Good Enough to Post See below for the current list of installments of the famous Godfrey Letter now being posted on the FFF by a fellow named Thornhill. Today's installment (#9) is good enough to post here. If you aren't up to speed on the cover-ups in the IFB movement, Jack Hyles ran what he claimed was the largest Sunday School in the world.

Excerpts from An Open Letter to Dr. Jack Hyles from Evangelist George Godfrey

INSTALLMENT ** 9 **

In your eleven-page reply to Dr. Sumner’s article, you printed some serious charges that Mr. Vic Nischik is a womanizer. “Mr. Nischik’s wife initially wanted to divorce him fifteen years ago because he asked one of his female employees to run off with him.” And, “At a later date, she told me that the night before, late at night, she had found Mr. Nischik in his pajamas in a bedroom with a beautiful young lady.” And, from Gail, “All the salesmen had comments to make about Mr. Nischik’s carrying’s on with the opposite sex…After the girl graduated I overheard her telling someone that she and Mr. Nischik had been sleeping together, that she had been in the Nischik’s house many times.” I personally doubt that these rumors are true. Give me the names and addresses of these women, and I will investigate. But here is something that needs to be emphasized: If these accounts are true, you knew about Vic Nischik being a womanizer for many years. In that event you did a terrible thing in allowing him to be a deacon at First Baptist Church for twenty-six until the spring of this year when he did not run again for that office. Also, you did a terrible thing in using him to lead the singing in your large adult Sunday school class for almost that many years and a bus captain for twenty-four years. You are guilty of either slandering a man of good character or of using a man of ill repute in your church work for many years!

Preacher, if he was such a terrible person then, how could you permit him to continue in the important positions he held? Another thing. You commit the same sin as you charge Vic Nischik with: You make unfounded, unproven and unsubstantiated allegations of moral failure! Gail Merhalski’s tales are the rawest form of hearsay and innuendo I’ve ever seen. Here, without once in her story telling us that Vic Nischik was seen with a woman in a compromising position, she tells of idle chatter (I believe you called it “gossip” not so long ago) about Mr. Nischik made in her presence. I find it amazing that then Gail would refuse to believe the idle chatter and dismiss it because she had learned from you that one was not to even listen to gossip and to only believe it when yousay it or where there were two or more witnesses, and now suddenly, she can talk as though such things were true. What caused the change, Preacher? If this is not “situation ethics” I don’t know what is. Have you changed your position once more to justify your situation? Is listening to gossip all right, now? Is it all right to run to you and tell you about something we heard about someone? Does it depend on what we heard? Does it depend on whether the thing we hear is that a once loyal member of the church of staff has spoken against you? So, the sin of gossip is all right if the gossip is bringing tales back to you against your enemies?

By the way, in March of this year I telephoned Jack Nischik, the son of Vic and Jennie, who was finishing his last semester at Cedarville College. I said, “Jack, your dad blames Jack Hyles for breaking up his marriage. Do you personally believe that is true?” He replied, “Yes, that is correct.” Of the four members of the Nischik family, Vic, Jack, and Judy in one accord cite you as the one responsible for the break up of the home.

Dr. Hyles, concerning the rumors that Jennie Nischik is your mistress, none can prove that there has been sexual immorality. Only God can see what goes on between two locked office doors. Let me quote again from the daughter’s (Judy Nischik, now Judy Johnson) scathing letter she brought to your office prior to her leaving the state with her husband: “ I pity you, Jack Hyles, for you will be experiencing the consequences of your actions for a very long time. You may have convinced your following in the past twenty years that ‘It did not happen if you did not see it,’ but God has seen every moment of those years, and my faith will not let me believe that He will let you go unpunished.”

I believe that there is ample proof that you have had more than an employer-employee relationship with Jennie Nischik over the years. For many years it has been Jennie who drives you to the airport on Monday mornings in her automobile that you purchase for her. You verify that yourself on page 8 of your deposition. Approximately 90% of the times Mrs. McKinney makes the trip also. The other times various church staff ladies will accompany you and Jennie but it is nearly always Jennie! I cannot tell you what church staff lady informed me of this because she also would be persecuted by you and some of your zealous followers. Actually, I learned it from a couple of other sources as well.

Mrs. Jennie Nischik said in her deposition that she does not work on Wednesday. You are gone from First Baptist Church usually until noon when you return from your Monday and Tuesday preaching trip to some city in America. Jennie also testified under oath that she goes to the church to work on Saturday afternoons. If something immoral ever did occur, that would be a convenient time when the majority of the church staff are not there working.