Swaggart Quits as Church Decides to Defrock Him

Television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart on Friday announced his resignation from the Assemblies of God shortly after the church said it was defrocking him for rejecting punishment it had ordered for “moral failure.”

Swaggart said at a news conference that he knew dismissal was inevitable but insisted that he had no choice but to separate from the church to save his Bible college and $140-million-a-year worldwide ministry.

Shortly before Swaggart made his announcement, the Executive Presbytery of the Assemblies of God, headquartered in Springfield, Mo., said it had dismissed him as a minister for refusing to stop preaching for a year.

It had ordered the punishment after Swaggart confessed publicly to unspecified sins after reports linked him to lewd acts with a New Orleans prostitute.

“We believe that to stay out of the public for a year would totally destroy the television ministry and greatly adversely impact the college,” Swaggart said in a statement.

“Because of the nature of this situation, we are forced to take a position that does not answer all of the questions nor solve all of the problems. But we feel we have no alternative or choice,” he said.

“Therefore, I must regretfully withdraw from the Assemblies of God, understanding that they will have no choice except to dismiss me from the fellowship, since I am presently not in good standing with the fellowship.”

He read from a prepared statement and refused to answer questions.

In Springfield, the Rev. G. Raymond Carlson, general superinten dent of the church, announced the church’s decision after he and other members of the Executive Presbytery talked by telephone conference call.

Earlier Friday, the church had received what Carlson described as a “gracious” letter from Swaggart in which the evangelist refused to accept terms of a church-ordered, 2-year rehabilitation program.

“It is on this basis of precedent and our own by-laws, and upon his decision not to accept a rehabilitation program that he himself has agreed is right and proper, that the Executive Presbytery has, with regret and deep sorrow, taken formal action to dismiss Jimmy Swaggart as an ordained minister of the General Counsel of the Assemblies of God,” Carlson said. “With that dismissal comes the assurance of our sincere prayers.”

Swaggart voluntarily stepped down from his pulpit Feb. 21, after a tearful public confession of “moral failure” before his wife, son and congregation gathered in his Family Worship Center.

No Elaboration

Church officials and Swaggart have refused to elaborate on his misstep, but a Baton Rouge prostitute has said Swaggart paid her to pose nude for him.

Carlson said he called Swaggart on Friday after the 13-member Executive Presbytery, which serves as the board of directors of the church, met and made its decision.

“He received it graciously,” Carlson said. “We had prayer together at the conclusion of our conversation.”

In the statement he read, Carlson referred to remarks Swaggart made in a column in his magazine, The Evangelist, in August, 1987. In it, Carlson said, Swaggart endorsed a 1-year ban from preaching as part of the rehabilitation of any “fallen churchman.”

Contents Not Released

Carlson declined to release details of Swaggart’s letter. He said that when he talked to him, the evangelist did not explain why he was refusing the rehabilitation program. But, Carlson said, “I assume he’s wrestling with what will happen with the Jimmy Swaggart Ministry.”

The leaders of the country’s largest Pentecostal denomination and their most prominent minister had been locked in an impasse since an attorney announced week before last that Swaggart would defy the church-directed 1-year preaching ban and return to his televised ministry May 22.

But church leaders had said attorney Bill Treeby’s televised news conference on Swaggart’s behalf did not constitute communication between a disciplined minister and his church. They had since been waiting for the direct communication that came in Friday’s mail.

Church elders in Louisiana originally recommended that Swaggart be barred from his pulpit for three months as part of a 2-year rehabilitation plan. The Louisiana district insisted on the 3-month ban, despite protests from national leaders that every other Assemblies minister who had confessed to moral failure was banned from preaching for at least a year.

Specifics Endorsed

The Executive Presbytery recommended the 1-year ban and stood firm through a challenge to its authority by Louisiana officials. On March 29, the Executive Presbytery’s authority to discipline Swaggart, and the specifics of its rehabilitation plan, were endorsed by an oversight body, and Louisiana officials later reconciled themselves to the national plan.

Swaggart’s church, television and school complex in Baton Rouge have been shaken by the scandal. Donations are reported down, about 100 workers were fired shortly after Swaggart’s confession, and students at the Jimmy Swaggart Bible College are said to be clamoring to transfer to other religious institutions.

Swaggart’s ministry brought in an estimated $142 million last year, and his sermons are broadcast in more than 100 countries. He has been known for his harsh denunciations of the sins of others, including two other prominent Assemblies ministers who were brought down by scandal.

PTL founder Jim Bakker lost his Assemblies credentials after a sex-and-money scandal last year. Bakker did not opt for rehabilitation.

Swaggart was said to have been instrumental in the downfall of Marvin Gorman, a Baton Rouge television evangelist who later reportedly provided Assemblies elders with photographs of Swaggart entering a seedy New Orleans area motel in the company of a prostitute.