My Visit with Jimmy Swaggart

My Visit with Jimmy Swaggart

Jimmy Swaggart didn’t want to talk with me. He really didn’t want to talk with me. I flew to Baton Rouge in 1998, ten years after his famous—infamous!—confession that he had sinned against various people, including the Almighty. I had never been a fan of the televangelists; they, all of them, struck me as more intent on lining their pockets than addressing the needs of the faithful.  So when the televangelist scandals unfolded in the late 1980s—…