Commemorative

September 2025

I’ve said before that as a boy, I always knew that my dad was different. I couldn’t describe then exactly how he was different; it was more of something I sensed. But all these years later, I can say with surety that the something I sensed was God setting my Dad apart—apart from other men, other preachers, even other Bible scholars. As Christians, we are all called to separation, but those who are chosen—they must follow God to the desert, alone. Few will ever know the personal cost of that journey. Throughout my Dad’s ministry, I have seen him loved, and I have seen him hated, simply for the word that the Lord gave him to preach. It’s not easy to stand by and watch sinners and saints alike publicly attack your parent. Human instinct is to hit back; a son’s desire is to protect. Many times, I would have gladly taken Dad’s place, to spare him. But deep down, I knew that God was with Dad—just as He was with Moses, and with David, and with Paul—no matter how many critics were against him. 

That brings to mind President Theodore Roosevelt’s famous words: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

When I think of Dad and his days in ministry—from preaching in the tiniest churches to standing before tens of thousands in the world’s coliseums—the experience is comparable, in my mind, to that of a soldier’s. The Army private who advances, over many years, to the rank of general. In both cases, such promotions are rare. Each requires a lifetime of service above self and a willingness to lay down one’s life, daily, for the cause. But unlike the highly decorated officer, the preacher wears no ribbons or medals for the spiritual battles he’s fought. No citations record his courageous faith, nor his many war wounds suffered for the brethren. Nevertheless, the scars are there. Men who wrestle with God come away with a limp. 

Dad never took credit for anything accomplished under the banner of Jimmy Swaggart Ministries. All of the glory, he said, belongs to the Lord. All of it. Glory to God. No one said those words quite like Jimmy Swaggart. 

Love you Dad, miss you,

~Donnie Swaggart