Swaggart’s Empire Shrinks--and so Do the Donations : Televangelism: Preacher has been unable to maintain his ministry’s onetime prosperity after a highly publicized scandal.

BATON ROUGE, La. —  In the halcyon days, televangelist Jimmy Swaggart would ask for $25, $50, even $100 from followers and he would get it, even if it meant the donors would have to do without.

These days, Swaggart begs for pennies.

His age is showing, perhaps the strain from all the scandal. But the 59-year-old Swaggart still plays the piano with that almost boogie-woogie style that is so akin to that of his famous and controversial cousin Jerry Lee Lewis.

The crowds still stand, their arms raised, singing and swaying to the gospel music.

But the crowds, like the donations, are smaller--much smaller.

On a recent Sunday, his 7,000-seat Family Worship Center was two-thirds empty as Swaggart started his pitch.

“Start giving--if you have to give pennies to start with--and then start increasing it as he increases his blessing on you,” Swaggart said, giving a thumbs up as people came forward and placed their money in several large, wooden boxes.

“It would be very amazing to the Lord if you danced down these aisles and gave your gift shouting ‘Alleluia’ all the way.”

Swaggart is one of the most gifted television preachers, but even his enormous talent is not enough to rebuild an empire he lost after his highly publicized meetings with prostitutes, televangelism scholars say.

The viewing audience that financially feeds his ministry also is vastly smaller. Where Swaggart’s extensive network of cable and satellite feeds once covered the globe and reached 3 million Americans, only 100,000 U.S. households watch his weekly sermon today, according to Arbitron, a rating agency.

His ministry was $4.5 million in the red in 1991, the latest year for which tax records were available. During Swaggart’s peak, the tax-exempt ministry earned $150 million a year.

Ministry officials would not say how many students still attend Swaggart’s Bible college at his $100-million complex in Baton Rouge. But a planned 12-story dormitory sits abandoned, its windows void of glass, weeds crowding its entryway.

Other construction projects at the complex have also stopped.

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The ministry was recently ordered to pay more than $1.4 million for Bibles and other religious publications delivered but never paid for.

A computer firm sued Swaggart for more than $80,000 for software and services it claims the ministry has not paid for.

Swaggart also agreed to pay rival Marvin Gorman $1.8 million last month in an out-of-court settlement. Gorman sued Swaggart for $90 million after the two swapped allegations of sexual misconduct in 1987.

“For all practical purposes, his career is over,” said Bill Martin, a sociology professor at Rice University in Houston who specializes in televangelism. “That doesn’t mean he won’t continue to preach and eke out a living, and maybe a fairly good one. But he won’t be a prominent, nationally known evangelist again.”

Where does that leave him?

Swaggart will not say because he does not grant interviews. He has called news reporters “devils” at times.

Martin says Swaggart is left with a little television exposure, some revivals and business ventures in the secular world, notably rentals of the shell of his empire.

A state agency pays $2 million a year to lease several buildings at the ministries complex. Meeting halls are rented for business conferences. A local hospital, Baptist church and day-care center also rent space there.

A health and fitness center, originally built for students of the Bible college, sells memberships to the public.

Born to poverty in a Mississippi River Delta area in northeast Louisiana, Swaggart got his start in 1958, hitting the revival circuit with his wife, Frances, in a beat-up Plymouth and living hand to mouth.

By the 1980s, Swaggart had built a televangelism empire. His Family Worship Center overflowed with attendance, and 15,000 students attended his Bible college.

He spread his message through books and records. But his main instrument was his weekly telecast. He was the most-watched televangelist in the country for much of the last decade, according to Arbitron.

Swaggart fell from grace in 1988 after Gorman had pictures taken of him outside a seedy New Orleans-area motel with a prostitute. Swaggart lost his Assembly of God affiliation and much of the viewing audience that financially fed his ministries.

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In 1991, he was stopped with a prostitute in his car in California.

His viewing audience fell to 400,000 households. His ministries complex, which once employed 1,500, lost half its staff. His Bible college lost 70% of its students.

“Because of the second scandal, it will be difficult for him, no matter how gifted a preacher and especially a television preacher, to rebuild a national ministry,” said Quentin Schultz, author of “Televangelism and American Culture” and a communications professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Last year, Swaggart’s viewing audience dwindled to 113,000.

Swaggart’s telecast is broadcast on less-expensive local cable stations in some areas of the country, although ministry officials will not say where. Arbitron does not include cable stations in its ratings.

Martin believes that Swaggart and his ministry can survive as a lean, scaled-down operation.

“There are some pretty small ministries out there,” he said. “But you have to wonder what he will be content to do. My guess is he won’t be content.”