Jack Hyles

Jack Hyles
Born	Jack Frasure Hyles (1926-09-25)September 25, 1926 Italy, Texas
Died	February 6, 2001(2001-02-06) (aged 74)
Nationality	USA
Alma mater	East Texas Baptist University Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Occupation	Pastor
Predecessor	Owen L. Miller
Successor	Jack Schaap
Spouse	Beverly Hyles

Jack Frasure Hyles (September 25, 1926 – February 6, 2001) was a leading figure in the Independent Baptist movement, having pastored the First Baptist Church of Hammond in Hammond, Indiana, from 1959 until his death. He was also well-known for being an innovator of the church bus ministry that brought thousands of people each week from surrounding towns to Hammond for services. Jack Hyles built First Baptist up from fewer than a thousand members to a membership of 100,000. In 1993 and again in 1994, it was reported that 20,000 people attended First Baptist every Sunday, making it the most attended Baptist church in the United States In 2001, at the time of Hyles death, 20,000 people were attending church services and Sunday school each week. He was accused of several controversies while pastoring the church, and his doctrinal positions often put him at odds with other Christians — even with other fundamentalist Baptists.

History

His early life and beginnings of his ministry

Hyles was born and raised in Italy, Texas, a low income area in Ellis County south of Dallas. Hyles often described his less-than-ideal upbringing which, he said, included a distant father. At the age of eighteen, Hyles enlisted in the United States Army and served as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division during World War II. He and his wife, Beverly, were married during the war.

After the war was over, Hyles completed his college education at East Texas Baptist University (then College) in Marshall, the seat of Harrison County. After his graduation from East Texas, Hyles started preaching at several small Texas churches, whose memberships began to grow. These churches included: Marris Chapel Baptist Church, Bogata, Texas; Grange Hall Baptist Church, Marshall, Texas; and Southside Baptist Church, Henderson, Texas. After receiving his education Hyles pastored at the Miller Road Baptist Church in Garland in Dallas County for about six years. During this time the congregation grew from 44 to 4,000 members. It was during those days that Hyles left the Southern Baptist Convention and became an independent Baptist. Hyles then led Miller Road Baptist Church as an independent preacher for a while.

The move to Hammond, Indiana

In 1959, Hyles moved to the church provided parsonage at 8232 Greenwood ave. Munster, IN and became the pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond. When he arrived, the church had a membership of about seven hundred, said to be mostly "high-society types." About a third of the members left the church after hearing Hyles preaching style, which was much different than that to which they had been accustomed. Hyles then led the church to its status as an independent Baptist church—freeing it from its ties with the American Baptists. Hyles started his bus ministry and soon shepherded the church from a congregation of several hundred to more than 20,000. In the early 1990s a national survey ranked First Baptist as the largest church in the nation, by average weekly attendance figures.

Beginning in 1969, and continuing for several years, First Baptist received recognition for the size of its Sunday School. In 1969, Dr. Elmer Towns wrote a book called The Ten Largest Sunday Schools and What Makes Them Grow which analyzed First Baptist's Sunday School. Towns presented a plaque to Jack Hyles in 1971, naming First Baptist Church of Hammond the nation’s largest Sunday school. In 1972, and for several years following, Christian Life Magazine proclaimed First Baptist Church of Hammond to have "the world's largest Sunday School".

In 1972, Jack Hyles and Russell Anderson founded Hyles-Anderson College, an unaccredited bible college, to specialize in training Baptist ministers and Christian school teachers. Hyles-Anderson College never sought accreditation because Hyles insisted school accreditation would undermine his ability to control how the college ought to run.

The ministry of Hyles

One of the most notable aspects of Hyles is his church bus ministry that he helped innovate. As early as 1975, Time magazine described the phenomenon in an article titled, "Superchurch." The Time article notes that 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, thanks to a boisterous contest between two bus route teams. In that year, the First Baptist bus route ministry consisted of 1,000 workers using 230 buses to ferry as many as 10,000 people every Sunday. In 2001, a fleet of over 200 buses was regularly ferrying 7,000 to 15,000 people from all over the area.

Hyles spoke at 'The Sword of the Lord' conferences with John R. Rice and his own annual "Pastors School". The school continues to attract as many as seven thousand annual visitors to the Hammond area.

Hyles wrote approximately fifty works in his lifetime with over 14 million total copies in circulation, including the popular Is There A Hell?, based on a sermon he preached at a National Sword of the Lord Conference. Another work, Enemies of Soul Winning tackled many issues considered controversial in fundamentalist and evangelical circles, which include the doctrine of repentance, Lordship salvation, and the role of the church in soul winning. The Calvary Contender wrote, "Hyles will be remembered as a one-of-a-kind, ever controversial leader whose ministry touched the lives of multitudes."

Jack Hyles was better known as "Brother Hyles" to his tens of thousands of congregants.

Hyles often held nationwide speaking engagements. In 1984, for instance, he addressed a large gathering in the small city of Snyder, Texas, the seat of Scurry County, hosted by pastor Luther Wallace "Buck" Hatfield (1929–1995) of Faith Baptist Church. Independent Baptists from throughout the area, such as Ross J. Spencer from Bethany Baptist Church in Lubbock, organized bus trips to the convention hall in Snyder. Hatfield and Spencer also adapted the bus ministry approach for their congregations.

In his book, Enemies of Soulwinning, Jack Hyles taught that one could not be born again unless the King James Version was used somewhere along the line in that person's life.

Honors, award, and praise

In contrast to the criticism, Hyles has been the recipient of praise, an honorary doctorate, and other accolades throughout the course of his life, even continuing past his death. The Washington Post compared the "meek" preaching style of Jerry Falwell to the "spit and fire" of Jack Hyles. The Post suggested that after you heard a preacher like Hyles, "you knew that you'd been preached to". Falwell said that "Hyles will be remembered as a leader in evangelism through the local church." Falwell also said, "He inspired me as a young pastor to win others to Christ through Sunday school, the pulpit, and personal witnessing. He made a great contribution to the calls of Christ".

Hyles received an honorary doctorate from Midwestern Baptist College, an unaccredited Bible college in Pontiac, Michigan. Students in unaccredited Bible colleges retain credentials only for use within the churches of the denomination.

In 2001, Hyles' church bought his childhood home and shipped it from Texas to Hyles-Anderson College to build a museum. Ray Young, a close friend of Hyles, said, "We have five thousand to seven thousand independent Baptists who come here each year for conventions. Reverend Hyles was very much adored by independent Baptists across the country. It should be a major attraction for them."

The Chicago Sun Times wrote about Hyles on the occasion of his death, "When he chose the interests of poor, inner-city kids over millionaire church members, they said he'd never keep the doors of his church open." However, Hyles "proved them all wrong. In the process he built one of the largest congregations in the country, a college, six schools, and a vibrant ministry that will now have to survive without him."

Matthew Barnett, while discussing his work at an inner-city Los Angeles ministry, explained how he learned from Jack Hyles. Barnett also expounded on how Hyles was a tremendous soulwinner and how Hyles had great influence throughout the entire Chicago area.

Hyles was honored by his church with a huge portrait of Hyles and his widow, Beverly, dominating the skyline of the town. He is also honored in Founder's Park at his college, where they laid 30,000 bricks as flooring for life-sized statues of Hyles and his widow.

Controversies

In 1989, the paper The Biblical Evangelist published a story "The Saddest Story We Ever Published", accusing Jack Hyles of sexual scandals, financial misappropriation and doctrinal errors. These charges were denied by Hyles who deemed them "lies".

In October 1997, an Indianapolis lawyer filed a lawsuit against First Baptist Church of Hammond, accusing the church and its pastor of allowing a mentally retarded woman to be sexually assaulted for six years. The civil suit filed in Lake Superior Court in Gary claims the Chicago woman was "induced by agents" of the church in 1991 to ride a bus to attend Sunday school at First Baptist. While in the care of the church, the lawsuit alleges, the woman was sexually assaulted, molested, battered and raped more than once through the Fall of 1996.

For that reason, lawyer Vernon Petri said, the church and its pastor, the Rev. Jack Hyles, have been named as defendants in the suit. "Both failed in their duty to protect her," Petri said. Hyles called the accusations ridiculous. "There's nobody in this world who is more opposed to this sexual molestation nor anything like that," he said. "We even preach against divorce. We are totally opposed to sexual sin. There is nothing more obnoxious and abhorrent than that." Petri, who is a party in the suit filed on behalf of the woman, now 42, and her sister, alleged in the lawsuit a pattern of 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. The parents were never told, Petri said, so the woman kept going to church, where the suit claims she was threatened into silence.

"The thing that broke the camel's back came in the fall of 1996 when (the woman) developed a horrible infection and was taken to a doctor to find out what was wrong," Petri said. "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 happened, Petri said, recalling that a church program instructor led her to a room and served as a lookout while two to three males raped her. Hyles said he would have been the first one to want someone punished for such an act. Hyles said the church told police about the teacher's report in 1991. "We reported it immediately," he said. “And that's the only case we know of. In fact, our records show the girl has not attended our church since that occasion." Hyles said accurate records are kept of attendance. "For them to bring this up, when our records show no attendance since 1991, is a total shock to me," he said. Anthony Mancini, a Chicago lawyer who also represents the woman, said his client has been in a type of shock. "She has suffered an incredible amount of emotional harm and physical pain over this," he said. "This was her life, this was her church. This was her place of worship, and she was violated by it."

Mancini said he knows of no arrests in connection with the woman's case in 1991 or in 1996, as a request to review files will be granted only with a subpoena. "Now that we have filed suit, we will seek out the records to open up the case and learn more about what happened."

Works by Hyles

Books

• Seeing Him Who Is Invisible -- Sword of the Lord Publications (1960) ISBN 0-87398-754-3
• How to Boost Your Church Attendance -- Zondervan (January 1, 1961)
• Let's Build an Evangelistic Church -- Sword of the Lord Publications (1962) ISBN 0-87398-502-8
• Kisses of Calvary and Other Sermons -- Sword of the Lord Pub (1965) ISBN 0-87398-479-X
• Let's Hear Jack Hyles (Burning Messages for the Saved and Unsaved) -- Sword of the Lord Publications (1972) ISBN 0-87398-504-4
• Hyles Church Manual -- Sword of the Lord Publications (November 1982) ISBN 0-87398-372-6
• Church Bus Handbook -- Hyles-Anderson Publications (1970)
• How to Rear Children -- Hyles-Anderson Publications (January 1, 1972) 193 pgs.
• How to Rear Infants -- Hyles-Anderson Publications (January 1, 1979) 143 pgs.
• How to Rear Teenagers -- Revival Fires! Publishers (January 1, 1998) 155 pgs.
• Blue Denim and Lace -- Hyles-Anderson Publications (1972)
• Let's Go Soul Winning -- Sword of the Lord Publications (January 1980) ISBN 0-87398-503-6
• Hyles Sunday School Manual -- Sword of the Lord Publications (November 1982) ISBN 0-87398-391-2
• The Blood, the Book and the Body -- Hyles-Anderson Publications (1992)
• Enemies of Soul Winning -- Hyles-Anderson Publications (1993) 148 pgs.
• Please Pardon My Poetry -- Hyles-Anderson Publications (January 1, 1976) 123 pgs.
• Logic Must Prove the King James Bible. -- Hyles-Anderson Publications
• Is There A Hell? -- Hyles-Anderson Publications
• Jack Hyles Speaks on Biblical Separation -- Hyles-Anderson Publications (1984) 112 pgs.
• Salvation is more than Being Saved -- Hyles-Anderson Publications (1985) 150 pgs.
• Teaching on Preaching -- Hyles-Anderson Publications (1986) 153 pgs.
• Grace and Truth -- Hyles-Anderson Publications (January 1, 1975) 222 pgs.
• The Miracle of the Bus Ministry -- Ray Young Publications (1996)
• Fundamentalism in My Lifetime -- Hyles Publications (2002) ISBN 0-9709488-4-0
• What Great Men Taught Me -- Berean Publications (2000)
• Truman Dollar, Jerry Falwell, A.V. Henderson, & Jack Hyles Building Blocks of the Faith (Foundational Bible Doctrines, Special Faith Partner Edition) -- Fundamentalist Church Publications (1977) ISBN 0-89663-006-4

Other

• Introduction to the Dino J. Pedrone book What is It All About? Sword of the Lord Publications (2000) ISBN 0-87398-932-5
• Introduction to the Beverly Hyles book Woman, the Assembler (Making Your Husband a Leader) Hyles Publications (1995)

External links

Hyles Ministry

• The Jack Hyles Home Page – Books, sermons, & links
• Hyles Publications – A publisher of books and bibles including many by Jack Hyles