The First Baptist Church of Hammond has dismissed Jack Schaap as its pastor in the wake of a Lake County police investigation.

The Jacks were both false teachers whose personalities and proclamations brought shame to the cause of Christ. My heart breaks for the families involved and for the deluded souls who followed the Jacks. I have always wished that the leaders of fundamentalism had rebuked the Jacks with the zeal with which they attacked new evangelicalism.

For those interested. PDF from the Ch’s website. I presume it won’t be there long so posting as PDF

Updated

A source close to the investigation said Schaap began an affair in April with a 16-year-old girl who was affiliated with the church’s Hyles-Anderson College in Crown Point, though she was not a student.

News like this just adds to the weight of sadness already in my heart over everything related to First Baptist Hammond and Hyles Anderson. I have family in that church and in that school. It breaks my heart that their lives are so dominated by this culture. It has provoked such bitterness and grief, for which of course the individuals hold their own responsibility, but was so horribly magnified by sinful leadership and willful ignorance.

Our human hearts are so corruptible. We are so prone to pride, to haughtiness and a sense of entitlement in holding the truth. There are real reasons unbelievers reject the exclusivity of the gospel. We have to be so careful in how we handle the truths we’ve been granted the privilege of declaring.

Let me try again…”I have not ever been, nor am I now, nor will I probably ever be…”

[Jim]

Pastor Wes Helfenbein has a unique opportunity (being in that community) to:

• Provide genuine Bible expository preaching
• Humble shepherding
• And mutual accountability w a congregation

We should be praying for him. Perhaps 50 or so wise ones will migrate over his way and be blessed and be a blessing

Jim,

Thanks for your prayers. I am currently in the middle of preaching through a series in Nehemiah, and am considering if I should take a departure from my series this Sunday and address the issue from a Biblical viewpoint.

I do not usually depart from my series to address issues, and would welcome anyone’s feedback on the wisdom of doing so. I do know that we have many in our congregation that have come out the FBCH mentality, with many having friends and/or family that still attend FBCH…so I know most of my congregation will be aware of/desiring some sort of answer to this situation.

As far as people migrating my way….I do believe that FBCH/HAC’s great focus on the superficial, focus on man-centered salvation, and over-emphasis of the KJV are all issues that all would find lacking at our church. We strive to simply preach the Word, in an expository fashion, giving God the glory.

If there are those seeking a more Biblical, well-rounded, and spiritually vibrate approach, we would welcome them; however, I do not wish to grow my ministry on the back of another’s crisis.

SNIP would welcome anyone’s feedback on the wisdom of doing so. SNIP

I suggest you stay the course on Nehemiah.

There’s a message there about being “Word-focussed” instead of current events.

And face it …. the events are depressing … sickening …. embarrassing

By the time people have arrived at church this Sunday they will have heard enough about Jack Schaap from the news, their neighbors and co-workers

My measly two cents…say something about it, but don’t give the message to it. More details will emerge later.

But there would be nothing wrong with making the situation a matter of a brief announcement and public prayer. As others have said, more will come out later, I wouldn’t want to say too much for fear of basing remarks on false reports. The media almost always gets details wrong on the first go-round of a story.

MARK KIESLING: 50 shades of Jack Schaap, and none of them gray

• Per Lake County Sheriff John Buncich: the FBI also has been brought into the picture
• Sources close to the investigation say the girl was taken to Illinois and Michigan for Schaap’s interludes
• The girl in question was 16 when the alleged affair began in April, said a source, and was affiliated with the church’s Hyles-Anderson College near Schererville although not a student
• “If this had been a 38-year-old woman, we would not even be having this conversation,” said a detective involved in the investigation. “That would be between him and his wife. But this is a criminal case.”

And the commentator makes a good point here:

Without commenting on the guilt or innocence of Jack Schaap, this begs the question, does it not: Would this have been his first such sin?

I mean, when a church boasts of having the world’s largest Sunday school and when it operates a nationally known college, does this not provide a host of potential victims?

Many have tried for years to expose the truth of what has been going on in First Baptist of Hammond, IN and Hyles Anderson College. I appreciated this quote from above “it is also a time for rejoicing when a wolf gets his sheep suit removed good and proper. “

Though we should not gloat, we need to boldly expose the false teaching that has been prevalent in that ministry for decades. Thousands attend that church and many attend that college and then are sent out to INFECT unsuspecting churches with their bad doctrine.

It goes far beyond that though. Many of the preachers who are trained in this college have learned to behave just like Jack Hyles. Those who worship Hyles think that is a good thing but it is not. Romans 16:17 says, “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.” The following link does a good job of marking Hyles:
http://www.biblicalevangelist.org/jack_hyles_chapter3.php

The article is quite long so let me just give a few excerpts:

Hyles says that adultery is not a sin, just a “mistake.” One of the evangelists who counts First Baptist as his home church called me all upset following that remark, wondering if it was laying the groundwork for his son Dave to rejoin the ministry there. Whatever it was or wasn’t, the idea is inane.

In his sermon, “The Good Man Versus the Spiritual Man,” preached on Sunday night, December 20, 1987, he said David was a spiritual man even when he committed the sin of adultery with Bathsheba and followed with the murder of Uriah. He went onto say that the difference between someone who has committed adultery and one who has not is that the latter has the sin of adultery “in remission.”

If that is what people including his son-in law learned from Jack Hyles, then these things should not surprise us. (this is just the tip of iceberg of the problems with Hyles behavior and teaching) My wife was in a church that worshipped Hyles until she was about 10 years old. The pastor idolized Hyles and he learned well. He had to leave because of adultery (as a little girl my wife actually witnessed the pastor passionately kissing another woman who was not his wife). Further, my wife’s dad was the church treasure and the pastor would just take money from the offering plate whenever he wanted to (fortunately they saw the light and left). I wish this was an isolated instance of the fruit of Hyles Anderson, but it is not (that doesn’t mean all Hyles Anderson guys are like that though). When you consider what was taught and modeled, by Hyles, many of these men learned to be much like him.

What saddens me is the impact Hyles has had on fundamentalism. He kept claiming he was saving fundamentalism, but I fear he may have destroyed it from within. Those of us who are fundmentalists who are nothing like Hyles need to not only distance ourselves from that movement, but we must expose it as the cult it is. There is nothing truly fundamental about a movement that sets aside the Bible for the teachings of man. It is very telling that Jack Hyles did not see a need for teaching hermeneutics to his students. A student that is able to rightly divide the word of God is more equipped to expose false teachers.

The article above is quite long, but it lays out many reasons why numerous fundamentalist have not wanted to have anything to do with the Hyles movement. It deals with both ungodly behavior and doctrine error.

I want to be careful not to spread rumors, but there is clear difference between gossip and warning of danger. Please read the article “When to Be a Tattletale” that I wrote last week before this story ever even broke. You can find it here:

http://bancroftbaptist.blogspot.com/

Fundamentalism is first and foremost a doctrinal position and then a movement. A large segment of Fundamentalism has become doctrinally weak, aberrant, and in some cases heretical. FBCH/HAC is the poster child for that kind of Fundamentalism. Hyles and Schaap are one of a kind. Biblical Fundamentalists must practice biblical separation from ministries such FBCH and HAC. It saddened me to see men like Jim Binney, Frank Garlock, Ron Hamilton join hands with Hammond in recent years. Since I am personal friends with one of those men, I called him personally and warned him not to do so. He thanked me and took the admonishment well. It was wrong for representatives from the FBFI to speak on the same platform with Schaap two years ago. Specific warnings about that were given as well and to the credit of those leaders they humbly acknowledged their mistake and did not repeat it. People like Schaap, Hyles, and their ilk have so dumbed down or misrepresented the gospel, the doctrine of inspiration and preservation, biblical preaching, and true godliness that their example has led to heterodoxy and heteropraxy in other ministries. The amazing thing is that some well-trained fundamentalists do not always recognize or acknowledge the heterodoxy. About twelve years ago I addressed this specific issue at the FBFI national meeting in my Wednesday night message, “The Supremacy of the Lordship of Christ in the Gospel”. My opening statement in that sermon was, “Fundamentalism is not sure what the Gospel is, nor is it sure what the Bible is, other than that we are in great shape!” I also said that “Fundamentalism is bleeding on these issues … Let it bleed”.

I recall a sermon preached by J. Mac after the public demise of Jimmy Swaggert. Mac said, “The tragedy of Jimmy Swaggert was not his fall into immorality, the tragedy is that he had developed an aberrant theology that made him think he could live that way.” I have never forgotten that statement. Though no movement or man is exempt from moral failure, our theology does affect the way we live.

One of the things I noticed when reading the various articles linked about this, is that there are many references to Hyles’ and Schaap’s many ‘accomplishments’. All I could think of was “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?” Yowzers.

Run screaming when 1) touted ‘successes’ do not fit Biblical descriptions of spiritual fruit 2) God is seldom if ever given the glory for the good that happens.

Pastor Wes,

Thank you for exactly expressing my thoughts concerning the initial tone of this thread. We should never seem to gloat when a professor of Christ falls into sin. The injury done to the name of Christ, especially in your area, should make us weep.