Posted by Fred Willis | Oct 24, 2024
Pastor Donnie Swaggart used his pulpit to try to bully the “Black Church” more specifically, the Church of God in Christ, for its alignment with Vice-President Kamala Harris and her bid for President of the United States of America. While I could explain why, Rev. Swaggart’s usage of church time to bloviate against his brothers and sisters in the faith is wrong. I’ll instead tell you why it wreaks of the fallacy of white supremacist ideology.
Pastor Donnie Swaggart calls out the Church of God in Christ and Bishop J. Drew Sheard for Bishop Sheard’s alignment with Kamala Harris. Rev. Swaggart says that any alignment with Harris is in agreement with murder and worse
Rev. Swaggart felt justified in calling out Bishop J. Drew Sheard and the Church of God in Christ because most evangelicals feel that the Democratic Party’s platform is not Christian though they view former president Donald Trump through a lens that forgives his erratic behavior, felonious transgressions, and detrimental policies from which the country is still recovering. The Bible tells us how beautiful it is when brethren dwell together in unity. Where’s the unity here? That’s a good question, albeit rhetorical. In America, the only divide sharper than politics, religion and class is race, as each major denomination began as a segregated entity. Many used the Bible to support their claims and believed that they had the God-given right to enslave others to their benefit. One reason America gained its great wealth is because of the free labor of harvesting cotton and other wealth garnering crops in the South.
BISHOP J. DREW SHEARD, “I’M WITH HER!”
There would be no Black Church without the pervasive segregation in America. Baptists, Pentecostals and even Methodists have varying versions of “white” and “black” expressions of their denomination. Consider the African Methodist Church, The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., the National Missionary Baptist Convention of America, and the Church of God in Christ. As the United States inched toward integration, pastors like Jerry Falwell of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, doubled down on segregation and opened Liberty Christian Academy to circumvent legislation forcing integration. By opening their own schools, churches could continue segregation under the guise of the freedom of religion. The IRS didn’t take too kindly to this and threatened the tax-exempt status of these schools funded by churches.1
Here in Dallas, W. A. Criswell was a stalwart of segregation, but as Jerry Falwell entrenched himself in segregation, Criswell freed himself from it, welcoming Baptists of all races to First Baptist Dallas. Criswell’s predecessor George W. Truett chose not to use his voice and gave rise to prejudice in the church by virtue of his silence on weighty issues of race in religion. He is thereby remembered contemptuously as an affectionate of racism and prejudice as much as he is for his preaching. Former pastor of First Baptist Dallas and seminarian O. S. Hawkins uncovered these juxtapositions facing these preachers in an article years ago.2 In the article, Hawkins’ intrepid reporting revealed Truett’s complicity as a founding member of Baylor Hospital in Dallas. No black physicians were allowed to practice there for years while Truett sat on the board of directors.
Dr. Freddie Haynes responded to Donnie Swaggart
Hawkins also revealed Truett failed to call out known members of the Ku Klux Klan in his congregation. A century before the introduction of integration, the prince of preachers, the Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon, found himself on the receiving end of death threats by Confederate pastors. These pastors would have openly committed the sin of murder in opposition to Spurgeon’s fiery abolitionist views. A Montgomery, Alabama newspaper sponsored a bonfire in a jail yard that burned his books and the Southern Baptists banned his books from their shelves in protest. Spurgeon maintained that these men, though brothers in the faith, were errant “man stealers.”3
“If the Pharisaical author should ever show himself in these parts, we trust that a stout cord may speedily find its way around his eloquent throat” (“Mr. Spurgeon’s Sermons Burned by American Slaveowners,” The Southern Reporter and Daily Commercial Courier [April 10, 1860]).3
So, you see, what hear from Brother Donnie Swaggart is not new. What it sounds like is more tired racism from a bully pulpit. Though his father’s church is integrated, it is no testimony to scriptural leadership. It is a concession of humanity of sorts. These types of churches are multi-racial though not multicultural.Too often, churches like these force on its membership the cloak of identity, political affiliation and social construct of the leadership making no room for any other type of lived experience within the membership. Can you be evangelical and agree that women should have rights to pregnancy care that includes abortion? Many are trying to figure this out as the 2024 general election draws closer. What about criminal justice reform? I wonder what the Swaggarts think about Marcellus Williams, recently executed in Missouri despite pleas to consider his innocence. Can you be evangelical and be empathetic toward those who risk their life and freedom to immigrate to the USA, in hopes of a better life?Why don’t more evangelicals take interest in “Black” issues? This gray matterbecomes disengaged when we allow politics to polarize people.
If we’re honest, Family Worship Center, home to Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, Rev. Donnie Swaggart and thousands of like-minded believers in the Bayou, is part of the Black Church Brother Donnie railed against. How so? To answer this, let’s travel back to William Seymour’s nine year Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, California. Two Mississippi pastors came to the conclusion that there was more to their faith than what they had experienced. Upon hearing about the revival in LA, one pastor traveled, and the experience changed the course of history of faith in the United States and beyond.
Pastors Charles Harrison Mason and Charles Price Jones sought the more that was experienced in California, but upon his return, Mason and Price disagreed about Mason’s stance on tongues as the initial sign of the fulness of the Holy Ghost in the life of a believer. This divide birthed two foundational Pentecostal movements in the United States, with Mason founding the Church of God in Christand Jones founding the Church of Christ Holiness U.S.A in 1907. Bishop Mason was convinced to continue the interracial movement as the founder of the COGIC church. Black and White believers fellowshiped together and openly until racism and Jim Crow sentiments stalled the momentum.4
THE SWAGGARTS ARE PART OF THE BLACK CHURCH
In 1914, a contingency of white ordained elders left the COGIC and began Assemblies of God in Springfield, Missouri. For nearly a century,the two remained separated until President Bishop Emeritus of the Church of God in Christ, Charles E. Blake accepted then General Superintendent George O. Wood’s 2015 invitation to restore the bond broken by racism. This bond fostered the growing faith of Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, his church and his children. While social divides remain, we cannot allow the divides in the Kingdom to remain. To say that we are brothers has more to do with faith than anything else. And why don’t believers come together politically? That’s the bigger problem we need to solve. As the Israel/Palestine conflict continues, white and black believers struggle to find a scriptural basis for their varying viewpoints. There are some things we may never understand or fully agree on. What we will not do is go backward into the dark past where white believers feel it’s their right to tell black believers what to think, feel or vote!
So no, Pastor Donnie Swaggart, you aren’t just a misguided racist. You don’t get it and are the worst kind of believer. One whose myopic view of faith has blinded you to the bigger, broader issues that our faith should confront. While it’s easy to point out abortion, anti-police sentiments and LGBTQ+ sentiments, those are not the only issues driving Black Christians in America to the polls. In the meantime, please keep the Black Church’s name out of your mouth!
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