Would You Want This Guy As Your Pastor?

Zack —  February 5, 2013 — 10 Comments

Matthew Paul Turner and Stuff Fundies Like both posted this video from First Baptist Church in Hammond, IN.

The same church that was home to Jack Schaap who, before he was arrested for having sex with a teenager girl at his church, also spewed all kinds of bile from the pulpit.

I’m not sure which bothers me more: pastors like this or the fact that they have congregations that continue to support their incredibly un-Christian vitriol.

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Zack

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  • http://markcaudill.me/ Mark

    What a tool! I do wonder sometimes if stuff like this makes people think everyone in the Church is like this. But then I think that the bigger danger is us being so afraid to throw stones in our glass house that we allow people like this to continue to suck the life from the Church and I feel ok about it again.

  • http://www.facebook.com/chance.snyder.90 Chance Snyder

    “Love you.”

    Did he really…is….was that a joke of some sort?

    Uhg.

  • danallison

    He’s NOT preaching, he’s hate-mongering!

  • Josh Wren

    I….. just don’t know what to say?

  • http://www.braintarts.wordpress.com/ MichaelL65

    Really? I would think that with all the problems at that church, a guy talking during this idiot’s sermon would be the least of their worries. Maybe Jack Schaap should have spent more time at that altar rather than polishing his shaft, so to speak?

  • Sharon

    Wow. “Love you.” Really?

  • Karen

    Hammond’s is way scarier than Westboro Baptist’s nonsense, because there are so many souls being indoctrinated there with this mind-screwing stuff! This sort of thing comes straight from the pit of hell. Makes me so sad.

  • http://www.facebook.com/LukeLukenoff Luke Lukenoff

    As a member of FBC Hammond for over 25 years and someone who was in this service when this person was rebuked go talking I hope I can add some insight.
    First of all we are learning that we are not above criticism. God has and is humbling us in many ways. Please pray for us and for our new Pastor John Wilkerson. Larry Smith is not the pastor but one of many of our members who is filling the pulpit in the interim.
    With over a thousand people in the service talking can become a big problem. The section Bro Smith was directing his rebuke to is one of our teenage  sections. Over a hundred teens in this area can sometimes get a little rowdy. While he directed his remarks to an individual no one in the church could tell who that individual was unless they were in close enough proximity to be disturbed by the talking. I was there and could not tell who the offender was.
    Later in the service Bro Smith spoke more gently to the talker, To take 1:03 minutes out of service and use it to characterize the entire church is unfair. That so many find the characterization accurate again humbles us and reveals how we have failed to display Christ love and grace to the world.
    Please pray for us that God would correct us through his grace, that God would heal the many wounded hearts and spirits in our church.
    Remember also that whatever you may think of our former Pastor, he has a wife and children who have also been hurt by his actions.
    I hope none of you will ever have to experience the hurt and loss our people have experienced. I also hope that if you do you will find comfort in the prayers of faithful Christians.

    • Karen

      Luke, thanks for this irenic response and your perspective. It is a reminder that there are many decent people caught up in what I would regretfully have to characterize as sub-Christian expressions of the Christian faith and I commend you for the attitude expressed in your comment.

      I attended a service at Hammond when I was a college student when Jack Hyles was the pastor, and he was preaching. I sat through that entire service, and I have to say it left me with the same impression this short snippet did. The whole message was a moralistic diatribe based on taking a Scripture completely out of context. During the sermon, Hyles was deadly serious and it was clear from his general demeanor and attitude that he would brook no nonsense from his audience and you could expect to be singled out and publicly humiliated if you happened to break that rule. That atmosphere changed completely (to one of total flippancy and irreverence) when it came time for performing some baptisms at the end of the service. Hyles joked around with the elders in a way that was quite disrespectful of the holy nature of baptism as well as of the solemn decision of those about to undergo it.

      Although this video clip is 1:03 minutes and is from a member of the church (elder?) and not the pastor, I still think it speaks volumes about the nature of the spirituality and faith that is being taught in your church (and within American Fundamentalist circles in general). I have no difficulty in principle with a speaker asking someone to stop talking (or seeking to interrupt some other distracting behavior in the audience) during his sermon. There are many appropriately polite (even if direct) ways to do this. But, no, Smith hollers in an angry tone at the kid in front of the whole congregation, uses mean-spirited guilt manipulation in what he says, and then has the gall to force that tight little fake smile (twice) and quip, “Love you.” I’m sorry, but this is NOT love! No one except those drinking the First Baptist Hammond Koolaid would believe otherwise. I would advise anyone considering attending your church to run the other direction for the salvation of their souls. I would have done that even if there had never been a scandal such as occurred with Jack Schaap–those things can happen even in churches that are much more consistent with the historic Christian understanding and practice of the gospel than American Fundamentalist churches like Hammond, because people everywhere are sinners. I will indeed pray for those involved and affected by both the Schaap scandal and by that which, while not scandalous to many of your membership, perhaps ought to be as it does not reflect the true grace of the gospel revealed in the face of Christ, which your church is claiming to preach. I’m sorry to be so uncompromising in expressing this opinion, but it is the result of having seen so many people injured in their capacity to recognize grace and receive the love of Christ for healing in their lives as a result of this kind of graceless example of Christianity. This is not the gospel–it is performance-based religion at its worst masquerading as Christianity.

  • James

    I find it far more upsetting that this guy believes that talking about a failed cheese salesman constitutes preaching!!!