PERVY PULPIT: Revisiting sins of Swaggart and other fallen televangelists

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When it came to Bible thumping, there were few better than Jimmy Swaggart.

For decades, the cousin of rock legend Jerry Lee Lewis took to the pulpit and the airwaves to deliver his version of fire and brimstone. There were tears, shaking and yelling.

And a staggering amount of hypocrisy.

It was quite a show.

The televangelists who dominated local Sunday morning TV from the 1960s to the 1980s were very good at scolding followers for their lechery, greed and the sinful lives they led. They just weren’t very good at policing themselves.

Swaggart’s ministry, the SonLife Broadcasting Network, announced his death on July 1. He was 90. But over his nine decades of preaching, there was plenty of illicit sex with prostitutes and parishioners, drugs, booze and general hell raising.

Here are some of the top TV preachers and their scandals:

JIMMY SWAGGART

411: Swaggart loved hard and cried hard. The rock star of televangelists, Swaggart was nabbed in several sex scandals. Assembly of God rivals photographed him outside of a hot-sheet hotel in New Orleans in 1988, spending time with prostitute Debra Murphree. Mr. Fire and Brimstone got busted again in 1991, this time in California, for driving on the wrong side of road with sex worker Rosemary Garcia by his side.

QUOTE

“He asked me for sex. I mean, that’s why he stopped me. That’s what I do. I’m a prostitute.” — ROSEMARY GARCIA

JIM BAKKER

411: Best known for his gooey preaching on the PTL Club alongside then-wife Tammy Faye, it all imploded for Bakker with the emergence of his sexy secretary, Jessica Hahn. Bakker resigned and Hahn brightened the pages of Playboy. Tammy Faye kicked him to the curb. He was also nabbed for illegal use of his ministry’s funds — including a $279,000 payday for Hahn, who claimed she had been drugged and raped by Bakker and a church flunky. The frauds sent him to prison.

ERNEST ANGLEY

411: Like many televangelists, Angley was — on the surface — a raging homophobe. But that ended when a male pastor came forward claiming he had been sexually abused for nine years by the toupee-wearing troubadour. The victim claimed the abuse included naked massages and “genital touching.” A 1996 tape recording of Angley admitting to sexual relations with an employee was leaked to an Akron newspaper. There were also allegations of more sexual abuse, including forced vasectomies and abortions.

TONY ALAMO

411: The twisted Texas preacher was arrested after FBI agents raided the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries headquarters as part of a child pornography investigation. Former members made allegations of child abuse, sexual abuse and polygamy. In July 2009, Alamo was convicted on 10 counts of transporting young girls and boys across state lines for sexual activities and pornography. He was sentenced to the maximum punishment of 175 years in prison.

JERRY FALWELL JR.

411: The chip fell from the old rock of ages himself, Jerry Falwell Sr. Junior was a cuckold with his wife, Becki, having sex romps regularly with a pool boy in his 20s. Sometimes Jerry Jr. watched the action live or by remote camera. He was forced to resign as president of Liberty University.

TED HAGGARD

411: The pastor of the mega New Life Church was exposed in 2006 and accused of regular trysts with a male prostitute who also provided him with drugs. Haggard confessed. Three years later, he admitted to a sexual relationship with a male church member.

EDDIE LONG

411: Long’s congregation at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Georgia was 25,000 strong. And then four young men, employed by the church, accused him of coercing and seducing them into inappropriate sexual relationships. Their claims were settled out of court.

JIM WHITTINGTON

411: The pilfering preacher and four other evangelists were convicted of defrauding an elderly woman of about $913,072 in cash and property. The blessings were supposedly directed to Whittington’s Fountain of Life ministry; instead, they went to him. He was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

PAULA WHITE

411: A widely known leader in the Charismatic movement, White is spiritual adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump. Married three times, she split up with her first hubby to marry fellow preacher Randy White (he dumped his wife, too.) Amicable divorce. In 2010, she was caught leaving a motel room with televangelist Benny Hinn. Both denied an affair. Finally, she hooked up with rock star Jonathan Cain of Journey and he dumped his wife. The pair later married.

QUOTE 2.0

“I have sinned.” — JIMMY SWAGGART

bhunter@postmedia.com

X: @HunterTOSun

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