TELEVANGELISM AND ITS PROBLEMS IN THE WAKE OF THE BAKKER AND SWAGGART AFFAIRS
This research examines televangelism and the problems faced by televangelists in the wake of the Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart affairs. Jim Bakker was convicted of financial improprieties and misdealings in the operation of his PTL Ministries. Bakker was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison, where he may be found today, and his exposure and conviction created financial repercussions for televangelism generally, but not for all televangelists. Jimmy Swaggart was accused of sexual improprieties in 1988. Following an investigation of the allegations, Swaggart was disciplined by the governing body of the Pentecostal movement of which Swaggart Ministries was a part. Swaggart refused to submit to church discipline, and Swaggart Ministries began to operate as an independent Pentecostal entity. In 1991, Swaggart was found liable in a civil trial for fabricating charges of sexual misconduct against another televangelist, and of attempting thereby to destroy that televangelistÆs ministry. Soon after the decision was rendered in this case, Swaggart was charged in California with soliciting the services of a prostitute. Taken together, these latest two events have all but destroyed Swaggart Ministries and have created serious credibility problems for televangelism generally.
Televangelism itself, as well as the problems faced by televangelism and televangelists in the 1990s are perceived by most people as contemporary phenomena. In fact, neither televangelism itself nor the problems faced by televangelists in the 1990s are really new. Televangelism represents nothing more than an evolutionary (a word itself to make televangelists shudder) development in the so-called wireless gospel from evangelical radio. The wireless gospel itself is nothing more than the marketing of a popular religionùevangelical, Pentecostal, Fundamentalism, and all of th...