Tag Archives: Sex Scandal

Jack Schaap and First Baptist of Hammond Sued By Girl Schaap Victimized

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This entry is part 16 of 17 in the seriesJack Hyles and Jack Schaap

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The Chicago Heights Patch reports:

A former megachurch preacher from Crete who carried on a sexual relationship with a teenage member of his congregation was sued in Will County court.

Jack Schaap, 55, sentenced to 12 years in federal prison in March after pleading guilty to a single count of transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, is in custody at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago.

The lawsuit against Schaap was filed by the parents of the teen he had carried on with sexually in June and July. The lawsuit identifies the parents as “John Doe and Mary Doe,” and the teen as “Jane Doe.” The suit gives Jane Doe’s date of birth as June 27, 1995.

Schaap, the former pastor of the First Baptist Church of Hammond, in northwest Indiana, first met the girl when she was referred to him for behavior problems in April 2012 the suit said. The girl was a 16-year-old student at Hammond Baptist High School, and the administrator there informed Schaap she was troubled but had a “very tender heart” and was still “very teachable and moldable” and “willing to trust her leaders,” the suit said.

The girl continued her studies at Schaap’s offices and was required to undergo counseling with him “for her so-called problems,” the suit said. The suit accuses Schaap of “preying on the vulnerability of Jane Doe” during counseling sessions, and devising “means and methods to spend more time with” her, as well as “encouraging her to view him not just as her pastor, but also her friend, and eventually, as a love-interest.”

In June, the suit said, Schaap allegedly had his secretary, Jean McCollam, drive the teen to a forest preserve in Will County for an “intense counseling session,” during which he had sex with her. Schaap then took the teen from the forest preserve to his home in Crete, where he again had sex with her, the suit said.

Less than a month later, the teen, McCollam and her teenage daughter allegedly traveled to Michigan for a “girls’ time out.” But Schaap met them at the border and took Jane Doe to his Michigan cabin, the suit said, where they again had sex.

Schaap also “repeatedly” had sex with Jane Doe in his church office during a three-day youth conference, the suit said.

The lawsuit also names the First Baptist Church of Hammond as a defendant.

Besides having sex with the girl, Schaap gave her a card on her 17th birthday, the lawsuit said. Schaap allegedly wrote in the card:

“I can’t get you out of mind. I keep thinking about how much I enjoy talking with you, how great you look when you smile, and how much I like your laugh. I daydream about you off and on all day, replaying pieces of our conversation … laughing again about funny things you said or did. I’ve memorized your face and the way you look at me … it melts my heart every time I think about it. And I catch myself smiling when I imagine what will happen the next time we’re together. You must be really special, because I can’t remember the last time I felt so strongly about someone. Even though neither of us knows what the future holds, I know one thing for sure—you’re one of the best things that’s happened to me in a long time.”

Calls to the law firm representing the teen’s parents went unreturned. The spokesman for the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Eddie Wilson, also failed to return calls for comment.

No commentary from me. Since I have written a good bit on this story, I thought readers would want to know about the lawsuit. Personally, I hope the girl sues the ass off of Schaap and the church. Like with the Catholic Church, the only was to teach the IFB church movement a lesson is to imprison the abusers and perverts and financially penalize the churches for allowing a culture that is conducive to abuse and manipulation.

Jack Schaap Told Girl Jesus Wanted Her to Have Sex With Him

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This entry is part 13 of 17 in the seriesJack Hyles and Jack Schaap

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And as Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story. I hope this news report finally puts an end to the asinine attempts by people to justify Schaap’s behavior or their suggestions that his misconduct should be weighed against all the “good” he did.

It is clear that Schaap is a sexual predator who used his place of authority and his perverse misuse of the Bible to coerce this girl into having sex with him.

The Chicago Sun Time reports:

Former First Baptist Church of Hammond pastor Jack Schaap’s affair with a 17-year-old girl last summer not only wasn’t wrong but was desired by Jesus Christ.

That’s what he claimed in one of several letters he wrote to the victim during his crime, couching the sexual relationship as part of her personal salvation and something Jesus Christ wanted.

“In our ‘fantasy talk,’ you have affectionately spoken of being ‘my wife,’ ” Schaap wrote in one letter. “That is exactly what Christ desires for us. He wants to marry us + become eternal lovers!”

Federal prosecutors included the letters in the government’s sentencing memorandum for Schaap, which was filed Wednesday evening in U.S. District Court in Hammond.

Schaap has pleaded guilty to causing the girl to be transported to Illinois and Michigan last year for a sexual relationship. Schaap resigned from the megachurch, one of the largest in the country, last summer after church members discovered his relationship with the girl and reported it to local law enforcement.

In his letters to the girl, Schaap often discusses how he helped save her from self-destruction, helping to put her on a “better path of living — that’s what we call Righteousness.”

In another letter, he talks about how he wanted their time together for three days — which appears to reference their time in Michigan — to show her how much she matters to Jesus Christ.

The girl and her family are still dealing with the ramifications of the relationship, according to letters they wrote to the court.

The girl wrote about how she spent her entire life in the church, listening to Schaap preach three times a week and being taught that he was a messenger of God.

“He told me to confide in him, to trust him, and he made me feel safe and comfortable around him as a man of God,” she wrote. “(Schaap) preyed on that trust and my vulnerability.”

In another letter written to Schaap, she says she was shocked when he first kissed her. When she asked if it was wrong, Schaap told her it was OK.

“You told me that I was sent to you from God, I was his gift to you,” the letter says.

She admits that by the time they were discovered, she thought she was in love with him and at first didn’t admit he had victimized her.

Now she’s had to transfer schools, and her family was told it wasn’t safe for them to return to the church, according to letters from her parents. The girl writes that although she still struggles every day, she is determined to “get through this and grow from it.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jill Koster says in the sentencing memorandum that Schaap started grooming the victim in April 2012, after an administrator at the girl’s high school, run by the church, emailed Schaap about how she was “frightened, confused and emotionally traumatized” and in need of guidance.

The administrator wrote that he told the girl to let other people guide her life for now and to trust her leaders.

Schaap encouraged her to talk to him about a past romantic relationship and to view him as a friend. The two called and texted each other frequently, including 662 times in one month, before he was discovered. Phone records show he instigated contact in all but five of those days.

The government’s filing says he duped church employees into helping transport the girl across state lines, telling them the girl was “in an extremely vulnerable state” and that he needed prolonged time alone with her to help her.

However, he really took her to his personal property in Crete, Ill., and to his cabin in Cadillac, Mich., once spending 36 hours alone with her. When the employees grew concerned about the girl’s continued absence and texted Schaap, he claimed the girl had fallen asleep on his couch.

He also engaged in sexual behavior with her in his office at the church during a youth conference, according to the government’s filing.

Schaap later lied to his staff when they grew concerned about the amount of time he spent with the girl by claiming the girl was on her period and was just resting on his couch. A staff member found photos of the two a few days later, which led to the federal investigation.

Koster disputes claims in Schaap’s own sentencing memorandum that he was stressed from the church’s decreasing finances and having to work 100 hours a week to make up for fewer staff members.

“The only way (Schaap) could have been working 100-hour weeks during the time period investigated by the government is if he’s counting the many hours he dedicated to grooming and sexually abusing the victim,” Koster says in the filing.

She defends the government’s agreement to recommend a 10-year sentence for Schaap, noting he agreed to plead guilty even before he was charged.

The victim has also decided to drop her request for restitution as her doctors still cannot estimate how much help she will need.

Brazilian Evangelical Pastor Has a Holy Milk Penis

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The Spanish news site Qu.es reports:

Valdeci Sobrino Picanto is a Brazilian Evangelical Pastor who has been arrested for convincing his followers that his penis contains HOLY MILK.

If you’re like me, you are in disbelief and totally disgusted by this, but let me give you more details on this horrible situation…

Picanto told his followers that the Holy Spirit would secrete from his penis in the form of “sacred milk“. This pastor said that his penis was blessed and that “the Lord had consecrated him with divine milk of the “Holy Spirit.”

One of Picanto’s followers stated, “He convinced us that only God could come into our lives through our mouth and that’s why he would do what he did. Often, after worship, pastor Valdeci would take us to the where the funds were kept at the back of the Church and asked us to have oral sex with him until the Holy Spirit would come through ejaculation.“

The good news to this story is that Valdeci Sobrino Picanto is in jail!

Just when you think Evangelicals have e-v-e-r-y conceivable sex angle covered…along comes someone like this to prove you wrong.

This gives a whole new meaning to the Holy Spirit living inside a Christian.

Let Us Prey: Big Trouble at First Baptist Church, A Must Read

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This entry is part 11 of 17 in the seriesJack Hyles and Jack Schaap
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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…

First Baptist Church Hammond Hires New Pastor

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John Wilkerson

John Wilkerson, Pastor First Baptist Church of Hammond

First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana has hired a new pastor to replace disgraced Jack Schaap. Schaap was accused of having sex with a minor he was counseling. Schaap pleaded guilty in Federal Court and is awaiting sentencing. He could face up to ten years in prison.

The Northwest Indiana Times reports:

First Baptist Church members on Sunday night voted in a new pastor to lead their congregation, according to the church’s website.

John Wilkerson was selected by a vote of 94 percent. He will begin serving as pastor Feb. 17.

Wilkerson follows Jack Schaap as pastor of the megachurch. Schaap left the church in disgrace in 2012 after being charged in federal court with transporting a 16-year-old girl who attended the church to Illinois and Michigan for sex. Schaap pleaded guilty to the charges in September 2012.

According to a biography posted on the First Baptist Church Web site, Wilkerson is a native of Tennessee and met his wife, Linda, while attending First Baptist Church’s Hyles-Anderson College in St. John.

Wilkerson graduated from Hyles-Anderson in 1989 and taught at the church’s City Baptist Schools for a year before moving to California to teach at a Baptist school in Long Beach.

He became principal of Calvary Christian School in Baton Rouge, La., in 1993 and returned to California in 2000 to become the pastor of First Baptist Church of Long Beach. During Wilkerson’s tenure as pastor, the Sunday school program at First Baptist Church of Long Beach has grown in attendance from 849 to more than 1,700.

The Wilkersons are parents to nine children. In August 2008, the couple’s 17-year-old son, Tyler, was killed in a car accident. The Sunday after his son’s death, Wilkerson presented a sermon entitled, “God Makes No Mistakes,” according to the First Baptist Church website.

No shock here. A Hyles man hired to pastor the kingdom the two Jack’s built. Here’s to hoping this pastor knows how to keep his fly zipped up.

If you are unfamiliar with this story please check out my previous posts on Jack Hyles, Jack Schaap, and First Baptist Church of Hammond.

Jack Schaap Update

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This entry is part 9 of 17 in the seriesJack Hyles and Jack Schaap

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Why did Jack Schaap have sex with a minor that he was counseling?

The Post-Tribune reports:

The former pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond says in a new court filing that health and financial problems preceded a sexual relationship he had with a then-16-year-old girl last summer.

Jack Schaap, who pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court in Hammond in September to transporting a minor across state lines for sexual relations, says in his sentencing memorandum that the stress from his health and his church’s depleting finances led to him suffering from depression shortly before he started the month-long relationship with the girl, who turned 17 a week after it started. Donations to his mega-church, one of the largest in the country, were down, which meant the church had to lay off employees and Schaap was working up to 100 hours a week.

Part of that increased work included counseling students, one of whom was his victim, at First Baptist’s schools.

Schaap, with support from federal attorneys as part of his plea bargain, is seeking a below-guideline sentence of 10 years, which is the mandatory minimum he can serve under the charge.

He acknowledges in his filing he violated a position of trust with the girl but also notes his long service to the community.

“While serving as the pastor of First Baptist Church, Dr. Schaap committed his entire life to the service of his local community as well as to the world at large,” the filing says.

It mentions his work providing financial aid at his church’s schools to students who couldn’t afford tuition, starting a substance abuse treatment program in Hammond and raising $100 million to support those programs.

Along with the memorandum, Schaap also filed 140 letters of support from family and church members. Most said that Schaap’s crime was not indicative of who he really is.

“We were known for our happy marriage, and it was not a hypocrisy; it was real,” Cindy Schaap, Jack Schaap’s wife, said in a letter.

Other people wrote of the help they received from Schaap, whether through him helping them find a job or getting them into a drug rehabilitation program.

“His preaching has helped me to understand a lot about my behavior and has been a great tool in the healing of my marriage and relationship with my children,” Paul Collins wrote in another letter.

Bob Marshall wrote about Schaap’s work with the Hammond Initiative to train mentors and tutors for children in Hammond schools and also help pregnant students graduate from high school.

Schaap is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 15.

In today’s news, Jack Schaap’s victim has asked for a sentencing delay so she can prepare her statement. The Post-Tribune reports:

Federal attorneys are asking that the Jan. 15 sentencing hearing for former First Baptist Church of Hammond pastor Jack Schaap be delayed so his victim has more time to prepare a statement and restitution request.

The IFB River Called Denial

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This entry is part 4 of 17 in the seriesJack Hyles and Jack Schaap

A little over a week ago, Jack Schaap, pastor of First Baptist Church in Hammond Indiana, was fired over a sexual relationship he had with a sixteen/seventeen year old girl in the church. I wrote about this here and here.

Twenty-three plus years ago, Jack Schaap’s father-in-law, Jack Hyles, was accused of having an affair with a woman in the church. I wrote about this here. The evidence for his affair was overwhelming but the church rejected the evidence and Hyles remained the church’s pastor until his death.

First Baptist Church in Hammond is an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) Church. (if you don’t know what an IFB church is read here) The church was an American Baptist church until Jack Hyles pulled it out the convention.

Sexual and financial scandals are quite common among IFB churches. Pastors have sexual affairs, molest children, surf porn sites, cavort with prostitutes, lie, cheat, and steal. They are, in every way, just like the rest of the human race.

Deacons, Sunday School teachers, church bus workers, Christian School workers, and every-day church members are also just like the rest of the human race. No matter how much they might protest, they know if the curtain was pulled back, it would expose for all to see that IFB church pastors, leaders, and members are no different than atheists, Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons,Methodists, or Southern Baptists.

They are human beings, capable of doing good or bad things. They are capable of being good, decent, kind, loving people and they are also capable of being evil, unkind, indecent, and unloving people.

Like all of us, they have the power to choose what kind of person they want to be. No matter what their theology tells them about the depraved, sinful condition of the natural, unregenerate, unsaved human being, they KNOW they have the power to be whatever kind of person they want to be.

They KNOW that there are countless atheists, deists, non-IFB Christians, Catholics, etc who are good, decent, kind, loving people, without believing the King James Version of the Bible is the Word of God or believing in the IFB God at all.

The IFB religion (and it IS a sectarian religion no matter how much they protest that it is not) believes the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God. IFB churches and pastors are Bible literalists. Most of them are young earth creationists and believe in the pretribulational, premillennial second coming of Jesus Christ. (which they believe could happen at any moment)

They believe the miracles in the Bible actually happened and that everything in the Bible is meant to be taken literally unless it is very clear that it is not meant to be taken literally. (they have very specific, albeit contradictory, hermeneutics for determining this)

As Bible literalists, they believe that Christians are to live sanctified (set apart for God’s service), godly, holy lives. To ensure this they have long lists of things they consider sins, sins that no Jesus loving, sin-hating, devil chasing, IFB Christian would ever commit.

Every IFB church and pastor has their own l-o-n-g list of things they consider a sin. Besides the “big” sins like adultery, fornication, and homosexuality, IFB churches have rules (standards) about things that many non-IFB Christians might not consider a sin. Things like:

  • Watching TV
  • Listening to secular music or Contemporary Christian music
  • Going to the movies
  • Gambling, playing cards
  • Men and women swimming together
  • Drinking alcohol
  • Smoking
  • Cursing or using bywords
  • Women wearing pants or shorts
  • Women wearing anything that reveals their “shape”
  • Long hair on men, short hair on women

Over the years, I heard IFB pastors, including myself, say the following things were a sin:

  • Wearing wire rim glasses
  • Having a beard
  • Having a mustache
  • Wearing any clothing with “worldly” advertising
  • Going to stock races
  • Sending your children to a public school
  • Using any Bible but a King James Bible
  • Not having a Sunday Evening or Midweek service
  • Not having an altar call
  • Using prerecorded (canned) music
  • Marrying a non-IFB Christian
  • Going to a non-IFB college
  • Having non-IFB friends
  • Working on Sunday
  • Letting your children play sports on prayer meeting night or Sunday
  • Not giving at least 10% of your money to the church (plus special offerings)
  • Eating in restaurants that serve alcohol
  • Allowing women to pray or teach anyone other than women or children

I am sure, by now, you are trying to figure where the heaven I am going with this post. Let me tie it all together.

The IFB church movement prides itself on being “better” than other Christian sects and the “world” in general. Their literalist belief system, along with their lists of sinful behaviors are the standard every IFB church member is expected to live by.

For all their talk about salvation by faith and grace, their religion is all about works. (as is every religion, to some degree or the other) They will tell you that a person does not have to do any works in order to be saved but…ask them if a person who refuses to live by the above standards is a Christian and they are likely to say, I doubt it.

In the IFB world, “true” Christianity is determined by how well a person adheres to the church’s/pastor’s interpretation of the Bible and whatever list of “standards” they have.

Some allowance is given for difference of opinion, but not much. Church members who don’t conform are labeled as: worldly, carnal, weak, fleshly, or backslidden.

The moral and and ethical standard is high, way too high. Remember what I said earlier about IFB pastors, leaders, and church members being just like the rest of us? Well, this poses a real problem for them. They take the high moral ground, believing they are superior to everyone else, including other Christians.  They consider themselves pillars of moral virtue.

But…they are not, and when pastors, leaders, and church members get in trouble, like in the case of Jack Schaap and Jack Hyles, they have a real dilemma on their hands.

Their moral and ethical failures expose the bankruptcy of their  claim of superiority. They show that the fundamentalist emperor has no clothes.

The right thing to do would be to admit their failures, confess their “sins,” and come on down from Mount “I am Holier than Thou.” Of course doing this would mean that they are just like the rest of us…

And that ain’t gonna happen.

The latest IFB scandal, courtesy of Jack Schaap and First Baptist Church in Hammond, provides for us an excellent example of  HOW IFB churches handle having their “humanness” exposed.

First, they deny.  When the Schaap scandal first became public, IFB commenters on blogs and news sites were quick to deny that Schaap had done anything wrong. The accusations were lies and they were certain that Schaap was completely innocent. (IFB pastors are often worshiped like a god)

Second, they marginalize. When they could no longer deny the reality of the Schaap scandal, they turned to letting everyone know that Schaap was a “sinner” just like everyone else and, while his “fall” was regrettable, people should not judge the IFB church movement or First Baptist Church negatively. One bad apple doesn’t spoil the whole bushel. (actually it can)

Third, attack the critics. Instead of owning the scandal, many IFB defenders decided to attack those who reported the scandal or wrote negative things about Schaap, Jack Hyles, First Baptist Church in Hammond, and the IFB.  You can read about one such attack here.

Across the blogosphere, in discussion forums, in blog comments, and emails, the defenders of the IFB have attempted to ameliorate  the scandal by attacking people like me. They can’t dismiss my impeccable IFB credentials so they attack me personally or they dismiss me out of hand because I am an atheist. Why should anyone listen to what I have say, they write. I am a God-hater. I am bitter, angry, have an axe to grind.

They try and discredit the messenger so they won’t have to deal with his/her message. The goal is direct attention away from the facts.

Fourth, if all else fails, attack the victim. Let’s not forget that there is a victim in the Jack Schaap scandal. Schaap’s “sin” was not a victimless one. He had sexual relations with a minor in the church. Some media sites are reporting that the girl was being counseled by Schaap. (in Ohio, such a relationship is illegal)

Jack Schaap is a 54 year old man. He is my age. The victim is almost young enough to be his granddaughter. As a grown, mature man, he should be in control of his sexual desire. Surely he KNEW it was morally and ethically wrong (regardless of whether or not it was illegal) to have sex with this girl.

Schaap had the power to control the relationship he had with this girl. He was the grownup, he was the “man of God,” he was a married man with children, he was the one with everything to lose…

If he had overt sexual desire, a need to get laid, he could have sought out the help of a professional, a prostitute. I am sure there are plenty of adult establishments in the Chicago area that Schaap could have went to in order to get his sexual need met. (and more than a few IFB pastors have availed themselves to the services of a prostitute)

But, Schaap did none of these things and now everyone knows…

In the sleaziest of attempts to justify Jack Schaap’s behavior, they attack the girl. One commenter on this blog suggested the girl was a slut, that she seduced Schaap. She wrote:

So…what about the teenage girl? How hot was she? How hard did she pursue him? We all know young girls flaunt everything these days to get what they want. a rise from any man they can. especially one in the limelight (our a uniform!) They don’t care if he’s married our not, or if he’s her best friends dad. it’s really sad.young girls are a whoring in our churches.

I responded:

Bullshit.

It doesn’t matter how hot she was or whether or not she flaunted herself before him.

He is a grown, mature man, a few years younger than me. By now, he should have learned how to deal with temptation and keep his penis in his pants.

It is reported that he was counseling this girl. If this is true, then he abused his power and authority and, here in Ohio, could be held criminally liable.

Whatever the girl’s faults, she is not the problem in this story.

She responded:

You men and women be careful. She is closer than we think. the world is full of young sluts stealing our husbands and sons! Praying for Cindy!

And, I responded:

You mean stealing pathetic, poor Christian men who have been taught they are helpless creatures unable to withstand sexual temptation? How about teaching them to be accountable for their own sexual behavior? They have a choice, do they not? Or are they so weak that the slightest temptation turns them into sexed crazed maniacs who are unable to control their lust?

The only right answer to the Jack Schaap scandal, the Jack Hyles scandal, or any other church scandal, is IMMEDIATE, COMPLETE disclosure. Instead of trying to cover the matter up or trying to make it disappear, churches should show they take these kinds of things seriously and expose the offending parties.

What First Baptist Church in Hammond needs is a Penn State moment. They need to come to terms with fifty years of cover-ups and denials. The deacons and church membership need to own their own culpability in this matter. (they first tried to deal with this by saying Schaap was on medical leave) They are they ones who did nothing about Jack Hyles and his serial-adulterer son David. They are the ones who allowed an abusive, controlling, cultic environment to develop in the church. (and those who stood against this were run off or left)

This will not be the last scandal in the IFB church movement. Their theology and ecclesiology makes it certain that scandals will continue to happen.

IFB church pastors, leaders, and members are human beings. That they will, despite their theology and practice, do things that are considered bad is a given. The only issue left to decide is HOW to respond to these bad acts. What First Baptist Church in Hammond and many churches and pastors in the IFB have done over the past fifty years in response to scandal is not the answer.

The Joe Paterno statues have been pulled down as a public act of contrition and it remains to be seen if the Jack Hyles statute will face the same fate. (there is a direct connection between the current scandal and the Jack Hyles scandal twenty three years ago) One can only hope that public scrutiny will force the IFB church movement to own their “sins” and that dramatic change will be made  to lessen the frequency of  predatory acts against children and teenagers. (if this was an affair between Schaap and an adult woman this story would be a non-issue, IMO)

I am not THAT Kind of Independent Fundamentalist Baptist

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picture of 20th century fundamentalist Evangelist Billy Sunday

If you are not knowledgeable about the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement, please take the time to read the following posts I have written:

What is an IFB Church?

Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Lingo, A Guide to IFB Speak

The Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church, the 20/20 Story

Independent Fundamentalist Baptists and the Secrets They Keep

A Recipe for Abuse

Salvation, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Style

An Independent Baptist Hate List

The Legacy of Jack Hyles

One of the common objections given by my critics is that I am an athiest, and because I am an atheist my writing on the IFB should be rejected or ignored. In others words, ignore the message because the messenger isn’t one of us.

Ignore me all they want, they know I have the bona fides necessary to be an authoritative writer on the IFB church movement.

I was raised in the IFB church, saved in the IFB church, baptized in the IFB church, and called to preach in the IFB church. I attended an IFB college, Midwestern Baptist College, in the 1970’s, the heyday of the IFB church movement.

The chancellor of Midwestern Baptist College, Tom Malone,  was one of the top dogs in the IFB. During my time at Midwestern, I heard virtually every one of the big-name IFB preachers.

From 1979 to 1998, I pastored IFB churches in Ohio and Texas. I attended numerous Sword of the Lord Conferences and I regularly attended the Ohio Baptist Bible Fellowship Pastor’s Fellowship and the Buckeye Independent Baptist Fellowship.

Over the years, I attended or preached at IFB church Youth Camps. I was a guest speaker at a number of IFB churches. I started an IFB Youth Fellowship in SE Ohio. The IFB churches I pastored supported IFB missionaries.

My wife is the daughter of an IFB pastor. Her uncle is a noted leader in the IFB church movement. She has first cousins who are IFB pastors/evangelists or married to men who are. All of the men in our wedding party are/were IFB pastors.

I wrote all of the above to say, I know what I am talking about.

My recent writing on the latest sex scandal at First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana has brought thousands and thousands of new readers to this blog. My posts have been linked to on other sites and Facebook and thousands more have stopped by to read what I have written on this subject.

Some commenters on this blog and other sites have attempted to distance themselves from the Jack Schaap scandal by suggesting that while they are proudly IFB, they are NOT IFB like Jack Schaap.

While I fully understand why IFB pastors and parishioners would want to distance themselves from Jack Schaap and First Baptist Church in Hammond, I think they “doth protest to much.”

What makes a church an IFB church? In a previous post titled, What is an IFB church?, I wrote:

I stands for Independent

The  local, visible Church is an independent body of believers who are not associated or affiliated with any denomination. The pastor answers only to God, and to a lesser degree the Church. The Church answers to no one but God. Most IFB churches oppose any form of government involvement or intrusion into its affairs.

F stands for Fundamentalist

The independent Church is fundamentalist in its doctrine and practice. IFB churches are social and theological fundamentalists. Social fundamentalists adhere to an external code of conduct. Often this code of conduct is called Church standards. The Bible, or should I say the pastor’s interpretation of the Bible, is the rule by which church members are expected to live. IFB churches spend a significant amount of time preaching and teaching about how God the pastor expects people to live.

IFB churches are also theological fundamentalists.  They adhere to a certain and specific theological standard, a standard by which all other Christians and denominations are judged. Every IFB pastor and church believes things like:

  • The inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy of the Bible
  • The sinfulness, depravity of man
  • The deity of Christ
  • The virgin birth of Christ
  • The blood atonement of Christ for man’s sin
  • The resurrection of Christ from the dead
  • The second coming of Christ
  • Separation from the world
  • Salvation from sin is by and through Christ alone
  • Personal responsibility to share the gospel with sinners
  • Heaven and hell are literal places
  • Hierarchal authority (God, Jesus, church, pastor, husband, wife)
  • Autonomy and independence of the local church

I am sure other doctrines could be added to this list but the list above is a concise list of ALL things an IFB church and pastor must believe to be considered an IFB church.

B stands for Baptist

IFB churches are Baptist Churches adhering to the ecclesiology and theology mentioned above.  Some IFB churches are landmark Baptists or Baptist briders. They believe the Baptist church is the true church and all other churches are false churches. John the Baptist baptized Jesus, which made him a Baptist and the first churches established by the Baptist apostles were Baptist churches. Churches like this go to great lengths to prove their Baptist lineage which dates all the way back to John the Baptist, Jesus and the Apostles.

Other IFB churches and pastors believe that Baptist ecclesiology and theology are what the Bible clearly teaches. They grudgingly admit that other denominations “might” be Christian too but they are quick to say why be a part of a bastardized form of Christianity when you can have the real deal.

Some Southern Baptist churches can be rightly labeled IFB churches. They are Southern Baptist in name only. It is not uncommon for an IFB pastor to pastor a Southern Baptist church with the intent of pulling them out of the Southern Baptist convention.  It is not uncommon for Southern Baptist churches to reject resumes from pastors with a IFB background. Area missionaries warn churches about pernicious IFB pastors who desire to take over churches and pull the churches out of the convention.

When IFB churches fight among themselves, they usually fight over:

  • Bible translations
  • Ecclesiastical separation (secondary separation)
  • Personal standards of separation
  • Preacher personalities
  • Music styles
  • Soteriological and Eschatological differences

IFB churches all generally believe the same things and tend to fight among themselves over the small differences they have with each other. Remember this is a movement known for what it is against rather than what it is for.

IFB churches are generally subdivided according to the IFB college the church and/or pastor is associated with. They tend to fellowship with their own kind but they do often join together for conferences, revival meetings, and fellowships.

The IFB is subdivided around the following colleges (this is not an exhaustive list)

  • Bob Jones University
  • Pensacola Christian College
  • Hyles-Anderson College
  • Midwestern Baptist College
  • Maranatha Baptist Bible College
  • Baptist Bible College
  • Tennessee Temple
  • Massillon Baptist College
  • Heartland Baptist Bible College
  • Landmark Baptist College
  • Arlington Baptist College
  • Fairhaven Baptist College
  • Crown College of the Bible
  • West Coast Baptist College
  • Faith Baptist Bible College
  • Ambassador Baptist College
  • Trinity Baptist College
  • Cedarville University
  • Northland Baptist Bible College
  • Texas Baptist College
  • The Masters College

All of these colleges teach Bible literalism and believe the Bible is the inerrant, inspired Word of God. Most of them are unaccredited.

There are several “denominations” that are aggregates of IFB churches (again, not exhaustive):

  • The General Association of Regular Baptists (GARBC)
  • Conservative Baptist Association
  • The Baptist Bible Fellowship
  • Independent Fundamentalist Churches of America
  • Reformed Baptist Fellowship
  • Association of Reformed Baptists

Within the Southern Baptist Convention, American Baptist Convention, General Baptist Convention, and National Baptist Convention there are thousands of churches that could be described doctrinally as IFB churches.

Then you have the Independent IFB churches. (yes, I know that sounds like an oxymoron but it is not) These churches and pastors who are fiercely independent. Many of them are Calvinistic, Reformed, Sovereign Grace, or Primitive Baptist churches.

There are numerous IFB churches not affiliated with any college, fellowship, or denomination. These churches tend to keep to themselves or fellowship with a few likeminded churches.

IFB churches are everywhere. For decades they flew under the radar but in recent years sexual and financial scandals have turned the spotlight on them and they don’t like it one bit.

This is why IFB churches and pastors try to distance themselves from erring churches and pastors.  They fear getting tarred with the same brush or they fear that the light might be shown on their own aberrant beliefs and practices.

Less than two days after the Jack Schaap scandal was made public, Schaap’s name, sermons, and the like, were scoured from websites. This is the way the IFB church movement handles its scandals…they wave the magic eraser wand and everything is right again.

Except that it is not right at all. Until the IFB church movement changes its doctrine and ecclesiology these abuses continue. As long as they continue to spiritually abuse people and demean and debase them through “hard preaching” these kind of scandals will continue. As long as pastors are considered demigods they will continue to use their absolute power and control of the church to squash dissent, run off those who oppose them, and mentally, emotionally, and spiritually abuse those who call them “pastor.” Until the cancerous head is cut of there is no hope of a cure for the IFB church movement.

The  denial of basic human sexuality will continue to breed “moral” failure among IFB pastors, evangelists, college professors, and parishioners. Continuing to teach people to “deny self” will only result in excessive behavior and acting out.

I am often asked, is the IFB church movement a cult? Some churches are indeed cults. However, most IFB churches are not cults in the classic sense. They have “cultic” tendencies and these tendencies are troubling.

I can not in good conscience recommend that a person attend an IFB church. I know and have seen too much to ever recommend an IFB church to anyone.  I think IFB churches hurt people mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  The danger of abuse is quite high and there are better alternatives for those needing a “connection” with God.

The IFB church movement is dying…that’s the good news. The bad news is that they are dying a very slow death and until they finally kick the bucket they will continue hurt countless people.

I hope this blog can be a help in pointing people to a better way, be it joining up with a progressive/liberal church or joining the ranks of the godless.

The Legacy of Jack Hyles

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This entry is part 1 of 17 in the seriesJack Hyles and Jack Schaap

Members of First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana and people closely associated with Hyles-Anderson College and Jack Schaap are astonished at the firing of Jack Schaap for sexual misconduct with a minor. (see previous posts here and here) Evidently these people have a short memory or live in denial because First Baptist Church has a long history of pastors getting themselves in trouble with the fairer sex.

Jack Schaap’s father-in-law, Jack Hyles, had an illicit sexual relationship with his secretary. The evidence against Hyles was overwhelming, yet the church rejected the evidence and Jack Hyles continued to pastor the church. (see Conservative Babylon’s section on Jack Hyles)

David Hyles, the son of Jack Hyles and youth pastor of the church, had numerous sexual relationships with women in the church. The church quietly sent him away to pastor another church, not telling the new church about his sexual proclivities, and he continued to have numerous sexual relationships with women in the new church. (see Conservative Babylon’s section on David Hyles)

Some people are praising the church for publicly exposing Jack Schaap’s “sin.” This is the same church that ignored Jack Hyles’ “sin”, covered over David Hyles’ “sin”, and whitewashed numerous other scandals in the Church and College, so forgive me if I don’t think they are acting “better” than the Catholic Church. (as one commenter said)

The people of First Baptist Church were taught that if they didn’t see something it didn’t happen. They were taught that unless an allegation could be confirmed by two or more people (Matthew 18) they were not to believe it. This kind of thinking resulted in a culture where “sin” was ignored or swept under the proverbial rug. (a rug that is so high now that you have to walk up a five foot hill to get into the church)

In general, the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) Church movement abhors scandal and they do everything they can to cover it up. More important than the sin or the victims is the church’s testimony. The church’s testimony must be protected at all costs, even if we ignore a pedophile in our midst, like Trinity Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida did. (see Conservative Babylon’s section on Bob Gray)

For First Baptist Church of Hammond to out Jack Schaap they had to have been backed into a corner without the option of covering it up or quietly making the “problem” go away. (calling in attorney David Gibbs to “manage” the crisis speaks volumes about depth of the scandal)

The root of the Jack Schaap scandal is found in the ministry, teaching, and doctrine of his predecessor, Jack Hyles. The remainder of this post will focus on Jack Hyles. It is impossible to understand the Jack Schaap story without first looking at Jack Hyles’ forty-two year ministry at First Baptist Church of Hammond. (a church that was an American Baptist Church until Hyles pulled it out of the Convention a few years after he arrived there in 1959)

In its heyday, First Baptist Church of Hammond was the largest church in the United States. (and, at times, claimed to be the largest church in the world) The Church was built around two things: the bus ministry and Jack Hyles.

The Church saw attendances exceeding 25,000 people. At the center of this huge church was its Pastor, Jack Hyles.

In the late 1960’s and 1970’s Jack Hyles was, what many of us described, the pope of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church movement. He authored numerous books with titles like Let’s Go Soulwinning, Let’s Build an Evangelistic Church, Enemies of Soulwinning, The Hyles Church Manual,How to Rear Infants, How to Rear Children, How to Rear Teenagers, Satan’s Bid for Your Child, Marriage is a Commitment, Woman the Completer, and Blue Denim and Lace.

There was a hard-fast rule in the IFB movement. The bigger the church attendance the more authority you were granted and the more weight your words had. I heard countless big- name IFB pastors say, “until you have as many eggs in your basket as I do you have no right to criticize me.” Pastors with small churches were looked down on and were expected to shut up and learn from the top dogs of the movement.

From 1976 to 1989, I heard Jack Hyles preach numerous times. I traveled to a number of Sword of the Lord Conferences, often taking people from the churches I pastored with me.

Hyles was a dynamic preacher, a real motivator. He used very little of the Bible in his preaching. His sermons were always topical or textual and were littered with personal stories and illustrations.

Hyles was a narcissist. Most of his stories and illustrations were about his own personal life and exploits. His stories about he and his mother are legendary.

Over time, as I became more and more dissatisfied with the IFB movement, I paid closer attention to the substance of Hyles’ sermons. In particular, I focused on the stories that Hyles told. I came to the conclusion that Hyles was a narcissistic liar.

Hyles would often talk about how important and busy he was. In several sermons he talked about how many people he counseled every week. I sat down and did the math and I concluded it was physically impossible for Hyles to have counseled as many people each week as he claimed.

Hyles was a ruthless man. I watched him, during Q and A times at a conference, dress down and belittle pastors for asking the “wrong” question. He refused to allow anyone to challenge his authority as the king of the IFB hill.

To understand the scandals at First Baptist Church in Hammond, we must understand the gospel that has been preached at First Baptist for over 50 years. It is the same gospel that is/was preached by men like Bob Gray of Texas, Bob Gray of Jacksonville, Curtis Hutson, Dennis Corle, and thousands of other IFB pastors.

Jack Hyles preached a bastardized version of the Christian gospel. The Hyles gospel has been labeled as decisional regeneration or one, two, three, repeat after me. I used to label the gospel of the IFB church movement as:

  • win them
  • wet them
  • work them
  • waste them

The only thing that mattered was winning souls. Dennis Corle told me one time that I should spend more time soulwinning and less time studying in preparation to preach on Sunday.

The key to church growth was to keep more people coming in the front door than were going out the back door. IFB churches are notorious for turning over their church memberships, especially when a pastor leaves and a new one comes in. (more on this later)

The Hyles gospel focused on praying the sinners prayer. Pray this prayer and you are saved. Good works? They were desired and even expected, but if a saved person never exhibited any change in their lives they were still considered saved.

If a pastor dared suggest that new life in Christ meant a change of conduct they were accused of preaching “works salvation.” (the Lordship Salvation controversy) According to the Hyles gospel, it was all about praying the prayer and once a person prayed the prayer they could NEVER,EVER be lost again. This is why some people insist that I am still saved even if I don’t want to be. Once God has you he never lets go of you. (check out RB Thieme’s teaching of this perverted gospel)

The Hyles gospel filled churches with people who had made a mental assent to a set of propositional facts. Every year churches like First Baptist Church in Hammond and Longview Baptist Temple report thousands of people being saved. Most of these new converts stop attending after a short while but this is of no consequence. They prayed the “prayer”…on to the next sinner in need of saving.

The IFB church movement is centered on men. Most IFB churches are pastored by one man who has complete, total control of the church. Most IFB churches are congregational in name only, with the pastor being the autocratic king of the church.

Jack Hyles, Jack Schaap, and countless other big-name IFB traveling preachers routinely promote the notion of pastoral authority. The pastor, under the authority of Jesus and powered by the Holy Spirit, is the final authority in the church. He is the hub around which everything turns.

IFB churches are not known for their name but for who their pastor is. IFB church members routinely say, when asked about what church they attend, I go to Pastor So-and So’s church.

Two years ago, in a post titled, The Cult of Personality, I wrote:

Churches aren’t known for what they believe or even the works they do. They are known for who their pastor is.

When asked where they go to Church a Christian will often say “I go to  Pastor Smith’s Church.”

The focus of everything is on the pastor. He is the mover and shaker. He is what powers the machine. Without him it all fails.

Christian TV, radio and publishing is all about the personalities within the Church. Name recognition is the name of the game.

Does anyone really believe Rod Parsley is a good writer? Yet, his books sell. Why? Name recognition.

Everything is focused on and culminates with the sermon and the preacher.

I had people drive 40 minutes to the Church I pastored in SE Ohio. They loved my preaching. They thought I was the greatest preacher since the last guy they thought was wonderful. Really? As much as I think that I am a pretty good public speaker, they had to drive past 40 Churches to get to the Church I pastored. Not one of those  Churches had a preacher that could preach competently? (well maybe not, after hearing more than a few preachers)

What happens when the pastor leaves the Church? What happens when the personalities change, when a new preacher takes over? Strife. Division. People leave the Church. Why? Because Church became about the preacher rather than about Jesus and serving others.

Why is it the pastor’s name is on everything? The sign out front. The bulletin . Every piece of literature the Church produces.

If it is really is all about Jesus then why does it matter if anyone knows the pastor’s name?

Ah, but it does matter. Most Christians are good capitalists. (serving a socialist Jesus) They are consumers first and Christians second.  They know people are “attracted” (the attractional method) to the Church by the pastor, the programs, the building, etc.

They know the pastor becomes the face of their Church. It shouldn’t be this way, but it is, and quite frankly, it is the Church itself that must bear the blame for this.

They revel in the cult of personality. They love having a name brand preacher. They watch Christians TV and listen to Christian radio because  Pastor/Rev/Dr/Evangelist/Bishop/Apostle so-and so is on. Take away the names and it becomes as interesting as eating a no-name hamburger at a no-name restaurant surrounded by no-name people.

Is it any wonder IFB pastors and churches have the scandals they do? Members are taught to obey their pastor without question. He is the man of God. If he is doing something wrong God will chastise him.

This kind of thinking allows IFB pastors to commit adultery, molest children, and steal from the church without anyone ever knowing about it. I could spend the next two days writing about IFB pastors who have abused their place of authority and committed heinous acts against the people they pastored.

IFB churches think they are above the world and other churches because of what they believe. They are Bible believers, and their pastors preach hard against sin. Because of this, they have a hard time believing that their pastor or any other noted preacher could ever commit sins like Jack Hyles, Jack Schaap, David Hyles, and Bob Gray did.

Bob Gray, pastor emeritus of Longview Baptist Temple had this to say on this blog about the Schaap scandal:

May I present the practical side?  There exists more molestation cases proportionately reported in the 42,000 churches of the Southern Baptist Convention than in the 22,000 independent Baptist churches.  Consider the largest denomination in our nation, the Catholic Church, and then think on their sexual transgressions for a while.  This is not to take lightly one person who is violated by a leader in a church.

Look carefully at the argument Gray is making here. The Southern Baptists and the Catholics are worse than us! Praise Jesus! Such thinking should sicken all of us.

Here is what I know about the IFB movement. They will wail and moan for awhile but, in a few weeks or months, the scandal will pass, and they will go back to “winning souls” and “Preaching hard against sin.” It is only a matter of time before
a-n-o-t-h-e-r scandal rocks the IFB movement

Until the IFB movement repudiates its corruption of the Christian gospel and changes how their churches are governed there is no hope of meaningful change. Will they change? Not likely.

Change is not likely to come because of their literalism and belief in the inerrancy of the Bible. Armed with certainty, knowing they are right, they will continue to preach a corrupted gospel and allow narcissistic pastors to rule over them. It IS in the Bible…

(Please read my post Independent Fundamentalist Baptists and the Secrets They Keep)

Update on the Jack Schaap Firing

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It looks like the sin was an inappropriate relationship with a young woman. If the police are involved, this means the woman is under-age, was raped, or Schaap took advantage of her while in a professional relationship.

The police do not investigate adultery. I am sure the complete story will be out in a matter of days.

Here is a taste, from the comment section of the above linked post, of the thinking that will go on among the followers of Jack Schaap:

you are all a bunch of LIARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that is NOT NOT true!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All Pastor Schaap is trying to do is get all of you BIG mouths from going to hell!!!!!! Get your nose out of First Baptist Church’s business and start worrying about where you will spend eternity!!! Pastor Schaap is a GREAT man of God!!!!!! Im soooooo thankful for Him!!!!!! He will have many many rewards in heaven!!!!!!!!!!!

I saw similar defenses of Schaap’s father-in-law, Jack Hyles when he was caught up in his own sex scandal. Who can forget people wearing buttons that said 100% Hyles.

Hyles, along with Schaap taught the people of First Baptist of Hammond to not believe what they did not see. The evidence must be overwhelming for the Church to publicly out Schaap and fire him.

I read one blog that said David Gibbs was flying in to “manage” the crisis. Gibbs is an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist attorney from the Christian Law Association. He is the big gun of attorneys for the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement.

Wikipedia-First Baptist Church