TELEVANGELISM
The denomination decides two million members and integrity are more important than one man.
As he stood sobbing on the platform in his rose-carpeted Family Worship Center, televangelist Jimmy Swaggart was most apologetic towards the Assemblies of God.
“To its thousands and thousands of pastors that are godly … its evangelists … its missionaries … I’ve sinned against you and I’ve brought disgrace, humiliation, and embarrassment upon you,” he said. “I beg your forgiveness.”
Once again the hapless Assemblies of God found itself caught in an unhappy wrangle involving one of its leading evangelists. Tarred for the second time with the brush of a steamy sex scandal, its reputation as a conservative, missions-minded denomination of high integrity has been tarnished in everything from Newsweek to “Nightline.”
Charges Of Favoritism
It was to maintain that integrity that the Assemblies summoned the troops to a Springfield, Missouri, meeting March 28–29. As much as Swaggart’s career, the Assemblies’ credibility was at stake for this important meeting of the general presbytery—the Assemblies’ national board governing its 2.1 million American members.
“It was a quiet, somber meeting, and I don’t think anyone was eager to judge anybody,” said a Houston pastor who was there, South Texas presbyter Earl J. Banning.
He was one of 250 presbyters called in to back up an earlier decision by the 13-member executive presbytery, the top policy-making council of the Assemblies of God. The executive presbytery had ruled that Swaggart deserved a stricter punishment than the three-month silencing period mandated by Swaggart’s immediate superiors in the Louisiana District of the Assemblies of God.
Louisiana assistant superintendent Don Logan of Shreveport, whose decision to side with the executive presbytery’s stance was a minority position on the 19-man Louisiana district board, said it was nigh impossible for Swaggart’s Louisiana brethren to discipline him.
“We’ve been so closely identified with Jimmy Swaggart throughout the years and we’ve felt in some way that we’re part of his ministry,” he said.
Not all Assemblies members were so forgiving, however. Once they heard news reports that Swaggart’s silencing might last a mere three months, hundreds of church members from across the country swamped headquarters with calls, complaining of favoritism.
“Many people have also accused the church of being unforgiving,” says Assemblies spokesperson Juleen Turnage, “but this is not an issue of forgiveness. This is an issue of an organization, a denomination that has high standards of conduct for its ministers.… There’s a difference between forgiveness and restoration to leadership.”
In order to keep their credentials, all Assemblies pastors must sign an annual agreement binding them to the standards and constitution of the denomination. This includes submitting to their terms of discipline, which in the case of sexual sin is a two-year suspension from the ministry and at least an additional one year away from the pulpit, weekly counseling by persons chosen by the denomination, and reports filed monthly with the district and twice yearly with national headquarters.
So it was not surprising the general presbytery dismissed Swaggart from the denomination on April 8 for refusing to bow to the Assemblies’ terms of discipline. (Ordained Assemblies ministers who work for Swaggart’s college or television ministry must either resign or lose their credentials, according to the denomination’s rules.) Swaggart says he will return to the pulpit May 22, Pentecost Sunday, the original deadline set by the Louisiana District.
Prone To Scandal?
The denomination has yet to resolve why its two brightest stars fell into disgrace. Whereas Jim Bakker’s Christian Disneyland-style image was a far departure from the conservative AG mold, Swaggart was vintage Assemblies. A dynamic preacher of preachers, a major contributor ($12 million yearly) to the Assemblies’ foreign missions budget, Swaggart championed the Pentecostal experience. He was a self-appointed reformer in the denomination, taking stands against other Assemblies of God pastors whom he judged guilty of doctrinal deviations or moral indiscretions.
In the first days of the scandal, one popular item at AG headquarters was an article, “Sin in the Church,” written by Swaggart in the August 1987 issue of The Evangelist magazine, a Swaggart ministries publication. The text was sheer irony: Swaggart righteously describing just how fallen pastors should be disciplined, with the provision that fallen clergymen must be removed from their positions of spiritual leadership for at least two years.
That the incident should happen to the Assemblies of God is also ironic: of all evangelical denominations, the Assemblies have one of the most aggressive policies for restoring fallen brethren. In 1987, 75 out of 30,000 U.S. AG clergy went through the denomination’s rehabilitation program, which has been in effect only since 1973, said Turnage. Nevertheless, the sight of two famous AG pastors falling off their pedestals has had an unnerving effect. Pastors around the country found themselves reassuring congregants that all was not lost.
Yet in spite of the brave public front, plenty of soul searching has gone on behind the scenes, says Fuller Theological Seminary professor Russell Spittler, an ordained AG minister and director of the school’s David duPlessis Center for Christian Spirituality. “I’m sorry the Assemblies of God has become famous in this way,” said Spittler. “But I’ve been pleased with the response of the church. This has made us realize there’s more to being a Christian than ‘being saved.’ We’ve been good at conversion and less successful in building a firm character.”
A Sad Situation
Reaction from outside the denomination has been kind. Catholics, a group much maligned by Swaggart, view it as “a sad situation,” said Bob Furlow, director of communications for the Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge. His bishop, Stanley J. Ott, met with Swaggart after a 1983 article in The Evangelist urged Catholics to leave their church. “We tried to be open with our faith with Jimmy Swaggart,” Furlow said. “I’d hope we’d not only pray for the Rev. Swaggart, but also have compassion for the woman he was with.”
Speaking to one of the country’s largest Southern Baptist congregations, John Bisagno, pastor of Houston’s 20,000-member First Baptist Church, said in February the televangelist scandals did not reflect on the Assemblies of God.
“[That such an incident should happen to] this evangelistic godly missionary denomination, that probably has more missionaries on the foreign field than any group in the world, including Southern Baptists, … does not for a minute suggest that there is anything wrong with the Assemblies of God people,” Bisagno said. “I don’t believe that incidents of immorality or sin among their pastors or their people are any higher than in any denomination in the world.”
Turnage says it is too soon to know how the televangelist fallout will affect church membership.
“The events of the past year are having a purging, cleansing effect on the Assemblies of God,” she said, “with Christians examining themselves and their own lives to see if there are areas where they’re not living up to standards of holiness. The Assemblies of God is a strong denomination and it is much bigger than one or two ministers.”
By Julia Duin.
