The camp meeting is a form of Protestant Christian religious service originating in Britain and once common in some parts of the United States, wherein people would travel from a large area to a particular site to camp out, listen to itinerant preachers, and pray. This suited the frontier lifestyle well, as such areas often lacked traditional churches and offered few other types of diversion from work. The practice was a major component of the Second Great Awakening, a rapid increase in the popularity of various Protestant denominations in the United States in the early 19th century, especially Methodists and Baptists.

Camp meetings in America[link]

The camp meeting is a phenomenon of American frontier Christianity. The movement of thousands of settlers to new territories without permanent villages of the types they knew meant they were without religious communities. Not only were there few authorized houses of worship, there were fewer ordained ministers to fill the pulpits. The "camp meeting" led by itinerant preachers was an innovative response to this situation. Word of mouth told there was to be a religious meeting at a certain location. Due to the primitive means of transportation, if the meeting was to be more than a few miles' distance from the homes of those attending, they would need to stay at the revival for its entire duration, or as long as they desired to remain. People generally camped out at or near the revival site, as on the frontier there were usually neither adequate accommodations nor the funds for frontier families to use them. People were attracted to large camp meetings from a wide area. Some came out of sincere religious devotion or interest, others out of curiosity and a desire for a break from the arduous frontier routine; the structure of the situation created new converts.

An engraving of a Methodist camp meeting in 1819 (Library of Congress).

Freed from daily routines for the duration of the meeting, participants could take part in almost continuous services, which resulted in high emotions; once one speaker was finished (often after several hours) another would often rise to take his place. "Several ministers, sometimes from different denominations, provided virtually nonstop preaching and hymn singing during the day, in the evening, and late into the night. Attenders anticipated and had emotional conversion experiences, with crying, trances, and exaltation.".^[1] "Camp-meeting religion reinforced older themes of revivalism, including a sense of cooperation among the denominations, all of which confronted individual sinners with the necessity of making a decision to be converted." ^[1] Revivalism, of course, had been a significant force in religion since the 1740s, but in the days of the camp meeting, "revivalism became the dominant religious culture." ^[1] These sorts of meetings were huge contributing factors to what became known as the Second Great Awakening. A particularly large and successful revival was held at Cane Ridge, Kentucky in 1801, where the Restoration Movement began to be formalized. This camp meeting was, in fact, that which many contend to be the pioneering event in the history of frontier camp meetings in America.^[1] What made camp meetings successful and multiplying quite rapidly "were their emphases upon revivalism and morality, de-emphasis upon formal theology, clergy sharing the worldview of the frontier dwellers, and respect for common people.^[1] The camp meetings gained wide recognition and a substantial increase in popularity in the aftermath of the American Civil War, as a result of the first holiness movement camp meeting in Vineland, New Jersey in 1867. Ocean Grove, New Jersey, founded in 1869, has been called the "Queen of the Victorian Methodist Camp Meetings." At the end of the nineteenth century, believers in Spiritualism also established camp meetings throughout the United States.

In 1816 in what is now Toronto, Ohio, the Rev. J. M. Bray, pastor of the Sugar Grove Methodist Episcopal Church, began an annual camp meeting. By 1875, the meeting became interdenominational by its purchase of the present-day Hollow Rock Holiness Camp Meeting Association. The association, which still runs the camp, claims that it is the oldest Christian camp meeting in continual existence in the United States.

Another camp gathering area known now as the Campgrounds, was located in what is now Merrick, New York. Parishioners would arrive in their wagons and park them in two circles, one inside the other. Eventually some of them started building small cottages, which offered more comfort than the wagons. A chapel and a home for the minister was also built. In the 1920s, with new areas open to those with cars, people stopped using the campground. The cottages and church buildings used as local residences and most survive today. In fact the two roads, Wesley Avenue, and Fletcher Avenue, encompass the area of the original paths which the wagons would encircle. The area is also known as Tiny Town because of the small size of the original cottages.

Camp meetings in the United States continued to be conducted for many years on a wide scale. Some are still held today, primarily by Pentecostal and Wesleyan holiness groups, as well as other Protestants and Spiritualists. Some scholars consider the revival meeting a form that arose to recreate the spirit of the frontier camp meeting.

Camp meetings in British Methodism[link]

On Sunday 31 May 1807 the first Camp Meeting was held in England at Mow Cop. The Wesleyan Methodists disapproved and subsequently expelled Hugh Bourne "because you have a tendency to set up other than the ordinary worship" which led eventually to the formation of the Primitive Methodist Church.

Lorenzo Dow brought reports of Camp Meetings from America during his visits to England. Hugh Bourne, William Clowes and Daniel Shoebotham saw this as an answer to complaints from members of the Harriseahead Methodists that their weeknight prayer meeting was too short. Bourne also saw these as an antidote to the general debauchery of the Wakes in that part of the Potteries, one of the reasons why he continued organising Camp Meetings in spite of the opposition from the Wesleyan authorities.

The pattern of the Primitive Methodist Camp Meeting was as a time of prayer and preaching from the Bible. In the first Camp Meeting, 4 separate "preaching stations" had been set up by the afternoon, each with an audience, while in between others spent the time praying. Their emphasis on the Bible is a clear distinction from the spiritualist strand of American camp meetings.

From May 1807 to the establishing of Primitive Methodism as a denomination in 1811, a series of 17 Camp Meetings was held.^[2] There were a number of different venues beyond Mow Cop, including Norton-in-the-Moors during the Wakes in 1807 (Hugh Bourne's target venue), and Ramsor in 1808.

After Hugh Bourne and a significant number of his colleagues, including the Standley Methodist Society, had been put out of membership of the Burslem Wesleyan Circuit, they formed a group known as the Camp Meeting Methodists until 1811 when they joined with the followers of William Clowes, the "Clowesites".

Camp Meetings were a regular feature of Primitive Methodist life throughout the 19th century,^[3] and still have existence in other forms today. The annual late May Bank Holiday weekend meetings at Cliff College^[4] are one example, with a number of tents around the site, each with a different preacher.

Music and Hymn Singing[link]

The camp meeting tradition fostered a tradition of music and hymn singing with strong oral, improvisatory, and spontaneous elements.

Hymns were taught and learned by rote and a spontaneous and improvisatory element was prized. Both tunes and words were created, changed, and adapted in true folk music fashion:^[5]

Specialists in nineteenth-century American religious history describe camp meeting music as the creative product of participants who, when seized by the spirit of a particular sermon or prayer, would take lines from a preacher's text as a point of departure for a short, simple melody. The melody was either borrowed from a preexisting tune or made up on the spot. The line would be sung repeatedly, changing slightly each time, and shaped gradually into a stanza that could be learned easily by others and memorized quickly.^[6]

Spontaneous song became a marked characteristic of the camp meetings. Rough and irregular couplets or stanzas were concocted out of Scripture phrases and every-day speech, with liberal interspersing of Hallelujahs and refrains. Such ejaculatory hymns were frequently started by an excited auditor during the preaching, and taken up by the throng, until the meeting dissolved into a "singing-ecstasy" culminating in general hand-shaking. Sometimes they were given forth by a preacher, who had a sense of rhythm, under the excitement of his preaching and the agitation of his audience. Hymns were also composed more deliberately out of meeting, and taught to the people or lined out from the pulpit.^[7]

Collections of camp meeting hymns were published, which served both to propagate tunes and texts that were commonly used, and to document the most commonly sung tunes and texts.^[7] Example hymnals include The Camp-meeting Chorister (1830) ^[8] and The Golden Harp (1857)^[9]

The 20th century American composer Charles Ives used the camp meeting phenomenon as a metaphysical basis for his Symphony No. 3 (Ives). Hymn tunes and American Civil War area popular songs (which are closely related to camp meeting songs) as part of the symphony's musical material. Although the piece was not initially performed until 1946, almost 40 years after its composition, the symphony was awarded the Pulitzer Prize the following year in 1947.

References[link]

Jimmy Swaggart
Jimmy Swaggart, 2009
Born	Jimmy Lee Swaggart (1935-03-15) March 15, 1935 (age 77) Ferriday, Louisiana, U.S.
Occupation	Televangelist, preacher, singer, musician, writer
Religion	Pentecostalism
Website
www.jsm.org

Jimmy Lee Swaggart (born March 15, 1935) is a Pentecostal American pastor, teacher, musician, author, television host, and televangelist. He has preached to crowds around the world through his weekly telecast. According to the official website for Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, his 1980s telecast was transmitted to over 3,000 stations and cable systems each week.^[1]

Swaggart's television ministry, which began in 1975, continues airing nationally and internationally. The weekly Jimmy Swaggart Telecast and A Study in the Word programs are seen nationwide and abroad on 78 channels in 104 countries as well as live over the Internet.^{[citation needed]}

Swaggart is also known as the cousin of controversial rock'n'roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis and country music star Mickey Gilley.

Early life[link]

Swaggart was born in Ferriday, Louisiana, to Willie Leon (a.k.a., "Son") and Minnie Belle (née Herron) Swaggart. He is the cousin of rock'n'roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis and country music star Mickey Gilley. With his parents, Swaggart attended a small, 25-member Assemblies of God congregation in Ferriday. At the age of nine, he began to preach on street corners and lead congregations in singing.^{[citation needed]} On October 10, 1952, Swaggart married Frances Anderson. Their son, Donnie, was born in 1954. Swaggart worked several part-time odd jobs in order to support his young family and also began singing Southern Gospel music at various Baptist and Pentecostal churches.

According to his biography, Swaggart, along with his wife and son, lived in poverty during the 1950s as he preached throughout rural Louisiana, struggling to survive on US$30 a week. Being too poor to own a home, the Swaggarts lived in church basements, pastors' homes, and small motels. Sun Records producer Sam Phillips wanted Swaggart to take part in a gospel line of music for Sun as the label's first gospel artist. Swaggart's cousin Jerry Lee Lewis, who had previously signed with Sun, was reportedly making $20,000 per week at the time. Although the offer meant a promise for significant income for him and his family, Swaggart turned him down, stating that he was called to preach the gospel.^[2]

Ordination and early career[link]

Preaching from a flatbed trailer donated to him, Swaggart began full-time evangelistic work in 1955. It was then that Swaggart began developing a revival-meeting following throughout the American South. Swaggart began attending Bible college in 1957. In 1960, he began recording gospel music record albums while building up another audience via Christian radio stations. In 1961, after graduating from Bible college, Swaggart was ordained by the Assemblies of God; one year later, Swaggart began his radio ministry. By 1969, Swaggart's radio program, “The Camp Meeting Hour,” was being aired over numerous radio stations throughout the American Bible Belt.^{[citation needed]} In the late 1960s, Swaggart founded what was then a small church named the Family Worship Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; the church eventually became district-affiliated with the Assemblies of God. The Family Worship Center grew from barely 40 members in 1970 to over 500 by 1975 and over 1000 by 1980.^{[citation needed]} During the 1970s the church grew from a one room church to a more modern building with new additions being built every couple years.

In the late 1960s, Swaggart began airing a weekly 30-minute telecast over various local television stations in that city and also purchased a local AM radio station WLUX in Baton Rouge (now WPFC). The station broadcast Christian features stories, preaching and teaching from various fundamentalist and Pentecostal denominations and played a blend of black gospel, Southern gospel, and inspirational music. As Contemporary Christian music became more prevalent, the station avoided playing it. Swaggart would ultimately sell his radio stations gradually throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

Shifting to television[link]

By 1975, Swaggart's television ministry had expanded to more stations around the US; it was at this time that he decided to use television as his primary preaching venue. In 1978, Swaggart's weekly telecast was expanded to an hour.

In 1980, Swaggart began a daily weekday telecast featuring Bible study and music while the weekend, hour-long telecast would feature a sermon from either the Family Worship Center or an on-location crusade. In the early 1980s, Swaggart's crusades expanded to major cities nationwide. By 1983, more than 250 television stations featured Swaggart's telecast. Multitudes of people around the world were converted to Christianity, 'receiving Jesus Christ as their Lord.'

Controversies, scandals and criticisms[link]

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In 1988, Swaggart was implicated in a sex scandal involving a prostitute that resulted initially in his suspension and ultimately Swaggart was defrocked and removed from the ministry by the Assemblies of God. Three years later, Swaggart was again implicated in a sex scandal involving a prostitute. As a result, Swaggart's current ministry is non-affiliated, non-denominational and considerably smaller than before the scandals were revealed.^[3]

1988 scandal[link]

Background[link]

Swaggart's exposure came as retaliation for an incident in 1986 when Swaggart exposed fellow Assemblies of God minister Marvin Gorman, who had been accused of having several affairs. Once exposed, Gorman was defrocked from the Assemblies of God, with his ministry all but ended. As a retaliatory move, Gorman hired his son Randy and son-in-law Garland Bilbo to stake out the Travel Inn on Airline Highway in New Orleans. A camera with a telephoto lens was placed in the window of the motel's Room 12 and draped with a black cloth. When Swaggart arrived, he reportedly went into Room 7. Randy Gorman and Garland Bilbo proceeded to let the air out of Swaggart's tires and called Marvin Gorman, whose church was located nearby. The two had taken photos of Swaggart outside of Room 7 with Debra Murphree, a local prostitute. Gorman showed up at the Travel Inn a short while later and asked Swaggart what he was doing there.

According to, Swaggart: The Unauthorized Biography of an American Evangelist by Ann Rowe Seaman, Gorman secured a promise from Swaggart that he would publicly apologize to Gorman and start the process of Gorman's reinstatement to the Assemblies of God. Gorman offered to remain silent if Swaggart would state publicly that he lied about Gorman's affairs. Gorman waited almost a year, then hand delivered a note to Swaggart informing him his time was up, but Swaggart did not respond. On February 16, 1988, Gorman contacted James Hamil, one of the 13-man Executive Presbytery of the Assemblies of God. Hamill in turn called Raymond Carlson, the Assemblies Superintendent. He summoned Hamill and Gorman to fly to Springfield and arranged for an emergency meeting of the presbyters. Carlson was shown photos of several men coming in and going out of Room 7 at the Travel Inn Motel in New Orleans. This was done in order to establish the fact that the room was being used for prostitution. One of the men seen leaving Room 7 was Jimmy Swaggart. The presbytery leadership of the Assemblies of God decided that Swaggart should be suspended from broadcasting his television program for three months.

According to the Associated Press, Murphree, who claimed to have posed nude for Swaggart, failed a polygraph test administered by a New York City Police Department polygraph expert.^[4] The test administrator concluded that Murphree had failed to tell the truth on all key questions concerning her statement. The test was administered after Murphree offered to sell the story to the National Enquirer for $100,000. Paul Levy, senior editor for the Enquirer, stated that the polygraph examiner had concluded Murphree was not truthful on six key questions, including one in which she was reportedly asked if she had fabricated the story. Levy stated that the Enquirer decided not to print her story due to the test results, her drug use, and the fact that she had arrest warrants in three states. Murphree failed questions about whether she was paid or promised money to "set up" Swaggart, and whether she made up the story in order to make money from it.^[5] Both times she answered no; this was determined by the polygraph examiner to be a lie.

Swaggart's confession and fallout[link]

On February 21, 1988, without giving any details regarding his transgressions, Swaggart gave his now infamous "I Have Sinned" speech as he tearfully spoke to his family, congregation, and TV audience, saying, "I have sinned against You, my Lord, and I would ask that Your Precious Blood would wash and cleanse every stain until it is in the seas of God's forgiveness."^[6] On a New Orleans morning news show four days later, Murphree stated that while Swaggart was a regular customer, they had never engaged in sexual intercourse.^[7] The clip of Swaggart's confession was played repeatedly on news and tabloid television programs.

The Louisiana presbytery of the Assemblies of God initially suspended Jimmy Swaggart from the ministry for three months. The national presbytery of the Assemblies of God soon extended the suspension to their standard two-year suspension for sexual immorality. His return to the pulpit coincided with the end of a three-month suspension originally ordered by the Assemblies. Believing that Swaggart was not genuinely repentant in not submitting to their authority, the hierarchy of the Assemblies of God immediately defrocked him, removing his credentials and ministerial license. It was then that Swaggart decided he would be an independent, non-denominational Pentecostal minister and the Family Worship Center would become non-denominational. The Jimmy Swaggart Bible College (now World Evangelism Bible College) would lose many of its students by the end of May 1988.

1991 scandal[link]

On October 11, 1991, Swaggart for a second time was found in the company of a prostitute, Rosemary Garcia,^[8] when he was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol in Indio, California, for driving on the wrong side of the road. According to Garcia, Swaggart stopped to proposition her on the side of the road. When the patrolman asked Garcia why she was with Swaggart, she replied, "He asked me for sex. I mean, that's why he stopped me. That's what I do. I'm a prostitute."^[9][10] Rather than confessing to his congregation, Swaggart told those at Family Worship Center that "The Lord told me it's flat none of your business."^[11][12][13] Swaggart's son then announced to the stunned audience that his father would be temporarily stepping down as head of Jimmy Swaggart Ministries for "a time of healing and counseling."

Criticism of Christian rock and metal music[link]

Swaggart wrote a book criticizing the Christian rock and metal movements titled Religious Rock n' Roll – A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing in 1987. The book criticized the scene for using heavy metal music to preach the gospel of Christianity, calling rock music the music of the devil.^[14][15] Swaggart also criticized Larry Norman (the "father of Christian rock"), Petra, Mylon LeFevre, Steve Taylor and other notable Christian rock and metal bands.^[16]

In 1986, Swaggart called rock music "the new pornography."^[17]

Ministries[link]

Jimmy Swaggart Ministries mainly comprises the Family Worship Center, The Jimmy Swaggart Telecast,^[18] radio and television programs called A Study in the Word, (SonLife Radio Network),^[19] and a website, JSM.org.

Swaggart's wife Frances hosts a television program Frances and Friends which is seen daily on the SonLife Broadcasting Network.^[20] His son Donnie preaches at the Family Worship Center and also preaches in churches across the US and abroad.^[21] Donnie's son Gabriel is a youth pastor who leads Crossfire, Family Worship Center's youth ministry.^[22]

Music ministry[link]

Swaggart's first album, Some Golden Daybreak, was created to give people at his early revivals. Swaggart's wife began encouraging him to contact radio stations. Disc jockey Chuck Cossin is credited with playing the first Jimmy Swaggart recording on WMUZ in Detroit.^{[citation needed]}

In 1974 Swaggart was voted Favorite Gospel Music Artist by readers of the magazine Singing News. In 1977 Record World magazine honored him as Male Vocalist of the Year. In that same year Swaggart was a Dove Award finalist in three categories: Male Vocalist of the Year, TV Program of the Year, and Instrumentalist of the Year. Again in 1978 Swaggart became a Dove finalist as Instrumentalist of the Year. In 1980, Swaggart became a Dove Award finalist in four categories: Children's Album of the Year for Color Me a Story, Instrumentalist of the Year, Year's best Traditional Album for Homeward Bound, and Best Gospel Album of the Year for Worship. The secular Grammy Awards nominated Swaggart's album Live from Nashville for Best Gospel Album in 1976. And again in 1980, Swaggart's album, Worship, became a Grammy finalist.

Radio ministry[link]

Swaggart originated Sonlife Radio on the noncommercial FM band. Unlike his previous stations, Sonlife was commercial free and would not sell time to outside ministries and the preaching and teaching would all be produced "in house". The music played was primarily Southern Gospel. Sonlife Radio is heard in 22 states and streamed on the internet.^[23]

Television ministry[link]

In 1973, Swaggart wanted to create a television program which would include a fairly large music segment, a short sermon, and time for talking about current ministry projects. After two faltering attempts to tape the half-hour program in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana, Swaggart went to television producers in Nashville, Tennessee with his proposal. They accepted and within weeks the Jimmy Swaggart Telecast was being broadcast into television markets around the United States.

In 1981 Jimmy Swaggart launched a daily television program titled A Study in the Word. In the 1980s the program was aired on over 160 channels throughout the U.S., Canada and abroad and is still seen today on over 78 stations in 104 countries.^{[citation needed]} From the beginning, the primary cable channels the program was aired on were CBN Cable (now ABC Family), TBN, and the old PTL Network (later the Inspiration Network). Jimmy Swaggart Ministries now airs programming 24/7 over its own Sonlife Broadcasting Network (SBN), on DirecTV channel 344, Dish Network channel 257, Glorystar channel 125, IPTV Sky Angel channel 125, and various cable TV providers and broadcast stations.

World Evangelism Bible College[link]

In the fall of 1984, Swaggart opened Jimmy Swaggart Bible College - now known as World Evangelism Bible College, or WEBC. The college began as a means of preparing young men and women for Christian ministry, including education and communication degrees, and is still considered by Swaggart to be a vital extension of Jimmy Swaggart's World Wide Ministry. Many students never returned for the fall semester after the scandal in 1988. Currently, WEBC offers three levels of degrees: (1) Intensive short term certificate programs, (2) Associate of Arts degree programs, and (3) a four year Bachelor's Degree program.

Print[link]

Swaggart is the author of about 20 Christian books offered through his ministry.^[24] He is the author of the "Expositor's Study Bible,"^[25] 13 Study Guides and 30 Commentaries on the Bible.

Family[link]

Swaggart is married to Frances (née Anderson) Swaggart and has one son, Donnie Swaggart. Donnie was named for Swaggart's brother who died in infancy. He has three grandchildren, Jennifer, Gabriel and Matthew Swaggart, and five great-grandchildren, Samantha, Abby, Lola, and Ryder Swaggart.^[26]

See also[link]

• List of Christian evangelist scandals

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jimmy Swaggart

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jimmy Swaggart Ministries
• Jimmy Swaggart in Who2
• Jimmy Swaggart's A Letter To My Catholic Friends
• Jimmy Swaggart Podcast Information
• Jimmy Swaggart at the Internet Movie Database