Jack Hyles, the first of many caught in a sexual scandal at First Baptist Church, Hammond, Indiana
If you have are following the Jack Schaap Scandal, arrest, and sentencing, you might be interested in a Chicago Magazine feature story by Bryan Smith. I have excerpted part of it below. It is a lengthy article but well worth the time spent reading it:
The sermon was called “The Polished Shaft,” and in the many times that Jack Schaap, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Hammond, had delivered it, it was the kind of showstopper that made him a rock star to his flock. (Or would have, had Schaap not habitually railed against the evils of rock music.)
As with most of his sermons at the northwest Indiana megachurch—the 14th largest in the country and the biggest Independent Baptist house of worship in the nation—the message struck as bluntly as a pounded nail: Submit to God’s plan for your life or be snapped like a twig and flung away (as Schaap would demonstrate by cracking a stick over his head, tossing it aside, and barking, “Next!”).
When you do submit, be prepared to endure excruciating pain. God will hold a metaphorical knife to your throat (as Schaap would illustrate by holding a steel blade against a twig the way an assailant might press on a jugular). Only then, he would growl, will you become a “polished shaft”: one suitable for God’s bow.
At this point, the sermon’s climax, Schaap would heave up a high-powered crossbow and fire an arrow into a red X painted on a fake rock a few feet from his pulpit.
The effect was powerful, and it inevitably produced the desired result: swarms of male teenagers trance-walking their way to Schaap (pronounced “Skop”), ready to commit their lives to becoming pastors. And, equally important, to attend the church-owned Hyles-Anderson College a couple of miles away, one of First Baptist’s biggest coffer fillers.
But in July 2010, an hour into the “Polished Shaft” sermon—in a church packed with thousands of teenagers there for a youth conference—Schaap went further. He lifted a stick in his left hand and a silver cloth in his right. He moved the bottom of the stick near his groin and angled it away from himself. Head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, mouth gaping, he began rubbing the shaft rapidly with the cloth, up and down, up and down. “Ohh! Oh! Ohhhh! Oh! Oh, God, that hurts!” he shrieked.
Then, his voice dropping to a guttural whisper, he said, “Oh, oh, God. Thanks for what you’re making me.”
Schaap continued to rub the stick—up and down, up and down—and converse with God, sometimes angrily, sometimes ecstatically, for more than a minute. What he was doing was unmistakable: simulating masturbation, in front of thousands of children, in the middle of a church service. A row of white-coated high-ranking churchmen seated behind Schaap watched in silence. At the end, as usual, young men streamed up to the stage.
To the hundreds of people who posted comments under a YouTube video of the event, the lack of reaction is as shocking as Schaap’s sermon itself. But to the congregation of First Baptist, it was all in a day’s preaching.
The true believers of the ultra-fundamentalist Independent Baptist movement were accustomed to Schaap’s style. If he wasn’t scolding his flock for not living up to God’s demands (tithing, volunteering, “soul winning”), he was delivering R-rated sermons that, for example, likened the Lord’s Supper to having sex with Jesus Christ. “He would just repeatedly talk about sex and repeatedly talk about women, how they were dressed and body parts . . . in graphic detail,” recalls Tom Brennan, who attended the church for six years and is now an Independent Baptist pastor at Maplewood Bible Baptist Church in Chicago.
Unfortunately, it went well beyond talk. Last September, Schaap, 54, a married father of two, pleaded guilty to taking a 16-year-old girl he was counseling at First Baptist across state lines to have sex. Denied bond, he awaits sentencing in the Porter County Jail; the minimum term is ten years.
But Schaap is not simply one of those rogue evangelists who thunders against the evils of forbidden sex while indulging in it himself. According to dozens of current and former church members, religion experts, and historians interviewed by Chicago—plus a review of thousands of pages of court documents—he is part of what some call a deeply embedded culture of misogyny and sexual and physical abuse at one of the nation’s largest churches. Multiple websites tracking the First Baptist Church of Hammond have identified more than a dozen men with ties to the church—many of whom graduated from its college, Hyles-Anderson, or its annual Pastors’ Schools—who fanned out around the country, preaching at their own churches and racking up a string of arrests and civil lawsuits, including physical abuse of minors, sexual molestation, and rape.
It is a culture, past and present members say, enabled by cover-ups and cultlike control. For example, after Schaap’s conviction, many church members blamed his victim as a temptress. “We were taught to not question and to take the ‘man of God’s’ [Schaap’s] word over everything,” says Julie Silvestrone Busby, a former First Baptist member who now hosts a Christian radio show in Iowa. She left the church after alleging that Schaap behaved inappropriately during marriage counseling sessions in 2004 through 2009.
First Baptist Church’s longtime lawyer, David Gibbs, declined a request for comment on this story. The spokesman for the church, Eddie Wilson, did not return numerous calls requesting an interview. Schaap did not respond to an interview request made through Porter County Jail…
Hi Bruce,
I have just been reading this on Wikepidia . (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Baptist_Church_of_Hammond.).
If this article is accurate, then Schaap was very sexist. He seems to see a wife as the. vehicle for her husband’s pleasure, and not an equal partner in a compassionate and caring relationship where both partners respect the dignity of the other and where sexual relationships are seen as part of the overall context of a mutual commitment to each other and where sex is negotiated between the equal partners.
According to the article, Schaap sees women as being inferior and likens Christian commitment to spiritual intercourse where the Christian is inferior (like the wife in his view) and God is seen as the superior male. This is a very hierarchical view of relationships and also a very sexist view of God.
This kind of view reminds me of the ‘dominater’ model of God. God is seen as a patriarchal father figure with absolute power and control, so a husband has power and control over his wife and the pastor power and control over the church. No wonder abuse often occurs in such churches.
It seems to me that an emphasis on this analogy of spiritual intercourse and sexual intercourse may have been partly responsible for some of Schaap’s misdemeanors, violations of trust and abuse of power that led to his downfall.
I don’t know Schaap but am I mistaken in my understanding?
Shalom,
John Arthur
It is interesting how those who preach loudest on “sexual purity” tend to be practising what they themselves rail against.
A former friend of mine I looked up to as a big brother once reminded me to guard my purity. No touching, to keep pure until marriage etc. In the meantime he was frustrated at his also devout Christian girlfriend who wouldn’t let him penetrate her..and he’d explored sexually with girls of course.
I hope he doesn’t feel guilt though because sexual guilt is a strong force — it damages both men and women when natural desires are seen as horrible sins.
Baptists, in general, are obsessed with sex. Sure, it is always about NOT masturbating, having pre-marital sex or showing off your body but just because it is about the NO’s doesn’t mean they are NOT obsessed with sex. It is truly an obsession, a fixation, a fetish.
They are often sadly hierarchical – God, preacher, man, women, children. Women are way down the list of humans.
Schaap’s Polished Shaft sermon and his other sexual sermons are a testament to the power that sex holds within the mind set of many Christian churches. They latch onto sexual images and cry “Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t lust” even as they pepper their sermons with images of bare elbows and slightly low necklines forcing men to actually look at women as sexual beings. Oh what will the men do since women are so tempting?
Really, it ends up being so weird and slimy.
I have to admit, not much shocks or disturbs me. I am definitely not prudish in my outlook on life. That being said, I watched this “Polished Shaft” sermon several months ago on YouTube. To say I was disturbed would be stating it mildly. Schaap may have well whipped his manhood out and whacked off in front of everyone. (Basically, that is what he did.) As disturbing as Schaap’s antics were, the most disturbing part of the video was watching the men (Elders, I assume) sitting behind him watching this. These men did nothing. If that message were preached like that in any church I attended during my Christian years, I can almost guarantee that whoever was preaching, whether it is the Senior Pastor or someone else, would have been stopped. If he was not stopped, there definitely would have been hell to pay afterwards, and that person would have been looking for a new job the next day. How could the leadership of this church NOT see what is so painfully obvious to anyone watching that message? One would think that a church that has had a history of sexual misconduct with its leaders over many years would be very sensitive to this kind of thing. I most certainly would not want to be the guy coming in now.
wow thats a hell of a video
What a great article! Yaay for Chicago Mag, Bryan Smith & for Bruce for linking the article.
It’s good the information is getting out there about these controlling religious groups. The sad thing is that there are many small religious sects who use the exact same guilting, shaming & manipulation on their followers. To this day they are able to stay under the radar. The abuse will continue until people actually speak out. The internet has been great for that. It’s a way that information can get out there & hopefully will help people to free themselves of these cultic groups.
Oh & I definitely think that church is a CULT…a bible cult, but still a mind numbing cult.
I saw some of the polished shaft video & was stunned…disbelief really. It was almost hysterical how the sycophants sitting behind him just remained stoic looking, like all of that showmanship was the “word of the Lord” …Ha! Unbelievable.
Yeah, Mike Longergan is right because Schaap may as well have whipped it out.. that is exactly what I thinking…(((nasty)))….
The contents of this article are sickening. When a congregation strays so far from the Word of God, for what to have the most followers that they can drag to hell. Its disgusting in every sense. Christianity is about believing in Christ’s resurrection and his all encompassing justification of our lives not some sick twisted showcase of vile acts. I pray that this isn’t the lasting impression of Christianity you receive. The truth and purity of the Word should not be strayed from, and such atrocities are eye piercingly horrible, and even if it wasn’t a church, downright nasty. God bless you all and I hope you find some shreds of dignity within Christianity.
A (currently vomiting lol) Lutheran
Seems Senator Menendez of New Jersey has the same inkling as Schaap for young girls.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/31/dominican-prostitute-senator-bob-menendez-likes-the-youngest-and-newest-girls/
I love how everyone on this random website is as stupid and fat as the guy who runs it. The reason that guy stopped preaching is this, his legs couldn’t hold him up long enough to preach so he gave it up.
I agree with the Lutheran dude too which is a first for me.
Please do stop by where I live and tell me this to my face.
From where you live in Norcross Georgia, it shouldn’t take you too long to get here. You might want to wear a football helmet.
My weight has nothing to do with anything…the fact you focus on it says more about you than it does me. By insulting people you don’t know you say volumes about who and what you are.
This is your first and last comment. I hope you said everything you needed to say.
Bill Higgins do you feel better now that you have insulted an awesome human being & those who read his blog & support him? If you are an example of what a xian is…as I’ve said many times before…I’m SO glad I got out. People like you are nothing like your supposed Jesus.
BTW I’m in fucking great shape for my age asswipe. It says a lot how you try to lump all of us into some category…”fat” “stupid” you’ve just proved to me you’re a fucking moron.