Jack Hyles

Jack Hyles was the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, a leading light in the Independent Baptist movement, and the author of several books published by John R. Rice's publisher, Sword of the Lord. Most of these books are on subjects like Let's Baptize More Converts, Church Bus Handbook, and Let's Go Soul Winning and are about how to lure as many people into your church as possible and convert them. He was originally best known for creating and popularizing the "bus ministry" concept which led to his church becoming one of the first ever megachurches. He was a King James Only advocate.

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He also established the Hyles-Anderson College in Indiana. Not only is it not accredited, its policy is actually to abjure accreditation, regarding the principles required for it to be compromise with the sinful world. Then again, its purpose is primarily to prepare young fundamentalist men to be zealous preachers and further teachers of The One True Way, and young fundamentalist women to be perfect wives and mothers, courtesy of the Marriage and Motherhood course of study. Let's just say that it isn't about the history of and theories about marriage and motherhood.

He was also—why, oh why is this so predictable?—repeatedly caught in scandals and allegations of everything from adultery, financial mismanagement, running his church in a cult-like manner, to covering up or refusing to do anything about a deacon in his church who was abusing and molesting children.

Hyles also advocated a highly authoritarian and even violent method of child rearing similar to that put forth now by Focus on the Family, including extreme emphasis on gender roles, unquestioned obedience to authority figures, and an emphasis on spanking as a discipline method. His book How To Rear Children includes a chapter in which he advocates spanking very young children to "break their will to resist" adult authority and making spanking sessions a "ritual" lasting 15 or more minutes; this chapter is frequently cited by anti-spanking activists as an example of extremism among pro-spanking advocates.

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