Controversies
Accusations of improper sexual behavior, financial and emotional abuse are highlights to Hyle's legacy. In 1989, the paper The Biblical Evangelist published a story "The Saddest Story We Ever Published", accusing Jack Hyles of sexual scandals, financial misappropriation and doctrinal errors. These charges were denied by Hyles who deemed them "lies".
In 1991, a First Baptist Church of Hammond deacon molested a 7-year-old girl in her Hammond Sunday school class. During a Sunday school class "a church worker reportedly witnessed the act and removed the girl from the room, police said." The Chicago Tribune in a 1991 article reported that Hyles was sued for $1 million by the parents of the girl. The paper reported the "lawsuit claims Hyles and the church had not fulfilled their obligation to ensure that children were protected from harm during Sunday school." Furthermore, the lawsuit "claims the minister told the child's parents that Ballenger 'just loved children,' and, 'You don't have a case.'" The church settled the lawsuit out of court and the terms were not disclosed. At the criminal trial, three young women testified deacon A.V. Ballenger "had fondled them years ago." One of those girls testified that she was molested on the Hammond church bus. A former security officer at the church testified he saw Ballenger fondle a young girl in 1978 or 1979 in a Sunday school room after being called to the room by a female teacher. In 1993, Ballenger was sentenced to five years in prison.
In 1993, WJBK aired Preying from the Pulpit, a news series, examined "allegations of child molesting, abuse and sex scandals in several churches across the nation appear to be part of a pattern of such scandals among churches affiliated with the First Baptist Church of Hammond." Hyles called the program "poor journalism" and organized a national campaign to respond.
In October 1997, an Indianapolis lawyer filed a lawsuit against First Baptist Church of Hammond, accusing the church and its pastor of allowing a mentally retarded woman to be sexually assaulted for six years. The civil suit filed in Lake Superior Court in Gary claims the Chicago woman was "induced by agents" of the church in 1991 to ride a bus to attend Sunday school at First Baptist. While in the care of the church, the lawsuit alleges, the woman was sexually assaulted, molested, battered and raped more than once through the Fall of 1996.
For that reason, lawyer Vernon Petri said, the church and its pastor, the Rev. Jack Hyles, have been named as defendants in the suit. "Both failed in their duty to protect her," Petri said. Hyles called the accusations ridiculous. "There's nobody in this world who is more opposed to this sexual molestation nor anything like that," he said. "We even preach against divorce. We are totally opposed to sexual sin. There is nothing more obnoxious and abhorrent than that." Petri, who is a party in the suit filed on behalf of the woman, now 42, and her sister, alleged in the lawsuit a pattern of assault can be traced to a Sunday in 1991, when a First Baptist teacher saw someone abusing the woman and reported it to church leaders and police. The parents were never told, Petri said, so the woman kept going to church, where the suit claims she was threatened into silence.
"The thing that broke the camel's back came in the fall of 1996 when (the woman) developed a horrible infection and was taken to a doctor to find out what was wrong," Petri said. "When the doctor couldn't understand where the infection was coming from, she was admitted to a hospital where they found, embedded in her, a plastic object." The woman then told what happened, Petri said, recalling that a church program instructor led her to a room and served as a lookout while two to three males raped her. Hyles said he would have been the first one to want someone punished for such an act. Hyles said the church told police about the teacher's report in 1991. "We reported it immediately," he said. “And that's the only case we know of. In fact, our records show the girl has not attended our church since that occasion." Hyles said accurate records are kept of attendance. "For them to bring this up, when our records show no attendance since 1991, is a total shock to me," he said. Anthony Mancini, a Chicago lawyer who also represents the woman, said his client has been in a type of shock. "She has suffered an incredible amount of emotional harm and physical pain over this," he said. "This was her life, this was her church. This was her place of worship, and she was violated by it."
Mancini said he knows of no arrests in connection with the woman's case in 1991 or in 1996, as a request to review files will be granted only with a subpoena. "Now that we have filed suit, we will seek out the records to open up the case and learn more about what happened."
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