Another, hellfire and brimstone, devil hating, sin denouncing Independent Fundamentalist Baptist pastor has “fallen into sin.”
Carole Carlson, of the Chicago Sun Times reports:
The pastor of a fundamentalist mega church in Northwest Indiana has been dismissed because of a “sin” that’s being investigated by Lake County (Ind.) sheriff’s police.
Jack Schaap, 54, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Hammond since 2001, was fired by a deacon board, said Eddie Wilson, director of public relations for the church.
Wilson said Tuesday church officials didn’t believe anything criminal occurred, but information was turned over to the sheriff’s department “for the sake of transparency and honesty.”
Wilson said members of the board will address the congregation Wednesday night.
“The church will move on in the process of calling a new pastor,” he said.
Wilson said Schaap was in seclusion with his wife, Cindy, daughter of Jack Hyles, the pastor who built the First Baptist Church and co-founded Hyles-Anderson College in Schererville.
“They’re trying to reconcile their marriage,” Wilson said. “The church will move on and begin the process of calling a new pastor.”
While declining to offer details on the dismissal, Wilson said church bylaws state adultery is grounds for dismissal.
Sheriff John Buncich confirmed the church contacted him and Schaap’s actions were under investigation by detectives.
“I can’t confirm the name of the individual who’s subject of the investigation,” said Buncich, adding more information would be forthcoming Wednesday.
A press release from the church stated: “Our church grieves over the need to take this action and the impact it will have on our people. We ask that everyone pray for the families involved and pray that the situation will be handled in a Christ-honoring manner.”
One of the early mega churches, First Baptist Church, 507 State St., has more than 15,000 members, Wilson said.
It’s famous for its church outreach that in the 1970s used more than 200 buses to round up parishioners and bring them to church from across the region.
According to the church website, Schaap graduated from Hyles-Anderson bible college in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in pastoral theology.
He and Cindy Hyles married in 1979 and Schaap began teaching at Hyles-Anderson. The couple have two children. He became vice president of the college in 1996 and became pastor at First Baptist after Jack Hyles’ death in 2001.
The church continued to grow under Schaap, and in 2005 it moved into a new 7,500-seat auditorium.
While the specific sin is not mentioned, Eddie Wilson gives it away when he says “They’re trying to reconcile their marriage.” It is extremely likely that Schaap’s sin, like that of his deceased father-in-law Jack Hyles, is sexual in nature.
My feelings are always mixed when these kind of stories are made public. I grieve for those who are hurt but I rejoice that the sanctimonious curtain Independent Fundamentalist Baptist pastors hide behind is ripped open so all can see that, for all their holier-than-thou preaching and attitudes, they are just like they rest of us.
There is one inaccuracy in the story. The writer says that the Church continued to grow under Schaap. Actually, Church attendance is less under Schaap than it was during the heyday of Jack Hyles.
Stay tuned.
And now I sit waiting, waiting with beating heart, to see if the
man himself, Dr. Bob, is called as their new “Man of God”. What an exciting time to be a “godless bastard!”
Evolution wins again. Spread that seed, lad. But just as we thwart evolution with antibiotics, so should our love for our spouses thwart the spread-seed-unfaithful-lad approach to existence. Let us have a higher standard of sanctity than these mere Christians.
Hallelujah! It’s about time this man got out of the ministry! I grieve for whomever he hurt, but I cannot say I am not glad that he is finally out. I do feel bad for his family though – now that dad has screwed up, the kids’ standing within the movement will be tarnished. Thanks for the reporting, Bruce.
I just checked the website baptist-city.com anf all his audio sermons have been removed! This call for a drink and a toast!
I always have more ‘earthy’ thoughts. I googled his image and said to myself, ‘who the hell would do that guy???’
Jack Schaap being a vile creep, or you could just call him a baptist man, on youtube.
I left the IFB and became a southern baptist because of the legalism, but i do believe that the husband is the head of the home. So does my wife. She is not my door mat, however. there is a difference.
FBC of Hammond says they don’t think any criminal acts were committed, but why are the authorities involved? I suspect Schaap was sexually involved with a minor.
An article in the Christian Post states that he had an “affair” with a minor.
http://global.christianpost.com/news/jack-schaap-fired-from-first-baptist-hammond-church-reportedly-for-adultery-79270/
What annoys me is that media sources have been referring to his reported involvement with a minor as “adultery” or an “affair.” An adult man having sexual relations with a teenager is sexual abuse! Depending on what acts occurred and the laws of his particular state, it could also qualify as statutory rape. Why the sugar-coated language around this?
The age of consent in Illinois is sixteen so that is why they are characterizing it that way. That said, I agree with you.
This movement is very controlling. The ppl of this church and the churches that come out of the students, worship their pastors and make them like gods ! Then when they do what humans are prone to do everyone is in shock! Idiots! Pick up your Bibles ppl only 1 is without sin. I’ve gone to these churches they ruin ppl! They determine who serves God and behind the scenes they are screwing around with teenagers! Wow! Pride it will take over if you feed it! And by the way if all the followers of this man were following God first they would not be so shocked! Stop putting a man above “sin” geez especially a man who’s full of himself and so busy pointing everyone else’s sin out he never gets his own sins right!
Stop following men, and follow God!
Well said…
“TIME ranks Southern Baptists’ rejection of sex-offender database as a top “underreported” news story of 2008″
http://stopbaptistpredators.org/index.htm
That is correct, but because the IFB movement, until the 20/20 program, has flown under the radar, I think that there is a lot more sexual misconduct (criminal and otherwise) in the IFB church movement than people realize.
For years, her church was all she knew but today, Tina Anderson has left that church and says she’s not going back.
“I still struggle, because I’ve been made to feel guilty for so long,” she told “20/20.”
Anderson was only 16 when she said she was forced to stand terrified before her entire church congregation to confess her “sin” — she had become pregnant. She says she wasn’t allowed to tell the group that the pregnancy was the result of being allegedly raped by a fellow congregant, a man twice her age.
She says her New Hampshire pastor, Chuck Phelps, told her she was lucky not to have been born during Old Testament times when she would have been stoned to death.
Phelps says that Anderson voluntarily stood in front of the church, but Tina says it was the first step of “church discipline” at her Independent Fundamental Baptist Church (IFB).
“I was completely in shock, but too scared to go and tell anyone because I thought I would get blamed for what happened,” Anderson said.
“I truly believed that it was my fault,” she said.”
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/teen-rape-victim-forced-confess-church/story?id=13299135
@ minnie I am sorry for Tina if she was truley wronged in this. If you care to do research you will also find that Phelps contacted the police and the police did nothing. You will also find that her mother did nothing. Are we also going to crucify all police and all mothers too? No?!? If getting humiliated scars you for life, you had better never; get a job, go to school, have a coach, compete, or any of a hundred other things. Failure, defeat, humiliation can be a huge driving force to make us better. You know when I really tried to play the best basketball I could…right after my coach humiliated me in front of my peers and my parents and the spectators. Keep dwelling in the past and it will eat you alive. Some people are bad and should be punished…end of story. You must persever…everyone has a hard time and things that they struggle with, the difference is how you respond. Bitterness will destroy you, don’t let it!!
If Tina was wronged?
This is your last comment.
Josh G, your basketball coach humiliating you over a basketball game is not in any way the same as a under age girl being sexually exploited, sexually abused, and pregnant, then having to apologize for it to a church full of misogynistic people.
(Whenever an adult has any kind of sex with someone under the age of eighteen they are sexually exploiting a child.)
You have never been a under age girl, bullied, harassed, manipulated, and intimidated by a self-righteous churchman with the misogynistic bible as his right hand helpmate now have you. No wonder it is so easy for you Christian men to rape women and children the world over, you all have each other’s backs.
What is blatantly clear is Christians feel very comfortable with men sexually abusing, and sexually exploiting children and women, but have a colossal problem with adults consenting to sex out side of marriage. And as someone who was sexually abused as a little girl, I would not want an ignorant, arrogant, heartless, misogynist as you for a father.
Chuck Phelps and Jack Schaap are both misogynistic cretins, and so are those who make up excuses for them.
http://bjuaccreditation.org/search/node/tina%20anderson
Thanks for responding to this guy. I agree completely.
Wisdom Hunter (a novel published in 1991, and still on the market today) illustrates the destructiveness of dictatorial and authoritarian pastors. The novel has been praised by many as a “classic”. The author – I have been told – graduated from Tennessee Temple University and grew up in the Independent Baptist camp. Upon its release, the book was so controversial that it was banned by many Independent Baptist churches, even at Bob Jones University. Maybe the author had something to say that was worth listening to.
There is also a book called “the Wizard of god”. It was very eye opening to me about the history of Jack Hyles. To say the least Schaap was following in his footsteps. It’s a shame Hyles daughter was treated poorly by her father and husband. It’s what happens when we follow a man and not Christ.
I wish I had kept all those books. They would be great resources to use when writing about the IFB church movement.
Sorry but I had to ban this guy. He has no interest in discussion and I have no time to deal with his barrage of comments.
Sorry but I had to ban this guy. He has no interest in discussion and I have no time to deal with his barrage of comments.
knew this guy was in sin when he preached that husbands were not serving God because their wives had gotten fat,,,,look it up on you tube
Look, folks, the guy fell. Don’t kick him when he’s down.
Gal_6:1 Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
After this, he is no longer “blameless” and thus no longer qualified to pastor, but he is still a brother in Christ. Some of you who are Christians are reacting wrongly. I don’t agree with everything Jack Schaap said and stood for, but I don’t rejoice when a prominent man who is a Christian falls into sin. Those of you who aren’t IFB still get a black eye from this just as much as we do. The world doesn’t differentiate between IFB and New Evangelical. We’re all just “Christians” to them.
Show me one pastor who is blameless? I don’t know of one and I know lots of them. It is impossible to get blameless men from a pool of flawed human beings.
But you are right, people don’t differentiate between ice cream favors. It is all ice cream to them. When I was a pastor this upset me because when some empty headed talking-head Evangelical made a statement on TV everyone assumed he was speaking for all Christians, including me.
Blameless is one thing.
It’s not ridiculous to expect our pastors to not have sex with minors.
As an atheist, I am indifferent to his “sin.” As far as I know he didn’t rape the girl or abuse her. He DID use his place of power and authority to seduce her and that is what I find despicable. If he broke the law he should be prosecuted. If not, he should not ever be a pastor again. However, IFB churches are notorious about forgiving and forgetting…he will be a pastor somewhere, some day.
This scandal is just a reminder that Christians do not have the high moral ground, They are no different than the evil, wicked non-Christians they condemn.
I pastor a Freewill Baptist Church in Sebring Fl. and lets understand alot of lives have been destroyed as well as the cause of Christ been brought to open shame .The Deacons are to be commended for there proper and decisive action.This has cast a shadow over all of us that call Jesus Lord and saviour.We as Christains must pray that Gods grace will see all that have been touched by this mans sin will be restored .I must point out this man has forever forfeited the right to preach just as David was not permitted to build the temple because of sin I pray he repents also however he must suffer the consequences of his actions.God is love he loves all and will forgive all who will repent and turn from there sin but if one fails to do so judgement awaits that is in Gods hands we are to pray for and love all so as to show Gods grace as demonstrated by Jesus as he did on the cross and his resurrection so that all that repent will have enternal life in Christ.