Swaggart was seen both entering and leaving her room. According to a person present at the ten-hour session in Springfield, Swaggart confessed that he had battled an obsession with pornography since his youth and had been a periodic backslider...
...been suing Swaggart and Assemblies officials for $25 million over the defrocking. He hired a private detective, who apparently shadowed Swaggart as he lurked on the motel strip. Photographs were taken of Swaggart and the woman outside the Travel Inn. (The air had been let out of the evangelist's tires to delay his departure.) Gorman then confronted his nemesis. Some sort of negotiations ensued between the two men, but apparently they broke down, and the damning photos landed in the Springfield offices of the Assemblies...