Jack Schaap
has told the U.S. District Court in Hammond, Indiana, that decreased donations to the church and his working too many hours led to his having sex multiple times, in multiple states, with a 16-year old church member that he was counseling.
Yep, financial difficulty and being overworked are to blame for his sex crimes against a young girl in his church. If that is true, 90% of Americans will be molesting teenagers this year.
Schaap's lame excuse might give pastors another reason to preach the 10% tithe, telling church members they must fork over 10% of their income because if they don't, it might put too much stress on the head man-o-God, and he might accidentally have sex with a teenager. Save a teenager, tithe to your church. I'm only half joking; I've heard some incredibly asinine, nonsensical reasons to tithe given by mega church pastors already. And don't forget, Perry Noble has already
blamed the spread of homosexuality on non-tithers, so why not blame sexually abused teenagers on non-tithers also?
I hope the judge sees through this nonsense, and I hope the judge ignores the 140 letters of support from First Baptist Hammond church members, including Schaap's wife, and gives Schaap the maximum sentence on January 15th. He will likely be sentenced to 10 years, probably more.
The truth is Schaap's molestation crimes had nothing to do with finances of the church or a busy work schedule. Pastors all over the country are over-worked and churches everywhere are under financial strain, and they aren't regularly finding comfort by having sex with teens in the youth choir.
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“I believe First Baptist Church gradually evolved into a cult that was
in complete idolatry of my father [Jack Hyles] and, after his death, complete
idolatry of Jack Schaap." Linda Murphrey, Sister-in-law of Jack Schaap.
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Everybody but the die-hard FBC Hammond members understand that Jack Schaap is just another in a long line of perverse sexual offender pastors and lay people at FBC Hammond going all the way back to the 1950s, starting with Schaap's late father-in-law, Jack Hyles. Ministers at FBC Hammond, as at most fundamentalist, independent Baptist churches, are authoritarian rulers who have absolute power and whose judgements and actions are not to be questioned. If you want to read about the history of FBC Hammond and a chronology of the sex crimes and cover-ups at that church, read "
Let Us Prey: Big Trouble at First Baptist Church". A "Godfather"-type movie - in three parts - could be made about the shenanigans at that one church.
Schaap was and is a sick man who as time went on began preaching graphic, sexual sermons at FBC Hammond. Only a man who has a twisted mind, and who answers to no authority, would be able to deliver the sermon Schaap did in 2010 that best demonstrates his sickness. At a youth conference, in the middle of his sermon he
simulated masturbation for over a minute with a long stick held close to his crotch while he stroked the stick and made painful, orgasmic sounds as he talked to God. Watch it
here, and you'll see what I mean. It is simply unbelievable that a man could behave this way - in front of a audience of teenagers especially - and not be escorted off the property or arrested for his X-rated performance.
What can we learn from this? Simple. Churches that have a history of sexual abuse by pastors, especially those that have a history of denying the abuse, covering up the abuse, and then repeatedly lying about the abuse, they will produce more sexual abusers eventually. Churches that can't come clean to their members and to their communities about the past actions of their sexually abusive pastors - and the actions of those who covered it up - are breeding grounds for more misbehaving pastors.
I'll wrap this up by sharing with you another quote from Linda Murphrey, daughter of Jack Hyles and sister-in-law of Jack Schaap:
“Don’t get me wrong—I certainly believe Jack Schaap is guilty of a
crime and deserves punishment. But I wondered: If my dad [Jack Hyles] had been taken
off his self-constructed throne long ago and people had known the full
truth about who he was, perhaps Jack Schaap would never have been given
the liberties, the complete lack of accountability, and the power that
eventually led to his own demise. Instead, he was allowed and encouraged to perpetuate
what my father began..."
How true. Are you in a church that has yet to be completely truthful about the past of a sexually-abusive pastor, or his successor who helped cover it up?
