Young COGIC leaders call on Donnie Swaggart to repent for rebuking black church

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Scores of young leaders in the Church of God In Christ, America’s largest black Pentecostal denomination, have called on evangelist Donnie Swaggart to publicly repent for his recent rebuke of the black church and Bishop John Drew Sheard, the presiding bishop and chief apostle of COGIC, for endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris and president along with an unbiblical and anti-God agenda.

Swaggart, who is a pastor at the Family Worship Center Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the only son of televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, was acknowledged by former President Donald Trump as a “talented guy” during the National Faith Summit on Monday.

“We are well aware that the Scriptures speak of the last days as a time when ‘people will not put up with sound doctrine, but, having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths’ (2 Timothy 4:3-4),” the young COGIC leaders argued. “Tragically, Pastor Swaggart has, at least in the instance of his viral commentary, positioned himself squarely within verses 3 and 4 of that passage.”

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Earlier this month, Swaggart took aim at COGIC and the black church, in general, after Sheard publicly revealed his endorsement of Harris’ campaign to become the first female president of the United States.

“When the largest African American Pentecostal denomination, when that leader stands up and said I endorse that woman, he was saying, I endorse murder, I endorse homosexuality, I endorse lesbianism, I endorse transgenderism, I endorse every evil that Hell could prosper or bring up to [be] right. That's wrong folks!” Swaggart said to applause.

“The black church votes predominantly for the party that is anti-God. What's going on here? What's going on?” he asked.

“Why will not the African American Church stand up for righteousness and stand up for the Word of God? Come on Church, come on! You can call me a racist, you can call me every name under the sun, but I am right! I come against you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't vote for somebody just because mama voted for them or daddy voted for them, but you vote according to the Word of God.”

The young COGIC leaders argued that Swaggart’s reductive view of the black church based on political allegiance is “not only an oversimplification of the faith but a theological distortion that borders on idolatry.”

“The Gospel is not the handmaiden of any political party or political movement, and the Kingdom of God is neither Republican nor Democrat. Such a mishandling of the Gospel is erroneous at best and heretical at worst,” the leaders asserted.

“The black Church exists as a byproduct of a nation that refused to acknowledge the inherent value of black lives. It was birthed in an era that actively rejected the sound doctrine of Christ, replacing it with doctrines that upheld segregation and inequality. To see the black Church disrespected and maligned by a figure who claims to preach the Gospel is not only deeply offensive but is a reprisal of the same spirit of exclusion and oppression that the black Church has fought against for centuries,” they added.

The leaders further noted that despite Swaggart’s suggestion that black churches in America are mishandling their duty to vote by making arbitrary and ill-informed decisions, it’s quite the contrary.

“To be clear, we have never had the luxury of taking our vote lightly. Our ancestors fought, bled, and died for the right to vote — not just to be counted as citizens, but as human beings. We, therefore, don’t vote out of convenience; we vote as an act of resistance, as an act of survival, and as an act of prophetic witness,” the young leaders said.

“The Black Church doesn’t align itself with a political party and fully recognizes that the Gospel is countercultural and supreme over all. … We extend to Pastor Swaggart a very public and very clear invitation to not only retract his words but to repent from the totality of his error.”

Read the complete letter below: