For forty-two years, Jack Hyles was the king of First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana. During his tenure, Hyles’ son David served as youth pastor. After his son became enmeshed in a sex scandal, Jack Hyles moved David to Garland, Texas so he could assume the pastorate of Miller Road Baptist Church. There, David Hyles continued his predator ways. Once pictures of Hyles with naked female church members were discovered, he was fired. If you are not familiar with Jack or David Hyles, please read The Legacy of Jack Hyles, UPDATED: Serial Adulterer David Hyles Has Been Restored, Serial Adulterer David Hyles Receives a Warm Longview Baptist Temple Welcome, The Scandalous Life of Jack Hyles and Why it Still Matters and The Mesmerizing Appeal of Jack Hyles. Rumor has it that David Hyles is planning on making a comeback. As far as I know, Hyles has never publicly apologized for past sexual misconduct. There are three reasons that Hyles refuses to address his immoral past. First, he is the son of Jack Hyles, and if there is one thing that we know about Hyleses, it is that they NEVER admit making mistakes or being wrong. David Hyles’ father was a narcissistic megalomaniac who saw admitting wrong as weakness. He taught countless First Baptist members and Hyles-Anderson College students what I call the Jack Hyles Maxim: If You Didn’t See it, It Didn’t Happen. (Please see If You Didn’t See it, It Didn’t Happen.) David Hyles, taught well by his father, has yet to confess the error of his ways.
Second, David Hyles knows that he could be held criminally liable for some of his past actions, including the bizarre death of his 15-month-old son. It is likely that Hyles had illicit sex with numerous women. Some of them might have been minors. As his preacher-brother-in-law Jack Schaap learned, sex with minors can land you in prison. Schaap, who became pastor of First Baptist after the death of his father-in-law, had a sexual relationship with a minor girl he was counseling. Schaap is serving a 12-year federal prison sentence for his crimes.
Third, David Hyles’ theological beliefs are such that restitution and public confession are unnecessary. Hyles wrote the following on Facebook:
Some would have us confess our sins endlessly. Instead we should confess them but once and then give thanks for His forgiveness endlessly.
David Hyles believes if he says “my bad” to Jesus, that all is forgiven. No need to make restitution or publicly account for his vile behavior. I talked to God, Hyles thinks, and he said, Hey David, you are my son, I forgive you, end of discussion! Hyles wrongly thinks that his “sin” is between him and God. People such as myself — an atheist to boot — have no right to poke our noses into his sex life — past or present. Ironically, David Hyles supports attempts to legislate private sexual behavior between consenting adults. If Hyles supports government and religious intrusion into the sexual affairs of Americans, shouldn’t his sexual behavior be fair game — especially those acts that were criminal in nature? For Hyles, the blood of Jesus, applied in 1 John 1:9 fashion: if we confess our sins, he [God] is faithful and just to cleans us from sin and ALL UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, is his get out of jail free card. Pray, confess, and God wipes his slate clean. A sweet deal, I’d say. One that allows people to commit horrific acts and have them erased by saying a bit of religious mumbo jumbo.
This is why men such as Bob Gray, Sr. and Bob Gray II, past and present pastors of the Longview Baptist Temple, can warmly welcome David Hyles into their church. Hey, the Grays think to themselves, God has forgiven David Hyles. Who are we to withhold forgiveness from him. If God can forgive the David of the Bible, surely God can forgive the David who once preyed on the young women of First Baptist Church.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement is rife with sexual abuse problems. I know of one church where a man was caught TWICE having inappropriate sexual relationships with minor boys, yet today he is faithfully serving Jesus in an IFB church. Evidently, IFB men are free to stick their dick wherever they want, knowing that God will forgive such sins and wipe slates clean. Never mind the fact that these predators often continue to prey on unsuspecting people, no matter how many times their records are washed clean by Jesus.
In 2015, David Hyles wrote a book titled Jack Hyles’ Passion for Sunday School. The forward was written by his mother Beverly Hyles and the book was published by Hyles-Anderson graduate and Jack Hyles worshiper Bob Gray, Sr. I wonder if David Hyles will use the proceeds from his book to make restitution to the people he has harmed? I wonder if Bob Gray, Sr. will forgo his profits on the book and use them to set up a fund to pay for psychological therapy for those who lives have been destroyed by Jack Hyles, David Hyles, Jack Schaap, and those who have followed in their footsteps? Not a chance. Prayers have been prayed, time to move on. What about those who can’t move on, people who could be greatly helped if David Hyles or other sexual predators at the very least admitted what they did? Shouldn’t David Hyles and those who continue to shamelessly support him do everything they can to bring wholeness to those so deeply harmed by his debauchery? Of course not. These “sins” happened years ago. Time to forgive, forget, and move on. Follow in the footsteps of David Hyles! Stop being bitter or angry. A brand new life awaits those who will just pray the magic prayer. Imagine how many souls could be saved if everyone just forgot about the past and got busy preaching the old-time gospel. Or so goes the thinking of David Hyles and those who continue to carry the water for the Hyles family. I, for one, will continue to periodically remind readers of past IFB transgressions, hoping that offenders will one day make restitution, victims will find peace, and predator-friendly churches are metaphorically burned to the ground.
Jory Leedy, registered sex offender, child molester, and Evangelical church bus driver
According to an April 13, 2016 WCOP-Cincinnati report, Jory Leedy, a former church bus driver for Target Ministries in Dayton, has been arrested and charged with sexually molesting two boys. Jay Warren reports:
According to a complaint filed by FBI Task Force Officer and Hamilton County Sheriff’s Detective Donald Minnich in U.S. District Court, Jory Leedy, 46, engaged in sexual contact with two boys under the age of 10 on multiple occasions between 2013 and 2015.
Minnich filed the complaint in support of an arrest warrant for Leedy.
In the complaint, the detective details the investigation by the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, which began in December, 2015. Investigators found Leedy first met the two brothers in the fall of 2012, one age 8, the other age 7.
Leedy met the boys while volunteering as a bus driver for Target Ministries in Dayton, Ohio, where he would give rides to and from church services to members of the area’s poorer neighborhoods, according to the complaint.
A short time after meeting them, the complaint continues, Leedy “showed an interest in the boys” and initiated a friendly relationship with their family. This included frequent visits for dinner, playing in the yard, and even becoming a part of the boys’ nighttime routine, when he would tuck them into bed, the complaint states.
In the months to come, Leedy began taking the boys to his church, Crossroads, based in Cincinnati, the complaint states. With the boys’ mother’s approval, Leedy eventually began staying in a nearby hotel room, “so they would be closer to Crossroads.” This continued roughly every-other Saturday evening from the summer of 2013 to the summer of 2015, according to the complaint.
Leedy also began taking the boys on trips out of state — including to North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, New York and New Jersey, the complaint states.
On these trips, the complaint says, the boys testified that Leedy would take showers with the boys, sleep in between them in bed, “tickle” their genitalia, and — on at least one occasion — engage in sexual intercourse and oral sex.
By September 2015, the complaint concludes, Leedy and the boys’ father got into an argument because their father felt Leedy was “overstepping his bounds.” When that argument turned confrontational, Leedy called the police.
The complaint went on to say that this was when officers informed the boys’ parents that Leedy was a registered sex offender. Early on, the boys’ mother had done an Internet search for Leedy, who had falsely identified himself as “Jordan Leedy,” preventing the mother from discovering his registered sex offender status.
According to Montgomery County Common Pleas Court documents, Leedy was found guilty in 2003 of gross sexual imposition after detectives accused him of inappropriate sexual contact with an 11-year-old. According to WCPO news partner WHIO, Leedy was a youth hockey coach in the Dayton area at the time…
Here’s what we know:
Jory Leedy was convicted of a sex crime against children in 2002.
Jory Leedy is a registered sex offender.
According to the latest criminal complaint, Leedy continues to seek out young boys to have sex with them.
Jory Leedy drove a church bus for Target Ministries in Dayton, Ohio.
Jory Leedy also attended Crossroads Church (which Cincinnati area Crossroads church is not made known in news reports).
Target Ministries did not do a criminal background check on Jory Leedy.
The parents of Leedy’s latest victims showed an unprecedented and naïve amount of trust in Jory Leedy, a man they knew very little about. They trusted Leedy enough to let him take their children on trips to other states.
Target Ministries has released a typical cover-your-ass press release:
Target Dayton Ministries recently learned that the government has filed criminal charges against a person, Jory Leedy, who formerly attended Target Dayton Ministries on occasion a few years ago. Target Dayton Ministries is a Christian outreach effort, primarily to poor and homeless adults in the Dayton region. Hundreds of volunteers from around the region come to Target Dayton Ministries with the purpose to reach and to care for the poor and homeless in the name of Christ. Target Dayton Ministries does not have a children’s ministry or a youth ministry because its primary focus is adult ministry. Target Dayton Ministries has a couple of large vans that we use to pick up adults who want to come to our church for worship and meals. The vans run regular routes and pick up people in the Dayton region at specified locations, where people are waiting to board the vans. After the service has ended, the vans return the people to the same route points to be dropped off.
When Mr. Leedy attended Target Dayton Ministries back in 2012, he did volunteer on occasion to help with immediate ministry needs. On at least one occasion a few years ago, he filled in on an emergency basis for one of our regular van drivers who was not able to drive on a particular day.
Target Dayton Ministries is not personally aware of any connection or contact between Mr. Leedy and the alleged minor victims in the government’s case. Target Dayton Ministries has no record of the minor victims or their parents ever attending one of our services. The only information we have is what we have read in the government’s complaint against Mr. Leedy or what has been reported in the news.
Like you, we were deeply saddened to hear the government’s allegations. We ask that you join us in praying for all concerned, that God will reveal the truth and that he will redeem, heal, and restore the broken lives of those involved.
The leadership of Target Ministries would have people believe that there is some sort of “truth” that has not yet been revealed. They ask people to pray to God and ask him to reveal this supposedly unknown truth. However, based on news reports, there’s not much more truth that needs to be known. The only truth that might yet be revealed is reports of other children Leedy sexually molested between 2002 and 2016. No one who follows these kinds of stories believes that Leedy molested children in 2002 and then took a child-diddling hiatus for ten or so years. Child molesters are constantly on the prowl for new victims. Child molesters know that churches are great places to troll for new victims because Christians are big on love, trust, and forgiveness. Why Brother So and So would never harm anyone, naïve church members think. He is a loving husband and father, and he teaches Sunday school! Yes, and by night he watches child porn videos and rapes children — perhaps even his own.
Though Target Ministries has not publicly said whether they ran a criminal background check on Leedy, I think it is safe to assume that they didn’t, Had they done so, they would have quickly found out that Leedy was a convicted child molester and listed on the sex offender registry. And here’s the thing, criminal background checks are not a sure-fire way to keep child molesters from working with children. Many child molesters have never been caught or arrested. Or, as in the cases of Dennis Hastert, Jerry Sandusky, and Bob Gray, they could sexually molest children for decades before they are caught (often long after the statute of limitations have run out). Churches and parents relying on criminal background checks to flag child molesters are putting their trust in a system that can never reveal every child sex offender. All the system can do is report whether a person has been convicted of a sex crime. There is no possible way to divine what people have done in the past or what they might do in the future, and it is for this reason that I strongly recommend parents STOP allowing their children to ride church buses. As is now clear for all to see, Evangelicalism has a huge problem with sex crimes being perpetrated by pastors and church members. In time, I suspect that these scandals will equal in number the plethora of Catholic priests who have sexually molested children and teenagers. Evangelicalism also has a problem with adult sex crimes — pastors and church leaders using their position of authority to prey on vulnerable women. Throw in the garden variety clergy adultery, and it is safe to conclude that Evangelical churches have turned into sex clubs for perverts and adulterers. (Please see Is Clergy Sexual Infidelity Rare?)
Most churches that operate bus ministries target poor, working class people. Target Ministries states that their ministry is to “reach and to care for the poor and homeless in the name of Christ.” The poor are easy targets. Desperate for help — be it food, clothing, rent money, or childcare — the poor often trust anyone who comes with hands open and says, let me help you. Believing that good, loving, kind Christians would never, ever hurt their children, the poor are willing to trust churches to properly care for them. I pastored churches in the 1970s and 1980s that used buses to bring thousands of poor children, teenagers, and adults to church. Using advertising gimmicks, prizes, money, gifts, candy, ice cream, hamburgers, bicycles, and a host of other enticements, the church had no difficulty getting children to ride the buses. Many parents viewed the three hours their children were at church as the only time they would have peace and quiet. Here, PLEASE take them, parents seemed to say.
I pastored one church — Somerset Baptist Church, Mt Perry, Ohio — for almost 11 years. For five of these years, we operated four bus routes that brought children in from the surrounding area. This was in the days before criminal background checks. The church was located in one of the poorest places in Ohio. Poverty was on display everywhere one looked. It was easy then, using the aforementioned gimmicks, to attract bus riders. Our intentions, I believe, were sincere. We wanted the bus riders to get saved. Everything we did was geared towards leading people to faith in Jesus Christ. Scores of children and adults made professions of faith. However, in our zeal to win the lost, I have no doubt we didn’t adequately pay attention to what was going on, not only on the buses, but in Sunday school classes and church events outside of the church facility proper.
There were a handful of sex-related incidents that took place during this period of time:
One concerned church member told me that an occasional visitor — an unmarried 30-something man — was inviting church children to spend the weekend with him at his nearby farm. This man was Bible-quoting, Jesus-loving Christian — judging from outward appearances (a horrible way to judge anyone). Based on his mannerisms, I had wondered if the man might be gay. After hearing the report about the weekend stays, I told the man that he was no longer welcome at our church. That was the end of that. This man joined another nearby Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB). I did call its pastor and warn him about this man.
One 40-something woman — an occasional bus rider — threw a sex and booze party for church teenagers. It was quite a raunchy affair. I found out about it after the fact. I quickly notified the parents of the teenagers, which led to numerous church teens being grounded. The woman who threw the party was banned from riding the bus. Some of the teens later admitted that she had had sex with several of them. In retrospect, I should have reported this to the police and children’s services.
One man — who later became a leader in the church and was active in the bus ministry — was accused of sexually molesting his daughter. Due to the statutes of limitations, the man was not prosecuted. He later moved on to another church.
One man — a recent transplant from Kentucky — was, unbeknownst to the church, a convicted child molester. He was accused of attempting to sexually assault a mentally handicapped girl -— a regular bus rider. The alleged assault took place near her home. I reported this to the police, but nothing came of it. The girl soon after stopped riding the bus. This man also had a teenage son who had been charged and convicted of several child-related sex crimes. When I found this out, I instructed the bus driver for that community to NOT pick this family up.
One area where we picked up riders was considered the poorest area in the tri-county area. Incest was common, leading to children born with all sorts of defects. The incestuous behavior spanned multiple generations, so much so that many of these people considered it normal behavior. I naïvely believed at the time that Jesus could cure their incestuous ways. While many of them did get saved, none of them stopped screwing their siblings and cousins. Jesus has not proven to be an effective means of combating sex crimes — or consensual fornication and adultery, for that matter.
At the time, I thought that these were isolated incidents. They certainly were not reasons to stop operating our buses. I now know that bus and children’s ministries are magnets for pedophiles, perverts, and sexually deviant preachers, youth directors, and ministry leaders. The last two decades have brought to light countless reports of sexual misconduct in Evangelical churches and parachurch ministries. Evangelicalism’s defenders can no longer say that these reports are just a few bad apples in a barrel full of sweet, tasty fruit. Virtually every day brings news of an Evangelical pastor, deacon, Sunday school teacher, or ministry worker committing a sex crime. On the good days, all we have are reports of big-name Evangelical pastors committing adultery or covering up the illicit behavior or crimes of others. If the various porn addiction ministry promos are to be believed, the majority of Evangelical men (and pastors) regularly watch pornography. Tell me again, why would ANY parents in their right minds EVER allow their children to ride a church bus?
I am of the opinion that if families plan on attending church they shouldn’t let their children out of their sight. Oh Bruce, you are being cynical. There are a lot of good people in churches. You just hate God, so you have it out for Christians. Damn right I am cynical. I wish I could share the emails I have received from men and women who were sexually molested while attending Evangelical churches when they were young. I wish I could share what I know about people who were sexually molested by their pastor, father, or some other church leader. While these crimes took place decades ago and are beyond statutes of limitations, the damage they caused is an ever-present reality. One woman, a few years ago, told me about being sexually molested as child by a church deacon. Decades later, she revisited this church, and what did she find? There was Deacon Bob singing in the choir. In that moment she was traumatized all over again. I urged her to make this man’s crimes known, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so out of fear of what would happen if she did (the man was friends with her parents). Having a checkered sexual history, the woman felt, would result her story not being believed. And she is probably right. Sadly, sexual assault can and does cause all sorts of sexual dysfunction and acting out. This is then used against the victim. See, you are a whore, the thinking goes. Why should we believe anything you say?
Let me be clear, this post is not meant to be an indictment of all Evangelicals. Most Evangelicals are fine, decent people, even if they have irrational beliefs (my opinion). The issue is not theology as much as it is practice and institutional control. Evangelicals need to stop trusting everyone who says Lord, Lord. Being Christian does not make people impervious to deviant sexual desires. Christians can and do rape, murder, steal, and molest children. There is nothing inherent to Christianity that inoculates its adherents from bad behavior. All one has to do is follow the news to find out that reported sex crimes are common occurrence in Evangelical churches. Just because a man says he’s a preacher doesn’t mean he is worthy of trust. Preachers can and do commit all sorts of crimes. Again, read the news. Pay attention!
Evangelical churches need to stop the cover ups of sexual misconduct. I guarantee you as soon as Target Ministries heard about Jory Leedy’s arrest, they called their lawyer and their insurance company. When Jack Schaap was arrested and charged with having sex with a church teenager, what did First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana do? They called attorney David Gibbs — widely known as the IFB church movement’s fixer. Gibbs’ job is to limit damage and make sure the church survives. Church leaders are told to circle the wagons and stop talking. I have seen such behavior more times than I dare to count. The goal is always to protect, not the victim, but the church. (I was quite pleased to see that David Gibbs’ son is the lawyer for the victims in the Bill Gothard sex scandal. Perhaps he watched his father smooth over one too many IFB scandals.) Evangelical churches need to stop worrying about their testimony and how the scandals might affect their ministries. When rumors of sexual misconduct are heard, church leaders should immediately report them to the police or children’s services. Pastors and church boards need to stop thinking they are Columbo. Do your duty…REPORT IT! Let the authorities determines the validity of the rumors. (Please see How Should Churches Handle Allegations of Abuse?)
Evangelical missionary Matthew Durham was sentenced Monday to 40 years in prison for sexually molesting children while working at Upendo Children’s Home in Nairobi, Kenya. Durham, 21, “engaged in sexual acts with multiple children, male and female, aged between 4 and 10 years.” Casi Marlowe, a writer for Dead State, reports:
A U.S. federal court passed a 40 year prison sentence on a former missionary from Oklahoma for molesting children at a Kenyan orphanage. Twenty-one-year-old, Matthew Lane Durham, was accused of molesting eight children at the Upendo Children’s Home in Nairobi, Kenya in 2014.
Although Durham claimed he did not molest the children, prosecutors revealed he told staff members at the children’s home that he had been possessed by an “evil spirit.” He also claims he doesn’t remember the crimes.
During a preliminary hearing, prosecutors revealed that a live-in caretaker at the orphanage said the children reported that Durham either touched them sexually or encouraged them to touch themselves while he watched. According to a criminal affidavit, Durham was confronted by the founder of Upendo along with several church members, where he allegedly confessed to his crimes.
Despite pleading not guilty to 17 charges last June, a federal judge found Durham guilty on seven counts, including engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places. However he was acquitted on three of the counts by US District Judge David Russell in January because the judge felt prosecutors failed to establish enough evidence that Durham had engaged in sexual acts with with (sic) one of the victims.
Prosecutors argued Durham used his position as a missionary to win the trust of the children in order to prey on them. But Durham’s attorney claimed his handwritten and taped confessions were coerced. Officials at the children’s home only reported Durham to the authorities after sending him home to the United States.
….
In 2014 Durham told friends that he was possessed by a demon. Here are several screenshots of text messages Durham sent to his friends prior to his return home from Kenya.
Link to PDF of messages
Here is several screenshots of part of the July 18, 2014 amended Federal criminal complaint against Durham:
Readers might remember my posts on Durham after he was arrested in 2014. Durham will be an old man before he is released from prison. I hope his story will serve as a warning to Evangelicals who use their position of authority to abuse, sexually assault, molest, and rape those who trust them to do no harm.
Notes
Durham attended and graduated from Crossings Christian School , an Evangelical institution located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His mother is a fourth grade teacher at Crossings.
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, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 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.”…
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.
Cover of book written by Cindy Schaap about her wonderful marriage to Jack Schaap. Cindy is the daughter of Jack Hyles.
As most of you know, Jack Schaap, former pastor of First Baptist Church, Hammond, Indiana, is serving a 12 year sentence in federal prison for having sexual relations with a minor. (a girl who was a member of the church and Schaap was counseling her) For more information on Jack Schaap, please read the Chicago Magazine article, Let Us Prey: Big Trouble at First Baptist Church. You can also read the letters Schaap sent to his victim here.
As anyone who spent any time in an IFB church can tell you, divorce is forbidden. The thinking goes…God hates divorce and God intends for marriage to be between one man and one woman for life. While IFB church members do divorce from time to time, it is not a common occurrence.
For months now, rumors have been flying over the marriage of Cindy Schaap and Jack Schaap. Are they still married? Did they get a divorce? Well, wonder no more, you who are looking for the latest dirt on the Hyles/Schaap crime family. According to a document sent to me today, on May 28, 2014, Cindy Schaap was granted a divorce from Jack Schaap.
Let me be clear, I have no problem with Cindy Schaap divorcing her husband. No one should be forced to remain married to someone they no longer want to be married to. Whatever her reasons, it is her decision, end of story. What interests me is how her divorce will be “explained” within the Kingdom of Jack Hyles and the broader IFB church movement.
Later this week, I plan to write a post about marriage and divorce and how IFB churches handle divorce.
Bill Wininger, former pastor of King’s Way Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia
Shelly Foeller, an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) mother, tells the horrifying story of her daughter who was sexually abused by Bill Wininger, then pastor of North Sharon Baptist Church:
If you will bear with me, I’d like to tell you a story. It is a true story of a little girl with incredible blue eyes. The church her family attended voted in a new pastor the same year she was born. Her family was very excited about this new pastor, and the little girl became very fond of him as well. She was a delightful child—very smart and tender-hearted. At a young age she expressed an interest in the Gospel, and at her mother’s knee, prayed to give her heart to Jesus.
When she was still quite young, unbeknownst to anyone else,something very terrible started to happen. Her pastor, whom she loved and trusted, began to take advantage of her on numerous occasions, violating her little body in unspeakable ways. Because of her tender age, she did not understand this at all. Since her young mind was incapable of processing these terrifying events, the dark memories of these assaults became sealed in the deep recesses of her conscience. Though she did not speak of the things that had occurred, she carried an overwhelming heaviness in her little heart,a pain that she could not put into words…
The pastor moved away, and years later:
Finally she reached the point when she knew the only hope for her survival was to face what was at the bottom of her festering wounds—the truth of what had happened to her as a little girl. Very gradually her memories surfaced, and she bravely, though timidly, started to talk about them. As she recalled details of these life altering events, her mother soon recognized and remembered specific opportunities for their occurrence.
Over time, as more details were remembered and shared, the pieces of the puzzle began to fit together and make sense.The courageous little girl, who for many years had been unable to tell, had finally found her voice. The silence had ended.This same little girl is now a beautiful young woman, our beloved daughter, Bethany.It didn’t take long for us to learn that there were other young ladies, as well as adult women, who had been victimized by the same man. All their stories agree together and have a ring of similarity. The truth is undeniable. The perpetrator, unfortunately,was Pastor Bill Wininger. The time frame was when he was our pastor at North Sharon Baptist Church from 1988 to 1995.
I wish I could say that this heartbreaking story is unusual, but it is not. Just in the last two weeks alone, three women have emailed me about being sexually assaulted as a child or teenager by a deacon or the pastor of the IFB church they attended. Quite frankly, these kinds of things are far too common and every bit as scandalous as the sex scandal of the Catholic church. We should be grateful that, through the internet, women and men can now tell their story of sexual abuse at the hands of men of God.
All videos and sermons from him have been removed. The church, following the IFB practice of defiance against the Scripture, is maintaining a curtain of secrecy, even though Paul directly commands that elders who fall into sin are to be rebuked before the entire church. It is not to be a secret. And yes, the goal is to make miscreants afraid of abusing church office.
The good news is, thanks to the internet and those of us who refuse to allow these predators hide, we can hopefully keep them from molesting and harming other children and teens. More and more women and men are coming forward, willing to tell their stories of sexual abuse. Telling their stories takes great courage, because I know the hell that the IFB church movement releases on those who dare tell their secrets.
This is not an issue of Christianity vs. atheism. This is about sexual predators hiding in plain sight in Christian churches. They abuse their way through the church and then move on to another church of prey. They are the lowest of low and they deserve every bit of scorn and ridicule they receive. They also deserve to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Sadly, many avoid prosecution for lack of evidence, or the statute of limitations runs out. Public shaming is often the ONLY recourse their victims have at their disposal.
Several days ago, a friend of mine told me about a recent service at former IFB pastor — now convicted felon — Jack Schaap’s church, First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana. It was mentioned during the service that Schaap had led someone to Christ in prison! Praise Jesus. Soon his despicable acts will be forgotten, just like those of his brother-in-law David Hyles and his father-in-law Jack Hyles. In time, we will hear of souls being saved and the life of Jack Schaap being rehabilitated to the glory of God. As I mockingly told my friend, by the time Jack Schaap is out of prison, he will be pastoring the largest prison church in America.
Someone from Sharon Baptist Church sent me the following:
Our current pastor did do something about what Bethany ________ told about Bill Wininger. He went to the Michigan police about it & reported it. The police are the ones who are not doing anything about it. What would you have the current pastor say to the world about something that happened when he was not there, and didn’t know about until years later? Our church is not covering up for Bill Wininger. We were the ones who turned him in.
I replied to the question, what would you have us say to the world:
I would have them, on their website, say EXACTLY what you said here. Saying nothing is not an option.
All of the churches mentioned in this post are Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, King-James-Only, Separated, Soulwinning churches.
If I remember correctly, there were students from North Sharon Baptist Church when Polly and I attended Midwestern Baptist College in the mid-1970s.
Ironically, Bill Wininger wrote a book while he was pastor of North Sharon Baptist Church.
Revival Fires, the ministry of Dennis Corle, carries the book. Their website says this about the book:
In a country church two male workers are accused of committing horrible crimes against children while running Sunday school bus routes. What should they do? How should they react in the midst of a county-wide scandal? How does a pastor keep from seeing his ministry, at the least, paralyzed and, at the worst, destroyed? How does he deal with the accused and their accusers?
Pastor Bill Wininger tells the amazing story of a church which experienced just such a traumatic event and amazingly, survived the ordeal with minimal damage done to the church. A Church Falsely Accused is the astonishing story of the North Sharon Baptist Church, a country church whose commitment to Christ and to the lost in its community saw victory through a vicious scandal.
UPDATE: August 2014
In August 2014, Wininger was arrested and charged with four counts of simple battery. AJC.com reports:
A former Douglasville pastor was released from jail Friday after spending a night there on charges of having inappropriate sexual contact with a member of the staff at the church and school that is one of the oldest private Christian academies in Georgia.
Four misdemeanor charges of simple battery against the Rev. Bill Wininger involve one woman on the Kings Way staff and are detailed in the charges brought by the Douglas County solicitor general.
Three counts accuse him of having unwanted physical contact with the woman by “grabbing and hugging” her. The fourth charge was that he made “physical contact of an insulting and provoking nature” when he pressed against her with a part of his body that was aroused. The events detailed in the accusation are alleged to have happened between August 2012 and
Each charge carries a maximum punishment of 12 months in jail.
Wininger was arrested Thursday night and he posted a $10,000 bond Friday afternoon following a brief court appearance. No other court date has been scheduled.
One of the conditions of his release was that he have no contact with members of King’s Way Baptist Church or employees of the school. Wininger must have a psycho-sexual evaluation and receive treatment if necessary…
…“The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office spent the past 10 months investigating this individual,” Solicitor General Matthew Krull said. “It is my job to make sure that everyone in Douglas County is afforded the opportunity to live free of unwanted and unsolicited physical contact.”
Krull said there were other accusers but his office decided to prosecute Wininger just on the allegations of one woman, whom The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is not identifying because of the nature of the charges.
Krull said Friday the investigation did not involve any allegations that Wininger targeted children.
Wininger resigned last October after 15 years at the church when allegations surfaced that he had sexually abused children in Michigan 20 years ago. He was never charged on those allegations…
I found no further reports about Wininger’s case.
I find it interesting that IFB churches and pastors preach against psychology and suggest every human misbehavior is sin, but once they are caught in their own web of sin and face criminal charges, they are quick to seek a psycho-sexual evaluation and treatment. Anything, to keep themselves out of jail. Why not stand on the unshakable ground of the King James Version of the Bible and refuse the evaluation and treatment? Shouldn’t Wininger just pray a David Hyles forgive me Lord prayer® and get back to winning souls for Jesus? Isn’t that the IFB way?
I am grateful that local law enforcement officials took the accusations seriously. Far too often, law enforcement ignores allegations against pastors because they have the naïve notion that clergy are above the fray, immune to the passions of mere mortals. As should be clear to all who are paying attention, countless pastors use their place of power and authority to manipulate and abuse others. Yes, most pastors are decent human beings, but a sizable percentage of them are predators lurking in the shadows waiting to rob people of their faith and trust.
UPDATE: October 9, 2015
According to the Douglas County Sentinel:
A former Douglasville pastor accused of having inappropriate sexual contact with a staff member will be in court Friday when he is expected to enter a plea.
Unfortunately, the story is behind a paywall. Once other news agencies report the story, I will update this post.
UPDATE: October 9, 2015:
A former Douglas County minister was sentenced Friday to two years on probation, resolving accusations that he forced inappropriate contact on a staff member of his church and school.
Rev. Bill Wininger was accused of “grabbing and hugging” one woman at the The King’s Way Baptist Church and King’s Way Christian School, one of the oldest Christian academies in Georgia. He also was accused of “physical contact of an insulting and provoking nature” when he pressed against her with an inappropriate part of his body.
Wininger pleaded no contest to two counts of simple battery.
“This plea brings justice for this victim and hopefully gives her some closure to a horrible series of events that happened in her life,” Douglas County Solicitor General Matthew Krull said in an emailed statement. “The victim gave a voice to all those that have been too afraid to stand up to defendant’s unacceptable behavior. This case was very troubling, to see … a preacher in a position of trust and power, use that position for his own selfish needs.”..
…As part of his probation, Wininger was ordered to perform 200 hours of community service at a location that does not assist women or children…
The King’s Way Baptist Church in Douglasville will pay $25,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit filed on behalf of a kindergarten teacher who complained the church’s pastor sexually harassed her.
The independent Baptist church, which operates King’s Way Christian School, also will furnish other relief, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced in a news release.
The EEOC filed suit in 2015 on behalf of Marsha Pearson, a kindergarten teacher at the school, who said she was fired after complaining that the pastor, who was also school superintendent, had harassed her.
Former King’s Way pastor The Rev. Bill Wininger was arrested in 2014 on four misdemeanor charges of simple battery against a female employee.
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, Pearson complained in 2013 that the pastor had been sexually harassing her. Upon reporting the abuse, King’s Way officials “told her that she allowed the harassment to happen to her” and that she was being fired, according to the suit.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 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.
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)
Jack Hyles, David Hyles, Jim Krall, World’s Greatest Men
Jack Hyles, the late pastor of First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana, had a son named David. David Hyles was the youth pastor at First Baptist. He later pastored, if I remember right, Miller Road Baptist Church in Garland, Texas. Miller Road was previously pastored by his father. David Hyles, like his father before him, and like his brother-in-law Jack Schaap, (see Chicago Magazine articles on Schaap) had a problem with keeping it in his pants. He was accused of having sex with girls/women at First Baptist Church, Miller Road Baptist Church and several of churches he attended after he could no longer find a church to pastor.
A post on Café Mom succinctly details the serial adultery and criminal behavior of David Hyles:
Jack’s son, Dave Hyles is famous for his perversions that his daddy attempted to help cover up.
Dave Hyles used to scream until his face went purple when I was teenager. Dave used to travel around the country and hold youth rallies where he would scream: “BE PURE! BE PURE!!!” I was a teen then but I always knew there was something ungodly in his rage.
Not too long after that, they found a suitcase in a dumpster in a church parking lot containing pictures of Dave Hyles and a woman (not his wife), both very much in the nude and in compromising positions. Of course Dave wasn’t removed from the ministry, just moved to a different church in a galaxy far far away. (Texas)
Then David Hyles was kicked out of that church for running around with lots of women. 19 to be exact!!
David Hyles ran off to Indiana with Brenda Stevens. (One of the women who was in those photographs with Dave Hyles found in that suitcase above.) Brenda Stevens had a young son, named Brent.
In late 1985, 15-month-old Brent was found dead in his crib. David Hyles, who had been alone with the child, claimed he found him not breathing, and called police. In reality Dave called his father Jack Hyles first. Jack Hyles was on the scene long before the police were called.
A coroner’s inquest into Brent’s death Dave Hyles exercised his Fifth Amendment rights. Brenda Stevens— the baby’s mother didn’t even attend the coroner’s inquest into the death of her own 15 month old son.
At this inquest, it was revealed the investigation was thwarted because the little boy had been embalmed and buried the very next day— Jack officiated, The boy was buried before a proper autopsy could be performed.
The little 15 month old had nine different broken bones in different stages of healing. The case remains open to this day.
Was Dave Hyles banned from the ministry even after all the above? Oh no. In the 1990′s Dave moved by daddy where Dave taught Sunday school at a Pinellas Park Baptist Church in Florida. He was kicked out of that church because of adultery.
Dave Hyles was then 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 3 women was the church secretary Joyce Phaneuf, who was arrested for prostitution in 2003. Joyce Phaneuf, her mug shot and arrest report — which notes the tattoo on her right-upper thigh, reading “David’s Girl.”
After all this, Dave Hyles finally married Brenda Stevens and the two had their own son who they named Jack David. In March 1999, Brenda Stevens said little 5 year old Jack David must have fallen out of her car, she didn’t know it, and she ran over her own son with her own car–killing him.
Of particular interest is David Hyles’ involvement with Joyce Phaneuf, the secretary at Berean Baptist Church. The following graphic, detailing Phaneuf’s tattoo, pretty well says it all.
Dr. Bob Gray Sr. is pastor emeritus of Longview Baptist Temple, an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) megachurch in Longview Texas. The Gray franchise is now pastored by Bob Gray, Jr. Bob Gray, Sr. prepared for the ministry at Hyles-Anderson College and is a stanch defender of all things Hyles. It should come as no surprise then that when David Hyles recently showed up at the Longview Baptist Temple, he was warmly received. A known serial adulterer, with a suspected criminal past, was given a warm welcome by Pastor Gray. (Junior I believe, since Senior was preaching in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on October 27th.) A person with a close connection to the Longview Baptist Temple emailed me about Hyles’ appearance at the church. This person, a committed Christian, knowing Hyles’ backstory, was rightly upset over Hyles being given a warm welcome.
Here is what I know about Bob Gray, Sr. Rather than being offended that a known serial adulterer, a PREDATORY abuser, and a suspected criminal, showed up at his church, he will be more offended that somebody dared to talk out of school. How dare someone report to an atheist what is going on the House that Bob Built!
This is a reminder to me that there are still decent, good people who attend IFB churches. I don’t understand why they still attend these kind of churches, but they do (and the reasons may be things like fear, family, social connection). These good people rightly understand the indecency of giving a man like David Hyles one moment of respect. They rightly understand that the only place for David Hyles is back under the rock he crawled out from under.
Until David Hyles makes a full and public confession of his “sins” — which he will NEVER do because of possible criminal liability — he should not be allowed to step foot in a church. David Hyles left behind a trail of broken lives, women whose lives were ruined by a man of God why preyed on them. How can men like Bob Gray not understand this?
Dr. Bob Gray, Sr. obsesses over blogs such as this one. As a controlling egomaniac, he is outraged that he can’t control the story line. He will take to his blog to express his unrighteous outrage, but his actions will be for nothing. Thousands more people will read this blog post than will ever read Gray’s blog, Solve Church Problems. Those of us who make it our business to expose what goes on in IFB churches can’t be silenced. Prayers that God kills us go unanswered and people, good Christian people, continue to share what is really going on in places like the Longview Baptist Temple.
We are on to you, Dr. Bob.
Perhaps Gray, Sr. was paving the way for what took place at Longview on Sunday with the following post on his blog:
…No one is perfect; we are all dirty scoundrels. We have all offended and mistreated other people. If all of us seek vengeance towards those who have mistreated us, we will all be in trouble. If you continue to hold bitterness in your heart towards someone, you will never find happiness. You will die young because of hatred and bitterness. Instead, you should realize God has forgiven you of far greater sins than the sins people have committed against you. If He can forgive you, then surely you can forgive other people.
Once you have enjoyed the sunset of forgiveness, you will never again enjoy the sunset of vengeance. Once you have tasted the sweetness of forgiveness, once you have bathed in the sunlight of restitution, once you have eaten from the table of heavenly manna, love, and kindness, you will never be satisfied with hatred.
It is not my job to seek vengeance – that is God’s responsibility. I do not know how to play the organ; the organist knows how to do it, and that is her responsibility. I do not know how to play the piano or sing; we have pianists and musicians to do that. If I were to walk into church one day and try to play the piano or organ, I would fail at it. I do not have the training. By the same token, it is not my responsibility to seek vengeance. That is God’s responsibility.
There is a difference between my vengeance and His vengeance. My vengeance is destructive; I want to destroy a person. God’s vengeance seeks to catch a person’s attention so He can salvage him. I am incapable of properly seeking vengeance just as I am incapable of playing the piano properly.
My job is to forgive. It is not Christ-like to be forgiven, because Christ never sinned. On the other hand, it is Christ-like to forgive. If someone treats me wrong and I forgive him, I am being Christ-like…
Gray seems to not understand that forgiveness requires confession and repentance. In David Hyles’ case, public sin requires public confession and repentance. Until this is done, there is no reason for anyone to forgive David Hyles. I am content to leave the forgiving to God; however, in THIS life, his victims deserve seeing David Hyles shamefully confessing his “sins.” Perhaps, in some small way, this would allow them to come to terms with what happened to them and they can find peace. There are wounds that time often does not heal. Sexual wounds fall into that category. If Dr. Bob Gray Sr. really wants to do good, he will demand David Hyles come clean about his past. He will also demand that he make restitution wherever possible.
Of course, Dr. Bob won’t do this. The ONLY thing he is concerned about is…who told?
Note
I trust the person who sent me this news. I treat these reports like TMZ. I reserve the right to amend the story if further details are made known. If you know anything about David Hyles being at the Longview Baptist Temple, please let me know.
