79 thoughts on “Punching Honor Roll Students?”

  3. I’ve heard a “preacher” make the exact same joke with the exact same response. Okay, chuckling at the “punched out” bumper sticker is acceptable, cheering it is just sad.

    1. Yep, pretty disgusting. I’m guessing that he didn’t intend for this talk to be recorded — the recording looks terrible.

      Cult leaders tend to be against independent thinking.

  6. Ah, the glorification of ignorance. How about, “Your child may have punched out my honor roll student, but now my child is his boss, and your kid is living in a trailer with his knocked up girlfriend.”

    Too long for a bumper sticker though.

    1. It may not be big enough for a bumper sticker, but boy, if it were, I’d like to have one.

  7. I can’t imagine someone admitting liking that from the pulpit.

    Love? Fail. Patience? Fail. Meekness. Fail. Gentleness. Fail.

    Total Holy Spirit fail.

    I would SO like to take upon myself the ministry of calling people like this out, attending random church services and revivals, and when I hear something directly against the Word of God, standing and calling it out right then and there. “Sir, your glorification of violence directly violates the Scriptural mandate of being ‘not a striker’ 1 Tim. 3:3″!”

    I wonder how many churches I could get myself thrown out of! I could create quite a stir, especially if I wore a humble long jean jumper while doing it!

    1. I’ll be your getaway car driver. I don’t have the Fundy cred to be your Wardrobe person. You’ll also need a lawyer on the team to bail you out of jail!

    2. I’ll bring the large poster-board signs with slogans written on them that get the point across.

  8. “My Cocker Spaniel is smarter than your honor roll student” – which automatically makes him much smarter than Jack Hyles

    1. Which is probably why he was in the habit of throttling dogs while soul-winning: He was jealous of their intelligence.

  9. Hard to hear anything the Great One said, there was too much screaming and hollering. I suppose if he said (and forgive my crudeness) “I think I’m gonna just take me a dump here on the pulpit!” they’d continue to scream and holler! Amen??? 🙄 👿

    1. They’d be screaming and hollering as they were tripping over each other to get up and wipe his a$$.

      1. Preacher boys piled upon the pulpit at the possibility of putting their Preparation KY-H lubed heads in that pompous posterior.

  10. Big Twit: Hyles.
    Bigger Twits: The idiots in the congregation who guffawed at his remark.

  11. I’ve never heard of Evolution High, but in our town we have a used car lot called Evolution Motors. The automobiles there seem to be more devolved than evolved.

    Hmmmmmmm……..Kind of like a 24 second sermon excerpt I just listened to.

  14. Paraphrase: “Yeah that’s right. My son’s a man. He can take out a nerd.”
    #bragFail

    1. “My son can beat up your nerd! He’s a chip off the old block.”
      *chuckles to himself…”if you only knew how many of your wives/girlfriends he’s already had… that’s my boy!” * 😯

  16. Starting at 4 seconds: “My child made the honor role at evolution high school.” (laughter) “I like that one says, ‘My child punched out your honor role kid.’ ” (excessive cheering).

    1. Thanks. That is quite a statement considering a 1988 graduate of HAC, who is now a pastor’s wife, told me that her professors were ok with misspelled words on homework, essays and papers. After all, why would bible college want to challenge a woman and encourage academics excellence? Keep her dumb, teach her to cook and take care of her man, lest she gets half a mind to cause some trouble.

    2. There has always been a strong anti-intellectual environment among fundamentalists. Most of the adults at my old fundie church had no more than a high school diploma. I’m sure many at FBC are envious of people who went to real institutions of learning, studied real science, earned real degrees and have good paying jobs.

      1. Two books I read shortly after escaping: “Love Your God With All Your Mind” (Moreland) and “Finding the Will of God, a pagan notion?” (Waltke) Both were eye opening and back up your notion that there is an anti-intellectual environment in fundyland.

      2. Anti-intellectualism and Fundamentalism have always been closely linked in modern America (at least from the late 19th century until now).

        If you accept the thesis (as I do) that the Fundamentalist movement is mainly a reaction against modernity, you can see why many Fundies associate serious scholarship with the modern academic scriptural analysis and theological criticism which Fundies so hate, so they reject any kind of intellectual pursuit as being the wellspring of what they consider heresies.

        1. Exactly, Big Gary. That’s exactly how I think it is too. And I think their colleges are just big smokescreens with just enough intellectualism in there to confuse us for life. (HAC probably doesn’t qualify on that last count though.)

      3. My former hyper-fundie church was full of uneducated folks. Kind but uneducated, and easily sucked in. I think the pastors like them that way. Easier to control. 👿

        1. Right after college, we worked at a church where the senior pastor was found of saying, “I went to four years of college and never learned a thing.”

          I always wanted to say, “Then you either picked a lousy college or you were a lousy student.”

  17. For the love of God, would you people lighten up, he was joking! Calm down!

    1. I have to agree with you here. It did sound like it was all in jest. I mean with all the “My child made honor roll” bumper stickers floating around, it was a breath of fresh air when I saw the one that said my child beat up your honor roll student.

      HOWEVER,
      The hooting and hollering is way over the top, and completely inappropriate in a sermon setting.

      Also, what would this have to do with anything scriptural and how would this story have exalted Christ or pointed more people towards Him?

    2. This sort of thing is appropriate for a silly pep rally meant for fun, but completely inappropriate for a sermon. Well, that is unless a jacka$$ is preaching to a bunch on numbskulls.

    3. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Eph. 4:29

    4. No! Fundies do not get a pass! The Bible says with what measure you mete, it will be meted to you. Fundamentalists nit-pick and criticize others, but then want a pass when they themselves are arrogant or cruel or inappropriate.

      Jesus supported the weak. Jesus loved those that others mocked and hated. Jesus came to bind up the wounded. Jesus would NEVER make a joke like this.

      Pastors and leaders are held to a higher standard. We are to be slow to speak; we are to guard our words.

      Sorry. Saying it’s a joke just doesn’t cut it with me.

      1. Pastor’s wife, well said. You are correct. These people joke around like this ALL the time. Lacing insults and violent talk with “humor” doesn’t fly with God.

    5. Yes, it was a joke, but jokes have meaning, and jokes presume certain ideas and attitudes.
      The meaning and attitude of this joke?
      1. We resent smart people.
      2. We want to do physical harm to smart people.

    6. You can hide a lot of truth under the cover of a “joke”. I read his books, and he was all for a boy to beat up the neighbor kid who called his sister a name.
      I heard that so often, that I was surprised when someone recently pointed out to me that we’re supposed to be forgiving, not going to the neighbor for revenge. To him the “real man” hobbyhorse overrode the Bible command. Not funny, sorry. Putting pressure on the boys to conform to your standards of manhood. Bullshit.

  18. sad it is. Where did he go to school, anyway? His poor mother surely couldn’t afford to send him to a Christian School? And where did she go to school? And all those schools still turned out this bullcrap?

    1. Wiki has him growing up in Italy, Texas – a low income area south of Dallas. ? He went to East Texas Baptist College when he got out of the military (WWII).

    2. Italy, Texas is a town in Ellis County, roughly 50 miles south of Dallas. (I have relatives in Waxahachie, the big metropolis of Ellis County, relatively speaking.)
      Nowadays, Italy might be considered an outer bedroom suburb of Dallas, but when Hyles was a youth, before the current exurban sprawl and fast roads existed, Italy was a backwater cotton-farming village.
      Public schools in small Texas communities of those days were, in most cases, fairly rudimentary, and, then as now, they emphasized football much more than the liberal arts and the sciences.

  19. I thought the bumper sticker was funny the first time I saw it. But it’s not really sermon illustration material.

  20. Bullying is not “Darwinian”. Yes, sometimes the strongest organism lives to reproduce. But often it is the organism that is the smartest or the one that is better at adapting to its environment.

    1. I agree. In evolution, being biggest, strongest, or fiercest is not necessarily a good competitive strategy. That’s why there are way more insects than there are lions.

  21. I’ve heard claims that churches that use CCM are catering to members with “itching ears.”

    To me, what more could demonstrate a preacher tickling the itching ears of his audience than this preacher making this kind of joke for an easy laugh?

    1. Children who were raised in fundie families make the most intellectually-curious adults, I think. When your whole childhood world was wrapped in cotton batting so you didn’t “find out” anything, you realize at 21 that you’ve got an entire universe to explore.

  25. These fundies just gotta have something against everything, or at least everything they either didn’t invent, can’t control, or can’t change. They even hate the Honor Roll. That says a lot about how they end up thinking “the KJB is da only Reaaall BIBLE in da uneeverse….”

  26. FundamentalistForver, I wouldn’t have such a hard time with it if it weren’t that every time I used to go hear any of these speak, even my own former fundie pastor, the highlights and laughs were always being made at someone else’s expense and with this kind of poor humor. They’re always putting someone down, even if veiled in humor. Most of their jokes are in poor taste, and you always hear some schmuck “amenin'” in the background. It got old a long time ago. I just can’t see Jesus hanging out with these guys having a good ol’ belly laugh. I’m sure He has a good sense of humor but He’s far above this kind of stuff.

  28. As a former fundy, this stuff irritates me. I was blessed to have fundy parents who demanded academic excellence from me. I remember coming home from my first semester at a secular university (gasp). People at church frowned on me asking questions. That was the start of my walking away.
    I can’t understand demeaning what is a precious gift of God – one of intellect and understanding.

    1. I remember one time, when I was still attending my former IFB church, I was home on some break from my Christian liberal arts college (Biola); of course, to the ppl there, it was just as bad as a non-Christian college (I’m not saying secular universities are bad; they’re not. I’m just using an IFB’s frame of mind here). I walked into the church one morning, and the pastor made a joke about Biola… he joked about all the people there doing drugs and smoking marijuana… he thought it was hilarious, but needless to say I was quite offended, even though I didn’t show it. Not to mention I was pretty disappointed in the pastor, too… he’s usually more civil than that.

  29. Ahhh… doesn’t it make you miss the old guy? You can just SEE why everyone adored him so much, right?

    No, honestly, I look at these clips and wonder HOW we didn’t SEE reality right in front of our eyes. HOW did I follow such a man, and so entirely miss the truth? WHAT sealed my eyes so tightly shut that I couldn’t see what I so clearly see now? I look at him being such a buffoon and I remember that only occasionally I rolled my eyes at something that he said, but why didn’t I see it like I see it now? (By the way, once I was told to watch my expressions and laugh at the jokes from the pulpet… it is possible this is the result of people being instructed to respond “correctly” in a chapel or service.) I doubt anyone REALLY got a belly laugh out of this.

    1. I wonder that about the stripe of fundamentalism I came out of also, Sims. How in the world did I not see the things that are so painfully obvious to me today?

    2. “…wonder HOW we didn’t SEE reality right in front of our eyes. HOW did I follow such a man, and so entirely miss the truth?”

      The same way fundamentalist muslims do not recognize the contradictions and errors of their faith – childhood indoctrination is a powerful tool. I think so many IFB-type fundy parents believe that if they can forcefully conform their children (and themselves really) to a set of easily measurable, rigid, tradition-based outward standards, then all is well with their kids and all is well in fundy-land.

  30. Man oh man, I followed some of the videos after that one to “Jack Hyles Predicts Obama in 1970” (or somesuch name). That was good times. YouTuber crazy + Hyles crazy = the craziest crazy I’ve seen in awhile.

  31. JH preached at our church when I was about 7. I just remember him yelling a lot. This guy was nothing more than a circus act acting like a preacher. In the majority of clips I see of him preaching, the undisputed fact that he is the toughest man in the world is always an undercurrent, and sometimes exactly what he is saying. He could have worked for Vince McMahon at the WWE and never changed a word. “BIG BAD JACK is here to REGULATE!!!”

  32. JH came to preach at our church when I was 8 or 9. All I remember is that he taught us a song based on Proverbs 3:6. And he sold a bunch of Blue Denim & Lace books, and a very short time after, the church had started a BD&L club. I liked being with my friends, but failed miserably at JH’s idea of a proper little girl/growing up to be a woman. I sucked at sewing, cooking, and arts & crafts. Still do! The pastor then is still the pastor of the church now. I work in a Christian radio station and edit 10 sermons a week, so although I have left the church, I still hear/edit his Sunday morning sermon every week. He has always liked JH and you can tell when he has been listening to one of his tapes because that week he will sound as jerk-like and manipulative as JH.

  33. Ahhh seeing this video post makes me immensely grateful for two things:
    1) My work computer doesn’t have speakers sparing me the “honor” of listening to the pearls of wisdom dribble from his mouth & the jack@$$ preacher boys “hollerin’ and hootin'” over every stupid word spoken
    2) Though I was born in Hammond 😳 (a fact I despise admitting) and attended FBC (as soon as the hospital would release me & my Mom so I could start attending church in my first days alive, AMEN!? 🙄 ), we moved when I was 11 so I have only one memory of a sermon-by-Jack. Though, I’m sure I heard his sermons repreached through the rest of the fundy preacher Hyles-worshippers of IFB churches I attended. 😕
    My Mom often tells me how “sad it is I was too young to remember his sermons”. Hmmm…Doesn’t look like I was missing out on much. :mrgreen:

    1. you were born in Hammond? Me too 🙂 Happily my parents left FBC when I was born, although I did a brief stint in the nursery in my earliest weeks, too. My Mom tells me how lucky I am that they didn’t stay there.

  34. Yes, you are lucky indeed! They start the brainwashing young, so you narrowly escaped it during your brief stint. 🙂

Comments are closed.