June 9th, 2004, One of the Best Days of My Life

June 8th, 2004, approximately 9 pm:

The phone rings that evening at my mom and dad's house, it's my sister, and my mom is wondering why she is calling so late from her home in Lake County, Indiana in the Chicago suburbs. The answer came rather quickly, "Mom, my water broke!".

My sister was 7 months pregnant, and had already had complications with this pregnancy, and had a miscarriage about 2 years before. It so happened that we were already planning to see her, in fact, the old Ford Econoline van that was my grandfather's had already been packed with most everything in it, including baby supplies and baby furniture my mom had been collecting for her.

My mom frantically had us pack what remaining items we needed, and shortly after 10pm, we were on the road. My mom was determined, come hell or high water, that she was going to be there for the birth of her first grand child.

She was so determined, in fact, that she literally floored the gas pedal, and the needle on the speedometer on the old van went up to it's maximum of 85 mph, as the speedometers of many vans and trucks of it's era did, and yet we still kept going faster. What was normally a 6 hour drive from our town in the St. Louis suburbs took only 4 hours.

Early that next morning, as the hours dragged on the hospital waiting room, as TV's were droning on with coverage of President Reagan's death and details of his funeral plans, my oldest niece, "Lilly" was born. She was only 3 pounds, 11 ounces, and short of needing oxygen for only a few hours, and having slight jaundice (which often happens with preemies), she was fine, actually more than fine. At only 5 days old, nurses were baffled at how she kept ending up on the opposite side of her hospital bed in the NICU unit. She was dragging herself by her knees and elbows.

Today, at 10 years old, she is the natural born leader of her two younger siblings, is over half as tall as my sister (which my sister is only 5'2, but still....), and loves animals, including the family's obnoxious Chihuahua, which strangely enough actually listens to her.

Pit Bull Stops Kidnapping Attempt In Indiana

Pit Bulls often get a bad reputation, that I feel is much undeserved, and is mostly caused by humans who should be in a cage, instead of the dogs. There's few dogs that are as loyal to good owners than pit bulls.

The family's Pit Bull

Case in point is a recent incident in Indiana where a pit bull stopped a kidnapping and robbery attempt. An immigrant couple in Indianapolis were going about their daily lives, the husband was at his job, the wife was at home, taking care of their 3 month old baby. Suddenly, a man and woman break through the front door demanding money, with the man holding a gun.

The scared homeowner tells them that she doesn't have any cash, and the man beats her over the head with a gun, while the woman grabs the 3 month old baby

As soon as the pair try to run out the door with the baby, one of the family's dogs, a grey pit bull stops them immediately. Scared by this sudden confrontation, the would be kidnappers give the baby back quickly, and ran out another door.

Read more about this attempted robbery and kidnapping at the website of Indianapolis TV station Wish TV

Exposing the IFB Movement: The Late Jack Hyles and the First Baptist Hammond Complex (part 1)

Author's note: This is the beginning of a series on the Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) movement. For more information about them, read my previous posts Fundamentally Toxic Christianity ( A response to a John Shore article by the same name), and my article about  the guilty plea of Jack Schaap. Also on the topic of fundamentalism is my post Fundamentalism and It's Impact on Children written about blogger Latebloomer's series on her upbringing.

Statements made or facts given about the IFB that do not reference a source come from my own personal experience with the IFB movement or the experiences of my family, especially my sister who was part of the IFB culture until about 3 years ago. In this series, I will talk about the ministers, institutions and churches that make up the IFB movement. I will talk about IFB ministers that are no longer living, such as in this post on Jack Hyles, because the IFB movement has high reverence for the leaders of the past, not only their lives and works, but also for their teachings.



To the casual observer of First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, it would appear that the late Jack
Hyles was the founder of the church, that's at least how it seems from hearing church members talk about him, which they often can't stop doing. When I used to visit the church with my sister as a teen, not an hour would go by without someone giving a glowing review of his time as pastor. He did not start the church, but he led it from 1959 until his death in 2001. He took the church from 700 members to over 20,000, most of the converts are the result of a massive bus ministry that still runs from Hammond to a 50 mile radius around going into Northwest Indiana, Chicago/Cook County, and even as far as Joilet, Illinois. Constant proselytizing is also done, which they refer to as "soul winning".

The church is it's own neighborhood in Hammond, covering several blocks with an English speaking sanctuary, Spanish sanctuary, a deaf congregation, a book store, several large Sunday School buildings, and even a parking garage on the premises. There is also a system of schools that teach children from kindergarten to 12th grade, as well as their own college, Hyles-Anderson College, which my sister and her husband graduated from.

FBC Hammond is the unofficial headquarters for a major branch of the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement. The IFB is not a denomination in the traditional sense with a formal board or elected convention presiding, each congregation is in theory independent, hence the reason for the name, which is why I refer to it as a movement instead of a denomination. IFB churches instead are more of a loose network, drawing their inspiration from a main church or institution in their region. This headquarters church, which FBC Hammond is one of them, often host conferences such as women's conference, pastor's conferences, which are attended by members of affiliated churches. I will be writing about other IFB churches and institutions that act as headquarters and inspiration for other IFB branches, such as Bob Jones University, etc in future posts.

It's almost hard to figure out where to start when it comes to the problems of the IFB movement, and FBC Hammond in particular, but there are many. Rampant in the IFB movement are the treatment of women as second class citizens, harsh "discipline" both psychological and  physical of children, sexual abuse by ministers, and hypocrisy of leadership.

The Jack Hyles family and FBC Hammond are no strangers to scandal and cases of abuse. Jack Hyles daughter, Linda Hyles Murphey has recently come out about her upbringing, and escape from the IFB movement. In her now well known speech at this year's TED conference, she opens up about how her famous father had a long standing affair with the wife of a popular Sunday School teacher and neighbor all during her childhood and teen years.. It gets worse, this article, Isolated Incidents, lists all the more notorious staff members of FBC Hammond, graduates of Hyles-Anderson, and even Jack Hyles son, David. The list includes David Hyles, Jack's son who took the 5th when local authorities tried to force him to testify about the death of his stepson, and A.V Bollinger, a deacon who has convicted of child molestation, then after his conviction was honored from the pulpit and given a standing ovation for his work with bus ministry. That's right, he was honored after his conviction, not before. Apparently the fact that he molested young boys from the church doesn't matter to them, what does is that he was successful in bringing more people in the congregation. More recently, Jack Hyle's son in law, Jack Schaap, pleaded guilty to federal sexual abuse charges because he molested a 16 year old follower who had come to him for counseling for previous sexual abuse.

(Continued in part 2)