"I'm not going to promise you better times," roared the fiery American preacher as he prowled the stage with Bible held aloft, "but it doesn't matter, because you're going to a better place anyway!" To many of his eager listeners in a San Salvador stadium, the distant hope of heaven may have been at least momentarily alluring, beset as their nation has been by a seven-year guerrilla war and a moribund economy. When the preacher later assured them that "terrible times are coming," the applause of approving believers reached a thunderous peak.
The crowd pleaser onstage was Jimmy Swaggart, 51, the...