David Hyles is the son of the late Jack Hyles, pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana for many years. During his younger years, David Hyles was the youth pastor at First Baptist. While there, he sexually preyed on women, resulting in his father quietly, in the dead of night, shipping him off to pastor an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) Church that knew nothing of David’s philandering. As sexual predators are wont to do, David Hyles continued his whoring ways, leading to his expulsion from the church. If you are not familiar with the David and Jack Hyles story, please read:
In recent years, David Hyles has been showing up at IFB churches and events, acting as if what happened in the past is ancient history and no longer relevant. Praise Jesus! He has been forgiven! It’s time for people such as myself to move on and give the guy a break. Yes, he was a serial adulterer. Yes, he preyed on women. Yes, he was a despicable human being. But, “Brother Dave’ has played his “washed-by-the-blood, get-out-of-jail-free card. As far as he is concerned, his sin account has been settled and he is free to move forward in the fullness and wonder of God’s mercy and grace. Never mind the fact that Hyles has NEVER given a public accounting of his very public misconduct, and as far as I know he has not contacted nor made restitution to the countless people he has harmed. Doing so, of course, would require him to admit actions that still could be criminally prosecuted.
David Hyles was, as the following comment shows, in attendance at least one of the conference days. A Fighting Fundamental Forums commenter using the moniker Twisted posted a comment a friend of his made on Facebook:
While on a trip in North Carolina with one of our church men, we attended three evening services of the annual National Sword of the Lord Conference on Revival and Soul-Winning. One of the pleasures for me at the conference was to get to see Brother David Hyles, who has been a good friend and encouragement on Facebook. His dad, Jack Hyles, was my favorite preacher. Brother David’s wife, Brenda, took this photo. I thought she did a great job considering the subject matter.
After a period of waywardness, Brother Hyles (David) appears to have been on the right track again for some years now, and he has been trying to use his own restoration to encourage others who need the same. I count him as a friend! For any of you who might have a problem with that, I want to remind you that he is no longer out in a far country nor in the field feeding swine, but he is back at the Father’s house. Stay outside and pout if you want to, or you can come in and enjoy the Father’s celebration of restored fellowship!
Jack Hyles, David Hyles, Jim Krall, World’s Greatest Men
Sorry, but I want to puke. According to the aforementioned Facebook friend, it’s time for people to forgive Hyles and move one. First, I have no need to forgive David Hyles. He never did anything to me, so there is nothing for him to apologize for — not that there is any evidence that Hyles (like his father) has apologized to anyone. My goal is to hold a man who was considered one of the “greatest men on earth” accountable for his abuse of countless trusting Christian women. Until Hyles gives a public accounting of his past actions and makes appropriate restitution, I intend to continue to smack him over the head every time I hear of him sticking his bald pate out of the hole he crawled into.
Last month, Christopher Trent, youth pastor at Bellingham Baptist Church in Bellingham, Washington, was convicted of sexually abusing a church girl. Bellingham Baptist is an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church.
Caleb Hutton, a reporter for The Bellingham Times had this to say about Trent’s crimes:
The ex-youth pastor of a Bellingham church grimaced, wept, and struggled to breathe in court Wednesday, as he listened to a teenage girl – standing feet away – describe the lasting harm he caused when he raped her countless times.
Christopher Lee Trent was sentenced to 5 years in prison for sexually abusing the girl, who went to Bellingham Baptist Church on Orleans Street when she was under the age of 16.
Court records describe how he kept the abuse a secret for about 2 years.
Trent, 37, graduatedfrom Heartland Baptist Bible College in Oklahoma, where he met Josh Carter, the future pastor of the Bellingham church.Trent moved across the country with his wife and seven children in June 2013, after Carter asked if he’d be interested in a youth pastor job.
Over the next three years, Trent supervised children at church activities, preached in front of the main congregation at times, and led classes about how adults can prevent child abuse in the church.
Meanwhile, he started driving the girl home from church. She visited his home often, and she came to think of him as a kind of father figure. Over time he started showing affection by giving her “side hugs,” and later hugging her chest-to-chest. In text messages he told the girl he loved her and wanted to kiss her. Eventually he promised to marry her at a gazebo on a beach when she turned 18.
The girl later estimated that over months, he sexually abused her over 100 times – so often she lost count. Months before the abuse came to light, the girl’s mother noticed her phone bill showed hundreds of texts from Trent’s number, sent at 1 or 2 a.m., where he talked about holding and loving the girl. According to a letter the mother wrote to police, she confronted Trent, but he laughed and denied anything inappropriate had happened. She warned him to not touch her daughter, and blocked Trent’s number, but did not contact police.
Trent and the girl switched to texting over private apps on their phones.
Trent’s wife found explicit pictures of the girl on his phone, too, but he convinced her the girl must have sent them by accident and to the wrong person, according to reports summarized in a Department of Corrections investigation.
The head pastor confronted Trent in 2016, because others had noticed he had an oddly close relationship with the girl. Then a member of the church found a letter that fell out of Trent’s Bible, where the girl talked about Trent holding her close. Both Trent and the girl denied that anything sexual had happened between them, when Carter spoke with them.
Trent was fired. His family was given a month to move out of a church parsonage. No report was made to police until a couple of weeks later, on July 11, 2016, when another church member told police Trent was fired for an inappropriate relationship with a girl. As detectives started to investigate, the girl revealed Trent had been sexually abusing her, at the church, in the car behind the church, and in their homes.
Much later the girl told authorities the abuse was even worse than she had first reported: Trent called her his “sex slave,” and forced her to endure sex acts that left her bleeding and in pain for days. He would monitor her conversations with boys and, at times, told her not to eat. She feared he would kill her, if it would keep his secret from getting out.
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Trent pleaded guilty in March to four counts of third-degree child rape. He had no prior criminal record. No other charges of sexual abuse emerged. He told authorities that, a decade before his arrest, he worked with special needs kids in Franklin Township on the outskirts of Indianapolis, in his home state of Indiana.
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[Judge] Montoya-Lewis said she found it extraordinarily frustrating that, in her reading of the law, she could not hand down more prison time [five years]. She reiterated to the girl and her family that the crime was not their fault: It was Trent’s alone. She turned to Trent, and told him his behavior had been “insidious and terrifying.”
“You cannot hide behind the concept of sin, as you have represented to the court. These were poor choices,” Montoya-Lewis said. “They were your choices, over years. You had every opportunity, every day, to stop what you were doing to this child, and you chose to continue.
“It is not in the court’s authority or ability to hand out forgiveness,” Montoya-Lewis continued. “But I listened to what happened to (the girl), and I read about her experiences, and your response to that. And it is unforgivable.”
Yesterday, Bellingham Baptist music director Paul Bane was sentenced to five years in prison for sexually molesting a church girl.
Hutton reports:
A former music director at Bellingham Baptist Church must serve time in prison for molesting a girl for years, a Superior Court judge has ruled.
Judge Raquel Montoya-Lewis sentenced Paul Michael Bane to 5 years in prison, the same amount of time she handed the church’s youth pastor, Christopher Trent, a month ago in a separate case of long-term sex abuse of a different girl.
Bane, 57, arrived at the Bellingham police station one morning in October 2015 to confess he had been sexually touching a girl for about 8 years, according to court records. At that point police had not spoken with the girl, who was living in the Midwest, but Bane told police the girl’s story, whatever it might be, could be trusted.
According to his report, Bane became a kind of father figure to the girl when she was younger. The sexual abuse began around the time the victim turned 12 years old. Bane would kiss her, sexually touch her, and later, started tying her with a clothesline during sex acts.
When she went to college years later, she revealed the abuse to a counselor, who encouraged the girl to report the matter to police. For about 1 ½ months, she told Bane she had been considering coming forward. Bane confessed to his pastor, Josh Carter, who told Bane he needed to turn himself in. He did and told police he’d thought of moving across the country to be near the victim.
Police called her at her Bible college. She was, at first, reluctant to help in the case. The young woman had other things going on in her life, and she still cared about Bane, she reported. About a month later, she decided to go to police, because she did not want the same thing to happen to another girl. In an interview with a detective in a Oklahoma, she described in graphic detail how Bane abused her as often as twice a week, or daily, through her teenage years.
An investigator with the Department of Corrections noted that in the police interview the young woman didn’t know basic sexual terms, or basic things about female anatomy. She seemed sheltered, and appeared Bane had groomed her for sexual abuse. He treated her with affection he did not show other children. He would buy her gifts, candy, or food. After Bane abused her, he would apologize.
In the victim’s version, the abuse mostly stopped after 4 ½ years, though there were two more instances of sexual contact when she was a young adult.
Police booked Bane into jail in December 2015. He was released without being required to post bond. He remained out of jail until May, when he pleaded guilty to second-degree child molestation and two counts of third-degree child molestation.
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A public defender, Darrin Hall, described Bane as “somebody who does not connect with adults,” but for whatever reason, he found he connected with the girl. Bane’s actions look and feel predatory, but in reality, Hall said, they seem to be rooted in his immaturity. Bane will undergo sex offender treatment while serving time in prison.
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[Judge] Montoya-Lewis admonished Bane for statements he made during the investigation, when he claimed his “relationship” with the victim was consensual, and when he brushed aside criticism from people who were concerned about how he acted around her.
“It is inconceivable to me,” Montoya-Lewis said, her voice halting, “that you could suggest to this victim that her compliance was something that God wanted.”
Today, The Kokomo Perspective released another episode in their ongoing coverage of the Temple Baptist Church sex scandal. Devin Zimmerman writes:
The brother of Dawn Price, Daniel Croddy, came forward last week, claiming that Temple Baptist Church and his father used him in what appears to be an attempt to smear his sister.
Earlier this year, Price made news after she went public with claims that her father, Don Croddy, molested her and multiple other young girls in the early ‘90s and late ‘80s while he attended Temple Baptist Church. The church, led by Pastor Mike Holloway, got tangled in the story because Price alleged that Holloway was made aware of her molestation at the hands of her father in 1991 but allowed Don to stay at the church and never contacted the authorities.
Now, Price’s brother claims the church’s leadership had him sign three affidavits denying his sister’s claims in trade for bringing him to Kokomo and helping him out of homelessness. Months later, still homeless and unable to get the church to return his calls, Croddy said the majority of the claims in the affidavits aren’t true.
“I’ve been homeless for like two-and-half years, and when all this sh** went down a couple months ago they promised me they would take me to Kokomo, set me up, and get me a job,” said Croddy. “Once they got what they needed from me, they just kind of dumped me. To tell you the truth, all I wanted to do was not be on the street. So I signed those damn affidavits.”
In total, Croddy said he was asked by Temple Baptist Church leadership to sign three affidavits. One stated he had never been physically abused as a child by his father, as his sister has claimed he was. The second, according to Croddy, stated that he “never saw anything with Dawn.” The final affidavit centered on an attempt by Price to extort money from her father around the late 1990s.
Croddy said that the first two affidavits, even though he signed them, aren’t true.
“To tell you the truth, all I was looking to do was not be homeless,” said Croddy.
The third, however, he said is true. Croddy claimed that he happened to visit his former Kokomo home just after a letter, sent by Price and her then-husband Andy Thornton, arrived at the home of Don. The letter, according to Croddy, requested thousands of dollars in exchange for Price not telling the authorities about her allegations of molestation.
Price acknowledged that she sent such a letter around 2000.
“I was going through a rough time. I was having horrific nightmares,” said Price. “My husband, Andy, we were both young. We didn’t know how to help me. It was to the point where he was like, ‘We need to cut off all communication because you having anything to do with them is making you (suicidal).’ I was almost suicidal at that point. He decided to write a letter, which I signed. I couldn’t tell you what was in the letter at this point. He doesn’t even remember writing the letter.
“We wrote a letter saying, ‘If you give us this amount of money, we are going to make what you did public.’ We sent it, and that was the end of it. We didn’t pursue anything and completely forgot about it. My parents, on the other hand, I asked them about it a couple years ago. They were just like, ‘We understand where you guys were coming from. You were upset and hurt; your husband was trying to protect you.’ And we threw out the letter.”
Months after Croddy signed the affidavits at the behest of Temple Baptist Church, he said he’s upset because the church and Don haven’t acted on what they promised him in exchange for his signature.
The Kokomo Perspective obtained a recording of a phone call between Croddy, Holloway, and Temple Baptist Church Associate Pastor Jim Willoughby that occurred prior to the signing of the affidavits. The recording backs a number of Croddy’s claims.
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The pair went on to discuss various claims against Price, and Willoughby asked Croddy to elaborate on an earlier conversation where he said he had not been abused as a child. Croddy affirmed this claim, but he since recanted this statement and said that he was physically abused as a child.
“Don Croddy was a f****** monster,” said Croddy. “I mean, I knew something was going on (with Price), but it was really hard to see it, you know? He kept me scared. There was no safe place as a child for me … When I was 10 he stopped using a paddle and started using farm implements wherever he could hit me. There were times I wasn’t allowed in school until the bruises went away.”
Later in the recording, Holloway entered the room and began speaking with Croddy.
After introducing himself as “preacher,” Holloway asked how Croddy was doing and said, “Hey, you have really helped us a lot, Danny. I owe you big time.”
Holloway continued and asked if Croddy needed anything and asked, “Can I help you get back on your feet? Can I do something to help?”
Today, The Kokomo Perspective released another episode in their ongoing coverage of the Temple Baptist Church sex scandal. Devin Zimmerman writes:
When the story first broke concerning allegations of sexual molestation by a Kokomo man, five victims relayed their accounts of painful childhood memories.
That was in April. Now, a little more than two months later, Dawn Price claims more than 10 individuals have joined her in claiming that they too were sexually abused as children by her adoptive father, Donald D. Croddy. Price said she suspects there may be more, and as such, she wants them to step forward in an effort to find justice.
“We want as many victims as possible to get the justice they deserve, to stop him because people like him don’t just stop,” said Price. “He has probably stopped at the moment because of all this, but there’s no way people like him just stop. We know there’s more out there, and the more we have the better the case we have. I want as many people who are the victims to get in on this and get their justice because to me this is a one-time deal.”
At the moment, Price said she and the other alleged victims are considering moving forward with a civil case, although nothing yet has been done officially. This would be the mostly likely path of recourse since the statute of limitations has expired for most of the alleged victims. First, however, she said anyone who believes they were molested by Croddy should file a police report.
“We can’t get him criminally unless somebody comes forward who is still within the statutes, which is kind of what we’re hoping for,” said Price. “Not that we want there to be a victim, but nobody is after, really, money. We just want him exposed, and we want him punished. Right now, with the laws the way they are, the only way he can be exposed and punished is to take him to court civilly and get his money. Most don’t want his money; they just want him outed, and they want him punished. If we were to win any money, that would go towards helping the victims get therapy.”
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According to Price, more than 10 individuals have contacted her claiming Croddy molested them as children. A common thread, she said, is that the majority came into contact with Croddy while attending Temple Baptist Church, of which Croddy was an active member. Price long has alleged that she told the church’s pastor, Mike Holloway, about her abuse at the hands of her adopted father during a confrontation in 1991 preceding her wedding. During this conflict, she said Holloway refused to hold Price’s wedding at the church she attended as a child, and Price continues to maintain that her father confessed to molesting his daughter during event. Holloway continues to deny this claim.
“I know there’s more people out there,” said Price. “People are scared, and I understand that. But this happened when they were minors, so their name doesn’t have to be out there publicly. They’re scared. I know two of them are deathly scared, and they won’t do anything because they’re scared of my dad and the church and the repercussions that they will get.
“To me, a church shouldn’t be that way. In my opinion, it’s supposed to be a safe haven and a place to help people like these victims. If they can’t be the safe haven, I would like them to reach out to me. I can do what I can to help them and be a safe haven. Even if they don’t want to be a part of the legal action, just to get them some help. That’s all I’m doing this for is to get them justice and get them help because I know how debilitating this kind of thing is.”
Temple Baptist Church, an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church (IFB) located in Kokomo, Indiana is under scrutiny as authorities investigate claims of physical and sexual abuse by people associated with the church and its school — Temple Christian School. Mike Holloway is the church’s current pastor. As of the writing of this post, no charges have been filed or arrests made. The Kokomo Perspective began a series of articles this week on Temple Baptist and the allegations against them. Today’s article, which is excerpted below, features Dawn Price. a women who alleges she was sexually abused years ago while attending Temple Baptist Church:
Through a heartfelt reading of a letter she wrote to her parents at the behest of a counselor, [Dawn] Price detailed her painful childhood while choking back tears. In just under 15 minutes, she described the alleged sexual abuse she claims to have endured at the hands of her father, Donald Croddy, who sources say served in various capacities around children at Temple Baptist Church.
Adopted at the age of 5, and now 45, Price claims her father began grooming her shortly after she and her brother were brought into the Croddy home in Kokomo.
“You made naptime and playing house with daddy normal,” said Price in her video. “You took away my innocence. No child should know about sex or orgasms. You have no idea how you screwed up my sexual development.”
Price alleges the abuse ranged from inappropriate touching to Croddy making her watch him masturbate, until it eventually progressed.
“By the time I was 9 or 10, in the fourth grade, you wanted more,” said Price in her video. “This is when my abuse became full sexual intercourse. Later that night I told mom I was bleeding down there, and I was told it was just my period and was sent to school with a paper bag full of maxi pads. It wasn’t my period, and I stopped bleeding after few days. And it was never mentioned again.”
While she said the sexual abuse at the hands of her father stopped when she was about 12, Price’s video acted as a catalyst, with multiple victims coming forward to claim they were sexually abused by Croddy. More than that, multiple individuals claim Mike Holloway, the pastor of Temple Baptist Church where the Croddys attended church, knew about Price’s abuse and still allowed him to work within the church and around children.
Also, Price went so far as to provide screenshots of texts with her mother, Elfriede, which may be a confession that she knew about her husband’s alleged sexual abuse of Price. In one text, in response to Price saying the church may be liable for any potential victims of her father, Elfriede wrote, “… we have ask forgiveness we don’t bother you why now.” Elfriede also appears to go on to deny Price’s allegations soon after.
As of last week, three women went on the record with the Kokomo Perspective claiming Croddy had sexually abused them in his home. One chose to remain anonymous. Another elected to go by only her first name. Price elected to allow her story to be told with her name attached. All of the alleged victims that went on the record bare certain similarities. They are all beyond the statute of limitations in Indiana for criminal charges to be pressed against Croddy; however, they all wanted their stories told. And, commonly, they’d all kept their childhood experiences largely to themselves, until recently, for reasons ranging from a fear of Croddy to the belief that since he was so active at the church no one would believe them.
“I want it stopped, and I want him held accountable,” said Price. “I don’t want there to be any more victims. That’s my main goal, to make sure there aren’t any more victims. I feel like if I don’t speak out at this point, if there are more victims, then that’s my fault too.”
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One source of angst for Price is that Holloway, the pastor at Temple Baptist Church, knew about Croddy abusing her.
According to her, on Monday, Aug. 26, 1991, she was traveling around town with her father and her then-fiancé Andrew Thornton. At the time, she was 19. Thornton was 21, and the pair were set to be married in just five days. In the final phase of preparing to move to Thornton’s hometown in Texas after the wedding, the group was in the process of helping Price take care of final arrangements prior to the move, like closing her bank account.
Price claims that as she exited a local credit union, she came upon her father repeatedly striking Thornton. As she said she later found out—and Thornton corroborated the claim in a separate interview—Thornton had confronted Croddy about his alleged abuse of Price.
“Dad said, ‘I don’t approve of this marriage. We’re going to the church, and I’m telling the pastor right now.’ I was like,’Why?’” said Price. “And Andy said, ‘Because I told him I know what he did to you.’”
Not long after, the group located Holloway in Temple Baptist Church for an impromptu meeting, according to Price and Thornton. Price said she told Holloway her father was fighting with her fiancé because she told Thornton about her childhood abuse.
“Holloway looked at me. Then he looked at Andy. And he looked at my dad, and he said, ‘Is it true? Did you do what she’s claiming?’ said Price. “And [Croddy] said, ‘Yes, I did, but that’s in the past.’”
Even though Thornton and Price eventually divorced, with Thornton remaining in Texas and Price eventually settling in Ohio, he corroborated her account of that day’s events in 1991. In his recollection, he even said he believed Holloway already knew about Croddy’s past abuse of his daughter.
“He was aware of it that day for sure, but he was aware of it before that because he basically said, ‘I’ve dealt with Donald on this. It’s been forgiven,’” said Thornton. “He basically said bad things about Dawn as well, like she was a bad kid in high school or whatever, so I’m not going to take her word for any of it. He basically just disregarded what she was saying and went with the person that’s donating money to the church is the way I felt.”
According to both Price and Thornton, Holloway asked Croddy if he would be able to not “cause a scene” at his daughter’s wedding. However, he allegedly told the pastor he wasn’t sure if he wouldn’t. So, the pair claim Holloway canceled the wedding just days ahead of time. As a result, they eloped and moved to Texas together.
Since Price’s video has come out, others have come forward to make various claims about interactions with Holloway that made them believe the pastor was aware of Croddy’s alleged tendencies.
Mary Bell was raising multiple teenagers while attending Temple Baptist Church. According to her, Holloway warned the mother of three that Croddy was a pedophile in either 1997 or 1998 when her children were participating in a church fund raiser.
According to Bell, the children were broken down into groups for the fund raiser, and some were assigned to work at the Croddy household. However, Bell claims she was pulled aside by Holloway at the church and told not to allow her teenage daughters around Croddy.
“They would work with people around the church and their homes, and we chose the Croddys,” said Bell. “All three of my children were teens at the time working for the Croddys outside. When I went back to the church Mike Holloway pulled me away and said that I should not have my children over there at that house because he is being accused of being a pedophile. So, I need to get my children away from him. So I did.”
Others maintain that after the alleged events just prior to Price and Thornton’s wedding in 1991, Croddy was allowed to be around children in various capacities within the church.
Tabitha Dodd, a former fifth-and sixth-grade teacher at Temple Baptist Academy, said she had seen Croddy help around the church day care, playground, and other activities where children were present as recent as 10 years ago.
“He would be at the church in various capacities whenever the preacher needed help. He would do stuff, I can remember, with the fall festival,” said Dodd. “He would do the tractor rides and different things whenever the men would help out in the church … He would do stuff with the day care kids in the back. The day care has a playground in the back of the church.”
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The Kokomo Perspective attempted to speak with Holloway about the allegation that he knew about Croddy’s alleged sexual abuse of his daughter and still allowed him to work around children. In response, Temple Baptist Church issued the following statement:
“Concerning the allegations that have recently surfaced, we are currently looking into the matter. We have cooperated with and will continue to cooperate with the authorities. We have no further comment at this time.”
Multiple attempts to contact Croddy were unsuccessful.
Price provided a text from her mother, which showed that since her video was released her parents had been kicked out of Temple Baptist Church.
You can read the entire article by Devin Zimmerman here.
Robert Jaynes Jr., pastor of Irvington Bible Baptist Church in Irvington, Indiana was sentenced last week to eleven and a half years in prison on charges ” related to the manufacture of more than 10 tons of synthetic drugs” The Indy Star reports:
Once, pastor Robert Jaynes Jr. was a man of many words, shown in videos giving thundering sermons to his small flock at the fundamentalist Irvington Bible Baptist Church.
But it was different last week in federal court, where Judge Rodney W. Sippel sentenced Jaynes on charges related to the manufacture of more than 10 tons of synthetic drugs.
“If there’s anything you’d like to say, now’s the time,” Sippel said.
Later, Jaynes did chime in to say it was hard to have the country he loves as a courtroom adversary: USA vs. Jaynes, a case in which he pleaded guilty to two charges.
Over three hours at the sentencing hearing, a much deeper portrait than previously known emerged of a pastor who made drugs at a volume the judge called “staggering” while luring several members of his church into the scheme, even putting his mother in jeopardy of arrest.
Jaynes was the first to be sentenced out of 23 people charged in a national conspiracy, an operation that included his wife, brother-in-law, two now-former sheriff’s deputies and an Indianapolis Public Schools teacher.
From April 2011 to October 2013, prosecutors said, Jaynes sold more than 500,000 packages of synthetic marijuana, or “spice,” in a form ready for retail sale. Over a period of nine months in 2013, Jaynes grossed $2.6 million in sales.
The total income, prosecutors said, was higher but couldn’t be quantified easily.
Judge Sippel stressed the impact Jaynes had on victims whose “lives were disrupted, destroyed, altered.”
While not directly linked to Jaynes, synthetic drug use caused a rise in emergency calls to the Indiana Poison Center. Officials at the center told IndyStar that reports involving synthetic cannabinoids spiked in 2011 and 2012, and two deaths in 2014 were attributed to such drugs.
“The quantity here is staggering,” the judge said of Jaynes’ operation, “so that means the number of people who could come tell us that story is incomprehensible.”
Spice, selling under brands such as Pirates’ Booty, is smoked like marijuana and meant to mimic its effects. Its production, however, isn’t usually precise, meaning the amount of the active ingredient in a package can vary wildly.
One of the charges to which Jaynes pleaded guilty involved mislabeling the drugs, typically sold at mom-and-pop gas stations, head shops and tobacco stores. The drugs are sometimes labeled as “potpourri” or as incense.
Jaynes started in the business by packaging synthetic drugs made by Doug Sloan, with whom Jaynes had worked in the mortgage business, and eventually moved into distributing the finished product to retail outlets.
Jaynes’ lawyer said he got involved with synthetic drugs after filing for bankruptcy and as his son was about to undergo open-heart surgery.
Public records show that Jaynes filed for bankruptcy in 2006. He claimed a monthly income that year of just $528 from his work as a pastor and self-employed courier. That was a dramatic drop from the $91,000 he claimed to have earned.
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Prosecutors portrayed Jaynes as a brazen criminal undeterred by the threat of prosecution, even after police shut down manufacturing facilities operated by Sloan and his brother, Greg Sloan, and others in the St. Louis area in 2012.
“At that point anybody would say, ‘What am I dealing with? What am I doing?’” prosecutor James Delworth said. “But instead he goes the opposite way and he becomes the largest supplier for Greg Sloan. You’ve got this continuation and growth even after law enforcement steps in.”
Prosecutors read text messages from 2012 recovered from Greg Sloan’s phone to emphasize just how aggressive Jaynes was.
“Hi Greg. This is Rob,” one text from Jaynes said. “Just wanted to check in and see if you guys needed me yet. I’m still ready to go. I’m broke and trying to find work. If you needed me to come over there and sell my crew to the guys you work with, I’d be glad to. I’d do whatever you thought necessary in order to get work for me and my guys.”
Being broke seemed a dubious claim, prosecutors said. Tax records from the previous two years showed that Tight 30 Entertainment — the company prosecutors said Jaynes used to launder money — had sales of more than $4.5 million. During that time, Jaynes reported personal taxable income of more than $850,000.
Greg Sloan, who has pleaded guilty, soon found even more work for Jaynes, selling to a man in Oklahoma City later in 2012. Jaynes texted Sloan: “That’s great. I’ll take as much as I can get. Maybe if I prove myself with these guys, your guys might decide to give me a shot, too. I’m ready to roll.”
Greg Sloan replied: “These are my guys. Robert Jaynes, I seriously thank you. You are one of the most gracious and kind men I’ve ever met.”
For protection, Jaynes turned to church members Jason and Teresa Woods, a married couple who at the time served as Hendricks County Sheriff’s deputies. A criminal investigator for the Internal Revenue Service testified that people in Jaynes’ organization knew Jason and Teresa Woods as “the fixers.”
“If anybody got in trouble, that’s who they were supposed to call, if they got stopped by law enforcement,” the IRS investigator said.
When Jaynes moved his operation from New Ross, Indiana, to a home in New Palestine, Jason Woods provided an escort.
“He was out of uniform, but showed up in his squad car,” the IRS investigator. “He met the truck down the street and followed it on two different occasions that day as an escort behind the vehicle to protect it, so nobody could, possibly, could pull the vehicle over during the transportation of all the synthetic drug products in the back of the vehicle.”
Jason and Teresa Woods were initially arrested in December 2014 on charges in Boone County stemming from an investigation into the spice ring. They were suspended from their law enforcement jobs and later fired.
You can read the Indy Star’s in-depth investigation of Jaynes and his drug empire here.
The mind-rape called fundy evangelical belief, leads the follower down a ritualistic path of self-harm. It begins with admitting that you are a hopeless sinner and unworthy. That is an important first step necessary to start the foundation for the royal heart-rape of Salvation. It is based, or was in my experience, on feeling the truth in things. As a child I was made to understand that I was unworthy by being human, born in sin. That became my world as it was given to me in love from my parents, in a fashion similar to their own childhoods. I knew I was evil because I knew I was evil, as it were. It was my beginning. I thought bad words in my head for no reason whatsoever than that I was clearly evil. How else could the word ‘shit’ or the evil ‘fuck’ appear to me? The path was laid out long before my time, churches were built on every corner and nobody much questioned this reality. I have thought and expressed every word Allison says above here and I have believed that I was right. Trouble is, the human body, the mortal life of a person does not just go-along like a follower. It protests with feelings and ideas, with dreams and daily LIFE! The cycle of belief always left me needing to be ‘saved’ again by Jesus, forgiven or whatever, and the cycle persisted no matter what sort of maturity I had in my faith. You know, I still remember just weeping like a helpless lump when I realized I actually had a choice in the matter. I had heard and ingested all the preaching about free choosing and so forth but I did not get it because, well, I never did have a choice, did I…. not from the get-go. It took me over a quarter of a century to realize I could choose…. Both Allison and me as young people should have been wearing warning labels so that others would know how truly we believed! When I actually realized I had a choice to say, No, it floored me. I had to practice it secretly, whisper it, keep No in a closet. But I knew I could not let No go because, you know what, I could really breathe when it came to me. I could feel my chest fill fully and the air was mine to use. I sensed freedom in my body long before my heart and mind could even see it from the church basement they lived in… I did not even dare think that one day my heart and mind would come home with me, so to speak. They never did for much of my family. We still produce many preacher teachers and missionaries for the cause…. they pray for me and I am sure would not mind at all if I agreed to wear a warning label myself: Fallen, ungrateful backslider! Beware!
Ask anyone from rural Northwest Ohio which local community is the most religious and they will likely tell you Archbold. Home to Sauder Woodworking, a 2,000-employee manufacturing concern started by Mennonite Erie Sauder in the 1930s, Archbold has three large Mennonite churches. For those not interested in the Mennonite flavor of Christianity, there are a plethora of Evangelical and mainline churches to meet their spiritual needs. Several years ago, one of the mainline churches affiliated with the United Church of Christ left the UCC and became an independent Evangelical church. While local mainline churches are certainly more liberal than, say, one of the two Pentecostal churches in Archbold, their liberalness is a matter of degree. Compared to liberal west or east-coast mainline churches, these rural enclaves are quite conservative. Several years ago in nearby Bryan, Ohio, one of the Methodist churches had a pastor who graduated from Bob Jones University, and until recently, the Ney-Farmer United Methodist circuit was pastored by a man who trained at Ohio Christian University. Currently, I don’t know of any local mainline pastor who would publicly tout their liberal theology and social views. I know several pastors who are liberals, but for the sake of congregational unity and a continued paycheck, they keep their heresy to themselves. One small glimmer of hope came two years ago when St. John United Church of Christ in Defiance came out as a LGBTQ-affirming church. Outside of this blip on the liberal radar, the local scene continues to be dominated by Evangelical/Fundamentalist/conservative Christianity with its attendant right-wing Republican politics.
Knowing well the local demographics, I find it hilarious that Toledo-based Northwest Baptist Church has decided to start a church in Archbold. Archbold’s nickname is Jerusalem, a somewhat humorous label meant to reflect the community’s overwhelming religiosity. Simply put, Jesus is not hard to find in Archbold, Ohio. However, I am sure that, as zealots from Northwest Baptist “prayed” about starting a sin-hating, devil-chasing, King James-only Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB), church, they concluded that the Christians in Archbold were not real/true/right kind of Christians. Deemed spiritually suspect or lost, Archbold Christians will now be the targets of aggressive IFB evangelistic techniques. Northwest Baptist is pastored by “Dr.” Andrew Edwards, III, a 1985 graduate of Jack Hyles’ monument to ignorance, Hyles-Anderson College. Joe Ballard, Northwest Baptist’s assistant pastor, is the pastor of Archbold Baptist Chapel. Ballard is a graduate of Providence Baptist College,
Archbold Baptist does not have a website, but Northwest Baptist does, and from its website we can find out what type of church is being planted in Archbold. When IFB churches plant new churches, they typically establish clones of the mother churches. Ignoring demographics and need, IFB churches tend to replicate themselves in new communities. It matters not that Archbold is overwhelmingly Christian. What matters is that there is not an IFB church in town, a congregation that believes the King James Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible — even the italicized words — word of God. And if this is not enough a reason, God told Edwards, III to plant a church in Archbold, and when God speaks, well, end of story.
Based on what can be found on Northwest Baptist’s website, Archbold residents can expect to have their Christianity challenged and questioned by Archbold Baptist soulwinners. Northwest Baptist’s website states:
We believe it is the duty and responsibility of every child of God, regardless of age, race, or background, to be personally involved in spreading the Gospel, the good news of salvation. Every week we actively seek to witness to the lost through our Soul Winning Program. Here are the regularly scheduled visitation times: Teen Soul Winning – Wednesday @4:30, Church-wide Soul Winning – Thursday @ 6:00pm & Saturday @ 10:00am
Archbold residents, get ready. The Baptist version of Jehovah’s Witnesses has come to town.
As I mentioned above, Archbold is heavily influenced by Mennonite religious beliefs. While most local Mennonite churches are conservative theologically and politically, a handful are more centrist and focused on social issues. Sadly, many local Mennonites are pro-war, a contradiction if there ever was one. This reflects how deeply Republican politics have infected these congregations. Several years ago, we attended a nearby Quaker church, thinking that it would be anti-war. Imagine our surprise when we found out that the church was a flag-waving, Jesus-loving, gun-toting supporter of Bush’s immoral incursions in the Middle East. I asked this pastor, along with several Mennonite pastors how they squared their pro-war views with historic Quaker and Mennonite belief and practice. All of them told me their denominations take a neutral view on the matter, allowing each congregation to determine its beliefs.
While Archbold Baptist Chapel will attempt to paint itself as unique or different — the purveyors of the true gospel of Jesus Christ — what they really are is just another bland, generic Evangelical church who thinks Jerusalem needs yet another church. It will be interesting to watch as Archbold Baptist Chapel attempts to establish a beachhead. Will they find sinners to save in Archbold, or will they, as is often the case, be a magnet for disgruntled Baptists and church hoppers who jump from church to church looking for the latest, greatest thing. I do know this: that within fifteen or so miles there are at least ten IFB/GARBC/Southern Baptist churches, all in an area that has a static, aging population. (Please read How to Start an Independent Baptist Church and Evangelical Cannibalism: How New Evangelical Churches Grow.)
Currently, Archbold Baptist Chapel is meeting on Sunday afternoons and Thursday evenings at Archbold High School. Last week, I attended a girls’ high school basketball tournament at Archbold High. As I was leaving, I noticed advertisements for Archbold Baptist Chapel sitting on a table. Earlier in the day, as my wife and I were tooling around Archbold taking photographs of church signs, I mentioned to Polly that the only flavor of church Archbold didn’t have is Baptist. Little did I know that Baptists had indeed come to town, ready and willing to evangelize Archbold’s lost sinners — all two of them, anyway.
I gathered up the advertisements and took them with me, knowing that while churches are free to rent public school facilities, they may not evangelize on school property or leave sectarian materials lying around for students to “find.” (Please read UPDATED: Village of Archbold Removes Christian References From Their Website and Logo.) I am a big proponent of religious freedom, so I support Archbold Baptist Chapel’s right to hold services at Archbold High and to preach the IFB gospel anywhere not prohibited by law. That doesn’t mean, however, that I support their beliefs. I don’t. In fact, I stand opposed to everything they hold dear. IFB beliefs and practices are often cultic and psychologically harmful. It would irresponsible for me to not warn Archbold residents about the new church in town, especially if they attempt to evangelize local children.
Churches come and go. Evidently, God has a hard time making up his mind. One day God tells someone to start a new church, and a year or two later God changes his mind and tells church planters to go somewhere else. It will be interesting to see if Archbold Baptist Chapel can attract a crowd, and if they don’t, how long they will stay before “hearing” God telling them to move on. As is ofttimes the case, God’s “voice” matches the whims, wants, needs, and desires of those who purport to hear his voice. This is particularly the case with IFB churches where great value is placed on certainty, the leading of the Holy Spirit, and doing the perfect will of God. For now, God has clearly led Northwest Baptist to plant a clone of itself in Archbold. It remains to be seen if Archbold Baptist can be a growing church for a coming Lord. My money is on “no.”
Archbold needs fewer churches, not more, and the same came be said for every other nearby community. I told Polly a few days ago that churches should band together and buy the local mall when it closes, turning into a church buffet, of sorts. Think of all the money, time, and effort that would be saved. On Sundays, shoppers, uh, I mean worshipers of Jesus, could choose from any of number of churches to attend. Of course, this would mean local churches would have to admit that, despite all their crowing, Christian churches are all pretty much the same. Setting liturgy, ecclesiology, and worship style aside, the only thing different are the names over the doors. Granted, IFB churches would never support such a Satanic ecumenical affair. Ecclesiastically separated until the bitter end, IFB churches think that they are the holders of the faith once delivered to the saints. If Archbold Baptist Chapel congregants didn’t believe this, there would be no reason for them to have a church in Archbold. But they do, so Archbold residents can expect to have their faith and beliefs questioned. In time, IFB evangelizers will be stopping by, asking them, If you died today, would you go to heaven? Zeus help the people who say, I am a Mennonite. Yes, but are you a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N? the response will be. Every effort will be made to take every local through God’s plan of salvation. What is that plan?
And certainly, a handful of Archbold residents will get saved, but I suspect most residents will just want to be “saved” from the zealots standing at their doors.
I am sure those associated with Northwest Baptist and Archbold Baptist will wonder why I am “attacking” them. You are an atheist, so why do you care if we start a new church? I care, because IFB beliefs and practices are inherently harmful. As I put the finishing touches on this post, I am listening to a sermon (link no longer active) by Northwest Baptist’s pastor Andrew Edwards, III. In the sermon, Edwards is advocating beating children as God’s ordained way of disciplining children. This is enough for me to say that Northwest Baptist is NOT a church safe for children. You can check out other sermons here. (link no longer active)
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
The cartoonists at the N.I.B. have published a tract titled Jack Chick: this Was Your Life. Chick died October 23, 2016. Chick drew and published tracts that were used by thousands of Evangelical churches in their evangelization efforts.
What follows is a comment received today on the post Why I Hate Jesus. The man who left this comment read the following posts before he began his rant against me. These posts are listed in the order the commenter accessed them.
From these five posts, Bill, the Fundamentalist — the son of a pastor — concluded:
Bruce, I scorn you. For over 25 years, you were a Christian leader. You loved your Rolexes, Lear Jets, and expensive suits. By your own definition of yourself, you either enjoyed these things or joined in the pursuit of them and weren’t clever enough to attain them. SHAME on you! My own father, a humble pastor, has NEVER owned a new car in his life. He gave up his career in early life to pursue what you NEVER did–the Jesus of the Bible. The jesus you described is not the American Jesus. Nope. He was the Bruce-Gerencse-Jesus. And, unarguably, there are many of your type out there to be sure. In fact, the pastors that I’ve sat under have continually warned me all my life about your type of pastor that you were. Now you’ve made your pile of money and decided to get out of the American-Bruce-Gerencse-Jesus business, and mock those still in it.
By your own admission, you spent at least 25 years as a horrible fiend. You served a personal version of jesus that a normal, decent Christian would have abhorred. You claim that you saw the multitudes and turned your back on them, and you were only concerned with those who said and believed “the right things.” Buddy, you are to be scorned.
You looked at Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics, Deists, Universalists, Secularists, Humanists, and Skeptics, and believed that they would burn forever in the Lake of Fire, yet you settled yourself down in cushy Ohio, Texas, Michigan–places where you could enjoy the praise of your fellow Gerencserites who, according to your own testimony, subjugated women, told widows it was their fault, and ignored the cries of orphans. You were one sick man.
You never left your comfy home and go to Africa or Asia or South America where you truly believed people had no access to what you believed was the only remedy that could spare them from eternal damnation. You and other “Christians” of your type disgust me. You were so heartless. Of course, you would one day cash out of enjoy your hard earned payoff and walk away from you “jesus,” now you gloat in the life you lived and lump everyone else in with you nasty old self. Your guilt and self-loathing has filled you with hate for the jesus got you your car
How could you repeatedly threaten to abandon your wife and children if they didn’t kowtow to you and your jesus? What an awful life you shoved their faces into! I couldn’t image my dad doing something to us like you did to your family. You were a monster!
Many of the ways you describe the jesus you served for over 25 years–TWENTY-FIVE YEARS!–is worthy of derision, mockery, and hate.
At your request, I shower on you the DERISION and MOCKERY you so richly deserve. Be a man, pal, and return all that money your bilked from all those widows and poor families.
Who am I? I am a little man who has spent the past decade living in a third-world country spreading the message that you refused to spread while claiming to believe that your negligence was damning precious souls to eternal fire. While you admittedly made a full career of lusting after fancy cars, palaces and cathedrals and of oppressing women, immigrants, orphans, homosexuals, and atheists, I have made a simple career of reading my Bible and trying–quite poorly–to emulate the Jesus who I found there. I have never asked anyone or any church for a penny. I work an honest job. More importantly, I am acquainted with many, many more folks who are the opposite of what you described yourself to have shamefully been for over a quarter of a century.
I hate the Gerencser jesus far more than you now claim to. Now your lifelong disingenuousness has morphed into a sly insistence that the Gerencser jesus represents all of us. You. Are. A. Liar.
I have no comment. I must go now. My Lear Jet is idling on the tarmac, ready to take me to the island where I have deposited the millions I made while in the ministry.
