Fundamentalism

I think that Dr.Schaap is doing a fine job at First Baptist. There are a few things I would change mostly at Hyles-Anderson but I think overall things are great.

 

I am sure half the "problems" is that he is doing things different and some folks cant tolerate change. You are not going to have a change of pastors in a church with 10,000 people and only have 100 nay-sayers.

 

If he truly ran his church like a dictatorship then it was NOT under Dr. Hyles' teaching. Having sat directly under Dr. Hyles in his Preacher Boy classes, I assure you that his philosophy was as far from dictatorship as you can imagine. In a church the size of First Baptist, Hammond, one man cannot possibly directly oversee every single decision that must be made. Dr. Hyles surrounded himself with men who were capable of making their own decisions and he delegated much of the responsibility of running the church to these men. In turn he taught these men to delegate to their followers so that even I as a very young man was able to make decisions regarding the departments and ministries in which I worked.

I remember many times Dr. Hyles telling about times he and Dr. John R. Rice would go on cruises together with their wives. The staff at First Baptist Church is allowed to take vacations. If a man claiming to be taught by Dr. Hyles is calling vacations "back-sliding" then he has a definite lack of understanding of the teachings of Dr. Hyles.

Dr. Hyles never considered himself a Baptist leader. In fact he was very much opposed to the idea of holding such a position. Many times he was asked why he did not start a fellowship or convention of like-minded churches and he always stood strongly for the autonomy of the local church. He would be saddened to know that some preacher has misled young Christians in such a manner.

Now to be frank with you, it sounds as though your friends are searching for reasons to not go back to a Bible-believing church. Having grown up in a preacher's home and having been in church all of my life, I can smell an excuse a mile away. Most likely your friends were under conviction for some sin or other and decided to use these legitimate reasons as an excuse not to go back to church.

Notice I said legitimate. If indeed this pastor was running his church the way you say and teaching the way he taught, they are legitimate reasons to leave that church. But when used to explain why they cannot find another church... they simply become excuses.

 

Preacher Boy88,
I and probably everybody on this board would agree with you that the KJV is the Word of God.We would also probably be delighted if you were to be kind enough to allow them the use of their Word of God in the NASB,NIV,ESV,RSV,NKJV, and several other valid translations of the Bible.Also many of us here on the board are what you would call KJV preferred,which generally means the KJV is what we read and use most often.

 

I attended Hyles-Anderson College in the fall of 1974. As far as I could tell, from the one semester I attended, it was a good school but definitely legalistic. I didn't mind that so much then but would not handle it so well now.

 

Amen HACgrad.

That being said, PreacherBoy......Id not worry all that much about what people here think of FBC Hammond. Most here are not from FBC Hammond (if any are at all). So, really, any opinion you get would be, at best, second-hand information, OR an opinion based on something that happened years ago.

If you know what you believe, based on the Bible, it really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks in regards to which college your church recommends, or which pastor YOUR pastor admires and respects.

Go ahead and respect Dr. Hyles. Those who grew up under his preaching, for the most part, loved and respected him and understood him for what he really was....a regular human with flaws, but one who loved God and wanted to do what was right.

But, in all actuality, others opinions of him have no bearing on our day to day lives now. Do you know what I mean?