Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart Passing -The Mainstream Media's Myopic Focus

FLORIDA  

Opinion by:  
E. Eugene Webb PhD

Here is a comment from Facebook that expresses my feelings better than I could write them.

From Facebook: Christina 

I’ve been watching the media coverage since the moment Brother Swaggart was called home—and the more I see, the heavier my heart becomes. Not just from grief, but from the sheer weight of disappointment. One by one, news outlets release their reports—cold, clinical, and painfully predictable. They all gravitate, as they always have, to one part of his life. That one piece they’ve clung to for decades. That one thing they’ve used to define him. But not a single one of them dares to speak of the move of God that came through his life. Not one truly honors what Heaven did in him and through him. They gloss over the glory. They silence the miracles. They bury the fire.

And it hurts. Because I remember.

I remember being in my living room, tears streaming down my face as his voice cracked under the weight of the anointing. I remember the power that flowed when he sang—how the Holy Spirit would fall in waves. I remember his sermons that didn’t just inform, but cut—deep, surgical, Spirit-led. Brother Swaggart wasn’t just a preacher… he was an instrument of divine urgency. His voice carried a sound that called the sinner home. It awakened something in me. It drew me closer to Jesus. And I’m just one of millions who could say the same.

So to these media outlets—you missed it. You missed the whole point. You reduced a man’s life to a footnote, a controversy, a headline. You cherry-picked a fraction and ignored the eternal. You don’t know the souls that found salvation through his obedience. You don’t see the drug addict set free, the broken restored, the weary believer strengthened because he refused to stop preaching the Cross.

But I saw it. I lived it. I was changed by it.

You may never say his name with honor. But I will. The world may try to erase the impact. But Heaven knows. And so do we.

Brother Swaggart, thank you—for pouring out your life like a drink offering until your final breath. While the world writes its stories, we’ll remember the truth: a general just went home… and this world will never be the same.

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I have often been critical of media coverage, especially electronic media. over the last few years. Since the days of Walter Cronkite and Edward R Murrow the media has moved steadily to the left from reporting, to analyzing, to commenting, to opinion, to tearing people down. 

If there was ever an example of why you should not pay attention to the electronic media regardless of who you may be watching, the examples of the reporting of the passing of Jimmy Swaggart are a classic.

 We all make mistakes in our lives, some big, some small. We are told in the Bible if we confess those mistakes, those sins, will be forgiven.

In the eyes of the media those few mistakes are the things they believe define us. But they are not.

Want to see some facts about Jimmy Swaggart Check out: Jimmy Swaggart Ministries

Here is what I am sure of, there are going to be an lot of well written and artfully reported newscasts in Hell.

E-mail Doc at mail to: dr.gwebb@yahoo.com or send me a Facebook (E. Eugene Webb) Friend request. Like or share on Facebook, follow me on  X at  @DOC ON THE BAY.