This time there were no tears, no tortured confessions, no anguished pleas for forgiveness. As Jimmy Swaggart took the podium outside his World Ministry headquarters in Baton Rouge, La., last week, the Pentecostal preacher seemed serene. The 13-member executive presbytery of the Assemblies of God had just voted unanimously to defrock him. The televangelist responded by announcing his resignation from the church. "I wish it were possible to erase the ledger and start over again," said Swaggart. "But of course it is not."
The presbytery had ordered Swaggart to refrain from preaching for a full year after he acknowledged "moral failure"...