I received the following email from a woman with the moniker Jesus First in her email address:
So glad that you read every email. I agree with the “older” Florida woman who told you the truth. There was No evidence that Jack Hyles ever did anything wrong or he would have been fired too. There was No affair. How sad that you spend alot (sic) of time writing and writing and writing about the sins of others and never consider that God will judge you one day. You look sickly, are you leaving this earth soon?. Also Linda Hyles’s damnable statements about her family would be thrown out of a law of court. There is no truth to her sick boring speech. She is in a cult now, that stupid fool. She ran to her father’s funeral to get her “share” of money, I sure hope she didn’t get any. Johnny couldn’t stand her lies and divorced her 19 years ago. Apparently she couldn’t get another man since she uses her ex’s name.
I continue to be amazed by those who live in denial over what Jack Hyles did years ago. The evidence of his infidelity is there for all to see and either Jack Hyles was an adulterer or there was a colossal conspiracy to make him look like one. My money is on GUILTY as charged for the late Jack Hyles, the narcissistic, megalomaniac former pastor of First Baptist Church in Hammond Indiana. Hyles’ son David and son-in-law Jack Schaap followed in his adulterous footsteps. While David Hyles escaped punishment for his crimes, Schaap is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence for his. Jack Hyles escaped punishment for his adulterous behavior. He was instrumental in facilitating his son’s philandering by securing a new church for him to pastor after his illicit behavior with female First Baptist congregants was revealed.
As is often the case with Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) sexual predators, they escape prosecution, only to set up shop again in a new town or state. With a fresh pool of potential victims, these men continue to abuse until someone, be it a church member or an abuse victim, says ENOUGH and goes to law enforcement authorities and reports the abuse. Even then, the statute of limitation frequently precludes abusive pastors from being prosecuted for their crimes. Often, their victims turn to the internet and public sites like this blog to expose the offending pastor’s criminal behavior. In doing so, they hope that this will keep the pastor from ever being able to use a church as a cover for his crimes.
I find it interesting that most of the email I get from defenders of Jack Hyles comes from women. I can’t quite figure out why this is so. Maybe some of the women who read this blog can help me with this.
If this email is an example of putting JESUS FIRST, I shudder to think what would be written if someone put JESUS SECOND.
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.
Friendly Chapel, Dillon, South Carolina. Rudolph Walls, Pastor
The story that follows is a perfect example of why people should, by default, be skeptical when a pastor comes to town to start a new church. If a man is going to an established church, the church can request a criminal background check. However, when the same man starts a new church, no background check is needed. It’s his church, his business, and people just have to trust that he is what he claims to be. In the case of Rudolph Walls, pastor of Friendly Chapel in Dillon, South Carolina, trusting the pastor means having a registered sex offender and a convicted child molester as your pastor. Released from prison in the 1990’s, Walls eventually became a pastor, ending up at Friendly Chapel in Dillion. Proving that a leopard can’t change his spots, Walls was arrested again for criminal sexual conduct with a minor.
WMBF News reports:
A pastor and registered sex offender was arrested Thursday morning in Dillon County for criminal sexual conduct involving two victims under the age of 16, according to officials.
Rudolph Walls, 64, is facing two counts of criminal sexual conduct, third degree, after several people came forward to file complaints…
….Walls is being held at the Dillon County Detention Center, and he may appear in municipal court Friday morning for a bond hearing. Officials at the detention center confirmed Walls is a chaplain, but could not specify where he is employed.
A resident in the area confirmed that Walls is a pastor at the Friendly Chapel on Main Street in the city of Dillon.
Rudolph Walls is listed as a registered sex offender in the North Carolina Sex Offender Registry. He was convicted of indecent liberty with a minor in 1989, and was released in 1997.
Pastor Rudolph Walls
Not only was Walls convicted in North Carolina in 1989 for indecent liberty with a minor, he is also currently a chaplain for the Dillon police department. The good pastor had the complete trust of the church and the police.
Walls is currently charged with “criminal sexual conduct involving two victims under the age of 16.” The victims, both boys, were members of Friendly Chapel. A relative of one of the boys stated that the boy trusted Walls, and Walls was considered a role model for the boy.
This story is a poignant reminder of why I tell parents they shouldn’t let their children out of their sight while at church. According to news reports, the sexual assaults took place at the church. Call me a cynic, but I simply no longer trust people who say they are working for God. Unless they have been vetted and thoroughly investigated, I would NEVER allow them to have private, personal access to children or teenagers. Sadly, in Walls’ case, since he started the church, there was no way to find out if he was who and what he claimed to be.
Perhaps it is time for pastors to be required to submit to annual state and federal background checks.The same should be required of anyone in the church who has contact with children or teenagers. A database could be compiled that would allow prospective church members and law enforcement to search for any previous criminal arrests and/or convictions. This should be a nationwide database so someone like Walls can’t move from one state to the next to avoid detection.
It should be clear to all that we can no longer trust churches or the clergy with our children. Every day I read another new report of a pastor, priest, elder, or deacon sexually molesting or preying on church children. Day after day, the reports pile up in my email inbox. From the Catholic church sex scandal to Rudolph Walls to Jack Schaap, predators who call themselves men of God prey on church children. While Christians will likely say that these predators are outliers, the proverbial bad apple, I am convinced that apple barrel has far more bad apples than Christians are willing to admit. The Bible says that judgment must begin at the house of God. It’s time for sects, churches, and individual church members to clean up their own backyard. Instead of raging against homosexuality, same-sex marriage, premarital sex, and adultery, how about making a serious effort to address sexual abuse in the church.
Notes
Friendly Chapel is located in Dillon, South Carolina. Walls is a registered sex offender in Chadbourn, North Carolina. These two communities are 40 miles apart.
Walls’ address in the North Carolina Registered Sex Offender Database is listed as 226 Old Stake Rd in Chadbourn, North Carolina. Based on Google Earth, this is the address for the parking lot of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Chadbourn. Jerry Ganus is the pastor of the church. I found no website for Mt. Zion. I did find numerous funeral notices that listed Ganus as the officiant. I have no idea if there is any connection between Mt. Zion Baptist Church/Jerry Ganus and Rudolph Walls. My gut tells me there is. In the comment section, a commenter stated that Walls’ mother is a member of Mt. Zion.
According to another commenter, there is a road that runs through the church parking lot and Walls lived (lives) in a house on this road.
…Police charged 64-year-old pastor Rudolph Walls in May with two counts of criminal sexual conduct in the third degree against two children under the age of 16.
Walls had previously insisted he was not guilty of any crime — but this week he pled guilty to criminal sexual conduct with a minor and failure to register as a sex offender.
Judge Markley Dennis sentenced him to 15 years behind bars. The sentence is the maximum allowed under the law.
“Obviously, we agree with and are appreciative of the court’s imposing the maximum sentence,” prosecutor Shipp Daniel said. “This is a terrible case perpetrated by a man whose position as a pastor makes it that much more heinous. Unfortunately, 15 years is all he could get.”…
Josh Duggar with Ted CruzA few readers are surprised I haven’t written anything of substance about Josh Duggar sexually molesting five girls when he was a teenager. One reason for not writing anything is because there are plenty of news stories and blog articles about the matter, so all I would be doing is repeating what others have said. Suzanne, my dear friend at No Longer Quivering, has posted numerous articles on Josh Duggar. I urge you to check them out:
Josh Duggar:Sexual Abuse Rumors Possibly True?
Josh Duggar Sexual Abuse Rumors Hitting Mainstream Media
In Touch Has Copy of Josh Duggar Sex Offender Police Report
It’s Okay, Josh Duggar Is An Alleged Pedophile, But He’s Not Gay
TLC Dishoners Victims of Sexual Abuse With All Josh Duggar Marathon
Josh Duggar Articles and an Apology
Today’s Crop of Articles on Josh Duggar’s Sex Crimes
Dear Victims of Josh Duggar
When We First Heard About Josh Duggar’s Crimes
How Josh Duggar is Getting Away With It
The Duggars’ Moral Superiority: A Religious Right Stronghold, Exposed
Your Daily Duggar Updates on Josh Duggar: Sex Crimes Unit
Josh Duggar Was Just Playing Doctor?
Vyckie Garrison Media Appearances & The Josh Duggar News Roundup
Here’s what I think:
The Duggar family have a closet full of secrets
Josh Duggar committed felony sexual assault when he molested five little girls
The Duggar family covered up Josh Duggar’s crimes
Their church and elders covered up Josh Duggar’s crimes
Advanced Training Institute covered up Josh Duggar’s crimes
The police covered up Josh Duggar’s crimes
TLC ignored rumors of Josh Duggar’s crimes
The Duggar family, all of them, have long been publicity whores, allowing the public unprecedented access to their life. They should have made sure there were no skeletons in their closet. They didn’t, and now they are paying the price. They will be remembered in the same light as June, Honey Boo Boo’s Mom. While I derive a small bit of perverse pleasure from seeing HouseDuggar brought to the ground, I remind myself of Josh Duggar’s victims and the Duggar children. They are the innocent ones and they will ultimately be affected the most. Their lives, from this day forward, will never be the same. Their parents didn’t ask their permission when they started pimping them out to TLC. They are collateral damage left in the wake of their older brother’s criminal acts and their parents willingness to use/misuse them for material gain.
One good thing to come from Josh Duggar’s crimes is that a bright light is now shining on the Quiverfull and home schooling movement. What was once done in secret is now known by all. This is a good thing. Duggar’s crimes also shines the light on Bill Gothard and Advanced Training Institute. Again, this is a good thing. The only way to kill the fundamentalism of the Duggar family, Bill Gothard, and the Quiverfull movement, is to continue to expose their deceit, hypocrisy and, in some cases, crimes.
Let the defenders and supporters of the Duggar family whine, complain, fume, and object. Their words fall on deaf ears. They are more interested in maintaining things as they are than they are defending those who are harmed by fundamentalist Christian beliefs and practices. Those of us who daily make known the foibles of fundamentalist Christians know that our greater objective is to help those harmed by the pernicious teachings of people like the Duggars, their church, and the religious circles they are a part of.
“Wasn’t it addressed awhile back? And the only reason he’s quitting his job now is because it became public. […] You have the right to address it privately. […] He was a kid!”
Really? He was a kid? You have the right to address it privately? Why is Kornheiser making light of Duggar molesting five little girls? Does he really know anything about the Duggar family, Josh Duggar, and their fundamentalist religion? I doubt it. This is a clear case of Kornheiser opening his mouth without having any understanding of the matter.
If, at age 14 (almost 15), Josh had raped one of his sisters, would Kornheiser respond the same way? Hey, he was a kid, he didn’t understand the seriousness of what he was doing. Is this what Kornheiser would say? I doubt it. But, maybe he would. Maybe he thinks 14-year-old boys should get a pass for what is done in their youth. Perhaps his comments are a reflection of his age, hailing from a generation that routinely turned a blind eye to sexual abuse and rape. Well Tony, it’s 2015 not 1950.
And here’s what I do know. If Josh Duggar had molested Tony Kornheiser’s daughters, I guarantee you he wouldn’t be so understanding.
I don’t plan on writing specifically about the Josh Duggar affair. I assume anyone who reads this blog knows all they need to know about Josh Duggar’s molestations of young girls, including his sisters. What I do plan to post are a few quotes from the past week or so that I think readers might find interesting.
– The Duggars, it seems, have always been running in circles known to attract freaks and weirdos. Sadly, many Christians who grow sick of churches pushing birth control, Christian school, and nurseries find themselves attracted to the home church, repentance, patriarchal crowd. From what I have read, it seems the Duggars left a soulwinning, independent Baptist church to join a “home church,” and later got tied in with ATI and Vision Forum, the heads of which have both resigned amidst sex scandals involving much younger women. Guarding our kids against abuse in this day and age is vital.
– I have zero doubt whatsoever that for Joshua Duggar to do what he did (to his own sisters no less), he himself at some time before that, or even at that point in time, was the subject of abuse.
– Not all who are abused become abusers themselves, and it is never an excuse. I do believe that without the perpetrators being punished properly (which would be swift execution), it is virtually impossible for victims to overcome abuse, unless they have the Holy Spirit of God to help them through it.
– The Duggars promote a false gospel that calls for “repentance from sins,” rather than, what the Bible teaches, a turning from false religion or whatever else we are trusting to get us into heaven other than Jesus. While I have know many good Christians who truly were saved become mixed up in this doctrine of “there will be / has to be some change,” many of which later reversed course and realized that their definition of repentance was works salvation, the Duggars push this point more than most, and associate with obviously false prophets such as Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, promote the damnable “Hell’s best kept secret,” etc. Because of this, I have only ever given them a 50/50 chance of truly being saved. Unless I talked to them in person, it is impossible for me to give my opinion on it accurately just because as with everything else, they are so wishy-washy it’s hard to put a finger on it. I give their children even less of a chance of being saved, since it seems all they have ever known is this false gospel crowd.
– Being popular and loved by the world is another sign of a false prophet. Then again, while the Duggars enjoyed immense popularity, it was hardly for their Bible preaching/teaching, but rather for their unusual family size and lifestyle. Remember, the show does not promote virtually any doctrine, at all. Besides, they had vehement and vocal haters, too. So their rock star status may or may not be an indicator of being a false prophet.
– It is ridiculous of all these Christian blogs to go on and on about how we are all sinners, we all need grace and forgiveness, etc. Yes, that is all true – but we are not all pedophiles. That is an unnatural desire, only experienced by a reprobate. Even the world, which is happy to excuse most sins and licentious living, is still horrified by child abuse. No, forgiving a pedophile is not a great picture of what the gospel is all about. They have crossed a line where not even God is willing to forgive – why should we?
– Yet with all that being said, and I know I will draw immense hate for this from the trolls on this site, I am not convinced beyond any doubt that Josh Duggar himself had reached that point of being a reprobate pedophile when he did what he did.
One report stated the incident took place the month he turned 14 years old. I consider anyone that is pre-puberty to be a child. Our oldest, who will be 14 in September, is just now in the very beginning stages of puberty from all I can ascertain (thank you, growth hormone-free meat and dairy). Even for a child of course such behavior is vile, perverted, and sinful, and they should and often do know better. But they are not always acting on their own lusts and desires, but in foolishness they are acting out what they themselves have been exposed to. The unpardonable sin of sexual deviance is the fact that they burn with lust after the same gender, after animals, after (in this case) children. Is that what Josh Duggar felt at age 14, or was he, who I am sure was a victim of abuse himself since his family runs in circles replete with reprobates, just acting out the abuse carried out on him earlier, or even at that time? I have no way of knowing the answer to this question for sure. Neither do I need to know, since it is between him and God. He doesn’t go to my church or ever have access to my kids, so I need not waste my time trying to make this important distinction.
My heart breaks for the victims, who will only be able to get over this by the power of God. I am sickened for the children in the family who likely have never been informed of this before, and whose entire lives have just been turned upside down. Imagine that’s your Dad that was just declared to the world to be a pedophile. The new spouses – were they told of issues their young wives are likely to carry with them for life? How to live with such a burden of shame, that has reached international proportions? What great harm has been done to the Bible and God’s way, by allowing a family to be lifted up to such popularity, when this was sure to come out sooner or later, and waved high and low as a banner for why the Bible is wrong and progressives are right. Who are the people that make a living of trying to dig up past evil on a 14-year old?
It was reckless and irresponsible of the Duggars to allow themselves to rise to stardom, knowing about such “skeletons” in the closet. Even if we set aside “Be sure your sin will find you out,” it was insane to think they could become celebrities, and this not come to light with as many people as were involved in it. Did they consider the repercussions on their son’s life, who would even under the best of circumstances have been reeling to recover from this (if that is even possible)? Did they think the world, who was looking for any way to attack them, was going to look the other way on this? Great shame has been brought upon the cause of Christ through their desire to be rich, popular, or both.
So, a sad story all around, on every level. One that brings shame, to some degree, on anyone who names the name of Christ. e have for years held and publicly stated that the Duggars are liberal and worldly, even as they are known for being ‘fundamentalists.’ Maybe their beliefs are, but what they are publicly willing to take a stand for is weak and anemic.
One comment. I love how Anderson chides the Duggar family for being publicity whores, ignoring the fact that she and her husband have been publicity seekers for years. Steven Anderson goes out of his way to get his name in the press. How is this any different from what the Duggar family is doing? Besides, all of us who are bloggers want, desire, or need the fame and publicity our writing brings. None of us write and hope no one reads it, so Zsuzsanna Anderson is being disingenuous on this point.
Today, Rebecca Catalanello, a reporter for the Times-Picayune, posted to the nola.com website an update to the murder case story:
Bossier Parish detectives believe they may have a major break in the case of an unidentified woman found stabbed to death in the woods 34 years ago. And they have requested a DNA sample from a relative of a Michigan woman whose last contact with her family was more than three decades ago.
“Our mom says she was in a girls home and ran from there,” wrote Jeanie Phelps.
Bossier detectives created a Facebook page Feb. 6 to try to generate new leads in the case they have nicknamed “Bossier Doe.” A week later, thanks to information generated there, an investigator reached out to Phelps’ friend Patty Thorington, who has used Facebook and Craigslist to try to find information on Cole for years.
“Bossier Doe fits more closely than anything we have ever found” in the search for Cole, Thorington said Wednesday (Feb. 18). But after years of false leads, Thorington said she is holding out for more conclusive evidence.
Lt. Bill Davis said detectives have requested a DNA sample from one of Cole’s relatives. The results could take weeks, he said. In the meantime, New Bethany Home for Girls has become a strong source of leads for the investigation, Davis said.
Two days after detective Lt. Shannon Mack of Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office launched the Bossier Doe Facebook page, she started reaching out to former residents of New Bethany Home for Girls after someone who was familiar with news coverage of the New Bethany school suggested it might hold some clues.
The unidentified stabbing victim was believed to have been in her mid-teens to early 20s when she was killed in late 1980. Her body was found four to six weeks later, on Jan. 28, 1981, by hunters about 40 miles northwest of New Bethany off Louisiana 157. She was fully clothed and wearing athletic socks and shoes with the name “D. Davies” written in marker on the inside — not unlike the clothing that former New Bethany residents say they were required to wear.
Davis said Wednesday that detectives have not conclusively determined that Cole attended New Bethany. Cole turned 17 in November of 1980. When Thorington learned about New Bethany, she said she posted a photo of Cole to a Facebook page for former residents to see if anyone there recognized her…
A composite drawing from LSU FACES Laboratory shows what investigators believe a woman found dead on Jan. 28, 1981, may have looked like before she was stabbed to death four to six weeks before her body was located in a wooded area in east-central Bossier Parish.
Rebecca Catalanello writes:
Her stab-pocked body was found in the woods off a public logging trail in north Louisiana on Jan. 28, 1981. She was in her late teens or early 20s and had been dead for four to six weeks, a coroner determined. There were scribbles on her sneakers, including a name written on the inside: “D. Davies.” It looked like she had removed the braces from her teeth.
In 34 years, no one has identified the body of the 5-foot-6 blonde found off Louisiana Highway 157. But now Bossier Parish law enforcement officials are investigating a potential link between the woman they now call “Bossier Doe” and a notorious girls home 40 miles away.
Lt. Shannon Mack, lead detective in Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office cold case No. 81-018329, said she first learned of New Bethany Home for Girls in Arcadia, after creating a public Facebook profile for Bossier Doe on Friday (Feb. 6) in an attempt to generate more leads. She has since reached out to former New Bethany residents for help.
Open from 1971 to 2001, New Bethany marketed itself as a boarding school for troubled girls. Youth came from across the country, some court-ordered, others by request of parents or guardians. Bienville Parish law enforcement and nearby residents became accustomed to encountering runaways from the strict, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist home, located behind barbed wire fences in a rural area off of Louisiana Highway 9.
Simone Jones, 47, a former resident who herself scaled the fences and ran to law enforcement seeking an escape, said that when Mack reached out to her about the 1981 case Sunday, her mind started spinning.
Jones, who was at the home from 1981 to 1984, said that while she doesn’t remember anyone by this name or description, details about Bossier Doe’s case were reminiscent of New Bethany:
Girls were required to write their names in marker on the insides of their shoes and on all their clothes, as it appeared someone did inside the victim’s shoes. When Bossier Doe was found, she was wearing size 7 Evonne Goolagong brand, a washable canvas sneaker sold by Sears. Other names were scribbled in ink on the outside of the shoes, including “Resha,” “David” and “Dena & Michael Brisco.”
Bossier Doe was wearing white athletic socks with blue and yellow stripes, Mack said. The New Bethany uniform at the time included white athletic socks with stripes on them. Jones said the uniform required the stripes be red or blue. “But there were other colors around,” she said.
To date, law enforcement has found no indication anyone by this young woman’s description was ever reported missing. It’s well-established that many of the girls of New Bethany were often disconnected from their families — either by force of the school’s rules, by circumstance that led them there, or both. In 2013, for example, Bienville Parish Sheriff John Ballance told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune that after he encountered an 18-year-old runaway from New Bethany in 1975, he contacted her father by phone and was told the man wanted nothing to do with her.
Here’s another detail that raised interest of the former New Bethany residents.
Bossier Doe had bonding residue from braces on her teeth, Mack said, which led investigators to believe either she or someone else had removed her braces without the help of a professional.
Teresa Frye, 47, another former resident who Mack reached Sunday, said that detail stood out to her. When Frye arrived at New Bethany in 1982 from North Carolina, she was taken to have her braces professionally removed earlier than her orthodontist had instructed. Frye said she believes it was done so that she wouldn’t require additional medical care while at the home.
Many former New Bethany residents interviewed by NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune since 2013 have described being denied medical care, a complaint that was also documented in a child welfare investigation in the 1980s. It would not be implausible, said Jones and Frye, for a resident to attempt to remove her own braces.
Mack said she is looking to speak with anyone whose memory might be jogged by the details of this girl’s death…
David Hyles, son of adulterer Jack Hyles, once an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor and a serial adulterer, has come out of the hole he crawled into (Hyles deleted his blog after it was publicized) over twenty years ago, and he telling all who will listen that he has been restored.
Restoration in the IFB movement is like a slum lord who remodels a house. The slum lord is only concerned about the rent money so he rehabs the house just enough to make it look acceptable and then he puts the FOR RENT sign in the window. Behind the paint and underneath the stained carpet is the same cockroach-infested house that existed before the slum lord rehabbed the house. So it is with restoration in the IFB church movement and in much of Evangelicalism.
David Hyles has found two preachers to help him rehab his life: Mike Johnston and David Baker. Johnston runs a ministry called Promise Ministries International Center for Biblical Studies (PMI) in Battle Creek, Michigan. PMI is a distance Bible and pastoral training ministry that focuses its efforts on people in prison.
What kind of church is Lighthouse Baptist? A screenshot from the church’s web page will tell us all we need to know:
Lighthouse Baptist Church, Columbia, Tennessee
David Hyles has found two pastors who hold to his dead father’s philosophies and beliefs to help him restore his life. Asking IFB pastors, especially those who hold to a perverted, truncated, cheap view of grace, to help you restore your life is like asking the town drunk to help you stop drinking.
I am all for people trying to turn their lives around. I am all for people trying to change their ways. However, I think to do so a person must own his past behavior, be honest about his actions, and not expect people to just forgive and forget.
David Hyles, by all accounts, was a serial adulterer. He had sex with numerous women in multiple churches. Some of them may have been underage. His sexual conquests are well documented. His father covered up his son’s perverse behavior and helped him get a fresh start at a new church. At the new church David Hyles repeated the same conduct that got him into trouble in the first place.
In 2007, the following expose of David Hyles appeared on The Conservative Babylon website (no longer active):
Claims to fame: Son of Jack Hyles; former Youth Minister, First Baptist Church of Hammond; ex-pastor, Miller Road Baptist Church (Garland, Texas); accused serial adulterer; divorcé; cohabitator; alleged child abuser; suspected child killer
Moral apex: As the story goes (we don’t know; we weren’t there), somebody at Hyles’s church discovered porn magazines containing ads for group sex which, they reportedly claimed, featured photos of Hyles having sex with church member Brenda Stevens (by some accounts, the daughter of a deacon). A story soon surfaced that Hyles had had extramarital sex with some 19 female members of the church.
Every one of these women was apparently stupid enough to think she was Brother Dave’s “one-and-only,” according to a voice on a taped phone conversation attributed to Dave’s wife Paula. And, as you can guess, it appears more than a few marriages where destroyed when the truth came out.
What happened next: It appears to outsiders that Miller Road Baptist threw him out, and his wife divorced him and took off with their two kids, and he started living with Stevens (out of — gasp! — wedlock) in Illinois.
Where it gets really tragic: Stevens had a small son, Brent. Dave Hyles was suspected of abusing the boy — who had suffered some eight or nine broken bones in his short life, which had never been treated. Brent was taken out of Hyles and Steven’s Illinois home and given to his biological father in Texas. Within a few months, for reasons beyond comprehension, Brent was returned to Stevens.
And then, in late 1985, 15-month-old Brent was found dead in his crib. Hyles, who had been alone with the child, claimed he found him not breathing, and called police. It has been suggested in a few online articles that Dave’s father Jack arrived before the cops did.
A coroner’s inquest into Brent’s death (at which Hyles took exercised his Fifth Amendment rights — and which the baby’s mother doesn’t appear to have attended) was apparently thwarted because the little boy had been embalmed and buried (reportedly the very next day after his death), before a proper autopsy could be performed. (An empty bottle of Actifed — for which a prescription had been filled only the day before Brent’s death — was found at the scene.)
Without any physical evidence of wrongdoing, Hyles was not indicted. The case remains open.
If those who follow the Hyles story are correct (waving at the Fighting Fundamentalists!), n the mid-1990s Hyles went to work teaching Sunday school at a Pinellas Park Baptist Church in Florida — which reportedly expelled him on charges of adultery. It’s also been reported that he was thrown out of the next church he attended (Berean Baptist Church in Orange Park, Florida), for “sexual misconduct” with three different women.
(One of those women is assumed to be church secretary Joyce Phaneuf, who appears to have been arrested for prostitution in 2003. Assuming this is the same Joyce Phaneuf, her mug shot and arrest report — which notes the tattoo on her right-upper thigh, reading “David’s Girl” — are available at everybody’s favorite finger-wagging site, The Smoking Gun.)
Just when you think it can’t get any more tragic: Hyles, it’s said, finally married Stevens and they had their own child together, a boy named Jack David. In March, 1999, when the child was five years old, Stevens was reported to have run over him with her car, killing him. According to news reports, she claimed he must have fallen out of the vehicle, and she didn’t know it….
What does David Hyles say to reports like the one on The Conservative Babylon? He ignores it and refuses to directly confirm or reject the behaviors he is accused of. Instead, in a blog page titled, David Hyles: My Story (page no longer available), Hyles writes:
Others may be reading this book merely out of curiosity. You heard of me and read many of the horrible stories about me. Now you want to know what I am going to say in defense or in explanation. I trust you will not be too disappointed, but this is not a tell all book. I have no intention of defending myself nor do I plan on trying to separate the truth from the legion of lies. I do not believe it would bring honor to God for me to try and explain what is and is not true. Explanation often leads to excuse or blame and I desperately fear that. You do not need to read about my sins. You just need to know that whatever I did do when I was away from the Father, God in His rich mercy and grace has restored me to HIMSELF. This is a book about grace. I trust that God’s grace and not my sins will be glorified.
In other words, whatever Hyles did or didn’t do, he ain’t tellin’. God has forgiven him, it’s under the blood, time to move on. Time to move on meaning, I have written a book I want you to buy.
Jack Hyles, David Hyles, Jim Krall, World’s Greatest Men
Hyles has some sharp words for his critics:
First you are hurting the lost. Several years ago I worked with a young man who knew I was a Christian. This young man was searching. He had dabbled into several religions in his search. He respected me and began to question me about Christ. God was working in his life and I felt he was very close to accepting Christ as his Savior. Someone, in an attempt to hurt my business began circulating an email through my workplace and he received it, anonymously, of course. He never again listened to me and eventually our paths parted. I pray every day for God to save him. It was not MY sins that turned him away. No, actually it was the evil spirit of those my accusers who claimed to be Christians. He wanted no part of that.
Secondly, you are hurting the fallen. Countless Christians have seen what you have done to me and to others who have fallen and decided to just disappear rather than being restored. I believe that there have been suicides and other tragedies that could have been prevented if a fallen brother or sister had felt there was hope. You diatribes on your filthy forums serve Satan’s purpose well.
Thirdly you are hurting those who I have hurt. Please hear me on this. Every fallen pastor or Christian leaves hurting people in their sinful wake. I did. I know that. It breaks my heart. David did too and his heart was broken. There is little we can do to repair the damage. Their deliverance must come from God and it will not come from revenge or retribution. It will come only from forgiveness. Please allow God to be God and to deal with his children as He will. Stay out of it and encourage those who have been hurt to find their peace from God not from your vigilante system of internet justice.
Allow me to elaborate on this just a bit more. People who are hurt by a sinner are destroyed by bitterness. No one’s sin can destroy your life. Our loving Father would not allow that. He stands ready as a loving Father to pick you up and mend your broken heart. Sinners (and that includes us all) do bad things that affect other’s lives. For all have sinned… However, if we get them to take their eyes off of the offender and place it on the Savior they can be healed. Closure does not come from our flawed idea of justice. It comes from letting God heal us even as He deals with the one who offended or hurt us.
Fourthly you are hurting you! The manure you are hurling fails to hit me but your hands sure do smell of the filth you have no business picking up. I am sorry for the pain that makes you feel that somehow you will gain some kind of satisfaction from trying to hurt me. I wish this book could give you the peace you are lacking but I sincerely doubt it will.
Finally and most importantly, you are hurting the Father. I have news for you that is not going to please you, but here goes. GOD LOVES ME and I AM SAVED AND FORGIVEN! I fell but, you see, when a Christian falls we do not fall away from grace, we fall into it, hence the name of this book. I am in His grace and one day I will stand before Him clothed in the righteousness of His Son and not the sin of my own. Why would you dare try and hurt the heart of God? Is it because there is unconfessed sin in your life? Are you so far from Him that you have lost the sweetness of His mercy and grace in your own life? That is sad.
David Hyles, in the manner of countless abusers before him, refuses to own his past behavior and points the finger at those who attempt to hold him accountable for what he did. Hyles thinks he has a get out of jail free card. He thinks the blood of Jesus has cleansed him from all of his past actions, and if God has forgiven him so should everyone else.
David Hyles perpetrated acts against real flesh-and-blood people, and if he is serious about turning his life around he MUST deal with the men, women, and children he hurt. Putting his past actions under the blood, cast into the sea of God’s forgetfulness, might play well in IFB churches, but here in the real world where real hurt must be atoned for, David Hyles is expected to own his past behavior, make a complete confession, and, as much as is humanly possible, make restitution to those he hurt.
It is clear from David Hyles’ blog, Fallen In Grace, (which he deleted once it was publicized) that he is still a believer in IFB doctrine. No matter what “sins” he committed, no matter how perverse his life was, because of the IFB doctrine of “once saved, always saved,” Hyles was always a Christian. No matter how many people he hurt and abused, he was always God’s child. This turns the Christian gospel of grace on its head, and no matter what a person might have done, if he, at one time or the other, mouthed the right prayer, he is a Christian.
This is why David Hyles can reinvent himself and start fresh. As countless preachers before him, his God has hosed off the shit from his life, and he is a clean, fresh-smelling Christian. However, I suspect the people David Hyles hurt and abused can still smell the shit. Their lives were forever marred by the perverse actions of David Hyles.
I have no doubt David Hyles will convince a lot of people that he is truly a new man and that God has a wonderful, new, exciting ministry for him. Christians love a comeback story and Hyles is counting on their gullibility to make a new life for himself.
For those of us who lived through the David Hyles scandals and the Jack Hyles scandal, we are not easily fooled. When David Hyles demonstrates true acts of repentance and restitution, then people such as I might, in time, be willing to give him a twelfth chance. Based on what Hyles has written so far, he sees no need for repentance or restitution. He sees no need to make things right with those he victimized. God has forgiven him and THAT is all that matters. Because of this, I am inclined to think that David Hyles is just another disgraced IFB preacher trying to make a comeback because he needs some money.
Bob Gray’s version of Christianity leaves no one beyond the grace of God. It requires no repentance or restitution. It requires no accounting of crimes committed or people defrauded. All that matters is that a sinner prays the prayer and his or her ticket for heaven is punched. According to Gray, David Hyles has a fire insurance policy that can’t be revoked.
The publishing of this book is a reminder that David Hyles, like his father, is a narcissist. Imagine if Hyles wrote a book titled, I was Wrong: My Apology to Those I Hurt. Most people would appreciate his willingness to come clean about the past (though fessing up to what might have been murder might land him in the slammer). Instead, Hyles writes a book about his father. By doing so, Hyles reminds everyone that is paying attention that nothing has changed. Ain’t God good!
Notes
Let me be clear, I don’t think David Hyles is evil personified. He is a man with a wife and a family. He has sisters and a mother. I must never forget that is he a fellow human being. But, he also has a sordid past, a past he is unwilling to deal with. His unwillingness to do so casts a long shadow over his present life. Hyles thinks that the blood of Jesus is some sort of magic potion that makes the past disappear. While that might play well in places like the Longview Baptist Temple, there are a number of people, IFB pastors and church members included, who are outraged by Hyles’ narcissistic, unrepentant behavior. To these people, men like Bob Gray are enablers who encourage people to make light of their sin. Is there no sin that carries a societal and church death penalty? In Bob Gray’s world, evidently not. A decade from now, when convicted sex offender Jack Schaap is released from the federal penitentiary, I have no doubt he will find a home at the Longview Baptist Temple. Why, he might even become a worker in the youth group, sharing, like the Apostle Paul, stories from prison.
Much of Hyles’ Facebook wall is private, but his older status updates are public. Take a few minutes to read them. I suspect you will notice, as I did, that he loves to quote himself, proving that he is a chip off of his father’s block.
Several preachers are listed as friends on Hyles’ Google+ page including Bob Gray, retired pastor of Longview Baptist Temple, Bob Gray II, current pastor of Longview Baptist, and Joel Fugate, assistant pastor Clays Mill Road Baptist Church. (Jeff Fugate’s son)
Under attack over their handling of sexual abuse and rape complaints, fundamentalist Christian university, Bob Jones University, hired GRACE (Godly Response for Abuse in the Christian Environment), to do an investigation. Towards the end of the investigation, Bob Jones ended its contractual arrangement with GRACE and refused to allow any report to be issued. The outrage over this was such that Bob Jones was forced to re-contract with GRACE and the report has now been released.
For those of us raised in Christian fundamentalism, this report tells us what we already know. I saw nothing shocking or surprising in the report, and anyone who is shocked or surprised has not been paying attention for the past 30 years.
I have often stated that the internet will be the undoing of places like Bob Jones University. They can no longer hide their sins. They no longer have the power to keep the stories from getting out. While my heart aches for those who have been abused, I am glad that these stories are being brought into the light of day. As people tell their stories, preachers, professors, churches, and colleges are forced to confront the horrible, sickening abuse that has taken place on their watch. Just as the Catholic church has predator priests, so the Christian fundamentalist movement has their own predator preachers. It’s time to knock the halo off Christian fundamentalism.
From the recently released Bob Jones University GRACE report:
In his book, Becoming An Effective Christian Counselor: A Practical Guide For Helping People, Dr. Fremont discusses counseling victims of incest and explains that the first objective is to ensure that blame is appropriately assigned to “the older person who took advantage of the younger innocent person.”However, Dr. Fremont states, “If the victim has deceived either parent or both parents, he needs to confess and repent of his own sin.” As an example, Dr. Fremont describes the case of a “teenage girl who takes a bath only when her mother is away from the home and leaves the bathroom door unlocked, inviting the father’s corruptness.” Dr. Wood similarly discussed the importance of a victim’s repentance if there is any wrongdoing. In his counseling training video, “Scriptural Principles for Counseling the Abused,” he teaches that, “If [abuse victims] have sinned, and some of them have not and some of them have, but you handle a guilty conscience always the same way: by confessing to God you are sorry for your failure and by not doing that same thing again and by asking forgiveness.” When asked what he thinks the spiritual impact is upon victims of sexual abuse, Dr. Wood told GRACE:
“I think that people internally are angry at God for allowing this to happen.So you have to get beyond that and it is a very difficult thing to get beyond because I can’t tell you why something like this happened. I can tell you it did happen but I can’t tell you why it happened or why the Lord allowed it to happen. I assume that there is some reason that this has happened and that you have to work it out within your own mind about why, and it is interesting that in many cases that it really is the root problem. The girl may have caused it to start and that is the root problem with her and she has to handle that somehow or another.”
GRACE asked Dr. Wood if he could offer any examples of when a girl might have caused abuse to start, and he stated, “I mean if she is aggressive with a man, then she may have caused it. It is pretty easy for things like that to get started between individuals. I think that generally a girl will feel guilty about it, she will feel that she shouldn’t have had anything to do with it, but she knows down in her heart that she did have something to do with it.” Dr. Wood further explained how the victim’s provocation is sin just as a perpetrator’s assault is sin. Both the victim and the perpetrator need cleansing from their sins, according to Dr. Wood.
The report details the story of a woman called 777:
In the mid-2000s, a disclosure of a rules violation to Student Life staff resulted in a victim’s “withdrawal at the request of the administration.” In this instance, 777 disclosed to her Assistant Prayer Captain, the Resident Counselor, and her Resident Supervisor that she “had been abused by her pastor since she was 15 years old and was expecting a child in January.” 777’s pastor, who was married with children, came to Greenville on several different occasions while she attended BJU. During these occasions, she said they went to Spartanburg and stayed in a hotel together. During one of the pastor’s visits when she was 20 years of age, she became pregnant. Upon learning that she was pregnant and believing she would be expelled, 777 began to pack up her belongings in the dorm. The residence life staff confronted her and asked why she was packing and leaving. At that point, she explained to them that the abuse began when she was 15. She also acknowledged to them that she had lied about her whereabouts when she obtained the overnight passes to leave campus.
Consequently, she was asked to withdraw at the request of the administration for lying about the overnight passes. 777 wrote a letter to her prayer group explaining the reason for her departure, a copy of which was turned over to BJU officials. The letter describes their relationship, as well as the pastor’s manipulative use of biblical passages to facilitate and justify the ongoing abuse.
Due to these dynamics, 777 told GRACE, “I had to break rules to go off campus, but I didn’t feel like I had a choice in the matter.” According to administrative officials, 777 was asked to withdraw at the request of the administration for lying on the overnight passes.Dr. Berg explained to 777 that her withdrawal was required, “because the offense was publicly known and because she did have some ethical responsibility in the matter, even though her pastor was very manipulative.”
Several months after 777 left BJU, she called Dr. Berg to ask if she could be allowed to take her final exams since she had been very near the end of the semester. This request was denied. 777 stated that in the letter to her prayer group that she “loved being loved and needed” and “[the pastor] said he wouldn’t make it if I walked away and he would walk out on his family and the church if I left. So, I stayed and kept my mouth shut.” 777 also stated that Dr. Berg said, “it was some sort of consensual relationship,”so he would not allow her to take her finals.
Dr. Berg agreed that the situation was “complicated” and “heartbreaking” but nonetheless defended the university’s decision to remove her from school because of the school’s policy about automatic expulsion for lying about overnight permissions. When GRACE brought this case to the attention of Dr. Jones, III, he acknowledged, “Well there is a case that is the kind of thing we wanted to know about that needed to be brought to our attention. Anyway, that is heartbreaking.”
For decades, Bob Jones University (BJU), a self-described fundamentalist Christian college, has urged sexual abuse victims not to go to the police and counseled them to repent for the blame it said they share, according to an extensive independent investigation published Thursday.
The report, nearly two years in the making, is a catalog of grief stretching back four decades, based on hundreds of survey results, dozens of in-depth interviews and a wealth of corroborating documentation. It details a culture that shamed victims into believing they were ruined by their abuse. It also strongly criticizes the school’s brand of counseling, which rejects modern psychology and urges victims to look for the “sin” behind their rapes and view their continued trauma as a struggle with God.
More than half the alleged victims surveyed reported they felt the school’s response was hurtful or very hurtful. Some victims said they found counseling sessions worse than their abuse. But the vast majority of the 50 self-identified victims interviewed for the study said they loved Bob Jones University, that they wished it no ill and hoped sharing their experiences would bring much-needed change.
A nonprofit group, Godly Response for Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE), conducted the probe at the request of Bob Jones, after revelations that one of the university’s trustees covered up sex abuse at his church. The scope of such a review would be extraordinary for any university, but BJU, a campus of about 3,000 in Greenville, South Carolina, known for its strict biblical teachings, is one of the most insular in the country.
The GRACE report not only indicts the culture and counseling philosophy at BJU but also names four individuals it considers the main architects of the school’s approach. Among its many policy recommendations, GRACE urges BJU to strip its campus bookstore of the works of these individuals, bar its onetime primary counselor from counseling and take action against Bob Jones III — the chancellor and a former president of university and a grandson of its founder, for whom it was named.
BJU has maintained an insular, conservative culture that prohibits drinking and television. Unmarried men and women may not touch. Opposite sexes may gather socially only in well-lit outdoor areas on campus until 10:20 p.m. Even Christian music is not permitted if it has a rock, pop, jazz or hip-hop beat. Much of the outside world — from “worldly friends” to websites, which are deemed un-Christian — is shunned.
On Wednesday, BJU President Steve Pettit released a statement on the report, writing on behalf of BJU, “I would like to sincerely and humbly apologize to those who felt they did not receive from us genuine love, compassion, understanding and support after suffering abuse or assault.” He promised victims “who felt we failed them” that school officials were thoroughly analyzing GRACE’s findings and recommendations.
Former BJU student Katie Landry, who spoke to ”America Tonight” as part of our exclusive investigation into Bob Jones earlier this year, recounted how when she reported her rape to then-Dean of Students Jim Berg, she was so devastated by a barrage of questions — Had she been drinking? Had she been impure? What was her root sin? — that she raced out of the administration building, dropped out of school and didn’t tell anyone else for five years.
He just confirmed my worst nightmare,” Landry said. “It was something I had done. It was something about me. It was my fault.”
In candid remarks published in the report, Berg denied that the “sin behind every sin” was a concept he used and said he couldn’t remember the details of that session. But he acknowledged that the investigatory nature of his counseling, hurried schedule and “eagerness to bring real resolutions” may have made him brusque towards sex abuse victims in a way “that is probably more threatening than helpful.”
Berg, who was dean of students and chief counselor on campus for three decades, and is a current faculty member, estimated that he’s counseled 200 to 300 sexual abuse victims at Bob Jones. The report names Berg, along with former Dean of Education Walter Fremont, longtime Executive Vice President Bob Wood and Gregory Mazak, who oversees undergraduate and graduate degrees in biblical counseling as key figures in shaping the university’s counseling philosophy, which was imparted to thousands of students, pastors, counselors, teachers and missionaries. But none of these men had any formal training in psychology, or a license to practice.
“What this report found was that the materials made available by these individuals had caused an incredible amount of damage in a large group of people,” said Boz Tchividjian, the head of GRACE. “The report didn’t find that any of it was intentional or malicious. But it did cause harm.”
Of 141 self-identified abuse victims who answered the question in the GRACE survey, more than 60 percent said Bob Jones’ culture was filled with messages that blamed and disparaged victims.
Some pointed to a fixation on women’s dress and teachings that seemed to imply that women were responsible for a man’s lust. Many interviewed by GRACE said the school’s sermonizing on sexual sin left them feeling like damaged goods, as it failed to differentiate between those who chose to have sex and those who had it forced upon them…
