Another fundy-Baptist question (plus: bonus fun just for reading!)

[Sapphocrat]

What in the world is a "bus director"?

I'm researching a new entry for Conservative Babylon -- Jack Hyles -- and right this minute, I'm reading, from start to finish, a PDF version of the Hyles-Anderson College 2006-07 catalogue.

I keep seeing mention of "bus director," as some sort of "soul-winning" vocation they actually train people for. Assuming "bus director" doesn't mean the guy who drives the bus and makes sure nobody holds hands on the way to the college-sanctioned un-dances, what is a "bus director"? In context, it's right up there with "pastors, assistant pastors, evangelists, song leaders, youth workers ... and missionaries."

If you'd like to subject yourself to the catalogue, here's the URL (remember, it's in PDF):
http://www.hylesanderson.com/pdfs/haccatalog2006-2007.pdf

OK, whether you can answer my question or not, here's your bonus just for reading this post: My transcript of some of the "highlights" of the Hyles-Anderson catalogue -- with, of course, my snarky comments.

All programs are planned as terminal education. This means that we prepare students to go directly upon graduation into the ministry for which they have been trained.

Translation: We're not an accredited college, which means our degrees (and conferred "titles") are utterly worthless in the real world; college credits can't be transferred to any real university; and students are ineligible for federal loans and government grants. So, when you see the degree of "B.S." after our instructors' names, it really means "B.S."!

Skirts above the knee are not allowed. Men must wear neckties to class and must have short haircuts. Young ladies may not wear shorts or slacks.

We're not kidding. Even our cheerleaders wear ankle-length skirts. (If you don't believe it, check the photos in some of our other pamphlets.) Oh, did we mention there aren't any women's sports teams, only men's?

Young ladies are not allowed to go off campus unchaperoned. Young men and young ladies may not date alone in cars.

Cars are the Devil's playthings. Therefore, we provide bus transportation to the cheap motels just off the interstate.

Absolutely no hand holding or other intimacies are allowed between the genders.

How about among the genders?

We are fundamentalists are use the term proudly.

Good for you! Homos are trying to take the nasty sting out of the word "queer," too!

We believe in a literal Hell which has fire and brimstone...

...right here, on our campus.

...and a literal Heaven with streets of gold.

...i.e., the church coffers.

Absolutely no drinking, smoking, or dancing is allowed.

And no sex standing up, which could lead to dancing.

No student is allowed to attend Hollywood movies, play cards, or participate in other questionable amusements. We do not fellowship with liberals but instead take a strict separatist stand from the world and apostasy.

Good! Then the rest of us won't be bothered by your students knocking on our doors?

Pastor Jack Schaap ... was led to Christ at the age of five by his sister Kristi as he sat on the edge of the bathtub.

That's a visual I could have done without today.

...Brother Hyles felt God speak to his heart about founding an old-fashioned, sin-hating, Devil-fighting, Christ-honoring bible college where ... the chapel pulpit was ablaze with red-hot preaching ... a college where young ladies were taught be to submissive wives and dedicated servants of God.

Because that's what it really all boils down to you, know: the complete subjugation of women.

I'm not through yet, but I've saved the best (so far) for last:

Dear Student:

Hyles-Anderson is probably the unique college in America. We are not impressed with what is being done at Devil State University and Satan U. ...

Devil State University and Satan U.?! My high-school counselor didn't tell me about those! Where do I send away for applications? Can I transfer the credits I already have from Lucifer Tech?

We are opposed to the stuffy, bookish, all-lecture style of teaching.

Translation: As Stephen Colbert says, "I don't trust books."

We think it is ridiculous for a Christian to spend hours and hours in a psychology class studying what the rats do when they run in a maze.

Translation: Science is evil! Eeeeeeeeeeevil!

In most psychology courses the professor is concerned about what makes an individual's eyes the color they are. We are more concerned about looking an individual in the eye and communicating truth to him. We are a bit tired of the snobbish, intellectual sophistry of much of the education of our day.

In other words, we don't teach you silly facts -- we feel the truth at you!

OK, back to work. (And this is work! Penance, even!)

And if anybody can tell me what a "bus director" is...

[CatholicEdHead]

1. No idea on the bus director

but that visual at age 5 I could also do without. :wtf:

[3waygeek]

2. You sure it's not

"Bus. Director", i.e. Business Director?

[Sapphocrat]

5. Absolutely positive.

It hit me that it could be literal -- that is, a bus driver who takes charge of cross-country "soul-winning" missions they probably take the little preachers-to-be on (pardon the grammar) -- somebody who keeps them fired up. But I honestly don't know if that's it.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. would it be "business director"?

Perhaps they also don't believe in spelling out long words--you know, the Devil's work--and so they call it "bus director".

What I don't get is why a fundy family would waste money sending a girl to college. After all, what can they do with their Submissive Degree? Or is it used as a place to find a proper husband?

[Sapphocrat]

7. I'm sure it's only a way...

...to keep young women that much more sheltered for four years. I'm sure their "education" consists primarily of finding a "soul-winning" husband. (There's a lot of emphasis in some of the school's other material on students finding their life partners there.)

After all, what else are you going to do with your daughter between the night of her Purity Ball, and the day Daddy Dearest is ready to give her up?

Btw, re "bus" = "business": Nope, I really don't think so. Although the "Devil's business" was a good thought.

[foreigncorrespondent]

4. The bus director...

...is the guy/gal who sits on the bus that takes the students to cheap motels just off the interestate? :shrug:

[atommom]

6. Aww man, I want to go to Devil State University!

I'll bet they throw really good parties there. :evilgrin: AND I'm sure they have a better science department.

"We are a bit tired of the snobbish, intellectual sophistry..." They really have no sense of irony at all, do they?

[varkam]

12. You know...

I interviewed for a graduate spot a Satan U a few months back. It was a very nice campus, everyone seemed to get along and everything...but there was this one weird thing. When I went into the administration building, I could swear I was hearing screaming. Apparently, they generate their own power using a generator that runs on the souls of the damned. Hurah technology!

[elehhhhna]

8. this happened when he was 5?

Pastor Jack Schaap ... was led to Christ at the age of five by his sister Kristi as he sat on the edge of the bathtub.

...Brother Hyles felt God speak to his heart about founding an old-fashioned, sin-hating, Devil-fighting, Christ-honoring bible college where ... the chapel pulpit was ablaze with red-hot preaching ... a college where young ladies were taught be to submissive wives and dedicated servants of God.


WTF? His vision for a college is all about controlling girls. Frikkin BTK Pastor.

[charlie]

9. Seems they have a "bus ministry"

so, your guess isn't too far off.

CE 241-248 Applied Bus Work. Students may receive one credit per semester for working in the First Baptist Church bus ministry. Students must attend bus meetings, ride the bus to and from the church, and visit the bus route at least six hours per week. One semester, two hours.

CE 236 The Bus Ministry. One of the outstanding features of Hyles-Anderson College is the opportunity to study under the bus director of the First Baptist Church of Hammond. In addition to the classroom instruction, the student will receive in-service training working with the world’s largest Christian bus fleet. One semester, two hours.

[Sapphocrat]

14. You got it, charlie!

You're good!

Here's more I found, while researching IBF preacher Jim Vineyard (his is one of dozens of names connected with rampant sexual misconduct and child abuse throughout the wide, wide network of Jack Hyles):

Christian Soul Winning Bus Disasters
http://www.postfun.com/pfp/features/98/jan/bus.html

How do you "grow" a church? Well in the late 60s Christians came up with the idea of bus ministries. As Jim Vineyard and Jerry Falwell testify in "Winning Souls Through Buses" bus ministries "put the 'go' in the Great Commission." While resistant to the use of buses to take children to SCHOOLS these white wonders will go to any length to introduce children to ignorance and superstition. In the early 70s 1500 Sunday School pupils rode Falwell's buses to the doors of Thomas Road Baptist Church.

Was this outreach program successful? What tactics did they use to bring these seekers to their knees? Read on, and prepare yourself for the body count.

First, the door-to-door invitations. When approaching someone's house,

Look for signs of children, for usually they will be your first riders. However, you expect about 20 percent of your riders to be adults if you will go after them, and more as you perfect your tactics.

<snip>

After you have them at the church, separate the children and take them to their own special classes. Mr. Vineyard likes to act out Bible stories for the children, playing all the parts himself. If he wants to be especially frightening he has been known to take out his partial plate. ...

More at the link.

And if this sounds like a figment of Miss Poppy's imagination (we all know who Miss Poppy is, I hope), it's not. I stumbled across an audio recording of a five-part series a TV news channel did in the early 1990s, all about the cult of Jack Hyles; in one segment, a former follower talks about "bus directors" who literally ran after their potential prey (in one case, IIRC, a nine-year-old girl at an apartment complex) to get the terrified little sinners on his bus!

This has got to be the creepiest web of scandal I've ever delved into. Which is saying a lot.

I'll keep y'all updated... and let you know when I've got this multi-part ConBab entry finished -- which will be a while; the more I research, the more filth I find.

[charlie]

24. Hey, turns out I remember this Hyles guy

Back when long hair on men was an affront to decent Americans, every kid who wanted cool hair at one time or another pointed at the pop image of Jesus over the mantel and said, "You're always telling me to be like him. Well, LOOK at him!"

Didn't work too often, but it was a popular argument. Then suddenly out of the blue, parents were armed with new ammo -- Jesus was as clean cut and squared away as a Marine (I actually knew a kid who was shorn of his locks because of this "new" information). Turns out the savior of wholesomeness was good friend Jack Hyles:

JESUS HAD SHORT HAIR!

[atommom]

10. Have you seen the Steve Martin movie, Leap of Faith?

He plays a religious huckster who travels from town to town with his entourage of musicians, preaching, singing, and collecting many donations. Maybe that's what they're training people for.... transporting and keeping people pumped up to "spread the message". Though judging from their catalogue, it doesn't sound as if graduates of this school could put on a very good show.

[Sapphocrat]

15. Yes, I have...

...and I think "Leap of Faith" is far too forgiving in its portryal. LOL

[atommom]

18. Well, they were trying to make him a sympathetic character...

so they pretty much gave up on accuracy completely. ;)

[ChristianLibrul]

11. Bus "ministry"

A so-called bus "ministry" means the church has one or more buses which bring poor kids to church, almost always without parent(s) who wouldn't bring them. I believe Baptists invented this in the early '70s. In theory, it sounds fine, but in practice, the poor kids are kept segregated from the members' kids, usually in the gym.

[Sapphocrat]

16. You got it!

See my update above, from Miss Poppy (a.k.a. the Adult Christianity site).

In practice, it sounds like abduction!

[onager]

13. And here's another one leading 'em to...Christ:

And without a bathtub!

One of the outstanding features of Hyles-Anderson College is the opportunity to study under the bus director of the First Baptist Church of Hammond.

I bet we can take that phrasing literally!

:rofl:

Thanks. I grew up too damn close to the infamous Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC. I thought it was the wackiest Fundie school in the country, but apparently not.

Seems like this joint swiped a lot of its rules from B.J.U., though. The long dresses, no makeup, no dating, etc. etc.

When I was a kid we used to drive thru the gates of B.J.U. just to provoke the guards. Drive thru those gates and the Kampus Kops immediately started following you. I think they were mostly on the lookout for Communists and Negroes.

I was raised as a Southern Baptist, though I've been a happy atheist for many years now. I have a lot of devout relatives back in South Carolina, and even most of them laugh about Bob Jones U. Some of them call it "Jesus Tech."

[Sapphocrat]

17. "Under the bus director"

I bet we can take that phrasing literally!

Unfortunately, we can!

[canetoad]

23. Slick fingerwork

with the ctrl + F key will reveal the secret hierarchy. Bus worker, bus captain, bus director then finally, Bus Division Leader.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

19. "Department of Marriage and Motherhood"

:puke:

[Sapphocrat]

20. Oh, you brave, brave thing, WIMR!

You actually went and clicked the link! There, there...!

(Here's an Alka-Seltzer -- or a stuff drink, per your preference.)

I hope you can stomach the lot of it once I've got the entire writeup finished (and I am very close).

Sneak preview (of just the Hyles-Anderson stuff):

• Hyles-Anderson courses include: Christian Manhood; Personal Evangelism; Evangelistic Songleading; The Fundamental Man; Cults; Countries Without Christ; Starting a New Testament Church; Church Transportation; Christian Ladies' Attitude and Appearance (ladies only); Church Education (men only); Preparation for Marriage (ladies only).

• The Missionary program is for men only — although a "Missionary Wife's Diploma" is offered for "ladies only," designed to train wives of missionaries: "Ladies who go to the mission field will most likely serve as missionary wives, mothers, and teachers." Courses for the "ladies" include "The Missionary Wife" and "Missionary Relationships." (What, no "Missionary Position" class?)

• The Physical Education program is for men only. So is the "Master of Education in School Administration."

• The Homemaking program is for women only.

• Hyles-Anderson offers an "Associate of Science Diploma in Marriage and Motherhood" (for the "ladies" only, of course), "designed to train ladies to be wives and mothers." (It's not 'til one's senior year, however, that one takes the all-important course in "Sewing Drapes and Household Items.")

You want that stiff drink now?

[WritingIsMyReligion]

22. A nice ginger beer would be good.

Yes, I clicked on the link. I read the whole thing.

:puke:

:beer:

[Dogmudgeon]

21. No long-haired, sandal-wearing Jewboys. That means YOU, Jesus!

Egads, that's got to be the most revolting thing I've read since I checked out Fred Phelps' site.

--p!