8: History of the IFB Part 5 - Jack Hyles
Episode Notes
Transcript
Podcast Purpose and Introduction
This is the 4-Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring to light the legalism and abuse in the independent fundamental Baptist movement and to encourage believers to grow in grace through the scriptures. Now, here's your host, John Hollifield.
Hey everybody, welcome to the 4-Freedom Podcast. I am your host, John Hollifield, and excited about the content we're going to be covering today.
As we go through this history of the IFB, we are now getting into the part where I'm going to be discussing the life and ministry of the guy who becomes the leader of the movement
for a couple of decades, and that is Jack Hiles. Before we get into that, though, just some things off the top.
In the world of IFB news, you have, in the structure of the independent fundamental Baptist,
you have emerged about a decade ago what is considered the new IFB, and this is being led by a lunatic out in Arizona named Steven Anderson.
And all God's people said, Amen. Never! Bluh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh. No! What you see in the Hollywood movie is a lie. This is the truth. And when you come to church, you should expect to hear the truth about every subject. And tonight, you're going to hear the truth. I'm going to pray that he dies and goes to hell. I have no love.
No love! Then get out of here. Get out of here! You're destroying America! It doesn't work, stupid!
I'll stand up to him. Take me on! Huh? Come on! What are you going to do about it, you big bully? No!
Because you know what? They are compromising, and they are tools of the media to brainwash you!
And Stephen Anderson got quite a cult following on YouTube with his YouTube page just blowing up.
How many of those people were actually listening to Stephen Anderson and buying in what he said?
And how many of those were actually listening to make fun of what he said? I don't know. I know some people keep up with Stephen Anderson just to listen to the craziness. But he is somebody that maybe we will cover in an eventual episode.
But the new IFB is not huge. And it's very extreme, very cultish, and very abusive. And made the news.
This is not... Actually, I just found out about this. But this has been going on for almost a month now.
But it hit the news that his sex scandal going on there at the church that he's tried to cover up. And so you can look into this and do some research on there. There's an investigation going on.
I think there's an investigation, a formal investigation going on. And his sons were talking about getting turned on by sexually abusing girls. And I think that they're out of high school.
But I read some of the comments that they made. And I'm not going to mention them here on the podcast because they're awful. But this is something to look into do. So basically what happened, though, is he's lost a lot of people in his church over this. Because he...
First of all, he covered up, tried to deal with it internally. And then is going to blaming the young girls and their families and that kind of stuff like that. So that's what's going on with Steven Anderson.
Another bit of news. Not IFB news. But another thing that has just came out a couple of days ago was a faith healer and rising star.
Maybe rising isn't even a proper thing. He is a star in that faith healing world is a guy by the name of Todd White. Now if you haven't seen the documentary American Gospel, you need to watch it.
It is fantastic. It's really good. It is now available on Netflix. If you don't have Netflix, you can go to Amazon Prime and rent it there. But you need to watch it. Now in that, they do an examination of a little bit of Todd White's ministry. Todd White, this past Sunday,
preached a message that I also encourage you to go find. Look it up on YouTube and listen to it. Because what he says in that message is absolutely amazing.
He really basically says that he has been preaching the wrong gospel. He quotes Charles Spurgeon. He quotes Ray Comfort and the way of the master, which I love their evangelism things that they do. And basically apologizes for the way he's been. I mean, what he says is like, wow.
This is a God thing. This is awesome. Now, I really want to, I really hope, and that is my desire, that Todd White has been converted.
Todd White's Ministry Changes
Todd White has come back to come to biblical theology and his ministry is now going to change. That is what I hope. I really do. And listen, this is not me saying this. This didn't happen to this guy. I'm not saying that.
What I am saying, though, is I have done, before I got into doing this stuff into the IFB, I did do some, I've done extensive research into the health, wealth, prosperity gospel, and those guys.
And if I were to say keep an eye out for things, I would say just keep an ear open, keep an eye out.
Let's watch and see what happens. And I say that, listen, please, I say that with all the hope in the world that this guy really did was converted. Because this is nothing new in the health, wealth, prosperity movement. Honestly, let me tell you what is the other possibility of what's going on here.
The other possibility is that Todd White is taking a page out of Benny Hinn's handbook and doing damage control. Now, let's move away from Todd White for a second and go over to Benny Hinn. Again, any time there was an examination done on Benny Hinn's ministry, you go and do the research.
I think there was an Inside Edition episode done. ABC News covered him.
Any time there's something like that that happens, Benny Hinn would then come out with some kind of big statement that he's repenting, that he's changing, and it never happened.
You know, he's trying to save face and show his followers that what they exposed him for the fraud that he was, he was sorry, he was wrong, and he is now going to do proper ministry. But it never changed.
The most recent thing was, I think, a year ago, he did this, and it made waves because of social media.
And everybody said, Benny Hinn's repented, Benny Hinn's repented. And Benny Hinn said that he repented.
He said that what he was doing was wrong. However, a month later, you find Benny Hinn asking for people to sow a seed of $1,000 or more. Benny Hinn never repented. He's doing damage control. Now, here's what could be going on with Todd White. This film, American Gospel,
came out, and it actually came out, I think, a year or two years ago. I want to say two years ago.
And I watched it pretty much when it first came out, but it hit Netflix. And when it hit Netflix, it really started to spread. Many people were watching it. In fact, not very long ago, within the last month,
Todd White actually came out ridiculing the American Gospel documentary and calling it done by somebody maybe demon-possessed. Somewhere along that lines, he said that.
What could be going on is that Todd White saw this, and Todd White has seen what was going on and is now actually trying to do some damage control.
Now, I don't want to believe that that's the case, but I think we need to exercise discernment with what's going on. And I really do, and I encourage you, I encourage you to believe that this is a true repentance.
But true repentance always follows action. How do you know somebody is truly repentant? By not just what they say, but have they changed their behavior.
If Todd White has fleeced people, and you have to understand what's going on, what Todd White used to do. He'd go out in public and specifically,
knowingly, he knew what he was doing, deceive people with these leg-lengthening routines that are parlor tricks, that are snake oil salesman tricks, that are from start to finish deceptive.
That's what he would do. So this is what I would look for in true repentance from Todd White. I love what he said. Love, love, love what he said.
But if he's fleeced people, and fleeced people with his ministry, trying to gain money from them,
I would look for him to then turn around and send the money back. Give money back. Now, that's not been a big part of his ministry. But I also would look for him to come out publicly and say that what he was doing there,
specifically, he needs to get specific. He has a public ministry. He did these things publicly. They were publicly exposed. And so, therefore, he needs to publicly repudiate his past actions. And I think those types of things follow true repentance. Biblical model. Zacchaeus in the Bible. Okay? So, Zacchaeus was a thief.
He robbed people using his position as a tax collector.
And he took more and then pocketed it. When Jesus came and he was converted with Jesus, his repentance led him not just to stop stealing from people, but it led him to then repay them fourfold, more than what he had taken.
That was an example of true repentance. And what you find in a New Testament method of people trying to change their actions is what's called the put-off, put-on principle. You don't just put off a sinful habit or a sinful action. You change by putting that off and putting on something better.
The classic example is when does a thief stop becoming a thief? Not when he stops stealing, but when he becomes a giver. Okay? So, look for that in Todd White. Again, let me finalize that section by saying this. I hope. Listen, guys. I hope. I really do. I want to believe Todd White.
IFB History Overview
What he said was great. Again, go listen to it. It was good. It was a good message. And so, we'll see how that plays out. So, now into the IFB history.
We have covered IFB history. We've looked at the early fundamentalism. Looked at the IFB forefather, J. Frank Norris. They consider him their forefather. Possibly that's true.
His connection with John R. Rice. Did an interview with Matthew Lyon on the life of John R. Rice. In the last episode, I sort of talked about the 50s to the 70s and talked about the way the IFB expanded with different people like Roloff, Lester Roloff and the girls' homes.
You had Oliver B. Green on the radio. You had Lee Roberson with Tennessee Temple and Highland Park Baptist Church starting Southwide Baptist Fellowship meetings. And you had all of these things. Now, an interesting thing happens in the 80s.
There's a paradigm shift in the 80s. So, a couple things happen. Let me break these down. First of all, in 1980, John R. Rice dies. And I really think that that's a catalyst in the IFB movement. John R. Rice dies in 1980. In 1981, Lee Roberson resigns his church.
Now, Lee Roberson still has an influence in the IFB movement. He continues to travel around, help churches. But he resigns his church, and his church slowly begins to decline after that. In 1983, Lester Roloff dies in a plane crash. So, within three years, you have three big names.
Sort of, Lee Roberson, not as much, but the other two, their ministries are finished. Curtis Hudson was a pastor in Georgia who had grown a large church.
He takes over the Sword of the Lord ministry in 80 after Rice dies. So, John R. Rice dies. Curtis Hudson comes on the scene.
He was already preaching conferences. And he comes on the scene as the director, the head of the Sword of the Lord. Curtis Hudson begins to really push Jack Hiles. And Jack Hiles becomes the quintessential leader of the IFB movement.
So, this is what we're going to do now. I want to go and begin to discuss the life of Jack Hiles. Okay? This is very important to really understand, even today, where the IFB movement is. Okay? So, Jack Hiles.
Jack Hiles was born and raised in Italy, Texas, which is real south of Dallas. When he was 18 years old, he enlisted in the Army and became part of the 82nd Airborne Division during World War II.
He and his wife, Beverly, were married during the war. After the war, he completes his education at East Texas Baptist University, which was then East Texas Baptist College in Marshall, Texas.
After he graduates from there, he begins to travel around and preach in Texas churches. And it becomes popular in the Texas area.
People like his preaching. And then he takes a church in Texas, the Miller Road Baptist Church in Garland, Texas.
That's in Dallas County. And he pastors that church for six years. Now, while he's pastored, when he takes the church, the church has about 44 people. When he leaves the church six years later, he had grown it to 4,000 members.
And it was during these days that Jack Hiles left the Southern Baptist Convention. He led Miller Road Baptist Church out of the Southern Baptist Convention and became an independent Baptist. In 1959, Jack Hiles leaves Garland, Texas, and moves to Hammond, Indiana to take the First Baptist Church of Hammond.
Now, here's something interesting. When he arrives, the church membership was about 700. And about a third of the members left the church after hearing his preaching.
They didn't like his preaching style. So a third of the church leaves. So he gets there, 700. A third of the church leaves. So he goes down to like, what, 400?
Then he begins the process of taking the First Baptist Church of Hammond out of the American Baptist Association. So then they become an independent Baptist church. So then, during these years,
Hiles takes the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana from a couple hundred membership to more than 20,000.
It was recorded in the 1990s that First Baptist was probably the largest church in the nation.
In 1972, I mentioned this last time. In 1972, Jack Hiles and Russell Anderson founded and begins the Hiles-Anderson College.
Hiles-Anderson College never sought accreditation, though, because Hiles insisted school accreditation would undermine his ability to control how the college ought to run.
And there you have the fear that still seems to run in the camps of IFB colleges of accreditation.
I remember when I was in college, this accreditation thing would still come up from time to time. And everybody thought, well, if you're accredited, the government can tell you what to do. It's a very ignorant understanding of accreditation.
So he's got the college. The church has grown by leaps and bounds. The college is growing.
He's preaching at the Sword of the Lord Conference. He's starting his own conference at his church called Pastor School, which brings in thousands of ministry people and pastors each year. And so he's really setting himself apart. In 1975, Time Magazine described the phenomenon in an article titled Super Church.
And it talked about his bus ministry and the phenomenon of the growing bus ministry.
It notes that the article in Time Magazine notes the First Baptist Church of Hammond Sunday School, which regularly ran almost 14,000 people, pushed the church to a record attendance of 30,560 on March 16, 1975.
So you see just massive, massive growth within First Baptist Hammond and Jack Howe's ministry.
He wrote many books. I'm going to talk about his books a little bit later. But he wrote many books. And they sold quite a bit of copies.
I remember when I was in Bible college, one of my Bible teachers, who married Hiles' granddaughter, used to say that his book...
Hiles wrote a book called Blue Denim and Lace. And that book sold one million copies.
If he only made a dollar per book, which he didn't, he made more than that.
That's one million dollars he's brought in on one book. One book alone. Okay, so he is not hurting for money as well during this time. So, let's see. Where am I at? All right.
So he holds these pastor school conferences. Now, the interesting thing about the Hiles place is, at First Baptist Church of Hammond,
other than, for instance, the sword conferences would... Rice built the sword conferences on bringing guys across the country to come in and train pastors and ministry people.
The pastor school, however, was basically just a conference for everybody to become the First Baptist to learn the First Baptist way of doing things. In fact, Jack Hiles actually wrote a book that is called the Hiles Church Manual.
And that sold a lot of copies. And so many basically took that book, and it was basically how Jack Hiles did ministry. And they copied ministry and doing their churches out of that book. And so, you see his influence was far-reaching during these years. But, Hiles' ministry is riddled with scandal.
Riddled with scandal. And in the early 80s, I'm going to talk about his family towards the end, but the early 80s... So, okay. So Jack Hiles hires his son, Dave Hiles.
Dave Hiles Scandal
Dave Hiles goes through college, all this stuff, becomes the youth pastor. So Dave Hiles becomes the youth pastor there at the church. And you should do some research on the Dave Hiles situation. Dave Hiles...
In fact, there's a lawsuit going on with the church right now. The lawsuit is levied against Dave Hiles.
Dave Hiles, First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, and Hiles Anderson College. Because Dave Hiles raped several teenage girls while he was there as the church youth pastor. And so, he was doing this. And it wasn't just one. Joy Evans, writer, and a fantastic, fantastic lady, is working this lawsuit right now.
You should hear her testimony, how God has restored her life through that tragedy. But she's not the only one. There were many others that were, during this time, just... I'm not talking about during Dave Hiles' life. I'm talking about just at First Baptist as a youth pastor.
Teenagers. And Dave Hiles did this to many girls. And it was Joy's story that really sort of... It was Joy's situation that really caused the rip. So, Joy's done with it. And she decides... Her parents find out...
She tells her dad... Her dad, who is Wendell Evans, who was the president of the college, goes to Hiles. He follows her to a hotel. She informs Dave that it's over. Her dad is out in the parking lot watching.
And then she gets out of there and leaves. You have to listen to the stories. That guy was terrifying. But you need to listen to her story. So, after that, Jack Hiles is confronted with this. So, then... What do you do? You're supposed to call the police, right? Turn it in? No.
No. What happens is... Is that... I don't... And listen, I don't care what they say.
I don't care what they... The way they try to cover this thing up. The fact of the matter is, is he was sent to another church by his dad.
Jack Hiles had him resign. He left the church. He goes to Texas. Goes to Miller Road Baptist Church in Garland, Texas. And becomes the pastor there.
And that was how they handled that situation. And most people there at the church at the time knew what happened. It just... You just didn't talk about it.
And... So, that was the Dave Hiles thing. There's a lot more about Dave Hiles' life. But as it continues... It goes with First Baptist Church in Hiles' entrance. Now, Dave actually comes back to First Baptist.
And is received back. And it's not long after that before he causes another embarrassment with his dad. But... The first thing that I want to... To get...
To talk about when we get to the scandals. Is... Uh... 1989. Okay, so 1989. Robert Sumner. Robert Sumner... Produces the story...
The... Publishes a story called The Saddest Story We Ever Published. You can look this up. You can Google it. And you can go... It is lengthy. But you can Google it. It accused Hiles of sexual scandals, financial misappropriation, and doctrinal errors. These charges were denied by Hiles, who deemed them lies.
He was accused of a decade-long affair with his secretary, Jenny Nishik, who happened to be the wife of a church deacon, Victor Nishik. Okay, so here's where it gets a little bit crazy. So, in 1989,
this story is published. Now, if you want to know who Jenny Nishik is, if you ever see... This is crazy. But if you ever see any clips of Jack Hiles preaching, you'll see him preaching. You'll see behind him people in the choir loft.
Now, to... As you're viewing it, to the left of him, the first lady on the first row, right next to his view, is his wife, Beverly House. On the other side, the lady is his secretary, Jenny Nishik. Okay?
So, that comes out in 1989, and that starts a ripple effect within the IFB movement.
So, this is 1989. Jack Hiles is the leader of the movement. He is, you know, a major, major influence, and this story gets published.
In fact, if you read... I'll try to link this book to the show notes. Jerry Kaffetz wrote a book called The Profane Pulpit After Jack Scott Went to Prison. And he talks about how whenever this stuff started coming out, he was there at the church. They were instructed not to read this stuff.
They were told at the church, do not read it. And if somebody catches you read it, they would turn you in and report you, and you would get in trouble.
Interesting. So, that happens in 1989. Then, in 1990, Victor Nishik releases his book called The Wizard of God, where he talks about his dealings and his story and his problems with Jack Hiles and how it ruined his marriage. They slept apart. And so, in my heart and mind, I have no doubt. But, just to illustrate the point,
in 1970, Jack Hiles took all the staff people on a cruise to the Caribbean,
husbands and wives. And in those days, my wife and I and Beverly Hiles and Jack Hiles were inseparable socially. A foursome, we always were together. Uh-huh. And on the cruise ship, Jenny, my wife, was assigned the job of tour director. And after the festivities and the dinners in the dining halls,
Jack and Beverly, Jack and Jenny would retire to plan next day's activities. Uh-huh. And I would not see my wife until the next morning.
Uh-huh. And I found out in subsequent years that Beverly Hiles also did not see her husband until the next morning while on the cruise. So, somewhere in the bowels of a big cruise ship, those two managed to spend evenings and nights together. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
And I told him that if he in any way damaged or caused my marriage to be dissolved, I still wanted my wife back. Uh-huh. I still wanted to try to establish a relationship, however flawed it was. Uh-huh. Same year.
So, The Wizard of God comes out. The same year, 1990, a guy named Voil Glover, he was a lawyer, and he was a member of First Baptist Church, which I think was for about 20 years. He realizes what's going on, leaves the church.
He ends up writing a book, a rather lengthy book. This is the longest one published. It's over 400 pages, called The Fundamental Seduction to Jack Hiles Case.
And in that, he really lays out the case. Now, it's this aura that he projects of authority, this aura of confidence.
Everybody likes somebody that comes off confident and shrewd themselves, and Jack Hiles probably does it better than anybody else. I know. Yes, absolutely. He gets up there, and he is definitely in charge. And people like that.
People need that sense of security that somebody's in charge. Now, somewhere along the way, you had a phone out. Well, I don't know that I would call it so much a falling out as a realization that all was not right in La La Land.
But my pastor was not all he pretended to be.
I learned subsequent to the writing of the book that, in fact, some of the times of our greatest needs, we had a $90,000 surplus. At the right time, Pastor Hiles was saying, we need money, right?
Yeah, yeah. He's telling us we're broke. We don't have money. The principal, who said he didn't know what was in the account, and he truly didn't, is without supplies.
Well, you paint an amazing picture of financial success with Pastor Hiles and his church. In fact, an astronomical picture, right? Oh, clearly. This is a... What kind of money are you talking about? Well, that's one of the questions. What kind of money are we talking about?
Nobody really knows the total income of the church, and that's one of the problems that exists over there, is you don't know how much is coming in, and you don't know how much is going out. I don't know the total income of the church.
I know in the book I made some very educated calculations.
He has a ministry, and this is only the book ministry. This has nothing to do with the tithes and the donations.
And the only collection. That's right. He took this book ministry and has admitted to these things in various forms, including his church recently. He took this book ministry and placed it under the umbrella of the church, but continued to control the funds.
No deacon that I've talked to, former deacon or present deacon, knows the disbursements of that account, of those funds. Now, in looking at Hiles' statement, he made the following statements, published these statements.
He said if he kept $1 for every book that he's put out or sold, he would have $12 million. So I assume that he's sold 12 million books.
I did a rough estimate. I've got a faithful field on obligation to buy books. Oh, absolutely, sure. I've got a ready-made audience. Sure. I've had people tell me they've bought every book he's ever published. I didn't. I bought many of them, but not every book.
Hiles' Affairs and Cover-ups
So you have all of these things going on with Hiles. And the big story, so you have the Dave Hiles scandal, and just when he thinks that he's got that sort of calmed down, this stuff comes out about Hiles' affair with Jenny Nishek. His financial improprieties,
his – I mean, the guy made tons of money. He owns the church, basically. He owns many buildings in Hammond.
His daughter said – I'm going to play a clip towards the end of his daughter talking about it. And so you've got this situation going on.
And Victor Nishek actually talks about this, where he says that his wife – they were having marriage issues because she had become so loyal as Hiles' secretary that she was – and he believed that she fell in love with him.
Hiles loved her, and they had this affair going on. And then they went in for marriage counseling, and Hiles told him to move to the basement.
So he moved to the basement, and Hiles would go and have a relationship with his wife. Until finally, he broke out sort of the – and he says he was under mind control. This guy was God to them.
And you didn't do what – the pastors spoke for God. The pastor spoke as the oracles of God. Their pastor was Jack Hiles, so therefore Jack Hiles was the voice of God to them. And that was what was taught. And so therefore,
it took him a while for them to break out of this, and then he ended up leaving and writing this book. So you have these going on. The next thing is, in 1991, the next scandal that happens with First Baptist Church and Hiles Anderson is the case of A.V.
Ballinger. Now, A.V. Ballinger was a deacon. A.V. Ballinger was a deacon at First Baptist Church of Hammond who then was arrested and went on trial for pedophilia.
In March, one of Hiles' deacons, A.V. Ballinger, was convicted on charges he molested a seven-year-old girl in Sunday school. A lawsuit by the girl's family charges Hiles told the parents that Deacon Ballinger just likes little girls. If we can judge the world, some baby can judge within our center. A.V.
Ballinger should not be judged in the courts of Hammond.
A.V. Ballinger should not be judged in the courts of Hammond. A.V. Ballinger should not be judged in the courts of Hammond if he is judged at all. So, this deacon was sexually abusing a child in the Sunday school department and was caught.
The sibling of the child that he was messing with, he was abusing, decided to speak out and was trying to get people to notice this. Then the family tried to say something. Then a Sunday school teacher that had walked by and seen something going on spoke out as well.
So, he's arrested. They go to trial. And here's an IFB name that you might be interested to hear. David Gibbs, the lawyer, is brought in to defend him. And David Gibbs represents A.V. Ballinger. Now, A.V. Ballinger is actually found guilty. After the testimonies, he is found guilty and becomes a registered sex offender,
sentenced to prison. And after the trial is over, before his prison sentence starts, they decide, First Baptist Church of Hammond decides to throw a major celebration party for him. And they give him a check for $25,000. They have people lined up like crazy to honor him. And it's really, really disgusting and gross.
I want to show you something about First Baptist Church. I probably shouldn't say this, but I think it shows your greatness.
Here's a man who's been accused of an awful crime. Here's a man that has been falsely accused,
falsely tried, falsely convicted. We didn't ask him to resign the deacon board. Nor will we.
We didn't ask him to resign his Sunday school class or his job as an usher. He's kept on going. Or resign his job on the bus ministry. Didn't ask him to.
I mean, I was the guy that led in that. I mean, I was the guy that said publicly, you heard me say, if he goes, I go. So John, A.V., we're both going to have to go. But I said that.
And here's the greatness of you folks. Last Wednesday night, we had deacon election to reelect the deacons whose time was up and others. The leading vote getter for deacon last Wednesday night was A.V. Ballinger. Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. And them which suffer adversity.
Being yourselves also in the body. My Bible says that the adversity that this man is having to endure is to be entertained and born and remembered by every single Christian.
We also being in the body. What's happening to this man is happening to my faith. It's happening to my Savior. It's happening to my testimony. I am to remember.
The word remember there doesn't just mean that I'm supposed to kind of mull it in my mind. It means I'm supposed to identify with.
I'm here tonight to tell you that I'm committed to doing some things. And I want to encourage you to do some of these things. You listen to me. First of all, I believe the Bible commands us to identify clearly with those that for doing right are suffering adversity.
I see across America Christians that grow shy. Christians that say, boy, I hope it all turns out. I'll pray for you. But they're nowhere to be found when the person's standing in the battle. Thank God this church is not like that at all.
Thank God this is a church that steps up with pride and says, and it is an honor to be identified with. Brother Ballinger.
So all of these scandals are going on. And then something happens. Now this is another set of videos that you should go check out and look into on YouTube.
But you have a news organization that decides that, well, they get word about this pastor who is arrested for pedophilia or rape.
I can't remember which one right off the top of my head. Well, they begin to report on this issue, and then they start to do an investigation. And their investigation, their journalistic investigation, leads them to First Baptist Hammond.
And then they begin to start investigating that. And so by the time it's all done, they produce this segment on the news channel that airs six days in a row called Praying, P-R-E-Y-I-N-G, from the pulpit.
Child Abuse Patterns in IFB
And Eyewitness News has learned a group of fundamentalist churches around the country have a pattern of abusing children. The abuse includes severe discipline. In one case, there was sadistic torture. And in another, it may have involved murder.
As we've told you in a series of special reports this week exclusively on Eyewitness News,
TV2 investigator Vince Wade has learned the alleged child molestings at Washtenaw County's North Sharon Baptist Church appear to be part of this pattern of abuse. Vince joining us now with another of his special reports on Praying from the Pulpit. Vince.
Rich, the leadership of the North Sharon Baptist Church was educated at a Bible college in Sherrillville, Indiana, run by Jack Hiles, a hellfire and brimstone preacher well-known in fundamentalist circles. Over the last few years, Hiles has been a source of scandal and controversy for fundamentalist believers.
Hiles has one son, David, who had his own ministry until he was run out of two churches due to scandals involving wives in his congregations.
As you will see, the son of a famous preacher man is a suspect in something far more... And this news program, during this time, becomes huge.
And it really shines a light on what's going on there. And it talks about other people that's left, First Baptist Hammond. It talks about Hiles. They interview Vic Nishek. They get a chance to... They have Hiles on there.
And, I mean, it really lays out everything. It talks about Dave Hiles. It talks about Dave Hiles' problems.
So, whenever he left First Baptist Hammond, he goes to Garland, Texas. While he's in Garland, Texas, a janitor was coming out and found a briefcase that seemed wrong to be in the trash.
So, he pulled the briefcase, and the briefcase popped open, and there were nude pictures of women in the church. Found out the briefcase belonged to Pastor Dave Hiles. When everything came out, to find out, Dave Hiles was having affairs with multiple women in the church.
Over, I think, 14 or 15 women. At that time, he's married to Paula.
Whenever this comes out, after it... Paula knew about all the girls and teenage girls in First Baptist, but she stayed with him. After this comes out, Paula divorces him. Was, doctor... Was... Did David's dad know that he was adulterous before we went to Texas?
And the answer is definitely yes, and there's a hundred people that know that, including himself. And why he lies about that, I'll never know.
I went to him twice about things that I had heard about David, things that I had dealt... You know, I had one of the girls beat me and David's sister up, telling us that he was sleeping with him, and we told his dad. Mm-hmm.
Another occasion was a girl that was working at the cemetery, and the guy that runs the cemetery knows this.
I don't know if he ever went to Hiles about it. I assumed he did. I'm not sure. He made David go to him first, so he may have hung that over David's head as a threat. And I sang he'd go to his dad. I don't know. But I told his dad about that.
So I don't know. I think the only immorality that was going on was between him and the girls he was seeing, and there were a lot of them. He wised up, though, after we went to Garland. He didn't have affairs with single girls anymore. There was one divorced woman he was sleeping with.
But he found out that sleeping with teenagers, they talk.
They like to talk. But if he kept it with the married women, they had as much to lose as he did, so they weren't as willing to talk, and they didn't.
In fact, we had somewhat of a war going on with this.
All these women in our church thought they were the one and only. And when it came out that there were 14 or 15 of them, we about had a war going on there. And then he ends up marrying one of the ladies he had an affair with in Garland, Texas, Brenda.
And I believe her name was Brenda. And then they get married.
Well, he leaves Texas. He goes back to First Baptist to Hammond. While he's at First Baptist to Hammond, the guy still can't stay out of it. And so he ends up,
somebody finds out that there's this sex magazine that has nude pictures of people that are soliciting other couples to have swinger parties with them. And somebody sees that from the church, and they find out, hey, that's Dave's wife. And so then people find out that that's Dave's wife.
So when pastor school happened, actually what happens is people take these things, and they start handing them out to pastors as they're coming in for pastor school. And, of course, Jack Hiles couldn't ignore it then, and so he had to send him off one more time.
But also, Dave Hiles ran into some other legal trouble whenever his stepson, who was only, I think, 18 months old, died in their home.
And the subsequent calls, they couldn't determine because they wouldn't allow them to do an autopsy, and they had the funeral really quick. But investigators and journalistic investigators believed that the cause was physical abuse.
David Hiles set out to follow in his father's footsteps. The zest for women cost him his pulpit and his first marriage. When David left a Texas church in disgrace, he and his girlfriend, Brenda Stevens, moved to Bolingbroke, Illinois, with her two children by her first marriage.
It wasn't long before her youngest son, 17-month-old Brent Stevens, came to the attention of abuse investigators.
In 1985, they found him with a broken leg plus eight or nine bones in various stages of healing. Paul Cialino was a homicide investigator for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. He and his team fought, unsuccessfully, to keep Brent away from David and Brenda.
I wasn't concerned this child was going to be abused again. I was concerned this kid was going to wind up dead. That was my concern. His concern was justified.
A few months later, Brent Stevens was found dead in his crib. Due to bureaucratic bungling, an inconclusive autopsy was done at a hospital instead of the morgue. But at the inquest, David Hiles invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Brenda, the mother of the dead child, was a no-show. As for the status of the investigation...
This case is an open case still today. And nothing's been done. It can't anything be done? Absolutely.
It's a murder case. I would even go further and say that if I could get David and Brenda in a court of law, they'd both get convicted of murder. Without a doubt.
I have a dead child with a history of abuse, and I have two people who are the only people who access to that child that night. And I would almost bet that 12 other peers would convict them on almost dead evidence alone. And so that's all of this stuff.
All this stuff comes out in that program of praying for the pulpit.
So after this is over, there's so much heat, and there is a reaction, and by this time there is a reaction within the IFB. And so people start... So you're talking about early 90s here.
Distancing from Jack Hiles
Within the IFB, people start distancing themselves from Hiles. Unless you're from Hiles, unless you graduated from First Baptist of Hammond, but around the other sections, you start to see a distancing from Jack Hiles. So, they have a press conference.
And you can go watch this on YouTube as well. They have a press conference. Really, deal with anything that is in the program, or give explanations for it.
It was really just a press conference to attack the media, instead of explain these stories. We have been viciously and maliciously misrepresented. They have attacked us at our strongest point, and that is our belief in purity, our love for children, and our compassion. They are saying that there is a network of churches
with child molestation scandals that have a tie with Hiles Anderson College and First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana. I do not mean to be mean.
I do mean to be mad. Never a lie was spawned by Lucifer out of hell any greater than to cast reflection upon the purity and motives that are holy of our bus ministries. Okay. The last major issue during Hiles' life is in October 1997. An attorney named Vernon Petria files a lawsuit against First Baptist Church of Hammond.
Now, this lawsuit was accusing the church and the pastor of allowing a mentally retarded woman to be sexually assaulted for six years.
Now, it wasn't saying Hiles did it or anything like that, but it's saying, the lawsuit was saying they knew about it, or leadership in the church knew about it, and covered it up and allowed it to go on for six years.
The woman was induced by agents of the church in 91 to ride a bus to attend Sunday school at First Baptist. She was in the care of the church when she was sexually assaulted, molested, battered, and raped more than once until 1996.
Hiles was sued because he and his church failed to do their duty to protect her, the lawyer said. The pattern of the assault can be traced to a Sunday in 1991
when a First Baptist teacher saw someone abusing the woman and reported it to church leaders and police, but the parents were never told and she kept going to church, where she was threatened into silence.
The sexual abuse ended when the woman developed a horrible infection and was taken to a doctor to find out what was wrong.
When the doctor couldn't understand where the infection was coming from, she was admitted to a hospital where they found embedded in her a plastic object. The woman then told what had happened to her,
recalling that a church program instructor led her to a room and served as a lookout while two or three males raped her. Now, Hiles denied all of these things,
said that if he had known about it, it wouldn't have happened, but the only problem with this, now whether he knew about it or not, I don't know, but the fact of the matter is is there is a pattern of covering these things up that exists there,
And so for that reason, that casts serious doubt on whether he did know or not. It's hard, you can't believe him. So, what ends up happening in the 1997 lawsuit is they end up settling the lawsuit for an undisclosed amount of money. So, that is the scandals.
Now, Hiles ends up dying in 2001, and when he dies in 2001, the church, he was grooming the next guy to come. The next guy that became the pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond was his son-in-law, Jack Scott. Jack Scott married his daughter, Cindy, and many that were there during the Hiles years and remember this
have told me that Hiles groomed Scott for years because Scott, everybody sort of had an idea Scott was going to end up taking over and seemed like the man for the job.
And so, when Jack Hiles died in 2001, I believe it was only a few months later, and Jack Scott became the pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond. So, so that is Jack Hiles. Now, he dies in 2001, he did stay pastor First Baptist Church for quite a long time.
But let's look at some of his preaching and some of the books that he wrote. Now, okay, so Hiles wrote quite a bit of books. He wrote approximately 50 works in his lifetime,
over 14 million total copies in circulation, including his popular Is There a Hell?, which was based on a sermon that he preached at the Sword of the Lord conference. He had another work, Enemies of Soul Winning,
Hiles' Teachings and Philosophy
and the Blue Denim and Lace book. I have a book here that I'm going to examine some of his teachings that I think are really awful on teaching, on preaching. He had a book,
in the book, Enemies on Soul Winning, Hiles taught that one could not be born again unless the King James Version was used somewhere along the line in that person's life. Wow, okay.
He, so he wrote quite a bit of books. He wrote, and most of the, let me say this, when you talk about Hiles' influence and his bad doctrine, the abuse of theology, the problems with his teaching,
people will say, well, that's just First Baptist Haman, that's just Hiles, but here's the problem. Through pastor school, the students coming out of Hiles Anderson College and his books, okay, all of these problem areas of his teaching was spread. And so a lot of the issues
that you have come from a lot of these things. And so they, this philosophy was, was spread like crazy throughout the IFB world.
I think a lot of the problems with the cover-ups and abuse had to do with a book that he wrote on justice. And then there's also, here's some bad preaching he did. You think about the ideas of
how you just cover up things and allow the preacher or the man of God to keep on serving.
And that, a lot of times, a lot of that has to do to a message that he preached on how to increase God's patience. Tonight, I'm going to speak on the subject how to increase God's patience.
And we're used again. Many folks in the Bible said it over and we're never used again. Now, some people in the Bible committed sins that caused them to forfeit ever being used of God again.
And others in the Bible committed those same sins and were used of God again.
And what was the difference of the people who were used of God after committing a certain sin and the people who were not used of God after committing the same sin? I'm going to tell you in the life of God.
Samson always loved God and wanted to do right and he always gave all he had. I'm saying, listen, Samson was valuable to God. Now, here we go. Samson was so dedicated to God that when he made some stupid mistake,
God said, I need the fellow too much to put him on the shelf. He's doing too much good for one little bad thing to cause him to forfeit his chance to serve me.
Now, I want to say a few words. I want you to get three statements here. I want you to follow me with this, Samson.
statement number one. I mean, if you listen to the statements, you listen to these three statements before you're coming for. Number one, God's degree of patience with you when you stumble is determined by how fast you were running. statement number two.
Your chance and a second chance will depend on what you did with your first chance.
Why didn't God give David a second chance? Because David did a heap with his first chance. Some of the other really bad blasphemous things that he's taught, there's a message that he talked about a helpless God.
What I'm trying to say is this, God is handcuffed and God is paralyzed because God can't, man knows not God's language.
And so God's a knife comes and says, just as you need my mighty power to do my work, I need your power to do my work also. He preaches in one message says that Jesus did not pay it all.
I want to speak tonight on the subject Jesus did not pay it all. I'll ask you not to worry about turning to it again, but I want to just read a line or two for you. who now rejoice in my suffering for you.
Now that's talking about Calvary. And fill up that which is behind or lacking of the afflictions or suffering of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake. Did you hear that? Paul said there's something lacking in the penalty Jesus paid.
Now he said it's my job to make up that. It's my job to finish out the atonement.
It's my job to finish out the vicarious death of Christ. Let me read the verse we didn't read a while ago and add to it one that we did and listen carefully to this one. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake
that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. Get this. so then death worketh in us but life in you.
Paul is saying not only did Jesus die a vicarious death for you but Paul is saying to the church at Corinth and the church at Colossae that he also vicariously died for them.
The title of my sermon is Jesus did not pay it all. We sing Jesus paid it all all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain he washed it white as snow. I'm speaking tonight on the subject Jesus did not pay it all.
and then there's one according to and my theology really is just frustrated by this one that he preached called why don't you forgive God God for this morning I'm going to change the message
and I've got a sneaking suspicion I'm going to preach truth that has never been voiced
exactly like this in the hundred years of our church's history. I'm going to speak this morning on the subject why don't you forgive God why don't you
forgive God you say preacher you mean why doesn't God forgive me no no no I'm speaking on the subject why don't you forgive God but you say brother has
God has never done anything wrong you're exactly right we have a wonderful God he's never done anything wrong but most people think he has and since most people think he has I'm asking you to forgive him
so Jack Hiles was not somebody that had his theology straight he did not preach expositionally
he actually ridiculed expositional preaching I think that he preached over 50 years and there are sermon libraries online that have tons I mean most of his preaching you're talking thousands of sermons and all the sermons you cannot find
one time where Jack Hiles preached through a book of the Bible his theology was terrible his moral character was terrible
his he it was a cult atmosphere there at his church let's talk about his family so he had four kids he had David which we talked about who
David to this day still has not apologized for the abuse that he has he has still not owned up to it and he is still not repented of it but yet now he started a mystery fallen in grace ministries where he tries to
reach out to pastors that have messed up in the ministry and I'm like listen guy you need to get right with God and so that's his son now also you have his daughter Cindy Cindy marries Jack Scott they
become the next royal couple there at First Baptist Church of Hammond and when Jack Scott falls in 2012 he's now in prison and while he's in prison they divorce so Cindy divorces her husband they have another daughter named
Becky and they have a daughter named Linda now this is Linda's testimony about her dad and her family and that church
well I grew up outside of Chicago and my dad pastored actually a wonderful church there that through the years evolved into a 50,000 member cult
it operated and still operates under the guise of an independent fundamental Baptist church church but those who have left the followers who have tried to leave the outsiders even the media it was on 2020 last year recognize that it's clearly a cult
every member was in complete obedience to my father they didn't dare disagree or be disloyal for fear of being publicly ridiculed or punished or banished for doing so they didn't go on a vacation without asking my dad's permission and if he had said to drink the kool-aid I'm not kidding they would have
my dad lived a double life one of righteous family man and dynamic speaker in the public eye
but one of sordid sexual secrets privately secrets that only my siblings and me and my mom knew he hated my mom hated her treated her terribly abused her and even turned his own children against our mother we hated
her he told us she was crazy we thought to make him happy we'd hate her too our home was full of turmoil hatred stress strife and as a little girl it was isolating it was intense and it was frightening
he had affairs he had a mistress for many years the wife of a sunday school teacher built her family a beautiful home right around the corner from our house you could see their family from our back door it was it was craziness living one way preaching another now here is my problem
with first baptist church of hammond today okay that is the legacy and influence of jack hiles when you examine his life you examine biblically what he taught you examine biblically what he preached you examine his morality you examine the way he handled finances maybe one
that'll be something that we cover one time sometime as as proper use financially of a pastor's money you examine the fruit of his family okay is this somebody that we should look back to and honor is this somebody that is worthy of lifting up
i i have serious reservations about lifting up any man
but him there's i i just don't find anything positive to say about the guy and this is where it ends up being and here's the problem and you find the same thing with j frank norris
but look at how many people came to christ so that's what it is that it all comes down to the results the amount of numbers the amount of people that come through that church
and that becomes the preeminent thing that becomes the most important thing and i think that is extremely unbiblical
antithetical i think that is antithetical to the bible to scriptural teaching and i think it needs to be reexamined now here's my problem as i started this off by saying this is my problem with the current state of
Current IFB Leadership and Legacy
first baptist church of hamlet now since scopp left john wilkerson became the new pastor and people many people say things have changed there
prove to me that things have changed by taking down hiles statue prove to me that things have changed by stop lifting up jack hiles okay this guy is not someone that in any shape or fashion needs to be looked at or regarded in the church
okay so this jack hiles memorial that they got set up there that gives me serious reservations because if you are honoring or regarding or lifting up somebody who quite honestly didn't exhibit anything christ-like was extremely disqualified in ministry
and you don't see that or you see that and won't do anything about it that gives me serious reservations about you
jack hiles and legacy still lives on his influence and legacy still lives on i mean it was just you were listening to ifb preacher clips and a couple months ago you have jeff fugit in kentucky honoring john hamblin
by giving them jack hiles ordination certificate like it's some type of piece of historical artifact that is that is worth millions i mean
the man the idol worship of jack hiles is still present with the ifb today his influence is still there
and it really would deserves taking an examination within the ifb of who this guy really is so jack hiles is
not somebody that is a worthwhile character a worthwhile preacher pastor figure personality in the independent fundamental baddest movement for them to rest their hats on and so i'm going to stop right there next time my goal is to
sort of talk about what else was going on within the ifb movement during that time and bring it up to sort of the current landscape of the ifb movement and wrap up the history section of the ifb
in the series that we've been doing in the history of the ifb so thanks you guys so much for listening and if you enjoyed the podcast give it a share on social media and you can find or follow
the podcast on facebook twitter and instagram i'm working on getting a youtube page going working on that and work also i have plans to to spread it across podcast platforms but i appreciate the response thus far and until next time guys to god not the pastor be the glory
you you you you you you you you you you you you you Thank you.
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