Fulminous:
- harshly critical
- of, involving, or resembling thunder and lightning [Collins Dictionary]
Noted in “Jimmy Swaggart, televangelist felled by sex scandal, dies at 90,” Paul Vitello, WaPo:
Relatives told biographers that, as a boy, Mr. Swaggart was considered the shy counterpart to his reckless cousin Jerry Lee [Lewis]. In “Hellfire,” his 1982 biography of Lewis, Nick Tosches wrote that Mr. Swaggart and his cousin shared “the same fulminous vision of good and evil” but preached “from opposite shores of the river they call salvation.”
For those who wonder,
Randall Balmer, a professor of religion at Dartmouth College who wrote about Mr. Swaggart for Christianity Today magazine in 1998, described a disarmingly likable preacher, singing and sermonizing at his piano to a much-reduced but fiercely devoted audience.
For the audience, such is the importance of being a drama queen in American culture.
