Poetry

Jack Hyles Shoes

140 Comments

I was born in a lowly stable
just a little spotted calf,
I sensed my life would not be long,
I’d never grow to play and laugh.

My mother was an older cow
Who provided milk and cream
But as a male I was born to die
Long life was just a dream.

But still there was some hope for me
That I could do some good
I’’d heard about this royal chair
That started as some wood.

Perhaps my hide could be used to wrap
This man’s Scofield KJV
I’’d be the sword in the hands
Of fundamentalist royalty

Or maybe I’’d be the belt of truth
Wrapped ’round the God man’s waist
I’d hold him up as he preached the Word
and save dear souls with haste.

He’d pull me off for another use
When his children needed spanked
The rod of correction I could be
And later I’d be thanked

I have an even higher dream
If I could be so bold
Could I just be a leather coat
To shelter him from cold.

It’s really just a small request
It could hardly be deemed wrong
To be the garment that is touched
By the many admiring throngs

What’s this I hear you have in store
What is this fate I’ll meet?
I’m going to be a pair of shoes?
You’re going to put me on his feet?

Stacy Adams? Who are they?
Designers of men’s clothes?
How I wish I could just be a coat,
Rather than cover his toes.

Oh please, dear Lord, why must I be
given a fate so bleak
To have to endure smelly socks
seven days a week

But then I heard the Lord’s reply
and I want the world to know
That while the coat would keep him warm
His shoes would make him go.

The miles he trod to seek the lost
he made through snow and rain
and I protected him from the cold
and kept him out of pain.

I walked with him for many miles
I caught his many tears
I also felt his laughs and smiles
As he wore me through the years.

Now I see God’s bigger plan
that He had in store for me
Of all the things God could have done
I became part of history.

I never preached a sermon
I never read the Word
But I was there for every step
As he made God’s voice heard.

Just a humble little calf
born in a stable filled with hay,
What have I done in my life you ask?
This is what I say:

I provided soles that saved some souls
and filled some empty pews;
Without a voice I preached the word
For I became Jack Hyles’ shoes.

~~Attributed to “Pat”

140 thoughts on “Jack Hyles Shoes”

        1. My state of Va was founded in 1607 four years before the KJV was translated. How’s that for old school?! 😛

          It’s gonna be a b-E-A-U-tiful fall day today. I love this time of year too. The weather is cooler here and the humidity is gone.

      2. Alright, enough horseing around. Oh no wait…..

        Don’t let him get your goat. No, that’s not it….

        Quit hogging all the comments. Nope…..

        I give up. 😀

    2. Pat missed the part about the calf being used for beef ribs, ribeyes, T-bones, Tenderloin steaks, Sirloin steaks, Prime Rib, Filet Minion, roast beef, stew beef and other such goodies to nourish the M-O-g along the way as well.

      2. I started to add that the bovine in question had a steak in the ministry, but decided to just throw in the rare comment. I didn’t want the puns overdone.

        2. He was grilled about the “secret” door but the sheep udderly believed him so he was able to continue milking his position for all it was worth.

  5. Her hair looks like something from the 50s or 60s. I guess that would be in keeping with how they view that era as something to be loved.

    Overall, I don’t think that statue is very flattering for her. Did he hate her or something?

    Question, is she still alive?

    1. Yes, she is still alive. She moved back to Texas when her husband died. Although I agree that her hair is outdated and that statue is hideous, she did her hair that way for so long, I can’t imagine her looking any different. I guess that’s how the IFB does “timeless”.

  6. Seems to me there could be another verse added that goes something like this:

    Even though my place was on the floor
    With Jack in his office as he paced around
    From there I could see the secret door
    That for some reason no one ever found

    1. That poor tree that became “THE DOOR” only gets a elegy, not an ode. Poor guy.

      Didn’t Shania Twain already sing about his footwear?

    2. I keep seeing mentions to this “secret door” in these comments, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard this story before. Hyles had a secret door in his office or something?

      1. As is customary in many offices, there were two doors; one that went into the hall, and one that led into the adjoining office (usually where a secretary sits).

        Jack Hyles was accused of having an affair with a married, woman, Mrs. Jennie Nischick, who had the adjoining office; she was not his secretary, but handled tape orders for him.

        Anyway, as part of the denial of the charge, he denied that the door existed (which was kind of stupid, as so many people had seen/used the door). It was kind of hidden by curtains at one point in time.

        Anyway, the above is what gave rise to the comments about doors and/or secret doors.

  8. This poem is truly something. It really made me smile. For some reason, this poem made me think of “Others” by Jack Hyles. That poem really resonated with me when I heard it at the bunker.

  10. Please please please please tell me that poem was written as a joke….. by Darrell….please…..

    1. I’m thinking it’s a parody of Jack Schaap’s doggerel about Jack Hyle’s chair (alluded to in the third stanza of the shoe verses). I would Google that one for comparison, except I just ate.

    3. That’s what I was going to say. The poor calf knows he’s going to be slaughtered not just for his hide. but for this particular MOG’s use, and he’s persuaded himself to be happy about this? Can we say “ultimate masochist”, boys and girls? I knew you could. 😛
      I mean, wanting to become a belt for Hyles to whip his kids with? Is this serious? 😯
      And anyway the poor critter’s doomed because Real True Xians know that ANIMALS DON’T HAVE SOULS AND THEREFORE CAN’T EVER GO TO HEAVEN! 👿 Not even this innocent little calf waiting to be made into a pair of shoes for a preacher. 😥

    4. For some reason, I think I’ve seen this one elsewhere. What’s “great” about it is the MOG’s name is interchangeable. 😀

  13. They piled it up high and deep, put a suit on it, gave it a pair of leather shoes, put a Black, calfskin leather, 1611 KJV in it’s hands and set it loose in Indiana to build it’s kingdim. Later another just like it, only worse, came along to polish it up and in the process lost the kingdim altogether.

    1. Like all the other humans in that picture, he’s biting his lips to keep from laughing out loud at the statue.

  15. Out there in the Georgia cotton fields
    All baking in the sun
    Thousands of plants were growing
    But God chose a special one

    One fine day the farmer came
    The plant was picked and stripped
    The plant would never be the same
    After its buds were snipped

    From the plant there came a weave
    and a handkerchief so fine
    Jack Hyles his house would never leave
    Without his hanky so divine

    Jack Hyles has been gone,
    lo these many years
    The hanky misses him
    His boogers and his tears

    Sadly for our story
    The hanky lay uncared for
    unused, neglected, forgotten
    On the closet floor

    I will tell you of the hanky’s new job
    As I finish out this ode
    Schaap wraps it around his head
    while his chain-gang cleans the road

    1. Love it, but you should change the verse about the chain gang so it indicates that they will be polishing the shaft

    4. “Out there in the Georgia cotton fields
      All baking in the sun
      Thousands of plants were growing
      But God chose a special one”

      Ya got to love those special ones!” 😀

    5. “One fine day the farmer came
      The plant was picked and stripped
      The plant would never be the same
      After its buds were snipped”

      Poor lil plant, Aow.

      *sniff, sniff, sniff*

  16. Is it just me? Look at the reflection in the marble at the base to the left of the statue. Where is that reflection coming from? It doesn’t look like anyone is standing close enough to have that angle of reflection on the Marble. The reflection looks larger than the nearest person in the photo. Weird!

    5. That’s one of the oddest Optical illusions I have seen in a while. The angles just don’t seem to add up for it to be the crowd in the background. Maybe it is but the reflection looks nearer than the crowd in the background as well. Maybe it’s the ghost of Hyles making an appearance? 🙄

    6. Well I definitely believe that demons are able to pull off such a feat. I’ve seen photos with similar anomalies. Once my friend took a photo of her television and there was a woman’s reflection in it. She looked like she was from the 70’s but the tv was clearly off in the photo. It was on film not digital and she was shocked when it came back. She’d been having the strangest things happen in her apartment. I’ve also heard that demons tend to misrepresent the person like a missing nose etc. Just posting a theory. It is really creepy. Thanks for pointing that out Don. 😥

    7. There are trees to the right but you can understand why they would be out of frame and above. That “person” makes no sense and it does look like Hyles. I get the chills looking at it. Why Don? Why? I’m gonna have nightmares!

    9. It gets curiouser and curiouser, turn your screen over and look at the reflection from a normal orientation. From that perspective you can make out the hairline much better. Hummmmm, Receeding hairline, could it be wearing glasses? Who does it look like to you? 😈

  17. I started out as sappy stuff
    Just oozin’ from a tree
    I wondered just what use there was
    for little latex me

    Would I be just a little ball
    Some child would toss about,
    Or would I find my one true job,
    We’d best not speak about.

    Perhaps I’d be a rubber band,
    stretched taut around a file,
    Or say, a special sort of glove,
    To check a prisoner while

    He entered into prison,
    For sending special texts,
    A preacher, say, who wanted
    information on some sects.

    At last I found my fate
    To be sold in a pharmacy
    I was sold out of state
    He thought no one would see

    He threw me in a trash can
    I felt so all alone
    I thought it’d be forgotten
    But then she used her phone

    1. I would have been mentioned,
      If the preacher weren’t so daft,
      But it’s true I was there,
      Next to the polished shaft.

    3. I started out as sappy stuff
      Just oozin’ from a tree
      I wondered what use could be
      for little latex me

      Would I be just a little ball
      Some child would toss around,
      Or would I find my one true job,
      We’d best not make a sound

      Perhaps I’d be a rubber band,
      stretched taut around a file,
      Or say, a special sort of glove,
      To check a prisoner while

      He entered into prison,
      For sending special texts,
      A preacher, say, who wanted
      information on some sects.

      At last I found my fate
      To be sold in a pharmacy
      I was sold out of state
      He thought no one would see

      He took me to a hotel room
      He took me out and laughed
      How did I end up this way?
      Wrapped on a polished shaft

      I wish I’d been a child’s balloon
      But I was only dreamin’
      For fate had naught but hate for me
      As I filled up with Preacher’s semen

      He threw me in a garbage can
      I felt used and all alone
      Sure no one would understand
      But then she used her phone

      She took some naughty pictures
      They put the deacon in a rage
      Pastors had slept around before
      But this girl was under age

      The police they came and took him
      And threw him in the jail
      The church was in financial trouble
      The auditorium went up for sale

      I did not chose my place in life
      It fills me with disgust
      But I take great consolation
      Because that ministry went bust

  18. The picture mouse-over text doesn’t explain the Linda Hyles-Murphrey story. Perhaps it should read, ‘unworthy to untangle his victims’ panties and jockstraps.

    Christian Socialist

  20. You KNOW it’s man worship when poems are even written about how great it is to be the man’s shoes! 🙄

  21. I threw up in my mouth a little reading this. Soooo gross. It’s just gross. The little slaughtered calf . . . the nasty feet . . . the obsession with Hyles.

    Ew.

    Ew.

    Ew.

  22. The Door

    A little tree I used to be,
    growing in the sun;
    little birds would play in me,
    and I had so much fun.

    I grew and grew a bit each day,
    until I reached so tall;
    a lumberjack cut me down;
    to the ground I did fall.

    The took me to a factory
    away from my native sod;
    I’d be made something useful
    to serve the Man of God.

    They trimmed me down a bit,
    and made me thin and flat.
    They put me in a warehouse,
    and there I sat and sat.

    Until one day the preacher said
    he’d need a special door
    so he could reach his secretary
    and no one need know more.

    He hid me ‘hind a curtain,
    and never said a word.
    I myself can not report
    the matters that I heard.

    I served the man in silence,
    and cannot tell you more.
    I served the man with honor–
    I was Jack Hyles’ door.

  23. Jack Hyles’ Drapery

    I was just a glob of crude oil
    Way down underground,
    But I knew I’d rise and start to boil
    From the earth, once found.

    I hoped to become some racing fuel,
    Speeding cars around a track,
    Or the grip on a dentist’s tool
    For de-encrusting plaque.

    I could never have dreamed
    Of my future glory
    As a simple polyester screen,
    Star of Act Five of the Jack Hyles Story.

    Made into a curtain, a cover
    For the door in the office
    That let the pastor uncover
    His employee’s bodice.

    Now I’m part of Fundy history
    A relic, an eternal memento
    To that great man’s blistering,
    Unbridled, rampaging libido.

  24. I made the mistake of reading the poem. 😮 *stomach rolls* 🙁 Then I read the comments, and now I am smiling. 😛 😀 :mrgreen: Thanks gang.

    1. I think we’ve seen that one on SFL before.
      It’s even more offensive than it is stupid.
      By the way, the volume is very high on that clip. Be sure to turn down the sound before clicking on the clip.

  26. I started out as cotton
    from a 70’s print
    I was then joined by some paper
    from a letter First Baptist sent

    Our group became the thing
    Some dust joined the fun
    some dirt, some string
    and a thread from a stocking run

    I loved every friend
    Every companion of rarest tint
    Each of them Heaven did send
    We were Hyle’s belly-button lint

    1. ewwwwww! I don’t even want to contemplate Jack’s bellybutton. gross!

      shewww… nasty…just nasty… and evil..
      Someone pass the brain bleach please! 👿

  28. I heard tell that Jack thought someone had stolen his shoes one time. He got all fired up and was going to preach the Ten Commandments hell hot the next Sunday morning and blast everyone with both barrels when he got to the 8th commandment, “Thou Shalt not steal.”

    His sermon ran out of steam however, when he got to the 7th commandment and remembered where he left his shoes.

  29. I started out as some Pima cotton
    And hoped when picked I could have some fun.
    And I wondered would I become a little kid’s shirt?
    And get to run and jump and play in the dirt?
    Or would I be the jeans on some cowboy?
    And get to ride the range on a horse named Roy?
    Or maybe I would be some pretty dress?
    And to many parties I would be a guest.
    Or maybe I would be some hikers socks.
    I would go places, but there might be some rocks!
    Or maybe I would be a musician’s pantsuit.
    And get to listen as she played the flute.
    But alas! To me came a position much less noble!
    All I get to do is sit and hear a lot of bull!
    I sit and cover bottom and all parts under there.
    For to me falleth the task of being Jack Hyles’ underwear.

  33. Well, not a lot of work was done today by readers of this site, but a good time was had by all.

    1. That’s because I don’t leave for work to start my week for another 15 minutes. Any evening comments will be read tomorrow afternoon.

      1. In contradisctinction to you, I only read and post at work. My work consists of monitoring queues and writing sql queries to correct anomalies. Once I start a queue, sometimes I need to sit and wait for 10 min. That happens all day long. Hence long periods of sitting. When I am home, I hardly ever turn the computer on.

  34. I started as a cotton seed
    buried ‘neath the soil
    I blossomed into puffy white
    Though never did I toil

    Some dirt-poor farmhand picked me
    One late summer’s eve
    And next think I know I was in a bale
    and to the mill where they would weave

    The textile worker fondled me
    And combed my straight and true
    And there a vat of indigo dye
    Turned my fabric blue

    I was bound amongst my brethren
    In a bolt of cotton goods
    And shipped in an old mill truck
    To and Indiana neighborhood

    The seamstress chose my from a shelf
    Of similar design
    I wondered what her plans for me
    What did she have in mind?

    Would I be some curtains fair
    Her window to highlight?
    Would I be a set of sheets
    To comfort in the night?

    Or maybe I’d be an apron
    To help her when she was a-cookin’
    But no…
    I became a little blue dress That Jack Hyles wore
    When he thought no one was lookin’

  35. LOL! I do feel sorry for the calf in the original poem, though, and the analogy for us humans: LEARN YOUR PLACE, even if you’re just the “shoes” of the Fundamentalist ministry!

    1. Jack Hyles is the hero of all of his own “soul winning” stories, and of more or less all of his sermons as well. There’s no dubt that he considered himself to be the third member of the Holy Trinity, and so do many of his followers.

  37. This is interesting:

    The Hyles Publications web site still has a category labeled “Items by Jack Schaap,” but if you click on that icon (hurry before they wipe it away!), you get “Page Not Found.”
    (You’d think they would be having a clearance sale …)

    http://www.hylespublications.com/index.php/ebooks/dr-jack-hyles.html

    You can still get Jack Hyles’ book on how to raise boys, though (and two more, on how to rear infants and how to rear teenagers), if you, too, would like to raise a son like David Hyles. Only while supplies last …

    http://home.conservativebabylon.com/2007/11/09/david-hyles/

  43. I feel like I’m going to puke. If they put the effort towards loving God instead of deifying man, they’d be a lot better off. There’s been quite a few poems on here glorifying men and the IBF, someone please tell me they write “normal” poetry glorifying God.

    How can shoes catch someone’s tears anyway?

      1. Ah, wait, I just realized your comment could be read two different ways. Did you mean Jack Hyles (in which case my original comment stands) or Robert Sumner (in which case I retract my comment immediately).

        If we’re talking about Robert Sumner, though, then I heartily agree with you. A good man and a courageous one! From what I’ve read of the expose, he impressed me quite a lot.

  46. I never found out what Pat’s last name was. Years ago he sent this to me for our Bread and Circuses blog. We had recently posted a poem that Jack Schaap had written about Jack Hyles’ chair! This was back in 2005 or 2006. Love to see it shared here on SFL!

    Matthew

  47. Wow, I had no idea that my poem merited a post of its own. I feel so honored. It only took me two years to stumble across it.

    In case it wasn’t clear, this is a parody of the chair poem by Jack Schaap. Once again, Poe’s law proves true.

    I did add a final verse that never made the cut. This would have made my original intent clear.

    My legacy has now been set
    Of this you can be sure
    That this poor cow, though long since dead,
    Could still help spread manure.

  48. Love, love, love this review on Amazon: If you have ever wasted any time at Dow’s website or the forum at SFL, you’ll understand his presupposition- Independent Baptists are the root of all evil. Dow, like so many others like him, had a few bad experiences in their upbringing but shift ALL the blame to IFB pastors and churches and then proceeds to paint all of them with the same broad brush while ignoring the immense amount of spiritual good that the majority of IFB pastors do for the cause of Christ. They never consider for a moment that the real problem may be their own heart attitude. They are unwilling to accept any responsibility for any of the problems they may have had in their churches while they were young. I personally knew Dow’s grandfather, who was one of the godliest IFB preachers and soul-winners I ever met and I wonder what he would say about this little volume? This book may need to have been written and some of these things may need to have been said, as no one has ever claimed the IFB movement was perfect or its pastors were sinless, but Dow is not spiritually qualified due his bitterness and lack of objectivity. We await a better man to give us a better presentation with some real answers, maybe a pastor or a missionary who has some actual ministerial experience.

    2. Bob Gray, if you’re going to write reviews on Amazon, you should at least use your real name.

  49. OK, saw this in an interview from Darrell. This has got to be one of the most absurd comments I have seen from someone on this site. “Little Christ” in IFB churches? The vast overriding emphasis in true IFB churches is Christ and only Christ. Not in the songs? Virtually every song is about nothing but Jesus Christ. Amazing how truly deluded one can be once they paint themselves into a box of their on devising!

    “I can’t speak to everybody who self-identifies as a fundamentalist. But if by “fundamentalism” you mean Independent Baptist Fundamentalism I can only say that in most IFB churches I have seen there is so little Christ found in the songs, the sermons, and the standards that I don’t know if you can stay in that environment and fully enjoy what it means to be a follower of Christ. So much time is spent following men and man-made rules and programs that there is often space for little else.”

    ALL I have ever heard in ALL churches I’ve been a member and ALL churches I have attended in all my years as a believer was primarily about Jesus, in “songs, the semons, and the standards”, all about His Word, His character, Following Him, His holiness, HIS salvation, HIM, HIM, HIM. I’d like to know WHAT these so-called IFB churches were. In fact much of what gets preached in IFB churches is what HE is accusing THEM of, and that is that in so many modern, mainline churches today Christ is watered down, removed, not emphasized, yet Jesus said when He would send the Comforter, He would testify of CHRIST, yet there is so little of CHRIST in most modern churches today. Oh my aching head!

    2. But what a small, weak, inept, powerless christ most IFB pulpit preach… all the power is in the Pastor… in the soulwinner.. in the “doing”, the allowing god into one’s life, the works unto salvation…
      Bleh! *spit*

      Thanks but no thanks. I want a God who is in control of my life not some mamby-pamby, milk-toast god who can’t do anything without a 1611 King James, soul-winner on hand… or the Roman’s Road proof-text tract so the mark can be lead to saying the magical incantation that will get him saved and get the soul-winner another crown in heaven…

      Yeah you can keep your god in the IFB box and all the cult practices that go with him.

      I’ll take the Jesus of Scripture who preached Grace, Love, Redemption and liberty over the legalistic works righteousness of the IFB cult any day.

      Been there, done that… have the Camp tee shirts to prove it.

  50. We await a better man to give us a better presentation with some real answers, maybe a pastor or a missionary who has some actual ministerial experience.

    Because only those with ministerial experience are qualified to lead unthinking sheeple. Ministerial Experience is a euphemism for con artist, flim-flam, bamboozlement, hucksterism… whatever you want to call it it is all the same.

    Like Lord Acton said in his famous stand against papal infallibility,

    “I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”

    But the IFB continues to worship their icons and saints. Because only those what are “Called™” are qualified to stand behind the sacred bullshittem desk and lead the passive, unthinking masses along the path to hell.

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