Schaap’s family leaves the courthouse…in open-toed shoes.
I suppose that once you’ve started sleeping with minors it damages the credibility of your rants against toe cleavage.
Update 1: The audio of the original rant against open toed shoes is available here.
One wonders how the defenders, deniers, and other denizens of fundamentalism are going to try to spin this now that Schaap has flat out admitted that had sex with a minor.
The Chicago Sun-Timesl reports:
The recently fired pastor of a Hammond megachurch will plead guilty to taking a minor across state lines for sexual activity, federal prosecutors in Indiana said Tuesday.
Jack Schaap, former pastor of First Baptist Church in Hammond, was fired in August because he allegedly had a relationship with a 17-year-old girl. The church initially said its deacon board fired Schaap because he committed a “sin.”
The church has said the 17-year-old girl and her family are members of First Baptist, which was one of the first megachurches in the country. The church has a congregation of more than 15,000.
Schaap, 54, of Dyer, is scheduled to have his initial appearance Wednesday afternoon before U.S. Judge Paul Cherry in federal court in Hammond.
Church officials said in August that they didn’t believe any crime had occurred but that they had turned the case over to the Lake County Sheriff’s Department. The sheriff’s office and the FBI investigated the case.
Schaap graduated from Hyles-Anderson Bible College, which is associated with First Baptist, and married Cynthia Hyles, daughter of First Baptist founder Jack Hyles.
Church leaders have said Schaap has been spending time since leaving the church with his wife, as the two try to save their marriage.
I predict that the tune will now enter again the old refrain of “can’t we just forgive, forget, and not talk about this anymore?” It’s the same old song just louder and worse.
Let me take this opportunity to repeat myself from a previous piece I wrote about Bob Jones University which is equally applicable to their crazy cousins over at Hyles-Anderson.
The great stratagem is thus to continually change the terms of the debate until you prove that you are right on some solitary point. Once you have done this then claim that the point on which you are standing is the only one that matters and no other arguments can possibly count.
Has there been a moral failing? Point out that the people involved were legally correct.
Was what was done illegal? Appeal to some higher, biblical authority and decry the corruption of the legal system.
Was the action indefensibly immoral, illegal, and unbiblical? Then use your eternal trump card and claim that to focus on it would be a distraction from The Gospel and that nothing can possibly be more important than seeing souls saved.
And do all of the above while endlessly touting your own innocence and integrity and relentlessly denigrating the character and motives of your accusers. But whatever you do, don’t say you were wrong. Don’t apologize. Don’t make restitution. Don’t for a second doubt that you are right simply by being.
For no matter how many court rulings and media stories and witnesses and blogs and protestors rise up against you, you can be confident that you have never been wrong. This is your birthright. This is your heritage. This is the sacred trust passed down from father to son for generations: the gift of being always and forever right.
I have a message for you all from the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana and their associated staff, members, fans, toadies, lackeys, and hangers-on: they would like for all of you to shut up now. Stop talking about Jack Schaap’s sin. Stop feeling sympathy for his victim. Stop recalling the sins of Jack and David Hyles. Stop bringing up all the many others just like them that have walked the halls of that church and school. Cease and desist. Just shut up.
You’re hurting the cause of Christ by letting the world know that (yet another!) fundamentalist pastor is a hypocrite. You’re hurting all the church members who sat and watched his shenanigans in silence and didn’t move to stop him. You’re vindictively hurting a good man who only made one little mistake and who has probably already suffered enough and should be back in another pulpit any time now.
Besides all that, you can’t possibly know the whole story. This seventeen-year old was just as guilty as the pastor who preyed on her. I heard from a very reliable source that he read on the Internet that she was a seductress trained by the Communists at the Vatican to ensnare fundamentalists preachers. And I like that story a lot better than the one you’re telling so it must be true. If there’s any victim here is that man of God who has lost his ministry. He’s all that matters, not some little tramp.
Is Schaap’s offense really all that great? He slightly stumbled. He merely tripped. He slipped a little, lost his balance and inadvertently penetrated a seventeen-year-old. It could happen to anybody. There’s no reason for all this fuss. After all, we can all agree that he’s still a wonderful man with a powerful ministry. Who cares what happens to one floozy? Is she more important than all the souls we’re trying to save?
All you have to do is be quiet. Sit silent. Do nothing.
Silence gives consent.
On a side note, did I hear him say that people are coming out “by the groves”?
Whenever another few days have passed and some fresh new scandal breaks in fundamentalism, someone inevitably expresses the hope that this time will the the Final Straw that breaks the back of institutional power. Perhaps this time the church will either mend its ways or be forced to close its doors. Maybe this horrific thing will cause the school to change its policies and soften its stance. Maybe. Perhaps. Hopefully.
I confess that sometimes I’m hopeful too when some fresh new wave of truth crashes against the shaking foundations of fundyland. But my expectation is never that the entire system will collapse but rather that a few more will open their eyes. My constant hope is for a few remaining righteous to be vexed in their souls enough to to flee and leave those wretched churches and schools to slowly crumble. Empty pews not empty pulpits will signal the end of their era for there will always be hirelings looking for a flock.
The great truth is that fundamentalism exists because people need it in the same way that a junkie needs his dealer. With as far to the fringe as fundyland has moved, most of the people who remain are simply not strong enough to survive outside of the walls that lock them in. They perversely crave judgment and delight when they have the chance to judge others. They rely on the rules and rulers to tell them what to think and say and do. Even their basic instinct to defend themselves and their families has been subverted to The Cause. They will stay no matter what happens. They will continue on no matter what evil is exposed in their midst. They must still be in the right. God must still be on their side. How could it be otherwise? The truth is too terrible to contemplate.
There will be no fireworks to signal the end of fundamentalism. No banners will be raised nor conquering anthems sung. These churches and schools who have done such harm will meet their end in rust not flame. And as the final few sit surrounded by that decay the last of the fundamentalists will scream to the world that they are still winning even as their world crumbles around them.
But be of good cheer. Though the time has not yet come to see the end of the IFB age, we do not despair. “Ichabod” is writ large above their doors and the blight is creeping in. God may perhaps grant some a measure of repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth. And we’ll be here to help bind up the wounds of those who escape.
The end is not yet but the end is ever nearer.