Jimmy Swaggart has died. He was a really big deal in my childhood. I went to one of his crusades in the early eighties with my parents. Mostly I remember being amazed seeing the guy on my television in real life.
His end-times preaching scared me. He had a series of broadcasts on that subject which began with an ominous fist-shaped cloud on the screen. One day I saw such a cloud outside the window and flipped out. No one was home at the time and I was sure I had just missed the rapture. I called a couple of relatives and they weren’t home either. Finally I got hold of someone who was able to assure me I was not damned.
I vividly recall his tearful confession of sexual infidelity. It was a shocking moment for me. Around that same time I started going to our local youth camp, which introduced me to a wider variety of preachers than my sleepy little congregation usually had. More strident ones also. My shock over Swaggart’s fall was short-lived after hearing from those preachers that he was a compromising backslider, who left the true faith many, many years ago.
So … no particular point here. Just wanted to get these memories down on “paper” on the occasion of his death.