Walking away from fundamentalist Christianity was a pivotal event in my life. It probably is one the most significant (and difficult) decisions I’ve ever made since. The year was 1985. After three semesters at a school that from the outside seemed like it was “blessed by God,” once I was on the inside (as a student) however, nothing was as I expected.
One of the things I know about organized religion is that reality regularly falls far short of the ideal. Then there were the practical matters that caused immediate red flags when we rolled up to Hyles-Anderson College in our overloaded U-Haul, during the oppressively hot Midwestern August, in 1983. First, there was the expectation that the school provided some support for students when they arrived. I’d been told that there was assistance at Hyles-Anderson in finding a job.
Our pastor back home had given us a point of contact. Clayton Busby had pastored a small church in Maine, but felt “called” to Hyles-Anderson. We stayed with the Busbys for a few days, and then moved into a condo project near the school, where many other students were living.
Two days after arriving, I met the man, Brother Phil Sallie, who was in charge of workforce assistance. My 21-year-old radar told me he was a fraud. Of course at the time, I thought this was “the devil” trying to trip me up. It was evident months later (and perfectly clear from where I sit, today) that this man was a sadist who derived pleasure from wielding control over people’s lives.
Twisted scripture, Northwest Indiana-style.
Back in the 1980s, in a place like Northwest Indiana, jobs were scarce. Unemployment was hovering just short of 15 percent (the national unemployment rate is currently 3.9 percent) and being able to land a job paying above minimum wage was seen as better than gold at the time. Sallie was a man who made my skin crawl. From West Virginia, with a distinctive drawl that I thought was Southern at the time, he probably could sense I didn’t really like him. That’s probably why he made sure that whenever he had a job, he sent out one of his Southern comrades to interview, and never had anything for me. Finally, he told me not to bother to come back—he’d never have a job for me. This was the school’s version of support for someone like me.
I’m not sure if it was always like this, but when I was there from 1983 to 1985, if you were from the South, you had a certain cache. Northerners could acquire standing if they feigned a love of Dixie and other redneck manifestations of that region below the Mason-Dixon. Being from Maine, it just wasn’t in my DNA to pretend I was proud of the Confederacy.
Things like this, as well as finding out that the culture and teaching at Hyles-Anderson College didn’t align with my expectations of what a Bible college was going to be. The authoritarian control mechanisms as well as the cult-like adulation of Jack Hyles ran contrary to what I knew about scripture. Later I’d learn that other pastors who had once been enamored of Hyles had begun sending up warning flares, well before Hyles and his church came off the rails.
Even though I knew things were not right, leaving the fold wasn’t easy. There was always the influence of peers, and the daily brainwashing and brow-beating that occurred in class and then, the chapel services. This was classic mind-fuckery going down.
This very small sampling is merely the tip of the iceberg from my experiences at Hyles-Anderson. Looking back, I see similarities between the idol worship that was directed towards Hyles by just about everyone at the Bible college in Crown Point, and the current adulation that conservatives (a good portion falling within the evangelical/fundamentalist realm) extend towards another failed human, Donald Trump. What’s the most galling about it is he doesn’t even need to dress-up his racism, xenophobia, and compulsive lying, and so-called Christians have his back.
If you know little or nothing about the world I inhabited for a time in my life, I’d suggest taking the time to read this article about First Baptist Church, Jack Schaap, the son-in-law of Jack Hyles, who followed him in the pulpit at First Baptist Church. It’s a pretty sordid tale.
I ponder where I found the courage as a young man in his early 20s, without any prospects of returning to Maine in short order, to walk away from what I think bordered on a cult. With a young family and financial struggles, it would have been easier to just go-along-to-get-along. Mark was two-years-old at the time I stepped away from the mess that was Hyles-Anderson College.
When I returned to Indiana to see what things were like 20 years after we came back to Maine, I drove to Fort Wayne to see a fellow student who was my best friend at Hyles-Anderson. He and I were about the same age (Dale was two years older, I think), with young families and similar doubts about some of the things we were observing and experiencing.
Dale was pastoring a small church in the city 125 miles east of where we both attended Bible school together. It became clear that our mutual experiences resulted in two divergent ideas about Hyles, and about fundamentalist religion.
I found that that he was running a business with his grown sons that rehabbed pallets and resold them. Dale was always a hustler in the best since of the term. A hard-worker, he was fully enmeshed in the ways of Hyles-Anderson when I drove out Route 30 for a visit.
When I called him, he was surprised, but pleased I’d looked him up. Once I got there, we ended up having a fairly frank conversation about where I was at and I don’t think he thought too highly of my choices in “falling away from God.” Our meeting was a bit awkward at times, but I appreciated him spending a few hours with me. We did have a shared history, even if our paths had forked in following two very divergent roads. What if I’d chosen a similar path like Dale did?
I have no way of knowing if Dale (and his wife, Alana) know about Mark’s death. They knew him when he was a baby and up until he was two, when we moved away from the apartments a block apart, in Hobart. We were the first ones to find a cheaper place to rent while students, and Doug and family followed us. We saw them one last time when we lived in Chesterton, after I left school, with Doug carrying on in a part-time capacity.
From time to time, I think of Dale and visiting him back in 2007. He’s still pastoring. I’m sure he’s found a way to compartmentalize the falsities of Hyles, Schaap, and whatever else has befallen a place that at one time was considered a Mecca in the world of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement.
Certainly, I wasn’t the only one to walk away from the lie that was Hyles-Anderson College and First Baptist Church. One of Hyles’ daughters managed to get out and has written about it. Amazingly, student still are paying to have their minds and faith manipulated by those who remain in Crown Point and Hammond, Indiana.