RAIDER said:
The majority of us on the HAC FFF attended HAC and/or FBCH for a period of time. If you are like me you remember where you were in the 80's when you heard or read the news about Dr. Hyles' supposed inappropriate behavior and cover up. Some were still at HAC/FBCH when the news broke. Some had graduated and moved on.
What did you think when you first heard the rumors/news?
What did you think after a few weeks/months had passed?
What do you believe today?
I will state up front that I am an outsider in this.
Background
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I didn't grow up in any church; by God's grace, I was saved at a young age (under 10) at a Vacation Bible School, but I don't believe I set foot in a Sunday church service until I was in the middle of my teenage years (15 or 16). The independent Baptist Church I began attending never mentioned Jack Hyles. I don't think the pastor every mentioned his college from the pulpit (I think he went to Tom Malone's college); he didn't push so-called "great preachers". It was a farming community, and the pastor was content to preach and teach from the Bible. One of the Sunday School teachers was big on Bob Jones University, and that was the only Christian college I knew of.
When I was away at college, I heard more about the Sword of the Lord, and Jack Hyles (only that he had a big church in Indiana). The pastor there was from TTU. Families in the church sent their kids to Pensacola or Bob Jones. No one there (at the time) attended HAC (or TTU for that matter).
I came to know more about Jack Hyles and HAC as I moved around the country working; one church had a HAC grad as the youth pastor (that was the first time I really heard the church & college exalted); another church had a HAC grad as the pastor (and followed Jack Hyles' methods in most things -- maybe everything).
I didn't hear anything when the story first broke. No internet was available; if no one in church told me, or the pastor didn't mention it, or it wasn't in the SOTL, I didn't know about it. There may have been some veiled references from the pulpit, but they were so veiled that I didn't know what he was talking about. I think the SOTL ran an article some months later, and so that was when I first heard about it. At the time, I fully believed that no pastor could ever be immoral in anyway, or deceive people and still (apparently) have God's blessings -- which we were told was what great numbers meant. So, I believed the SOTL and that some evil, disgruntled people were out to get Dr Hyles because he was so successful. They were either just jealous and/or were being used of Satan to tear down a great work. That was the party line, and I didn't really seriously question it.
However, there are two incidents that were always at the back of my mind. In the church with the HAC Youth Pastor, he persuaded some of the teens to go to HAC; one of them came back after his first year determined never to return. He told me that he had worked as a security guard, and people had no idea of what was going on. This was, I think, about spring/summer 1987 (possibly 1986). For all his disdain, he wouldn't go into any more details (at least not with me).
The second incident I've referred to elsewhere; Jack Hyles was preaching, and the preacher introducing him referred to Jack Hyles as God. I thought that was wrong, and fully expected a "great" preacher like Jack Hyles to rebuke such worship. Nope: he enjoyed it. This was, I think, before anything came out -- fall of 1988. To me, these two incidents seem years apart, because of all the changes in my life at the time (moving three times, job changes, and some other things).
Because all the people I was around always treated Jack Hyles as the final authority on everything, I thought he was THE perfect example of a pastor, and his church was THE church. Every negative thing about him or FBCH was just a distraction of Satan and should not be listened to.
Folks, this blissful ignorance stayed with me until a missionary kindly put me in touch with material and web sites that were critical - and used the Scripture to show up the flaws. This wasn't until, I think, 2007. I remember the first few times I read the web articles attacking Jack Hyles, I felt as though I needed to look over my shoulder to make sure that I wouldn't get reported to my pastor. God used that to open my eyes and realize all was not as simplistic as the picture painted by my pastor. That's when I got hold of Voyle Glover's book, and read Robert Sumner's article, and started to read on the web what I could find. (By this time, Vic Nischick's book was not available, but I found it a few years later).
As always, when this subject comes up, I am amazed that all the attention seems to focus on JH and JN - did they or did they not commit adultery? But the unscriptural teachings are ignored; the bad practices that were preached are ignored; the financial improprieties were ignored.
I do believe that JH had an inappropriate relationship with JN; I don't know that he committed adultery or had a physical relationship, but I think they were certainly close, and that caused problems with both marriages.
I absolutely believe that financial misdoings were going on, and I'm surprised that the IRS never checked up on it (but then again, I've heard that they used to try to avoid going after churches because of the bad press). To name one thing, Voyle Glover pointed out that the church was paying Paula Hyles' child support payments. There is NO excuse for such checks to be written from a church account. From DH's checking, OK - even, perhaps, JH's personal account, if he felt it should be done.
I absolutely believe that JH caused much damage due to his encouragement of pastors to be like him instead of being the best pastor that God created them to be. I think a lot of what he taught was merely his own ideas of how things should be, or what "worked" for him, and a generation of preachers has arisen that believe that this is the way to be a "great" preacher - what "works" is good, with little regard to how Scriptural the practice is.
As I read the various articles about JH and JN, it seems that some obvious and easily provable questions never seem to be asked or answered: For example: Did FBCH or JH pay for a private phone line in the home of JN? That should have been not too hard to verify. If JN handled the travel for JH, then, maybe there could be a need for a separate phone line - but I understand that her job was to handle tape ministry items only - a private line to her house serves no purpose.
This is plenty long enough, but this is an outsider view.
