62 thoughts on “Character”

    1. There is so much irony in this picture. One child molester talks about a womanizer and they call it “Principle”

      1. The child molester was the “other” Bob Gray. This is Bob Gray from Texas.

        It is confusing to have two big name pastors who share the same moniker.

        1. I’d start going by Rob, Bobby or Robert just so I would not be confused with the child molester then.

    2. Yay! What luck. Anyway, you are spot on. The people I respect the most don’t advertise their “expertise” in a given field.

  1. This reminds me of a used car dealer who called himself “Honest Bob.” Yep, I’m going to him, cuz he’s honest. He said so!

  2. Does that box of books belong to you? Are you selflessly buying them up to try to remove them from circulation? 😉

  3. My wife said this was like Stalin writing about Hitler praising all the good things he has done.

    1. Yes, I couldn’t agree more! I don’t have much respect for the TX Bob Gray. He didn’t molest children himself, but he defended a staff member who was accused of such, and later found to be actually guilty. He has an abrasive, fighting personality, which doesn’t fit with the description of a pastor not being a “brawler”

  4. “Those are my principles. If you don’t like them, I have others.” – Groucho Marx.

    Which is to say, why is “principle” such a thing to trumpet, anyway? Surely it all depends what your principles actually *are*?

    1. In You’ve Got Mail (probably my wife’s favorite movie – she has seen it more times than I’ve seen The Princess Bride), Tom Hanks’ character says that The Godfather is the I Ching for men. I think Groucho quotes would be even better. No matter what the question, he had something applicable to say.
      When it comes to Fundies, my favorite is from Duck Soup: “If any form of pleasure is exhibited, report to me and it will be prohibited.”

    2. Groucho had this to say about standards and separation:
      “I would never join any club that would have someone like me for a member.”

      1. He also said a line that sounds like Schaap to his grandmother–“I’ve got a good mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it.”

  5. “The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”

    — Ralph Waldo Emerson

    I always imagine a blowhard preacher in a colonial house when I hear this.

  6. Reminds me of a billboard on the way to work: When your decisions are driven by your principles, you can’t make a wrong choice. (Or something like that.) For all the hot air spent about living a principled life, did anyone stop to check whether those principles were good ones?

    1. Yes, most people live by principles, but they aren’t necessarily good ones.

      “Me first” is the guiding principle for a great many people, for example.

    1. Good point!

      This is another example of the way many fundamentalists emphasize standards as the key to holiness instead of focusing on the righteousness of Christ.

      The New Testament certainly gives details about how Christians ought to live, but the Christian walk was never supposed to be about striving to follow the law.

      But actually, that title perhaps is very telling: when “principle was king”, people ended up going very, very wrong; only when Jesus is King will we be able to live in the Spirit and be truly holy not only superficially or temporarily so.

  7. (After being told by her mother to never trust a man who says, “Trust me.”)

    Blaze Starr: Can I trust you?
    Gov. Long: Of course not!!
    Blaze Starr: What a sweet thing to say.

  8. When was this book written/published? Was it before or after Mr. Hyles demise? Cause if its after, someone has a serious case of sandy head.

  9. Is this a new book? If so I can think of a former pastor of ours who will buy it (or be gifted it) and have it marked all over the way people mark up their Bibles, just like all the other books by Hyles in his collection. 😥

    1. I would probably mark up a book by/about Hyles, but not with the same comments that pastor would.

      Beside, in my case, it would only be around until barbecue season– got to light that charcoal with something.

    1. Back when we used to get the Sword of the Lord we used to laugh at how these pastors never changed their pictures. They kept using the ones taken when they were young. Sometimes these pastors would come to our church in Michigan and we wouldn’t recognize them because they were so much older than the pictures we’d seen. It looks like they did the same thing with this book, put a picture of Hyles on it from when he was young. And they say women have all the vanity. 🙄

  10. he looks like old black and white pictures of nixon. ironic fundy preachers take that same attitude as nixon as they are above the edicts they espouse.

    1. Nixon’s most memorable comment (at least for me) was “When the President does it, that means it isn’t illegal.”

      Just replace “President” with “Man of God,” and I think you have Jack Hyles’ “principle.”

      There, I just saved you the price of the book.

      1. There is some story there, but I am hazy on the details. It has to do, I believe, with Schaap inheriting the throne, er, secret-door-office, er, PULPIT at FBCH.

      1. 400 pages? And every single one of them praising “Pastor Wonderful Hyles.” Pardon me while I hurl. 👿

  11. I’m sure someday I will be watching “Storage Wars” or “Hoarders”, they will be in Hammond, IN. They will find boxes full of these books.

  12. “Never trust a man who reminds you constantly how honest he is.”

    Oh, hell to the yes. Children, heed this right here.

    1. I was reminded of this paragraph from the exposé from the Biblical Evangelist published many years ago:

      16. Before we leave the moral issues, we must say how distressed we have been for several years with what we consider must surely be untruthfulness in his preaching. His stories are so colorful, so fantastic, so numerous, so uncharacteristic of normal reality, we could not help but wonder if he did not take smatterings of fact and build them into delightful tales. One thing is sure: Jack Hyles is always the hero in each and every one of them, and the listener cannot help saying to himself, “Boy, what a spiritual giant, a hero of the faith!” As our youngest son, in his review of The C S. Lewis Hoax, wrote recently: “Beware the man who is the hero of all his own stories!” We think that advice is very fitting with reference to Hyles, too. Later we will mention his attendance, baptism, and other statistics.

      1. That’s the one thing I can’t stand, someone who comes across as such a know it all. They never made a mistake so when they teach anything it’s all about how they do it. They never say they had to learn anything. I remember one of our former pastors teaching a series on child rearing in which he said over and over what he did. Never once did he say he’d made a mistake in this area or that one and had to learn from it. It was as if he was born knowing. But in looking at his kids they seemed so unhappy. You never saw any of them smile. He actually mocked his daughter from the pulpit with her sitting there. If he had been my father and he did this to me I would have hated him for it.

        I still have a few books by hyles and when I read them it was the same thing. He’s Mr. Expert Know It All in every one of them.

        The Bible says God hates pride. I guess that’s pride in the lay person, since the pastors are all full of it. 👿

  13. I wonder if there is chapter in that book on how to hide the path in the carpet that leads to the secret door?

    Jennie, Jennie who can I turn to?
    You give me something I can hold on to

    Is there a subtitle for that book saying anything about stained character?

    I’ll stop before I get wound up about how one of his sycophant, fawning parasite preacher boys worshipped him and propogated the hyped character crap at the IFB indoctrination center I so foolishly had my children in while I was addicted to the IFB-koolaid. *breathe* Yeah… one of the most stupid things the kids say he did. To show his “Character” he stated if his cell phone ever went off in chappel he would break his phone. Well…. it did and he did. He bragged about how he kept his word. What a putz!

    1. If that isn’t just like a Fundy preacher. Always attacking the object which is not to blame for what it’s used for. There is nothing evil in a cell phone or a tv or a computer but these idiots act like all the evil is in the object itself. So he breaks his cell phone. That idiot Steven Anderson brings a tv set up on the podium and busts it up. Because the tv itself is evil, not what it’s used for. It never occurs to these people that tv’s and computers and even cell phones can be used for good as well as evil. 👿

      1. Macushaundra, I think you’re missing the point, at least in this case. It’s not that the phone was bad or anything intrinsically. I agree that it is totally rude and arrogant beyond description to have the audacity to leave your cell phone on while at a public gathering. It wasn’t the cell phone’s fault the stupid owner was inconsiderate enough not to turn it off or at least switch to vibrate.

        1. That is Macushlalondra (a combination of my cat’s name and my name) and did it ever occur to you that people forget before going into a meeting to turn their phone to vibrate or off or whatever? I have been in meetings where someone’s phone went off and they scrambled to turn it off because everyone was staring at them and they were extremely embarrassed! 😳 Hasn’t that ever happened to anyone here who has a cell phone, I don’t because I dislike talking on the phone. But I always end up feeling bad for the person whose phone went off because they simply forgot to turn it off or vibrate. So it’s not a matter of inconsideration. And the embarrassment they have to endure is payback enough without some dope thinking he has the right to break their personal property! 👿

    2. Don, I have to respectfully disagree with you and agree 100% with whatever chapel speaker you are referring to. Americans in modern society are uncouth, stupid, selfish and extremely rude. To be so rude as to have your phone on in a chapel service, convention, meeting, whatever is uncalled for. Believe me, many of us are applauding that speaker and glad he broke your son’s phone and wish that more people had the courage to do it more often.

      1. I thought he broke his own phone?
        Anyhow, it was dumb either way. Just turn the stupid thing off.

        1. Good call, Mrs. Enough. Talking about his son and chapel, I too assumed Don was talking about his son’s phone going off. On further review, it looked as if the chapel speaker was referring to himself. Hmmmm….sounds like a set up to me. It’s extremely hard to believe he wouldn’t have shut the phone off before speaking. Maybe he set it up to have someone call him and he was in need of a new phone anyway??

          In any event, as a side issue, I too can’t stand people who are so arrogant as to not turn their phones off before going into a public meeting, a movie, etc. Getting a call is bad enough. Having the audacity to actually answer it is doubly rude. Cell phones have only been popular since what, the 80’s? It’s not like people have an excuse because the technology is so “new” and they are just getting used to it.

  14. When Principle Was King…does this assume that there are now no principle’s in ministry? 👿

  15. Young Hyles: When principle was king
    Middle aged Hyles: When principle was courtier
    Elder Hyles: When principle was the whipping boy

  16. You can always tell a person’s inner spirit by their eyes. My ex-brother in law is a satanist and is by his own admission possessed by more than one demon. In pictures if you cover one eye at a time and look at them one eye you see him. Just a normal every day guy. When you look at the other eye you see the evil within. It is very sinister. I did this to the Jack Hyles picture. Jack’s right eye is fatherly and his left eye is pure evil. It’s creepy what you can tell about a person by a picture.

  17. I had the misfortune of being the one to drive Bob Gray to his hotel alone – great privelege for a young HAC preacher boy. When I asked him for advice he said you are not fit to even consider the ministry until you consistently have someone down the aisle and in the water every week. He is one of the most abrasive and arrogant men I have ever met. He also yelled at me for braking so as not to run over a cat.

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