Jimmy Swaggart--Dead Man Rising : On Black Light as a Weapon in the Culture Wars

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 499 pages
• Published by: Glory Arts Productions
• Edition: 1st Edition September 15, 1997
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 096579430X
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0965794305
• Book Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Weighs: 1.4 pounds

Product Description
God's gift to 2003--Jimmy Swaggart's back on TV!

This lively, eye-opening book by a Swaggart Ministries insider explains Jimmy as a God-driven and contradictory personality who is possessed of an awesome Holy Spirit anointing for healing, convert-making, and demon deliverance. It reveals the Swaggart sex scandals of the late 1980's to have resulted from Jimmy's private weaknesses as capitalized upon by his enemies, including Bob Guccione of Penthouse, some Assemblies of God officers and elders, Ted Turner's CNN, many hard-Left media types, and some greed-driven members of the evangelist's own family, including his business-manager wife Frances.

One of this book's great strengths is the light it sheds on Protestant-Catholic theological and worship differences while at the same time relating Jimmy Swaggart's recent history. The author, a Catholic charismatic and product of Jesuit university schooling, admits of her amazement upon discovering that the once widely broadcast preachings of Louisiana's Jimmy Swaggart (who is anti-Catholic after the fashion of Dr. Bob Jones III of South Carolina and Ireland's Rev. Ian Paisley), is most of the time preaching the purest traditional Catholic orthodoxy---but without ever suspecting this himself. Only after she becomes a full-time staffer with the Swaggart Ministries does the writer, a midwesterner, begin to divine some of the causes for the controversial evangelist's strange "soda-straw" vision of church life.

In sum, the book is a carefully written and thoughtful record of its author's own revelations about "Pentecost" and its people at the same time that it tells Jimmy Swaggart's painful story. JIMMY SWAGGART---DEAD MAN RISING leaves no doubt that Jimmy Swaggart's comeback from the near obscurity of his post-scandal years is to be expected, and fairly soon. All along, the preacher's 10:00 a.m.An unusual prophetic utterance reported in CHARISMA pentecostal journal in June, 2001 (p. 25) anticipates a religious revival of awesome power soon to move from southern Louisiana up the Mississippi River and eventually to envelope the entire country. To this author's view, Swaggart is certain to be a key force in that impending movement.

Publisher Description
Glory Arts is proud to present JIMMY SWAGGART---DEAD MAN RISING. Ours is the first serious book about Louisiana Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart by an independent publisher, one which is not a voice for one or another of Swaggart's enemies or their lawyers.Mike Haley, summarizes author Barbara Nauer's accomplishment as follows: "True, the media have told Jimmy's story many times, but they have never told the true story, let alone the whole story. That has never been told, until now. Thanks, Barbara, for a job well done."

We, the book's publishers, could not have said it better ourselves. But no wonder Barbara Nauer's is the most realistic, convincing and memorable history written to date about this celebrity preacher's post-scandal years. She was personal eye-witness to most of what she records. And as re-write editor for Swaggart himself during the two years which were especially crucial for his ministry's survival, she had access to the preacher's own memory of events as supplemental to her own.

Nauer telling her readers about the life and times of the musically gifted,boisterous, God-driven Jimmy and of her own adventures--and misadventures--in "Jimmy Swaggart Country" is not just highly readable; she is often delightfully funny. Readers of her earlier autobiographical RISE UP AND REMEMBER (Doubleday Co., 1976) will recognize and relish the lucid, witty, and punchy writing style in which this writer tells her celebrity preacher's tragic history. Barbara can be as blunt and simplistic as Hemingway when she says on behalf the Catholic sacraments,"Matter matters". Elsewhere her colorful and imagistic prose can sparkle like that of John Updike or Annie Dillard.

We believe that, as well as having much to say to Bible Christians and to traditional or "Papal" Catholics, this book should be of special interest to those who work in films and the secular media. Barbara Nauer often refers to media people and to their allied psychological experts, drolly, as "the medioids". She passionately resents their routine "black-lighting"--presenting paranoid views of--outspoken conservative Christians and Jews. At this time when the networks are doing a lot of self-examining about their liberal and anti-Bible biases, and when there is also considerable hand-wringing among the pundits about the gradual "Southification" of the country by the Bush Administration and its faith-driven allies, what Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart stands for deserves close examination.

Reader Reviews
Barbara Nauer's lengthy discussion of the internal politics and underlying theology and spiritual battles make for engaging reading. The author's sharp wit and educated observations do far more than sketch the characters involved in the dramatic changes in Jimmy Swaggert Ministries through the late 1980's - she provides analysis and makes reasonable guesses as to the motivations of the principles. This book is best read by Christians, especially those who can digest the language of fundamentalist Pentecostal Christianity. But Roman Catholics will find witty and enlightening observations as well. I expected a mud bath, but this literate and occasionally emotional tome provides clear analysis and a wealth of anecdote. It isn't for the faint-hearted but provides a wealth of information for those who would like to know just what went wrong (and went right) during the eventual "downsizing" of Jimmy Swaggert's international television ministry. Swaggert is protrayed in sympathetic tones, a difficult task given the "black light" he has often found instead of a spotlight. The printing & cover art is about average for a "vanity press" book and the contents could have used some editing - some passages drag on too long. Still, this work is a landmark in examinations of 20th century American evangelists. I recommend this book highly.