Says He’ll Be Back in Pulpit May 22, but Presbyters Could Extend 3-Month Suspension : Swaggart Faces Temporal Judgment Day Before Fellow Clergy

A temporal judgment day awaits Jimmy Swaggart next week in Springfield, Mo., when fellow clergy will decide if the television evangelist’s admitted immoral behavior calls for the customary yearlong ban on preaching.

The “final decision” on the appropriate terms of rehabilitation will be made by the 240-member General Presbytery of the Assemblies of God at a special session Monday and Tuesday.

Swaggart, one of the nation’s most-watched television evangelists, confessed to an undisclosed sin before denominational leaders in a closed session Feb. 18 after photos were examined showing him entering and leaving a motel room with a known prostitute. A sobbing, repentant Swaggart told his congregation in Baton Rouge, La., on Feb. 21 that he was leaving the pulpit for an indefinite period as officials decided on a path of restitution. At that service, he confessed publicly to an unspecified moral failure.

Unprecedented Brevity

The next day, the Louisiana District of the Assemblies of God recommended that Swaggart be banned from the pulpit for three months and begin a 2-year probationary period that would include counseling. The 3-month suspension from preaching was unprecedented in its brevity for such a failing and immediately drew nationwide criticism. In every other case of sexual immorality, the church has imposed a 1-year suspension, according to church officials.

When the Louisiana District refused to lengthen the suspension, the denomination’s Executive Presbytery found it necessary early this month to summon the General Presbytery. Next week’s session will be closed to the public.

Meanwhile, Swaggart told about 400 congregants at his church Wednesday night, he was going out of his mind staying away from the pulpit, but added “when I’m back in the pulpit on May 22, I’ll be back in my mind.”

Swaggart, who occasionally addresses his old congregation at services conducted by his co-pastor, the Rev. Jim Rentz, indicated that he expects the presbyters to approve the 3-month suspension.

However, information surfacing in recent weeks raises more questions about the Louisiana District decision.

Won’t List Officials

The district, based in Alexandria, La., has refused to make public the list of church officials who participated in the Swaggart recommendation. However, church headquarters in Springfield confirmed that two Louisiana District officers who were believed to have had roles in the recommendation on Swaggart, Supt. Cecil Janway and Secretary-Treasurer Forrest Hall, also are on the 11-member board of Jimmy Swaggart World Ministries.

Juleen Turnage, a spokeswoman for the denominational headquarters, said that information was confirmed only recently because Swaggart’s evangelistic organization is independent of the denomination. National officers have not commented on the apparent conflict of interest, she said.

Joseph Flower, the Assemblies’ general secretary, said he did not know if Janway and Hall took part in the Swaggart recommendation. “We don’t have a record of how the vote was taken,” Flower said.

Turnage also said that unconfirmed reports say that Swaggart’s co-pastor, Rentz, is one of the 19 Louisiana presbyters who made the controversial recommendation, but she said the national headquarters does not know the names of all those on the state presbytery.

Swaggart himself once commended his denomination’s policy of a year’s absence from the pulpit as “one of the fairest and most biblical systems.” In a 1986 article for his organization’s magazine, the Evangelist, he wrote, “If a preacher of the Gospel is caught (not hearsay or rumor, but fact) in an immoral situation . . . this pastor or evangelist must be placed on probation for a period of a year.

“During this time, he cannot preach anywhere. If he is the pastor of a church, he has to resign. . . . If he is an evangelist, he has to cancel his revival meetings for a year. To allow a preacher . . . to remain in his position as pastor (or whatever) would be the most gross stupidity,” he wrote.

Swaggart’s continued preaching prohibition can be expected to affect donations to his organization, which in turn has contributed millions of dollars to the foreign missionary arm of the Assemblies of God.

Swaggart has donated $38 million in the last four years to the division, annually providing about 12% of the overseas mission budget, according to the church.

However, the Rev. Fred Cottriel, superintendent of the 426-church Southern California District of the Assemblies of God, said that the Swaggart donations to the denomination would not affect his decision next week as one of the General Presbytery members.

“I don’t think there is any way I can treat one person different than another and (still) have integrity,” Cottriel said in an interview at the district’s Costa Mesa headquarters.

Cottriel said the standard rehabilitation process used in the Southern California District for errant but repentant ministers is a year’s absence from preaching within a 2-year period of counseling and consultation with the clergyman.

Can Exceed Two Years

“Our concern is that we not send somebody back into the pulpit . . . whose problems have not been solved,” Cottriel said, noting that in some cases the process took longer than two years.

Cottriel is one of three voting members of the General Presbytery from Southern California. The other two are the Revs. Leonard Nipper, district secretary-treasurer, and Richard Dresselhaus, pastor for 17 years of the San Diego First Assembly of God in Mission Valley. The Rev. Ray Rachels, assistant superintendent of the Southern California district, will attend the meeting but not have a vote.

Cottriel, Rachels and Nipper agreed in a joint interview that if Swaggart were allowed to preach again after a short period, the denomination might suffer in credibility with church members--and possibly in donations as well.

However, the three Southern California officials emphasized that they beleive that the decision could not be based on money considerations. “We want to do what’s right, ethical and best . . . for the sake of the man and the church,” Rachels said.

“The ministry will go on,” Cottriel said. “It depends not on a man, but on God and God’s people.”

Speculation Rife

Rachels acknowledged “all kinds of speculation” about what might happen, including the possibility that Swaggart could sever his affiliation with the Assemblies of God in order to salvage his $150-million-a-year organization.

Since Swaggart’s fall, his organization has been forced to lay off 100 staff members and to halt some construction projects.

Gus Weill, a spokesman for the Swaggart ministry, would not say whether a recent “life or death” telethon raised enough to keep the television ministry afloat. “They never have released (information about telethons) in the past and are not going to do so now,” he said. The telethon tape featured Swaggart’s wife and their son and Rentz. They said that without viewers’ help, the daily and Sunday television shows and programs including famine relief and Bible schools in other countries would be canceled.

The television campaign, which ended Sunday, was joined by direct mail pleas postmarked within a week of Swaggart’s confession to moral failure. The ministry’s magazine said expenses average $13 million a month.

Since his dramatic program on Feb. 21, Swaggart has stated his “sin” and plans in the vaguest of terms. Saying once that he would share details when the time is right, he has occasionally addressed his followers from a pew or in specially taped messages.

In remarks tape recorded for the telethon, the evangelist appeared to hint, in effect, that he has already been undergoing redemption. He said he was visited by “the most debilitating powers of Hell that I have ever experienced in my life,” but that he was given victory over them. “When you’re back’s against the wall and your knees are buckling, this Gospel works,” he said.

“I believe Jimmy Swaggart today is a better man than he’s ever been before. We have looked at the very worst Hell can throw our way,” he said. “Maybe there is no man in history who has been more humiliated than I have. I am going to tell you I deserved it all.”

DONATIONS BY JIMMY SWAGGART

Jimmy Swaggart World Ministries of Baton Rouge, La., contributes millions of dollars each year to foreign missions run by the Assemblies of God. Swaggart occasionally gives smaller amounts to U.S. mission work of the denomination.

Swaggart Donation to Annual Income of Year Division of Foreign Missions Division of Foreign Missions 1984 $7,865,000 $66,174,000 1985 8,559,000 71,628,000 1986 11,496,000 76,679,000 1987 10,395,000 (est.) 80-81,000,000

% of Income from Year Swaggart 1984 11% 1985 11% 1986 15% 1987 12%

Source: Assemblies of God, Springfield, Mo.