Last Friday evening, March 8, 2011 I joined millions of Americans in watching the documentary on ABC revealing the legendary abuses of a number of Independent, Fundamental Baptist Churches. There was little in that report with which I was able to honestly disagree. That is a sad statement for me to have to make. The reason I can make that statement, however, is because I spent a dozen or so years at the heart of that movement and close to the sources of its power. One of the clips that was shown on the ABC piece was that of a raging preacher demonstrating his misogynism and bullying authoritarianism in plain view again and again in thunderous tones from his pulpit. That preacher was Jack Schaap, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond and successor to his father-in-law, Jack Hyles. The preacher in the stripped prison suit in Tennessee serving a 175 year sentence for sexually abusing and torturing his adopted daughter was Joe Combs. Combs was the premier Bible teacher at Hyles-Anderson College, a ministry of First Baptist Church of Hammond. Sad to say, it is my alma mater. I graduated from there with two degrees in pastoral theology in 1986 and 1988. Thank God my education has continued, both formally and informally since then as a conscious decision on my part to try to get my theological hat on straight and to purge my doctrine of the admixture cultish beliefs that were part and parcel of the daily fare at H.A.C. for five years, and proudly reinforced from the pulpit of First Baptist Church of Hammond three times a week, and in the many national conferences sponsored by the church every year in which I participated and taught.
As I scale the high peaks of knowledge and truth and gratefully and humbly learn more each day of God’s thoughts and what it means to be a Christian, my perspective on the Independent Baptist Movement comes into clearer and clearer focus. I have always said that I would no more paint the entire movement with the broad brush of criticism deserved by some of its leaders than I would quit eating restaurants for the rest of my life because I ate one meal that made me sick. That being said, the ABC piece pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Our adversary, Satan, understands that if he can get a Christian to take Christ off the altar, he must provide a suitable and acceptable substitute. For the dedicated and serious Christian the coarse replacements of sexual sin and riches most often will not do. What works nicely, however, may at first glance be a surprising choice. What are many pastors willing to place on the center of the altar instead of Christ? Their church! This mindset and the strategies, principles, supporting sermons and tactics were honed to perfection by Jack Hyles. In fact, he was so masterful and bold as to spell it out in detail regularly from the pulpit without fear and yearly before his nationwide “Pastor’s School .” Hyles once said on a Sunday evening in my presence, “The entire spiritual fate of this nation rests on these shoulders right here,” pointing to his own. What Hyles was really saying was, “We have to do everything necessary to secure my future and the future of this church, regardless of what we are accused of doing, or America is spiritually doomed!” What that turned out to be was sweeping scandal after scandal under the rug, treating victims as willing participants in sin, and running from their obligation as Christians and church leaders to protect the innocent while keeping a convicted child molester on their deacon board and on the Board of Trustees of their college.
This morning I was reading in the book of Micah and came across this verse:
“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Micah 6:8
These words hit me right between the eyes and all I could see was the face of Jack Schaap, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond and the heir to the throne of Jack Hyles as the self-appointed leader of the Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement. You see, Jack Schaap and I were once best friends. He was also my business partner. The first wedding ever performed by Jack Schaap was our own wedding: Schaap married my wife and me on July 20th, 1985 in Azle, Texas.
So when I read that verse in Micah this morning, something powerful and stunningly accurate occurred to me: Jack Schaap and men like him have failed on all three of the requirements given by the prophet Micah to express what God requires of man:
“to do justly:” There was no justice in the little girl’s face across the table from me in that run-down house in Gary, Indiana, as I watched her mother cry after her little girl had been molested by deacon A.V. Ballenger at First Baptist Church of Hammond. Ballenger was subsequently convicted and imprisoned. There was no justice in the church shunning and ostracizing that family for daring to go public. There was no justice for one of my good friends who uprooted his life in Southern California to attend Hyles-Anderson College where one of Hyles’ associate pastors committed adultery with his wife and destroyed their marriage, only to have Hyles quietly ship the adulterous preacher off to another church (where he did the same thing). My friend’s life was shattered and left in ruins and his family of five children is fractured still today, twenty-five years later.
“to love mercy:” There is no mercy at First Baptist Church of Hammond when it comes to victim advocacy and the thousands of churches who populate their many conferences in an effort to be more like them learn this well. If the rights of the victim come into conflict with the public image of the church, the church will be in the lives of these abused people an unstoppable juggernaut that will plow them over and leave them not only powerless and cast aside, but for many, the church will add insult to injury by heaping mountains of guilt on their victims, regardless of their age. Many of these victims never recover.
“to walk humbly:” Men like Schaap and Hyles are riddled through and through with a Napoleonic complex, and for Hyles, I strongly suspect that it was in fact a messianic complex. These men exhibit narcissism on steroids. I once counted self references in a Hyles sermon: 305, and only 4 to God. I never once heard from Hyles anything about his own human weakness or frailty, or dependence on God. Hyles began and perpetuated and taught the worst of Independent, Fundamental Baptist preaching: VOLUME! (If you say it loud enough, it must be so!)
Where was the humility of Job? Where was the contrition of David? Where was the self-diminishing expression of John the Baptist? Where was the self-examination mandated by Christ at the Last Supper? Wherever it was, it was not to be found at 523 Sibley Street in Hammond on any Sunday morning in my seven year tenure there, or in my close relationship with Jack Hyles and Jack Schaap.
Today, Jack Hyles knows better. He met God on February 6th, 2001. He now understands that he had for a half-century monumentally underestimated the holiness of God and inexpressibly overestimated his own righteousness in ways impossible to even begin to count or describe. He now understands the magnitude of that travesty.
Today, Jack Schaap does not understand. Thank you, ABC for exposing the abuses of the Independent Fundamental Movement. It is a shame that it did not come from God’s people. My only regret is that your brush was broader than it needed to be. However, I believe in my heart that God’s people are to blame, for this judgment should have begun at the house of God, not on West End avenue in New York City. Oh that we had been the ones to to sweep our own church floors!
How A Good Church Becomes A CultHow A Good Church Becomes A Cult
I can’t touch this one to the extent I’d like to for obvious reasons, but I will say this: In the interest of truth and not simply the sensationalism that characterizes most of what passes for “journalism” these days, I want to point out that if ABC wanted to be completely — instead of obliquely — truthful on this subject, the chick (was it Elizabeth Vargas?) with the scrinched-up face throughout the “report” would have looked into the camera at the end and said something like this:
“Look, folks … bottom line is that every organized religion — indeed, every organization of ANY kind — since the beginning of time, has at one time or another preyed on others. Women and children especially, and particularly women and children with no strong protector, have been victims for centuries. So have boys and men. Such selfish and evil malfeasance is not unique to what we have labeled the “IFB” movement. Why, truth be known, the Catholics have FORGOTTEN more about ecclesiastical corruption and abuse of its membership — not to mention the brutal murder of real, actual Christians — than the Baptists will ever know. No matter the way, shape, or form people organize themselves into groups and create a hierarchy, there will be victims. Tonight we have exposed, to the best of our ability, some wrongdoing in one faction of Christianity. It by no means represents ALL that is going on in that faction. Nor does it represent ANYTHING occurring in other factions. Our report was narrow, concentrating on the bad things people within these groups have done, and omitting even a single thing they or the group might do that could be construed as good or profitable. So take it in that context and remember: Your child could be at risk in ANY group, religious or otherwise, if you do not take the time and make the effort to supervise that child and ensure its safety.”
Look like the “chick” hit a nerve. I agree that this was fairly classic journalism, complete with anti-religious biases. BUT, the teenage girl featured was HORRIBLY abused by an IFB pastor, & the good of exposing these scoundrel FAR outweighs the bad. As I pointed out, if judgment had begun at the house of God, ABC would have had to look elsewhere for their story.
You are sadly seeming to excuse bad behavior by pointing to other bad behavior. This is not the way of Christ. I am glad the spotlight was shined on these genuine abusers, rather than to have allowed them to sweep these wretched sins under the rug as usual in the IFB movement. (The carpet in my old church has so many lumps you could use it as a skateboard park.) Enough is enough! jk
For some reason, this message came into my mailbox again, so I’ll respond again. You are doing two things here, Jenny and my feelings are even stronger now about your tactics to excuse sin by pointing to other sin.
You are being 100% correct in your assessment that every group that consists of human beings in going to be tainted with malfeasance, to use your term. There is no denying this, and I agree that the reportage was to some measure agenda-driven against Fundamentalism. That is what the world does, always has and always will. No sense sniveling about it. God commands us to be “beyond reproach” as our defense. Did Hyles and Schaap seem “beyond reproach” to you?
Your response, however true, sadly comes down to the Bill Clinton style excuse, “nobody is perfect.” That is not the standard of Christianity; JESUS CHRIST IS!!! When the self-proclaimed leader of a major religious movement engages in adultery, then major factions of that movement give him and his imitators a complete pass and spend two decades vilifying anyone who refuses to, that movement becomes characterized by a terrible pathology upon which the Lord can only response with a combination of vomit and anger.
We are commanded to “JUDGE RIGHTEOUS JUDGEMENT.” What you have done is given the systematic, chronic and corporate sin of an entire movement vaunting itself as Christ’s most righteous human expression on earth a complete pass by your refusal to see those documented patterns of sin as “exceedingly sinful,” regardless of the lives that have been devastated, including thousands of innocent children. I have no earthly idea what your “obvious reasons” are for not being more candid. I just want to fall on my knees and thank God He has given me a view of sin that would make it impossible for me to never take any course of action other than to call out sin from the highest hill in the land.
The political expediency that serves as your apparent guiding principle in dealing with sin will be scant comfort for your quivering soul when you stand before God one day and explain to Him why you “can’t touch this one to the extent I’d like to for obvious reasons.” Maybe if He doesn’t think too hard at that moment about how those sins were among the ones that nailed His beloved Son to a cross, He’ll be somewhat more sympathetic to your ecclesiastical agenda . . .
Jerry,
I think your assessment of the 20/20 piece was about right. This reporter was obviously not a bible believing christian, but she exposed to the world what should have been exposed years ago. If these IFB churches had followed the biblical model for dealing with sin in the church, especially the leadership, They wouldn’t have to be exposed by unbelievers on prime time television.
I don’t know what the ratio is, but a number of these IFB churches are functioning like a cult. It appears that the IFB movement has been hijacked by “savage wolves” and imposters. I have family members who are caught up in one of these churches, and the damage has been great. They are very zealous for their “form of religion”. The problem is, their religion doesn’t look at all like the real thing.
Remember that Satan always offers substitutes that are similar to the real thing, but are different at some critical point. I believe that Satan has focused his efforts on getting his men into the pulpits of churches with a large amount of success. Christians who don’t know God’s Word are completely vulnerable.
I pray that God will use you to help others who are caught up in error.
I have had long conversations with Eddie Wilson this week; he is the media spokesman for FBC Hammond. As I said to him, he has been put on the front lines by Schaap armed with a pea shooter while Schaap hides in his office. Wilson does mean well, and I sense that he is a good man, even though he has not read Fundamental Seduction, The Wizard of God, or Sumner’s article, “The Saddest Story We Have Ever Told. Wilson knows nothing of the legendary mountains of abuse in the churner’s past. If he stays, he will be tainted by Schaap’s morality.
I sat in the family’s kitchen after the young girl was molested in the church by A.V. Ballenger. I asked Wilson if Schaap in his “new day” had reached out to them to even try to say “I’m sorry” after having ruined their lives and condemned the father to raging alcoholism. I asked him how he would feel toward Schaap if it was his daughter. I asked him how it could be “a new day” at FBC with all of Hyles’ old staff on he platform every Sunday after decades of rubber stamping Hyles’ abuses. He told me many of the problems were caused by members who “came to us with problems in their lives already.” So I asked him about Joe Combs, their premier Bible teacher for many years now serving 175 years in a Tennessee prison for sexually abusing and torturing his adopted daughter. He had no answer. Wilson did say he would meet with Schaap on 4/16/11 and get back to me. He has failed to do so. Surprise, surprise . . .
Maybe it is a new day at FBC Hammond. Maybe new standards are in place. Maybe they are buying background check forms in bulk. Until they step up and take responsibility for the thousands of families driven from their faith by the abuse and rotten example of this cultish organization, however, they will get no respect from me. I don’t care care how many homeless people they feed or how many shelters they take over for the city of Hammond, or how many buses they fill up (as if anyone has ever believe those cooked numbers, a blatant fraud which I once sadly had a hand in.)
Schaap will make millions from selling his books to his followers, just like Hyles did, but he will still let the elderly teachers continue to work well into their 80’s because they have no pensions while staffers drive new cars, and 75 year old Bible teachers in their schools run paper routes at 5:00 a.m. on sub-zero mornings.
All is not well in FBC paradise, however. I can’t share the details yet, but there have been some raucous deacons meetings with some of the younger men speaking out against the cover-ups in the style of Vic Nischick before writing his book, “The Wizard of God,” exposing the adultery of Jack Hyles. The older deacons are still trying to shout down the whistleblowers, but this time it is not working quite so well. Nevertheless, the church is still certainly adept at the political maneuverings that serve to pressure out anyone who does not toe the church party line. Like all personality cults, they do not tolerate dissent,
So the abuse, chest puffing and misogyny of FBC Hammond will continue. One young woman we counseled after the church literally sanctioned her ex-husband’s abuse before she dumped him aptly called the church “a Boy’s Club.”
Schaap and I were close friends and business partners for years. I have been in his home and he has been in ours. My wife and I were the first couple he married in 1983. I believe he could have a great ministry, a great life, and enjoy great respect. He has enormous talent and he is a smart individual. But he first has to cross the narrow and imposing rope bridge over the raging rapids of accountability and then lead his church to take ownership of their past. So far, he has not had the courage to take the first step. I do not believe that this is something he will ever do. He is still bent on trying to control the flow of water under that bridge, and that has never worked for anyone. That is apparently still the modus-operandi at First Baptist Church of Hammond. It is not, however, the way of Jesus Christ.
Thank you, Robert! Whenever one underestimates the grandeur & extent of God’s holiness, they cast themselves on the losing side. Many, many of the IFB leaders are on that side, and time will always be on the side of truth. As I like to say, time not only heals all wounds , it wounds all heels . . .
As it turns out my dad was a professor at HAC. We left and moved away for reasons I now question. I haven’t talked to my dad in years, we didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things about the bible and God. I do not agree with anything those people say or stand for and if God is the way thy say he is then thy can keep there God, thats not a God I would or want to serve.
Jimie
Jerry, I ran across this blog you have posted tonight and found you in my 1985 HAC year book. I vaguely remember you, but more importantantly, I agree with what you have addressed. It took me ten years to work through the mental brain washing and come to a true understanding of the love of God and His grace. My major unwinding came as I realized that I was a Follower of Jack Hyles and not of the Lord supremely. During this time I quit quoting Jack and started quoted Jesus form the pulpit. God Bless Jeff Smith
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This is ridiculous!! I’ve appalled at the people who are so righteous and above everyone. It’s so easy to criticize others and act like they need to be judged!! I also attended Hyles-Anderson college and do not agree with the forced perspective some of you apparently had. I was not brain washed, but rather found things out in the Bible along with the teaching there. We all won’t agree 100% with any other Christian on every belief or thought they have, but as a whole the church and college are doing a fine job of leading others to Christ. We aren’t the judge, we are to do what is right. If we were more concerned with following Christ and not watching stupid shows we might be able to make a difference for Christ!
You apparently have failed entirely in distinguishing between exercising a personal moral judgment & applying God’s prescribed and biblically commanded judgment on the sin before us. Ever hear of the Old Testament Prophets? John the Baptist? The Apostle Paul? Jesus? They all condemned sin by name, pointed fingers & NAMED NAMES!!! Too bad you weren’t around to tell them not to be so “self-righteous” and ease up on sin a bit, or to weigh the good works of the offending individuals and their institutions.
My friend, I was at H.A.C. for seven years. Got two “degrees” there. I “led more people to Christ” than you and any five of your friends. (I won the Sword of the Lord Award for Evangelism for it). It was all a sham! A numbers game. Care to know why? NO REPENTANCE! If the Bible is plain on anything it is this: REPENTANCE IS ESSENTIAL FOR SALVATION!!! “One-Two-Three-repeat-After-Me” never got anyone to Heaven, and never will. That’s why to this day, nobody can find one personal convert of Jack Hyles! (Not to mention that he was a raging hypocrite who never lived the life he demanded of others!)
I am sorry to see that calling out adultery, child molestation, rape and incest is “stupid” to you. I wouldn’t give you two cents for pathetic Christians like you. God will surely vomit you out of His mouth, if He has not already. Go ahead and follow the adulterers, fornicators, egomaniacs and little Napoleons of Hammond. The evidence of their three decades of sin is there by the ream, but you are apparently incompetent, spiritually illiterate or willfully ignorant. If there is anything that outrages me more than the sin and debauchery of First Baptist Church of Hammond, it is the fools like you who would whitewash it and assail those with the decency and the courage to confront it. I guess people like you deserve the pathetic spiritual condition in which we find them.
Of those claiming the name of Christ, you are one of the most biblically ignorant people I have ever come across. You are a stain on the purity of Jesus Christ.
Dear Jerry,
I sadly agree with your stated opinions for the most part, but here is where you “jump the shark” for me: In your response to Lizzy, you make this statement… “. I wouldn’t give you two cents for pathetic Christians like you. God will surely vomit you out of His mouth, if He has not already.”
That Bible you claim to so desperately adhere to says “Let your speech be ALWAYS WITH GRACE, seasoned with salt”. It says “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that WHICH IS GOOD TO THE USE OF EDIFYING”. It makes many other like statements. Your response to her lacks grace, and does nothing to “build her up”, which is what edifying means.
You’re frankly no different from those you put in the noose. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
You want John the Baptist preaching? You got it. I’m calling out sin and naming the name… YOU, Jerry. Your words are hurtful, damaging, and nothing like the Lord Jesus Christ. “Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more”.
I believe you are correct in calling out the hero worshipping, man exalting, self focused, unBiblical teachings of an unfortunagtely large segment of “fundamentalism”. But your time at Hyles still shows its effects on you, as noted in your unkind and hurtful words to this lady. If you want to tell her why you believe her response is incorrect, unBiblical, orr whatever, fine. To classify her as pathetic is sinful. You don’t know the lady. You call her a “fool”, something explicitly warned against by the Lord Jesus Christ in the Scriptures. Cast out the beam before you go mote-picking, brother.
I wish you well. God bless.
You make some worthwhile points, and I commend you for using some Scripture, which you do in a good, though very limited way. However, you do not have a balanced view of Scripture in this situation, and certainly not in your response. In technical terms, you have a highly selective and seriously unbalanced Systematic Theology. Your are displaying the use of Proof Texts, rather than using the body of Systematic or Biblical Theology to support your answer.
There are PLENTY of instances in Scripture where fools were called out. There is NO scriptural injunction against reproving and excoriating someone who can do harm to others by missing the great lessons of the OT prophets to confront sin and error in the most dynamic terms possible. We are commanded by God to “judge righteous judgment.” I know this is not the world in which you live, but it absolutely is Bible, brother. Paul told Timothy to “reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” Those verbs do not denote a “Mr. Rogers” spirit, which is what would to me characterize your approach. Solomon also tells us to “Smite a scorner & the simple shall beware.” I don’t have time to go back & view the chain of comments, but I can assure you that this is my motive in dealing with someone whose theology is one that I judge to be an offense to God and able to lead other down an unbalanced & flawed biblical path. Motive and spirit is a critically important issue in my decisions with respect to confronting error. You failed entirely to deal with this person’s position itself. Very sad. If a person has an obviously decent motive and is wrong without being dangerous to the truth or self-serving, then my approach to them would be along the lines that you suggest. This is NOT a universal command of Scripture. I don’t expect you to see that, but that doesn’t change the facts.
Lastly, you did the very same thing to me at the end of your post that you accuse me of doing to this person. I don’t think that you are wrong in talking to me that way if you sincerely believe me to be in error (my whole point), but there is a somewhat glaring hypocrisy on display in your response that you seem to have missed.
As for any scars or marks left by “Fundamentalism” on me personally, don’t get your hopes up. I have been swinging at these blowhards for 20 years and have landed enough satisfying and well-placed blows to elicit a great deal of satisfaction. Just yesterday, July 31, 2012, my biggest target of all came crashing down: JACK SCHAAP. Nobody was as close to this guy or knew him better than I did back in the day. He was my business partner, close friend, and my wife and I were the first wedding he did in 1985. Now the world knows what I have been saying for years: he was a blend of Hugh Hefner & Saddam Hussein. He was in my opinion a filthy, vulgar philandering serial adulterer. (Sorry . . . no apologies to you or Mr, Rogers…)
By the way, I am Fundamentalist in the purest sense: I believe and practice the FUNDAMENTALS of the Christian faith. (If your definition of the term extends beyond that, write me a private e-mail and I will make some suggestions as to what you can do with it. For those poor, petty, misguided souls who have any other definition or requirement for membership in their pathetic, self-serving mutual admiration societies, feel free to do the same.)
I stand by my remarks 100%. I spoke in the spirit of many prophets who represented God in a magnificent way by calling sin and error what they believed it to be and understanding the damage it can do. Add to these men others like the Apostle Paul, John the Baptist, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Moses and Jesus Himself, all of whom dealt in similar fashion with those whose motives they judged to be self-serving, anti-God or whose theologies were dangerously skewed, and I happily find myself in some very respectable company. Makes my day just thinking about it!
Thank you Jerry…for your condescension, your arrogance, your unwillingness to own your own words, your baseless attacks on me, and your your ad hominem assault on my character, which, as a complete and total stranger, you have no way of knowing anything about, short of this singular response to your sinful words, which, as noted in your article on the law, comes from a deeper root of what one could perceive to be an arrogant, angry, prideful heart.
Your attitude, as evidenced by your responses to those who post here, not to mention the very basic self-absorbed mindset that leads one to create a personal website so that the entire world may have access to your indispensable wisdom and insight, as well as your commentary and priceless observations about how others live and lead their lives, is exactly why the world hates Christianity. Thank you…for affirming that no matter how intelligent a man may be, or think himself to be, jackassery overcomes all.
Now, before I shake the dust off of my feet concerning you, let me point out a few things, which you will of course ignore, as you did the sin I used God’s Word to identify and rebuke. You say “However, you do not have a balanced view of Scripture in this situation, and certainly not in your response”. I say “Let God be true, and every man a liar”. Your words did did not display grace, nor did they build that woman up, therefore your w-o-r-d-s violate explicit Scriptural commands regarding the conduct of your tongue…that includes your virtual tongue, Jerry. There’s no “balance” required. God made it simple and plain. You are not that woman’s pastor/shepherd, nor her God. Being mean to her accomplishes nothing for the cause of Christ. “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do ALL to the glory of God”. If you can honestly say that you believe God was glorified by your personal attacks on her (not her opinion, position, or error…you attacked HER as a PERSON) in calling her “pathetic”, “fool”, and a “stain”, then you are more Hyles/Schaap than they themselves are. You don’t know anything about the woman other than a single short post on your website. Would I characterize her words as seeming to reflect an unlearned? Likely. She appears at first blush to be a novice still wearing some blinders (whether willfully or not I cannot know). That in no way justifies your harsh treatment of her. You’re not Jesus, and she’s not a Pharisee. Jesus, John the Baptist and the prophets you’re purportedly emulating (pardon me…holding down some bile) excoriated the religious and spiritually dead elite, not spiritual children.
You say “You make some worthwhile points, and I commend you for using some Scripture, which you do in a good, though very limited way.” Please, your commendation means as much to me as an honorary doctorate for HAC. Just get over yourself, please.
Here’s a verse for you: “Pro 26:12 Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? [there is] more hope of a fool than of him.
“You say “There are PLENTY of instances in Scripture where fools were called out.”. Nope, not true, Jerry. I find three instances where an individual is called a fool. God to the rich man before he went to hell, Jesus to Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus, and Jesus again, corporately to the Pharisees in Matthew. Again, let me reiterate, since you SEEM to be slow of heart and dull of hearing: YOU…ARE…NOT…GOD. You mimic Satan in your desire to “be like the most High”. Let me take it a step further, please. You are not an Old Testament prophet, nor are you this woman’s shepherd. You are out of your role and out of balance in attempting to do her pastor’s job, regardless of your opinion OF her pastor, which you frankly can’t know, past assuming that she must be at FBCH, which is in itself probably incorrect since she characterizes her association with HAC in the past tense. Meh. I don’t even know why I’m wasting keystokes on you, guys like you are a dime a dozen, cottage theologians who attempt to set the interwebz right on doctrine while their nextdoor neighbor goes to hell without having ever heard the Gospel. You’ll never cop to any kind of wrongdoing or error. “In the multitude of words, there wanteth not sin”. There are no exclusions associated with that Scriptural pronouncement. There is, by ANY measure, a multitude of your words here on your site, publicly posted fot the world to see, and I’d be stunned beyond my wildest imagination if you thought there was a single sin or error in the bunch of them, Scripture be damned! So it goes. But I’ll finish for my own sinful amusement.
You say ” I don’t have time to go back & view the chain of comments, but I can assure you that this is my motive in dealing with someone whose theology is one that I judge to be an offense to God and able to lead other down an unbalanced & flawed biblical path.” Funny…you “have time” to write out a condescending and pompous response to my comment, but not time to read the page of (mostly) your own words to validate or repudiate my observation. How self-serving of you. Kudos. Way to “know how ye ought to answer every man”. Gold star for hypocrisy! (I’m not even going to TRY to hide my sarcasm anymore. I’m a sinner. I admit it). Your excuse that you rail on this woman due to her “offensive theology” is ridiculous on its face, and sinister in its execution. She’s not espousing a theology, she’s giving her opinion on your words and attitude which you voluntarily submitted to the planet. You can play all the semantic games you want to play, but when you get down to brass tacks, you’re displaying the behavior of a cyber-bully.
You say “We are commanded by God to “judge righteous judgment.”” Yup, sure are, which is why I posted to you in the first place. You say ” I know this is not the world in which you live, but it absolutely is Bible, brother. Paul told Timothy to “reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” First off, I live in and on the same world you do. Your halfassed attempt at derision lacks humor AND intelligence. Secondly, you’re not Timothy, and, Captain Context, Paul was instructing a young pastor how to lead his flock, not giving any arrogant, self-righteous donkey that learned some Greek the right to be a jerk to whoever they felt like. Way to twist the Scriptures, Satan, er, Jerry.
“Solomon also tells us to “Smite a scorner & the simple shall beware.” Priceless, Jerry, beyond measure. This woman isn’t a scorner. Do you even know what a scorner is, Biblically? She is a woman who SEEMS to be confused as to why one professing “Christian” would seemingly dedicate his life to attacking other professing “Christians” violently and publicly. That’s not scorning. That’s a lamb caught in the crossfire.
You say ” You failed entirely to deal with this person’s position itself.” Yup. I was trying to be like you, Jerry. I broke out my mighty Nathan finger and said “Thou art the man”. Except it makes you feel empowered, and it just makes me feel dirty. Her position isn’t wicked, it’s unlearned. Your every typed word oozes pride, hate, and malice towards man, couched in a Pharisaical “defense of the Scripture!!!”, and it’s repulsive.
You finish up with “Lastly, you did the very same thing to me at the end of your post that you accuse me of doing to this person.” That’s a patent lie, clear to anyone with the reading comprehension of an elementary school level reader. You called her names. I pointed out that your words didn’t seem to fit the Bible you “defend”. I called you nothing as a man. I identified the hatefulness of your speech. THIS time, I’m calling you names, which are proven by your own words. “but there is a somewhat glaring hypocrisy on display in your response that you seem to have missed.”. Well, if anyone would know glaring hypocrisy, I’m ceding that title to you, having apparently mastered the art. =)
” I have been swinging at these blowhards for 20 years and have landed enough satisfying and well-placed blows to elicit a great deal of satisfaction.” Please show me in Scripture where an prophet or man of God took “satisfaction” from “landing blows” on a sinner. You out yourself once and for all with this simple phrase. I commend YOU. You are interested in satisfying Jerry, not glorifying God. You are not now, nor ever will be, in the company of the Bible heroes you place yourself into. You are a sick and twisted man. May God have mercy on your soul, since He can’t bless your glee in seeing a brother in Christ caught in sin. I won’t even get into the many verses in the Bible that state the absolute and undeniable wickedness of glorying in the consequences of sin being executed upon a person. You clearly only care about the parts of Scripture that you believe give you license to be whatever you want to be to whomever you see fit.
My friend, your response was so hate filled and subjective that I can’t take it seriously at all, but I am letting it through just so I will have the opportunity to comment on it.
For you to call me satanic and believe that I have not and cannot be blessed is far too absurd and inaccurate for me to take seriously. I have an embroidered sign in my office that says “count your blessings;” problem is they are far too numerous to count and they keep coming in every day like a waterfall. Can’t even begin to tell you. Secondly, I am a born again child of God, so people can judge for themselves what He will do with a ranting fool like you who calls that which He hath cleansed and redeemed unclean. You deserve it.
That being said, here is all that I have to say to those like you who will defend those who defend child molesters: THERE IS NO JUDGEMENTS TOO HARSH. NO WORDS TOO BITING, NO DEGRADATIONS TOO POINTED, AND NO HATRED OF A SENTIMENT SO VILE AS TO STAND UP FOR A CHILD MOLESTER THAT I WILL EVER CONSIDER INAPPROPRIATE OR BIBLICALLY UNSOUND TO MY DYING DAY!
My friend, there is NO good in that morally bankrupt group of cultish morons you call a church. The God I worship is a HOLY God, and he Himself has unleashed the harshest and most direct denouncement of sin and those who who coddle it, LIKE YOU & the person you are defending!
If that doesn’t come across plainly enough for you, I can probably elaborate.
EVERY SINGLE THING you said about me can be applied verbatim by someone like you to EVERY OT prophet. No, I am not God, but He has commanded me to “judge righteous judgment,” and that is what I have done. No apologies for being faithful to God’s commands, and no wonder at all that you cannot see it. (I’d be worried if you could, probably.)
Yes, I have been told who this woman is. Doesn’t matter. What I said ABSOLUTELY needed to be said. Sorry it hairlipped you so badly. I considered what you said objectively, and have responded as honestly and objectively as I knew how. When a woman joins in the fray, they will often not be accorded special treatment from me, especially when they defend convicted child molesters.
(For the record . . my doctorate did not come from H.A.C. and it was not honorary.)
Again, for the record, there have been several comments of support for Jason. I am not posting them as they ALL come from homosexuals, atheists, and the most virulent of Christ-bashing God haters. It is unfortunate that anyone who would associate themselves with the name of Christ would draw this level of support from the likes of these people. However, since Jason’s comments were initially a criticism of me for excoriating a woman who supported and vehemently defended a convicted child molester in her church, there should not be anything surprising here.
In 1991 I sat across the kitchen table from a young molestation victim of the First Baptist Church of Hammond’s convicted child molesting deacon A.V. Ballenger and I promised God I would never back down from anyone who defended her attacker in any fashion . It has been many years, and with God’s help I have kept that promise. The church that has defended Ballenger then and now.
They now have another vomit-inducing scandal in the recent child rape scandal of the their newest confessed perpetrator, their pastor, Jack Schaap. This church is a cesspool of moral depravity and has been for thirty years. I was there for many years and finally saw it. I don’t know of any more compelling proof of that for me than for me than to observe the moral offscouring of our culture that now supports those who are still attacking me for telling the truth about this depraved cult masquerading as a Baptist Church as I still try to advocate for their legions of victims.
My ex-husband and I were down at Hyles-Anderson College from 1979 to 1984. He was very abusive and molested my daughter from the age of 6 to 9yrs when I found out and left him. I agree that there is a lot of brain washing and using scripture to beat people up and try to keep them silent about abuse. When I went to a Pastor who was a graduate of Hyles-Anderson College, he was also abusive to me and my daughter, calling us out in public, putting us on the spot to humiliate us and treating us like we were the worst for leaving this abusive man I was married to. Then of course the whole church came down on us too. Hyles-Anderson means being bullied, and most of all brain washed to believe in the man instead of looking to Jesus and having Jesus as the first and foremost you treasure and look to for help and direction. What a sham this place has been and has destroyed thousands of innocent lives. My children are mostly athesists now because of the life we lived back then. I hope and pray that one day they will come back to know the Lord on a personal relationship basis like it should be. Keep us informed, people need to know what is really going on there. thanks corie
You know, what I think this 20/20 report shows is that when Christians, who have the word of God and therefore KNOW what God says and know what to do, don’t do what they’re supposed to do, the stones begin to cry out. The stones being the secular world. It takes the secular world to expose the sin and disobedience in the church, and THAT should be so shameful that it causes the errant ones in the church to either get back into line, ask God for forgiveness, and seek to do what is right or to continue as they do because they show they just really don’t care. I think this report has shaken things up and in the process has shown that just like any other group in the church, the IFB has tares just as much as the rest. Victimizing victims is just downright wicked, and inexcusable–as much for the IFB as for the Roman Catholic priest. I think God is tired of it and he’s allowing the stones to cry out, to expose the filthiness that dares say it is part of the “House of God.” And while I don’t say all this lightly, I do say it after having had many years of experience within the IFB segement.
You do realize that the church turned in schaap. You say you don’t want to paint the whole movement but then you say they try and cover for their leaders but schaap was confronted and then they called the authority. And also nice job taking what Dr. Hyles said out of contexts to fit you article.
I have placed what Hyles said in the context of thousands of words over the years. YES, YES, YES, YES, I absolutely do want to indict an entire movement. THAT IS WHAT THE INDEPENDENT FUNDAMENTALIST MOVEMENT DESERVES IN ALL IT CORRUPTION, DEVIANCY, FLAWED CHURCH FORM AND PATHOLOGICAL ABUSE OF HURCH AUTHORITY. They give new meaning to the term vile. THE CHURCH DID NOT TUTN IN SCHAAP! One man did that on his own. the church (Lapina, Young, & Cindy) knew the whereabouts of Jack Schaap in every one of his adulterous, extended absences and knew right where to call and I have published the proof of that. You need to tune into some reality and stop trying to defend a legacy of moral corruption before it permeates every cell of your being right down to your perverted and wretched soul, if it is not already too late. (These exchanges with the likes of you always having running to the shower.)
Chris, you are a KoolAid saturated fool. So what if the church turned in Schaap? What choice did they have? How about the dozens of perverts they never turned in for the last 30 years? I never took Hyles out of context, EVER! I knew his context better than most. I typed up notes for his new books a year before they went to press. How convenient that you cite no examples.
The church can still turn in a pervert and still do great harm by defending him and shaming the victims. A church that is close riends with a church you know did exactly that. They turned in the perv but publicly church disciplined and shunned his underage victims.
It is unfortunate that people who seek the fellowship of other Christians have to contend with the rottenness found in fundamentalists churches. All my experience with their churches have been very negative. All they do is to run down others that do not agree with their doctrines and scorn those that truly love the Lord. But we must as Christians realize that the tares are among the wheat and see discernment, otherwise we will become victims like many in the FBC of Hammond.