Blog on the Lillypad
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
 | Jack Hyles and Friedrich Nietzsche
0. Nietzsche was a German philosopher who lived during the Victorian era. Charles Dickens had already published several books when Nietzsche was born. He read and comprehended Darwin. Nietzsche was one of several philosophers who came out of Germany in that era, whose works soon got away from their master and were used to unleash the barbarities that the twentieth century saw in such abundance. In reviewing Nietzsche’s teachings, I see that Nietzsche and Jack Hyles had a lot in common. |
1. Nietzsche: Christianity has failed because it has emasculated the progress of man towards his own propagation and survival. Traditional Christianity teaches weakness and restricts manhood.
1a. Nietzsche both praised and blamed the Apostle Paul for teaching that the meaning of our lives on earth is found outside of life on earth. He praises Paul’s genius in stitching together doctrine to form a theology that would last for centuries. But he blames Paul for those very doctrines. For the doctrines of Christianity, according to Nietzsche, take man away from living in the here and now, restrict him from exercising strength (violence/shrewdness) to get what he wants, and keep him subservient to an outdated form of himself. Christianity, Nietzsche asserted, has halted man’s progress because it emphasizes contemplation, compassion, monogamy, forgiveness, and thus it enables the weakest members of society to restrain the strongest members of society. The morally upright man in reality, Nietzsche argued, is a man of action who works change in society by courage, strength, intelligence, and his own vision of what he decides is good. The good man of the modern age, according to Nietzsche, is a “Superman” who dispenses with compassion, allows the weak to be destroyed if necessary, survives suffering because he is capable of surviving it, and does what he freely chooses to do.
| 1b. Now translate this to Jack Hyles. His teachings share a lot that Nietzsche taught. Hyles discredits those “limp wristed, pink lemonade drinking, panty waist preachers” who he viewed as being too passive, too agreeable. Hyles brought robust masculinity right into his church as a Christian virtue. (And we see an even more exaggerated version of the Hyles Christianity of the masculine in Jim Vineyard’s church and school in Oklahoma.) Hyles mocked “deeper life” thinking from the pulpit. He made the earnest searching and exploring of Scripture a joke. |  |
1c. For Jack Hyles, the good Christian is a Man of Action. The good Christian is not good because he reads, or thinks, or turns the other cheek but he’s a good Christian because he goes out soul winning. He keeps his women in line. He’s the head of his home and nobody is allowed to question him. Above all else, the good Christian according to Hyles does two things: he builds the numbers in his church and he maintains order. The good Christian in the Hyles sense does not differ all that much in morality or outlook from Nietzsche’s superman. Because he is excellent above his peers, he enforces a strict discipline onto them. Those who excel under it are destined to be supermen. Those who survive it and endure are meant to be a part of the “masses” (or herd) that will support the elite. Those who are broken under it are the weak who are designed to suffer and be destroyed. To berate people from the pulpit is normal and good in Hyles theology: the strong will flourish and overcome such rebukes. The herd will become more compliant and work harder. The weak will be pared away.
1d. For Jack Hyles, the Christian Superman is a MAN. In this respect, Hyles is most strongly like Nietzsche in asserting that progress can be achieved only by men. And like Nietzsche, Hyles asserts that aggressiveness, ambition, quick wittedness, and the ability to adapt are the primary qualities of leadership. Hyles paid lip service to fear of God, compassion, and forgiveness. But what you find when you listen to his sermons over time is the exaltation of masculinity (and not all men qualify in his book for that distinction) , and the promotion of a powerful drive to get things done, the ability to work through hardship, a stalwart tenacity, and undiminished courage. Just like Nietzsche. As for Bible reading and prayer, Hyles gave them lip service, too. But they became events toted up to show energy and devotion, not increasing skill and wisdom. Hyles berated his people to read their Bibles more and to pray more. He did not address methods of Bible study, nor did he discuss excellent tools of Bible study, nor did he explore lexicons or advise the further study of Greek.
1e. In the Hyles-Nietzschien church, reading the Bible and praying are like running laps. You do them to build up endurance and power. You also do them to demonstrate to your peers that you can do more than they can do. To soberly and humbly beseech God for wisdom from His Word, or to acknowledge that your lot is blindness unless the Lord opens your eyes is not part of the Hyles-Nietzschien order of things. The Superman benefits God by serving God, not vice-versa. In the Hyles view, the Superman-pastor is the indispensable member of God’s creation who gets the job done for God, and if he did not get the job done for God, the job would not be done.
1f. The Superman remakes the church into something useful, jettisoning the teachings and practices of the past that emasculated men. In the Hyles-Nietzschien church order, men don’t read the Scripture intentively to find out deeper meaning or ponder the depths of mystery, grace, and salvation. Men read the Bible to pump up themselves and prove that they are God’s men (and better than you). What men are REALLY supposed to do is build the numbers of the church so that the church---like the individual Superman---is a place that towers over other churches, outnumbering them, outdoing them, progressing towards the destiny it has set for itself. The church of the Hyles- Nietzschien Superman is the social change, the Hyles-Nietzschien social order that proves that this is the place where Supermen rule.
2. Nietzsche equates compassion, the inability to see pain suffered by others, and the willingness to take a secondary role as feminine in some instances and dangerous to society in other instances. When Nietzsche expressly calls something feminine, it’s in the context of that behavior being contrary to the forward progress of the Superman. The Superman is, by definition, masculine. And in Nietzsche thought, the feminine is not only opposite the masculine, it can diminish the masculine. Therefore, women are the tools, playthings, and servants of supermen. (Not stated by Nietzsche, but implied.) I don't think that Nietzsche brutalized women, but Nietzsche’s writings have been used to teach that if a woman is brutalized, enslaved, or degraded, eventually her instincts will teach her to accept such treatment. In playing around with social Darwinism, Nietzsche left a lot open to interpretation in his writings, and women----as creatures in a secondary slot in man's progress forward---are not given a status that protects and honors them.
 | 2a. The Hyles-Nietzschien outlook views women in much the same way. The Hyles Christian Superman is always male. The role of the female is to admire the male and support him. Lower level females do drudge work. The hierarchy of female superiority is determined based on selection by the Christian Supermen, and the basis of selection is beauty and agreeability---the power to offer consolation and pleasure to the Christian Superman. |
2b. Therefore, the relationship between men and women in the Hyles-Nietzschien model is always sexual and/or domination-subjugation but nothing outside of these two parameters. Single young men and single young women are brow beaten not to so much as touch each other, however innocently. Because in Hyles-Nietzschien philosophy, there is no such thing as innocence (or it is purely feminine, and no Christian Superman would stoop to it). There can also be nothing egalitarian in any relationship between a man and a woman. She is not to argue, not to reproach, not to rebuke.
2c. Biblically, of course, Hyles sidesteps the prominence of Deborah, who judged Israel and was a prophetess (“God couldn’t find a man,” according to one of the preachers of that ilk. As though God could not call forth exactly what He needed in whatever form He required. But this is another example as well of the Hyles view that God is helpless unless the Superman saves Him.). Hyles also misses that the coming of Christ was first announced to women; the true mission of Christ was first revealed to a woman (who humbly but specifically made the declaration of what she knew in anointing his feet for burial), and women stayed by Him at the Cross when His disciples has fled. He was also first received by women when He had arisen. Hyles also neglects that in the dispensation of gifts, women were represented. The long pageant of women Christian martyrs is ignored by him. (It helps that he promoted ignorance of church history, so that names like Anne Askew who died by fire for reading the Scripture and professing Christ as salvation and not the sacraments; or the much more recent Edith Cavell, who was killed simply for doing the right thing as a nurse in the field of battle.
| 2d. In the Hyles-Nietzschien model, the virtue of the man is aggression and domination, so rape, child molesting, and sodomizing of little boys is cast in a very different light than that shed by the Bible. Nietzsche didi not expressly teach deviance in sexual behavior (as far as I know), but his mandate that sex is for the pleasure (joy) of the Superman and rests on the exercise of his instincts leaves the protection of the innocent and vulnerable unaddressed. The Nietzschien Superman takes what he wants, and he has the right to take it because he has the strength to take it. If that which is victimized has been designed by Nature to be subjugated, then there is no wrongness in the suffering inflicted upon the victim of rape, sodomy, or molestation. A strong child or woman will overcome the victimization and progress; the weak victim will die, and Nature’s only pronouncement is that the strong will survive and weak perish.
Therefore, when allegations of the abuse of children reached Hyles, he made one of the suspects (A.V. Balinger, later indicted and jailed for molesting a little girl) a hero in the church. As for other allegations concerning graduates and alumni of his school, he hid behind a smokescreen of declaring he was always for the accused (both puzzling and anti-biblical). The onlooker recognizes that in all cases the Hyles-Nietzschien machine expressed more support for the perpetrators and did not extend Christian justice to the victims. And such behavior is consistent with the Nietzschien world view. For a man to seize what he wants, whatever that desire is, is what he is entitled to do, provided he has the strength to do it. To accord legal protection to the weak is to restrict the progress of the Superman. To all appearances, Hyles’ behavior was exactly consistent with Nietzschien policy. |  |
2e. In the Hyles-Nietzschien view, the social structure does not admit the work of God in women in terms of knowledge, wisdom, and fellowship with God. They are not extensively protected; nor are they given honor; nor are they respected. Women fall into one of two classes, the elite, who are dressed and coiffed to express honor and status for the men; and the drudges, who do the bus work, Sunday School work, and other tasks.
