74 thoughts on “Hero Worship (Example #1,876)”

  2. Sorry buddy but, I’d rather know the living savior than your principles that are still alive. 🙄

  4. Hrmmm so much to say besides the completely obvious. Weren’t we supposed to hate the washington monument (and completely distrust the governement)because A: The monument pointed at the sun because it was used for sun worship B: The washington monument (which resembles this hyles monument) is secretly a phallic symbol? (Which if so, is completely appropriate, especially given the stature of this monument compared to the washington monument)
    Also, unabashed man worship. Gag. Rinse, repeat.

  6. How original…”When character was King” was the title of Peggy Noonan’s biography of Ronald Reagan. He couldn’t be more original?

  7. I’ll bet our former pastor got this book the day it came off the press and has since devoured it and is reading it with the same thrill he ought to be reading his Bible with. He once preached a sermon entitled “10 things I learned from Jack Hyles.” We were not present when that sermon was preached since he let us know ahead of time that was the sermon title for that night. I have had it up to HERE with Jack Hyles! 👿

  8. Ok, just a few questions I have…who the heck built a monument to this man in TX, i.e. the land of SBC and UMC? I don’t care if it is his hometown. Jack Hyles is only famous in Fundy circles. Heck I grew up in fundyland and still never heard of him until I went to Fundy Bible College where they were preaching against him.
    Jack Hyles built the world’s largest Sunday School? You mean the building? Because I’m pretty sure he didn’t build the people who attended the Sunday School and surely he isn’t isn’t giving credit to Hyles for God’s work in adding to the church!
    Also, Mr. Gray believed but doesn’t know for sure Mr. Hyles loved him? Hmm, this somehow seems ironic.

    1. I have relatives in Ellis County, Texas (where Italy is), and my aunt worked in Italy for a while, and I’d be very surprised if there are more than a handful of people in Italy, Texas who have any idea who Jack Hyles was. He was born there, but he did his thing mostly in Indiana.

      As you say, there are lots of SBC and UMC members in Italy, and a growing number of Catholics, but the IFB movement is not that well known thereabouts. If we hear of it at all, we are much more likely to hear of Lester Roloff, Jerry Falwell, or Bob Jones. Roloff was the only one of the aforementioned who did his public work mainly in Texas.

    2. I have heard that “Dr.” Russell Anderon (the Anderson of Hyles Anderson College) had this monument erected in Italy, TX to honor his friend, “Dr.” Jack Hyles.
      Makes sense, only a busnessman who can be suckered into giving huge amounts of money to begin school of **clears throat** higher education, could be suckered into spending money into erecting this symbol.
      I can guarantee you that nobody living in Italy, TX knows who Jack Hyles is or knows of Jack Hyles- with the exception of walking/driving past this monument.

  9. My $.o2
    1. a rather diminutive erection for such a “lieon” of the faith

    2. Principle: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” -Inigo Montoya

    3. When principle was King…. one has to wonder what they did with Jesus.

    4. “Digest” that propaganda and you too will produce hero worship crap.

    Finally: Really?? his email is @me.com
    hmmmm…. ego much?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCc-RWIp7XU

    2. Actually, the @me.com e-mail address has nothing to do about ego. It’s an Apple e-mail address; Mac had MobileMe with their @me.com e-mail addresses after the @mac.com e-mails and before the iCloud. I myself have an @me.com e-mail address. The rest of your points are spot on, though. :mrgreen:

    3. “When Principle was King” . . . right.
      If I recall correctly, it was principle (“We can’t have people believing this guy is the Messiah”) that got Jesus crucified.
      Further observation: Where churches operate according to principle, there is no grace. 😐

  10. some in the SBC were well aware of Mr. Hyles, because he, like J. Frank Norris, was a constant headache to the denomination. Hyles frequently railed against the SBC after he left the denomination, which had gone too liberal in his estimation…

    1. Constant headache?

      I doubt most in the SBC even knew who he was! Hyles seriously overstated his own importance and influence.

      1. I have long wondered what a church like FBC Hammond, with its history of being the largest church in the ABC and decades of close association with Northern Baptist Seminary, would see in a guy like Jack Hyles. There must already have been a fundamentalist element in the church, else I can’t imagine why it would call him. ❓ ❓

        1. FBC Hammond has long associations with Northern Seminary? That’s news to me. Judson University (somewhat ABC affiliated) came out of Northern a few decades ago – there sure isn’t anything fundy about Judson.

    1. Yes, I did. I kept thinking, “If only the cameraman would step a couple steps one way or another and get that trash can out of the center of the shot…” But of course, that was not the worst thing about this video.

  12. Wow, three alliterated points about Hyles!
    I. The Man
    II. The Ministry
    III. The Monument

    It is as if fundy preachers are all programmed to speak like that when they are under the impression that people are listening.
    Come to think of it, back at Fundy U they did program all of us future Mogs to speak like that.
    For example:

    WHY I AM GOING TO BED

    I. It is a Place of Relaxation

    a. Relaxing means working
    b. Relaxing means weeping
    c. Relaxing means waiting
    (We are to wait on the Lord. To wait means to serve like a waiter. To wait on the Lord means to get busy at your local Independent Baptist Church)

    II. It is a Place of Recreation 😉

    a. Fun in the Sack
    b. Fertile is the Seed
    c. Fondle all the CENSORED

    III. It is a Place of Rejuvenation

    a. To Separate from Tiredness
    b. To Serve in the Trenches
    c. To Soulwin all over Town

    It is depressing that the training is so ingrained. I am years out of Mogdom and I can still pull a three point alliterated outline out of my posterior about nearly any subject. My time at Fundy U was worth it after all!

    Now I am going to bed.

    2. I am totally laughing right now! And I like how you included “separation” in your outline!

    3. I think there was something about a “movement” in the there, too.

  14. I couldn’t hear what he had to say. Right around the time when he said he was in Italy, Texas, a song started and drowned out his words.

  15. Nothing like a giant phallic symbol with the word erect engraved on it to promote the gospel. Of course it kinda makes sense given all the commentary about foreskins in the Bible.

    2. someone needs to roll 2 bolders up to the base of that thing and put Bob on one and Gray on the other. Then he’ll finally be where he always wanted.

    3. someone needs to roll 2 boulders up to the base of that thing and put Bob on one and Gray on the other. Then he’ll finally be where he always wanted.

    1. I don’t think so… Bob Gray Sr (Longview) was an accountant at GM when he was called to preach. He attended HAC – may or may not have worked for Jack Hyles for a while. A church in Longview, TX was looking for a pastor – he went there and demanded the job, and made it famous for numbers in Texas. He turned the church into a cult-like, Hyles-worshipping movement in East Texas. Claimed to see a million people saved, but Wed night only runs a few hundred.

      1. A million people saved?

        The entire population of Longview, Texas is about 80,000. The combined populations of Longview, Tyler, and Shreveport, the three biggest cities in the area, total less than 400,000 people (all according to the 2010 Census).

        So perhaps Bob Gray is capable of some kind of astral projection through which he has seen a million saved, but there sure aren’t that many people in his neck of the Piney Woods.

        2. Louisiana is only about 45 miles from Longview. But all of Louisiana– the whole state, not just the part near Longview– has about 4.5 million inhabitants. Most of these “million people saved” can’t possibly exist outside of Gray’s imagination.

          This kind of grandiosity is psychopathic (in the clinical sense of the term). Just getting hundreds of people to Wednesday-night church is a real accomplishment. Why claim God-like powers for yourself?

        4. They also ran routes to Dallas. Maybe he’s made up the million saved number; maybe not. Remember, though, that if a kid gets saved 10 times, that counts as 10 salvations in their numbering scheme.

          I agree that the push for numbers trumped truth often resulted in “magic prayer” conversions. What’s truly said is that such kids may grow up thinking that they have heaven covered because they said the magic words.

  17. Life Principles of Jack Hyles:
    1. Tell made up stories about how great you are.
    2. Cheat on your wife.
    3. There is no third principle. Repeat principles one and two.

  18. The reason why there is so much traffic is because the Jack Hyles monument is such a draw, everyone wants to see it.

  19. Wow, serious hero worship/man crush going on there. Glad I never met him, his ramblings on youtube are enough.

  20. As multiple people have noted before, the obelisk is indeed a phallic symbol and often associated with worship to the sun god and fertility gods. Also, it is also an international symbol of the Freemasons. There is an obelisk in every major city of the world and many secondary cities. The “cap” of the obelisk is represented on our currency with the “all-seeing eye”. You don’t have to be a freemasonry/illuminati conspiratorialist to be aware of the pagan symbolism attached to the obelisk. And yet….it seems perfectly logical that a phallic tribute to a false god would be how they “remember” him and equally appropriate that it now resides in near total obscurity in a place where he is largely forgotten.

    Any oh yes, very nice “rip-off” job of Peggy Noonan’s excellent work, “When Character was King” — but again, would we accept anything less from Bob Gray, Sr. who probably never had a legitimate independent thought in his entire life.

    1. If you want to go down that road, the cross also has a lot of pagan history, with the Celts, Mayans, Tibetans, and others.
      But it’s a bit much to say any Christians who display or erect crosses are pagans.

    3. Didn’t we just go over this yesterday…..People…enough with the crazy conspiracy theories!!!! This isn’t funny or original anymore. We’re all sick of hearing terms like “sun god” “obelisk”, “Freemasons” etc……Please lay off. Most of the people Christianity because of conspiracy theories. Please don’t continue them. The masons are nothing but a bunch of old men who get together to play golf. They have never been anything more or less and have NO symbols other than maybe a pair of golf clubs sticking out of their trunk…..Seriously, this was funny at first. But let’s grow up.

      1. ? Have you ever read the handbook of sayings that a candidate has to memorize in order to join the club? Me thinketh that thou protesteth too much.

        To say that there is no conspiracy behind the CFR, Bilderburgs, Trilateral Commission, Illuminati, Jesuits, et al. strains all credulity for anyone who has read anything on the subjects. The majority of conspiracy theorists are not Christians, by the way.

        1. Lee, I’m not humorless….The irony is just too rich. If you read the site much, you’ll notice that the post from just a day or two before was about the crazy conspiracies that people have spread! It was the post with the company logo on the heading. In that thread we all rightly and justifiably vilified all the wacko nutjobs who believe in conspiracy theories. It was just way, way too disappointing and ironic that just a day after that thread that we would actually have people talking about, of all things, conspiracy theories!

          Just take a look at this post: “To say that there is no conspiracy behind the CFR, Bilderburgs, Trilateral Commission, Illuminati, Jesuits, et al. strains all credulity for anyone who has read anything on the subjects. The majority of conspiracy theorists are not Christians, by the way.”………None of these organizations even exist to begin with! And even if they did, they would be nothing but business luncheon get-togethers to discuss corn prices. It’s embarrassing to be on a board where people actually believe this stuff and all the previously mentioned stuff about Masons. As some have said before, I think that the majority of people on this board are not longer Christians because of the Kennedy assassination. We can’t stand to associate with anyone so gullible to believe that someone other than Oswald did it.

          So humorless?? No. Disappointed? Yes, greatly.

        2. Shandurkeli – The Jesuits certainly do exist. Unless of course they’re secretly the Illuminati pretending to be Jesuits. Of course whether one believes them to be a secretive Papist plot to subvert the faithful or the intellectual teaching wing of the Catholic church is another matter.

        3. Jo A, the Jesuits is the ONLY organization from that list from that nutjob that might sort of exist, in a nebulous way. It’s like the “Hole-In-One” club in golf. There isn’t REALLY an official “Hole-In-One” club that you can actually join. It’s just a nebulous organization that you can say you belong to, whether you really do or not. And even if you really do qualify, there is not official organization anyway. The so-called “Jesuits” are the same thing. There really is no official Jesuit; it’s just a moniker that anyone can call themselves if they want to appear cool. And as far as those other so-called organizations, that is 100% conspiracy theory nutjob territory! There is no such thing as a “council of foreign relations” or a “Builderburger” organization. If anyone you meet ever even mentions those words – run away! It’s a sign they are mentally unstable and a paranoid freak.

  21. Pastors School back in the day was like this:

    Hyles rants on women wearing pants
    Hyles rants on women wearing shorts
    Hyles rants on CCM music
    Hyles rants on SBC
    Hyles rants on Paul Crouch/Jim Bakker/Oral Roberts/Jimmy Swaggert/Robert Schuller etc.
    Hyles rants on other IFB churches not being successful as his
    Hyles rants on Movies and Television
    Hyles rants on Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer
    Hyles rants on accredited universities
    Hyles rants on PCC

    This guy in the video posted just validated all of that.

  22. I can fully appreciate the humor of whoever decided that we needed a phallic symbol to remember Jack Hyles by. That was a whole lot of hero worship for a man who has been dead and gone somewhere around a decade now. I found the trash can in the middle of the shot very distracting, yet fitting in so many ways. Darrell, I don’t know where you find this stuff, but it is sure amusing!

  24. Is the monument in some random backyard? I wonder how long before it is thoroughly defaced? I thought it interesting that the monument reminds him of the man (hero) and the ministry (numbers) but not God or Christ…

  25. Wait a sec….I thought the obelisk was a masonic symbol representing worship of the egyptian sun god Ra….Was Hyles a closet mason? Member of the Illuminati? Part of the Bildeberger conspiracy?? Hmm…

  26. Jack Hyles and his idol Bob Gray Sr make me ill.

    I want to read the chapter of the book about the PRINCIPLE of giving MONEY to a WOMAN who is NOT YOUR WIFE and is going through MARITAL problems. All of this was admitted to, not by Jack Hyles “enemies” but by Jack Hyles himself.

  27. Oh my goodness…this video is just too much stupidity for my brain to endure. I don’t get why people are so in love & obsessed with Jack Hyles (my family included). He seems like a royal d-bag to me.

  28. So, one cult leader promoting his book written about another cult leader who is also known for his unrepentant adultery? And we’re supposed to live by the principles of these men? Sure, let me go rush out and buy this book. 🙄

  29. Ok…I finally have to say something about the supposed “phallic” symbol here. Jack Hyles was a wicked man–no doubt. But the obelisk (which is the shape of that monument) was designed by the Egyptians to symbolically reflect points of light in a ray towards Ra, the sun god. That’s the point of the shape: to mimic a ray of sun, and to focus with a pinpoint the sun’s rays back towards it. Other cultures copied what the Egyptians created because they wanted to mimic the high culture.

    I have no doubt that the poor deluded minions who put up this monument just thought it was a classical monument shape, like the Washington Monument. Stupid? Yes. Ridiculous man-worship? Yes. Some kind of secret sex message? Nope.

    1. I understand your point of view and appreciate your tone. I disagree with your last statement. Art (i.e. “classical monument shape”) is also subject to interpretation. Every form of communication is, but art especially. And with a ray of light symbol, it also inevitably looks phallic, so of course there will be people (a lot of people) who interpret the message in a different way.

  31. Oh, boy! He’s speaking at a local church in my area next week… to go or not to go…

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