Jack Hyles

[SouthCarolinaGirl79]

I'm a recent de-lurker, and this will be my first time starting a topic. When I call myself a CF, I mean that I believe the Bible is the inspired word of God. Most of you would call me a "fundie-lite." I do not think it is a sin to wear pants, and I have no interest in making others believe as I do. My husband and I have one child ! We have a traditional marriage, and he is the head of the home. He works outside the home, I'm a SAHM, and I homeschool my son. My reasons for homeschooling are not to isolate our son or for scrictly religious reasons. I'm college-educated, a former teacher, and I believe that my son learns best in a one-on-one situation because he is very active and easily distracted. I love visiting FJ because when I get bored and need to read some stimulating conversation, this is the place to get it.

If Jack Hyles has been discussed on here before my apologies because I'm new here. I grew up in a church that preached the gospel according to Jack Hyles. He was an evil man IMHO. Hyles had a mega church in Hammond, Indiana, and he started Hyles-Anderson College. There have many studies about domestic violence being higher around Hammond. Hyles was a complete hypocrit who had an adulterous affair with his married secretary. People were so obsessed with Hyles that they were more concerned about what would Hyles do than they were with what Jesus would do. Most of the independent Baptist/Methodist churches in my area followed Jack Hyles for decades. My family left a Hyles church when I was a teenager because I refused to attend anymore. If you FJers ever need something good to sink your teeth into, google Hyles and his college. The man started the college, had it give him an honorary Ph.D and then proceeded to publish books on child rearing by Dr. Jack Hyles. What a quack! I have most all of his books on my shelf, so I will leave you with a passage to start this off.

From How To Rear Children: (Snippets from the chapter about how to turn a girl into a lady)

Teach her strict obedience. A girl must be obedient her whole life. While the boy who is obedient to his parents must also learn to lead, a girl will never be a leader. A girl must be trained to be a follower. A man will someday lead a family, but a girl must transfer her obedience from her parents to her husband. This means she should never be allowed to argue. She should become submissive and obedient. She must obey immediately without question or argument. The parents who require this have done a big favor for their future son-in-law.

It should be obvious to any male with whom she is conversing that she is an intelligent listener, but she should never seem to know more as he does. This means she should learn all she can about things that interest men. For example, she should know enough about football to enage in a conversation about it. She should never want to play it, or know as much about it that he can't teach her more. The wise lady will never "take over" the conversation. She will add just enough to make a valuable contribution and to show her intelligence on the subject, but she will always make her man feel more knowlegeable.

Let her enable her to be a neccessary help to those who are in the limelight. The Bible teaches that a woman is not made for the limelight but to complement and supplement. It is not good for a girl to play an instrument as a soloist, but she should play to accompany another.

[Jack Hyles would not approve of all that attention Erin Bates is getting! No, no.]

It makes me madder than hell to think of Jack Hyles and his garbage after all these years. I was 13 when my parents finally took us out of a church that followed Hyles, and I'm almost 32 now and it still makes my blood boil to read that junk. I could say lots more, but I've got to get off the computer now. Thanks if you've read this!

[SouthCarolinaGirl79]

Meant to include this. Yes, BG is nuts, but his group from what I've seen tries to give it a shiny facade and you have to dig to discover the bull that lies beneath. Jack Hyles and his bunch were totally out there about their crap, and people still bought/buy into it. He has been dead for several years, and he is one of the few people I hope is rotting in hell. If you want to read some of his crap, someone still posts it on http://www.jackhyles.net. Also check out the website for the First Baptist Chruch of Hammond Indiana and HAC. The church is being pastored by Hyles' SIL. Lots of people are mad at him right now for not being as wacko as Hyles, but he is wacko enough. Have any of you heard of these people?

edited because I was too pissed to proof it the first time!

[Aurora]

Meant to include this. Yes, BG is nuts, but his group from what I've seen tries to give it a shiny facade and you have to dig to discover the bull that beneath. Jack Hyles and his bunch were totally out there about their crap, and people still bought/buy into it. He has been dead for several years, and he is one of the few people I hope is rotting in hell. If you want to read some of his crap, someone still posts it on http://www.jackhyles.net. Also check out the website for the First Baptist Chruch of Hammond Indiana and HAC. The church is being pastored by Hyles' SIL. Lots of people are mad at him right now for not being as wacko as Hyles, but he is wacko enough. Have any of you heard of this people?

Not I. He does sound pretty crazy. It sounds pretty close between him and Bill Gothard though. Thanks for bringing this guy up, and welcome to FJ!

[MaroonMandy]

For example, she should know enough about football to enage in a conversation about it. She should never want to play it, or know as much about it that he can't teach her more. The wise lady will never "take over" the conversation. She will add just enough to make a valuable contribution and to show her intelligence on the subject, but she will always make her man feel more knowlegeable.

Well crap. This weekend I screamed as my football team lost while the boyfriend made us lunch and last week I explained to him how overtime works in college. I'm assuming we're going to hell...

[FemaleScientist]

I engage in friendly, argumentative banter with my significant other constantly. I also like being credited for things and occupying the spotlight here and there while he likes to provide the supplementary help. I guess we're going to hell.

This guy sounds like a wacko. I wouldn't be surprised if parents who followed these teaching strictly also beat the obedience into their daughters. :|

[jericho]

My wife has two friends who are sisters who went to Hyles-Anderson College. One graduated last year and the other is in her Junior year. Now the graduate and her new husband (who she met at HAC) is going with a mission team from First Baptist Church of Hammond to Peru.

HAC is very pushy on relationships. They make the guys ask girls on dates and to school banquets. (no dances) Also, they require weekly "Soul Winning". You must go on a bus into the inner city of Chicago and preach to people on the street. Then they pick up the kids on Sunday and bring they to First Baptist Church of Hammond.

For more info check out the student catalog. http://hylesanderson.edu/files/2010_2011_catalog.pdf

[browngrl]

Holy cats that is one wacky school. None of the professors have Phd's. Many of the teachers graduated from Hyles. Divorced people under 25 can't attend. It goes on and on. That being said: Here is one program: " Department of Marriage and Motherhood

This course of study is designed to train ladies to be wives and mothers. Courses in Christian womanhood, the art of being a good wife, the way to be a spiritual mother, and the rearing of children will be emphasized." This program includes classes in: "Crock pot cooking" and "Woman the Completer" and "Cooking for guests" and "speech" and "canning and freezing" and "understanding your husband". :lol:

Here is the link: hylesanderson.edu/files/2010_2011_catalog.pdf

[synchroswimr]

Oh, Hyles-Anderson... I've been fascinated by that place since I heard Steve Anderson ranting about it being too liberal.

[SouthCarolinaGirl79]

Yep, they even have a course in how to be a good pastor's wife. They will also "validate" previous life experience you may have and give you college credit hours towards your degree. Of course you must cough up the money for that. It is most beneficial for men who have been pastoring a church without a degree to cough up that validation fee to be closer to their HAC degree. The church also has a "Christian" school one can attend for elementary/secondary. By education of course, they mean more brainwashing from the cult of Jack Hyles.

[Witsec7]

Jack Hyles is odious.

I do think that there other considerations for the high levels of DV in Hammond. If you read Jean Shepards accounts of childhood in Hammond, you'll sense the under current of despair in working class Hammond the violent interactions between men, women and children, and the physical 'discipline' common to the times and culture. The humor of A Christmas Story is all Hollywood gloss.

You've set me off on a search to see what the longitudinal data has to say about that particular subject.

[SouthCarolinaGirl79]

Jack Hyles is odious.

I do think that there other considerations for the high levels of DV in Hammond. If you read Jean Shepards accounts of childhood in Hammond, you'll sense the under current of despair in working class Hammond the violent interactions between men, women and children, and the physical 'discipline' common to the times and culture. The humor of A Christmas Story is all Hollywood gloss.

You've set me off on a search to see what the longitudinal data has to say about that particular subject.

You've got a point there, but I've read studies that show that the DV increased directly in relation to a family's involvement with the FBCH.

[Witsec7]

I'm glad you've seen the studies. I'm anxious to get some time to read them. Thanks for posting a legitimate counter.

[NurseNell]

For more info check out the student catalog. http://hylesanderson.edu/files/2010_2011_catalog.pdf

Thus, our goal is to train America's future pastors, assistant pastors, evangelists, song leaders, youth workers, bus directors, and missionaries.

Bus directors? What exactly is a bus director? It must be important because the chancellor was a bus captain for 11 years.

Absolutely no drinking, smoking, or dancing is allowed. No student is allowed to attend Hollywood movies,

play cards, or participate in other questionable amusements.

Gosh, I guess that only leaves sex. :oops:

[SouthCarolinaGirl79]

Bus directors? What exactly is a bus director? It must be important because the chancellor was a bus captain for 11 years.

Gosh, I guess that only leaves sex. :oops:

Want to know about bus directors? Hyles wrote phamlets on how to be a good bus director, church usher, Sunday school superintendant... yada, yada. In a Hyles church, there was usually a bus program. The churches were told to bus children whose parents were willing to send them to church, but who were themselves unwilling to attend. I don't know how they would find these children that would ride the bus. I'm guessing through the door-to-door soul winning progams Hyles had, and yes he wrote a book on how to do that too! I've never attended the mothership church, but the church I grew up in was a Hyles following church. They had old school buses that would bring children to church every week just like they were being brought to school. All of the buses were driven by men, and the program at each church would be under a bus director. Hyles was famous for making the church very organized and giving everyone jobs with a hierarchy.

[NurseNell]

One of the teaching staff is a R.N. (graduated from a nursing school in my city) who teaches science. She does not have a BSN or any other post nursing school education. I have a BSN and some graduate school, and there is no way I'd feel qualified to teach science. Health, yes. Nursing subjects, yes. But science, no. I don't think a R.N. education qualifies one to teach any science courses.

[NurseNell]

The dean of women has no college degree. Well, I guess when you're equipping young women to be wives and mothers a college degree isn't important.

[Lillybee]

A Baptist Church in my town has the same program. I don't think that they had any trained bus directors because the kids on that bus always seemed to be behaving badly.

I wondered if some form of bribery was involved in getting the kids to participate.

[SouthCarolinaGirl79]

I just checked out the HAC website and tuition is almost $10,000 a year. The school is unaccredited and it is run by uneducated people teaching worthless crap. They also encourage the 5 year plan. One could rip up $50,000 and have the same outcome as receiving a *degree* from HAC.

[NurseNell]

Holy cats that is one wacky school. None of the professors have Phd's.

Here is the link: hylesanderson.edu/files/2010_2011_catalog.pdf

No, there are a few Phd's. There is a M.D. who was (or still is) a Navy flight surgeon. There is a graduate of the Air Force Academy teaching. There is an attorney who teaches Bible studies. There are a few reputable colleges and universities represented in the staff, including Drake University, University of Iowa, Iowa State, University of WI at Eau Claire, Michigan State, Rochester Institute of Technology, Sir Force Academy, and a few others. Over all though the staff is not as well educated as the staff at a comparable undergraduate college.

[doggie]

God what a worthless school and even more worthless treatment of woman. Makes me really hate fundies when I see crap like this.

[klavierspieler]

Bus directors? What exactly is a bus director? It must be important because the chancellor was a bus captain for 11 years.

A bus director is the person in charge of the entire bus program at any particular church. A bus captain is only in charge of their route. So the progression is bus director -> bus captain -> co-captain (if they have one) -> bus workers. A church can have multiple routes, or just one, depending on the size of their program, and yes, the kids are normally found through Saturday door knocking by the bus workers. As for bribery, they wouldn't see it that way, but yeah, most Sundays there is some kind of gimmick involved to keep interest up, whether that's candy or ice cream or an Easter egg hunt or whatever.

In the churches I knew of that had bus programs, including my own former church (where I was a bus worker for four years, a co-captain for two years, and a bus captain for two years while I was in high school), the bus director was normally a member of church staff (usually the youth leader or children's minister unless it was a really big church that could afford to pay someone separate to be the director) who did the high level planning but little if any of the hands-on work. Everyone else, from the bus captains down to the lowly workers, were generally volunteers from the youth group, very rarely adults (except for the drivers). The bus captain was in charge of making sure the route ran smoothly with all that entailed, and the co-captain was the captain's right-hand man to pick up any slack and fill in if the captain was sick or something. The workers were just flunkies. No one had any real training, it was a complete learn as you go experience for most.

To bring it back on topic, Hyles's church was/is seen as a paragon of bus ministries, and they used to run a yearly conference for bus directors to come and learn how to do it better and increase their numbers (I'm not sure if they still do, but my director went several times). They constantly harped that it shouldn't be about numbers, it should be about evidence of God working, but then they would turn around and say that if God was working, your numbers would be going up. And of course if they are going down, it couldn't possibly be that kids are tired after a full week of school and don't want to ride on a bus for hours on a Sunday, or that sometimes that's just how things fluctuate. It's all because you as a worker/captain/whatever aren't working hard enough. Blerg.

ETA: and yes, for churches who do something like this, it is a big deal. Because the bus workers are the "front-line soldiers" in the fight to save souls, and they get treated much the same way hyper-patriotic people treat the military (i.e., like demi-gods). The higher up you are, the more honor there is. Bus captain is a pretty coveted position.

[SouthCarolinaGirl79]

Thank you for the clarification! I left the Hyles influenced church at 13ish, and I never rode the bus because my parents brought me to church.

[klavierspieler]

Going to Hyles's church, you were super-lucky to not have to ride the bus. One of the things that pissed me off about the bus ministry, even while I was still drinking the fundie kool-aid, was that the church members would talk very self-righteously about what a good deed it was to bring in all the little heathen children to hear the gospel, and then treat them like second-class citizens (or worse). In fact, many of the kids whose parents brought them to church weren't allowed to talk to the bus kids or sit with them because they were a bad influence, and the term "bus kids" was freely used as an insult. I don't understand why any of the kids kept coming, I would have been completely humiliated. There are many things I regret espousing when I was a fundie, even though I didn't know any better, but at least my conscious is clean of that one. I wouldn't have any of that on my bus or around my kids when I was captain, even from the director (which got me in trouble more than once).

[Kaylee]

Yep, I always hated how the bus kids were treated in some places, because my sister and I were bus kids back before my mom started going to church with us, and even at 5 or 6 you could tell people either pitied or looked down on you, and a lot of the member's kids weren't supposed to play with you. I think some kids really did want to go just to get out of the house, many parents sent the kids to have some free alone time, and a lot of churches, including FBCH do use some types of bribery like candy and contests for the bus and kids who bring the most new people in a given time.

It's funny this thread comes up now because I was talking about HAC a couple nights ago with some people I know who are former IFB, and how "Crazy" I went as soon as I as out of there (my dad picked me up and e stayed in Chicago before flying home- I ended up sneaking out to a bar and leaving my student ID there to "hold for a tab). My former pastor (an ex-fundie now) was like, of course, most people at HAC are either crazy to begin with or they go crazy having to stay there.

I would actually say Jack Schaap is a lot worse than Brother Hyles was though. There are a lot of things I disagree with that Hyles preached, but he seemed genuine in person and as a lot nicer than he comes across in print and from stories (at least to the girls - I have heard the guys got screamed at in split chapel, but that seems to have happened with everyone, including Schaap and most of the bus captains). Schaap, on the other hand, took the crazy to a whole nother level and was all about expelling people who disagreed, including several seniors who were almost ready to graduate. I stayed in trouble when I was there, because it was just not a good fit for me, and I think the dean of women hated me, but Dr. Hyles told me more than once I just needed to "straighten out" and I'd fit in and would go on to do great things. Schaap kicked me out within 2 months of his taking over, and called me ever trash in the book and told me I was going to hell and dragging my dad there with me (my dad was not fundie, but went along with my mom, and me being expelled and finding out he'd been paying an unaccredited school for the trouble really rubbed him the wrong way, especially when he got the call to come pick me up across the country).

The thing that really gets me about the people who push Dr. Hyles' book on child-rearing is how his own son turned out. I still don't really believe that Jack Hyles had an affair (there's a lot of drama surrounding the whole story on his side and the accuser's), but there's no doubt that his son was a womanizer and serial adulterer. There is also a very good chance that Dave Hyles was a child abuser, and possibly a child killer, but that could never be proven because of the circumstances (the child was buried quickly, before an autopsy could be performed). I found out about all this long after I was gone from HAC, although it was known that Dave was an adulterer and that was why he didn't take over the church and school after his dad died.

[nolongerIFBx]

the term "bus kids" was freely used as an insult.