Latest / 4-Freedom Podcast / 170. Fundamental Footprints - Bob Gray Sr. and Longview Baptist Temple – The Cult of the Pulpit

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170. Fundamental Footprints - Bob Gray Sr. and Longview Baptist Temple – The Cult of the Pulpit · 4-Freedom Podcast

0:03
In the heat of the East, Texas is different.
0:07
It clings to you thick and unmoving.
0:10
But even in the dead of the summer, every Pew at Longview
0:13
Baptist Temple was packed. It was the late 1990s and if you
0:18
were a Baptist in Texas, you knew the name Bob Gray.
0:22
Not the one from Jacksonville, but the other one, Bob Gray,
0:26
senior from Longview, TX. A man with a booming voice and a
0:30
never ending smile and a magnetic presence that filled
0:34
the pulpit like few others could.
0:37
He was the kind of preacher whose name only could draw.
0:41
Crowds. When youth groups came to the
0:43
Super conferences, they didn't just hear sermons.
0:46
They entered a machine. A spiritual boot camp per SE.
0:50
Services were electric. The expectations were high.
0:54
And the man at the center of it all, he walked with a kind of
0:58
confidence that came from knowing the influence was far
1:02
reaching. Bob Bray Senior had built
1:04
something big. Under his leadership, Longview
1:07
Baptist Temple became one of the most recognized churches in the
1:12
independent fundamental Baptist world.
1:14
He founded a school bus ministry and became legendary.
1:20
And later, Texas Baptist College was founded in a training ground
1:25
for young men who wanted to be just like him.
1:28
You were a young preacher in the early 2000s.
1:30
There was a good chance you had one of his sermon tapes.
1:34
You probably mimicked his cadence.
1:36
And when you did that, you wore it as a badge of spiritual
1:39
authority. But behind the energy, behind
1:42
the charisma was something more subtle, something many didn't
1:46
see until years later. You see, Bob Gray Senior didn't
1:50
rise to power in a vacuum. He came under the influence of
1:54
Jack House, who we talked about last week.
1:57
He took the blueprint of Hammond, IN and laid it down in
2:00
East Texas. Soul winning bus routes, loyalty
2:06
to the man of God, strict dress codes and a view of separation
2:10
that created its own ecosystem. And it worked for a while.
2:16
But personality driven ministries always comes with a
2:20
cost. Ask the staff who lived in fear
2:23
of being fired overnight. Ask the young people who grew up
2:27
believing that to question the pastor was to rebel against God.
2:33
Ask the former members who were blacklisted when they left
2:36
quietly and slandered when they didn't.
2:39
There was no moral scandal to Marcus fault, no explosive
2:43
headlines. But that doesn't mean there
2:45
wasn't any damage. Because sometimes spiritual harm
2:49
doesn't come in the form of tabloid exposes.
2:53
It comes in the form of control disguised as conviction.
2:58
It comes in the form of performance replacing
3:02
discipleship. When Bob Gray Senior eventually
3:05
stepped down, it wasn't just a retirement.
3:09
It was the slow unraveling of a dynasty.
3:13
What followed was a tale all too familiar in the IFB world.
3:17
Split congregations, debate about legacy, and questions
3:21
about whether a ministry built on one man could survive without
3:26
him. Today we're revisiting Longview.
3:30
Not just the sermons in suits, but the system that he elevated
3:34
Bob Gray Senior to a level of influence few ever reach.
3:40
We'll talk about the pressures to perform, the echoes of Hail's
3:44
influence, and the long shadow cast when Charisma takes center
3:50
stage at the church. I found my freedom in you.
4:14
I found a toy I can't lose, and thank God it's true.
4:21
You wrapped your arms around me and heaven broke through.
4:25
From the moment she found me, I found my freedom in it.
4:32
Welcome to the Four Freedom Podcast.
4:34
This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for
4:38
everyday Christians with everyday issues.
4:41
Now here are your hosts, James Seyfried and Brett Morris.
4:48
Welcome to today's episode. We are excited to have you here
4:52
with us. What a great week we have had
4:55
following our Resurrection Sunday and the week after
4:57
Resurrection Sunday and the the wonderful things that we've had
5:01
going on. Brett, what a great episode we
5:04
had last week recording on Hiles.
5:06
It's feeling good to get back into the IFB mindset and and
5:11
been able to dissect some things from our past and your past.
5:15
You were vulnerable last week's episode.
5:17
It's great to have that. And I mean, we've had a lot of
5:20
feedback. We've had a lot of interaction
5:22
from our episode and people who have been encouraged.
5:25
People have reached out to me and to you.
5:27
And I mean, what a great time that was.
5:30
How was your last week been? How's your family doing?
5:32
How are things in your neck of the woods?
5:36
Man, things are going great, really, really good.
5:39
We had a good, like you said, a lot of good responses from the
5:43
last episode. I am happy that it was able to
5:47
help so many people reach so many people, talk to so many
5:51
people that have kind of experienced the same type of
5:54
trauma that I had to go through while I was there.
5:58
But we are thankful to be back. I'll tell you, James, I feel the
6:03
best I've ever felt, but also worst because I went back to the
6:08
gym and I started working out again.
6:11
And while for the most part I feel really good and you know,
6:15
overall I am so stinking sore. I've been putting off, I have
6:21
been putting off doing leg day for weeks, but I had to, I had
6:28
to just break down and do it. And now I'm feeling it, you
6:31
know, I'm, I did it on Monday. That way I wouldn't be sore over
6:35
the weekend. But you know, other than that,
6:37
man, things are, things are going great.
6:39
Couldn't be going better. Yeah, my wife, she goes to the
6:43
gym every morning and they sort of get a check out of what's
6:47
going to be going on throughout the week of the week prior to
6:50
it. And she always tells me every
6:52
time leg days on there, I just dread going.
6:54
She she's got some back problems from from giving birth to three
6:58
kids and and it's just, you know, it's difficult at times.
7:02
And so she's always hesitant to go on those days.
7:06
And so I definitely get your fear.
7:09
I used to work out all the time as well, haven't in years, but
7:12
leg day was that dread out. Love working.
7:15
Would leg day work out? I just hated the days after.
7:18
And in Idaho, I had a teenage boy who Dawson Van Man is his
7:22
name. He, he, he would get me going.
7:25
And so we worked out for like a year and a half.
7:26
And my office was on the second floor of the education building.
7:30
And man, on those days when I had leg day, I dreaded walking
7:34
to my office the next day because walking up those stairs
7:37
was, oh, it was so painful, so, so hard to do.
7:42
Yes, very much so. I'm, you know, I each lift
7:45
weights, you know, of course back when I was teenager in my
7:47
early 20s and then I could load that leg, press up.
7:51
I think I got that leg present the 1800 lbs one time, you know,
7:54
and that was nothing. Now I say that because I can't
7:58
do that anymore. So but I'm it is a good part.
8:03
I need to be working out. I'm glad I'm working out and I
8:06
am just excited for I got my boys there.
8:11
They're working out too. I'm showing them how to do it.
8:13
I mean, my, my oldest son, I don't know where he gets his
8:17
skinniness from, but he's like a 17 year old beast.
8:22
Like he'll be outside, he'll play basketball for 3-4 hours
8:26
and then go to the gym and and lift weights and then he doesn't
8:30
have to do anything to get those veins popping on his arm.
8:33
And I'm like, I hate you, you're my son, but I hate you.
8:37
Yeah, I've, I've never been able to do that.
8:39
I've got very small veins and so my veins never pop.
8:42
My, my, my son is also in that same thing.
8:44
He's like, dad, I got to get my veins popping.
8:47
I got to get them looking right. You know, I got a girl that I
8:50
like and and yeah, it's it's we make fun of them all the time.
8:53
It's wonderful. So we've.
8:56
Got. We've got Dallas coming up man.
8:59
We are 4040, some days away from being there in Dallas, TX.
9:04
What a great time it's going to be to be around friends and
9:07
family. For me, I'm going to spend the
9:09
week before the convention with my sister in McKinney, TX and
9:13
explore all the things around Dallas and around that area and
9:17
just enjoy some time with family, swimming and all the fun
9:20
stuff that comes along with that.
9:22
And then we'll be there at Dallas at the convention.
9:25
What a wonderful time it's going to be.
9:27
We've got a couple of meetups already lined up with some
9:30
family and friends out there. And if you're in the area, are
9:33
going to be in the area for the convention, please reach out to
9:36
us, let us know. We'd love to get a dinner with
9:40
you or hang out. Have you come over to the house
9:42
and enjoy a A4 Freedom cigar with us.
9:45
And we'd love to have you be a part of that.
9:48
Speaking of our our cigars, Brett, we are a couple of days
9:52
away from unveiling all four of our cigars at a full lineup.
9:56
We've had some supply chain issues with the tariffs, but we
9:59
think all that is worked out and we are moments away from
10:03
launching our sweet cigar, our our Connecticut suite and we're
10:07
excited about that. Got some fun things coming up in
10:10
the future that we're going to be rolling out some partnerships
10:12
that we're going to have with the cigar company and hopefully
10:17
you'll go and check out that website and make a purchase.
10:20
It does help us. It does help with some things
10:22
that we're doing and some things we're trying to do.
10:24
It's a good, easy way to support the podcast and support the
10:27
ministry of what we're trying to do here.
10:30
Exactly. I can't wait for Dallas myself.
10:33
We are got everything ready. I'm ready to go, I'm excited.
10:37
It's always one of my favorite times of the year.
10:40
Just like James said, if you're going to be there, we want to
10:43
meet you. We want to meet up, let us know,
10:45
drop us a line. Another trip that's coming up
10:49
that we want to keep in front of you because it is near and dear
10:53
to our hearts is Israel. Don't forget the Four Freedom in
10:57
the Holy Land trip that is going to be next in the next January
11:02
2025. We've still got some spots
11:05
available and we want to let our listeners know.
11:09
I can just imagine us going out recording episodes on the Sea
11:12
Galilee just like we did before and it's just going to be a
11:17
great time. We want you to come with us.
11:20
You will never regret going to Israel for a trip.
11:24
It's a once in a lifetime thing. This is probably I've asked
11:28
around and this is probably one of the best prices you're ever
11:32
going to find to go to Israel. I mean, I'm just going to tell
11:36
you it's all in 4500, but I'll tell you it that split up into
11:40
payments you got over the next year to save up and and pay on
11:44
it. And listen, I've priced other
11:47
people I know of price just trip out at like $10,000 a person.
11:52
And so for 4500, I mean, over half of that is flights and back
11:57
and we're in five star hotels every night, tour buses, tour
12:01
guides, all the places we start from the top of the country, go
12:05
all the way to the bottom. So register today, check out our
12:09
website, check out our trip website.
12:12
It's on our Facebook page and other social media platforms.
12:15
And I cannot wait for for freedom to go back to the Holy
12:18
Land. Yeah, not a lot of people know,
12:27
Brett, that the our Israel trip that we first went on was the
12:33
culmination of a lot of things. It was our time where we got to
12:37
experience the Holy Land, but it also was the time where me and
12:40
you connected for the first time really heart to heart.
12:43
And the rebirth of the For Freedom podcast with you coming
12:48
on as a Co host really started in Israel and went from there.
12:52
And so I'm excited about going back and seeing some of those
12:56
sites and seeing sites we haven't seen.
12:58
I ran into a lady yesterday at my son's T-ball game and she
13:03
stopped me and was talking for my former church, talking to me
13:06
about Israel and the trip and how she wants to go.
13:09
And I told her, I said, go, you got an opportunity to go with
13:12
us, sign up. Her daughter was there and she
13:14
said, yeah, mom, you can go do it.
13:16
She was a little nervous, but I got to talk with her.
13:19
And so if you're on the edge about it, jump on with us.
13:22
Come enjoy the trip with us. Enjoy the time that we're going
13:26
to have together in the holy lands.
13:28
You're not going to regret it. And Brett, the the next item
13:31
that we have not really talked about, but it's coming up and
13:34
we've just now established that we're pretty much we're 90
13:39
percent, 95% sure me, possibly both of us are going to be
13:43
theirs. We're going to be at the G3
13:45
conference at the Georgia in Atlanta, GA and we are going to
13:50
have a booth set up. We're going to have a booth set
13:52
up talking about the podcast, talking about our cigars and
13:55
just being able to be a part of all that's going on there.
13:58
We're going to be selling cigars there.
13:59
We're going to be having a great time of fellowship answering
14:02
questions. We've got some things that are
14:05
going to be rolling out that are going to be special that'll be
14:08
there at the event. And so hopefully that if you'll
14:12
be in the area or be a part of it, I've already got one there
14:14
lined up with a guy that reached out to us.
14:18
And so we're going to be hanging out and having a good time.
14:21
So if you're in the area of Georgia and you'd like to come
14:23
to G3 and be a part of what's going on there, we'd love to
14:27
have you be a part of it. Absolutely.
14:30
I'm looking forward to that. We that plan just kind of fell
14:33
together and I'm hoping it all works out.
14:36
That's going to be an exciting time to you know, push our cigar
14:40
line for our company and for the podcast.
14:42
And so we are also. If you are going to be at that.
14:45
We want to put a line out to that.
14:47
We want you to come and meet us and see us and we'll have more
14:51
information about that as as we get closer to it.
14:56
Absolutely. And I did have someone reach out
14:58
to the podcast, to the website. We do have a website for
15:00
freedompodcast.com if you would like to Share your story on the
15:04
podcast. Some of our best episodes, some
15:07
of our most enjoyable episodes have been interviewing and
15:10
talking to people. And so if you'd like to Share
15:12
your story, you'd like to reach out to us, any of our social
15:16
medias, our website or my cell phone, you can always reach out
15:20
to us. And we would love to hear your
15:23
story and then record your story so that you can help others that
15:27
have struggled in and out of the independent fundamental about
15:30
this movement. And it's a a great way to
15:33
encourage and help other people by helping others in a way that
15:37
is just sharing who you are and what Lords done in your life.
15:41
And we've had a couple of those this last season with Olivia and
15:45
Joe. And so we'd love to line up some
15:47
of those in the future episodes as well, especially as we're
15:50
talking through these fundamental footprint series
15:53
that we're going through. Last week we talked about House
15:55
Anderson and what the House Anderson movement look like.
15:59
And today we're looking at an extension really of the House
16:03
Anderson movement. And we're going to be dissecting
16:06
even some of these other ones in the future.
16:09
We're looking at next season already and planning through
16:11
that and, and having some interviews and people come on
16:14
that really have come through this movement and out of some of
16:19
these movements that we're talking about.
16:21
And today we're going to be talking about Brett.
16:23
Tell us about who we're talking about today.
16:26
We are going to be talking about the Longview Baptist Temple and
16:30
we're going to be talking about Bob Gray.
16:33
And you know, it's in Longview, TX.
16:36
Bob Gray senior. Like I said, this man idolized
16:40
Jack Hiles, tried to replicate his model almost step by step.
16:46
The Longview Baptist Temple was his empire.
16:50
And just just like with Hiles, you got the bus ministry, you
16:55
got the inflated numbers, you got the strict standards.
16:59
And you know, unfortunately, you also have a fair share of
17:04
controversy. I will say that before I went to
17:08
Alice Anderson, I'd never heard of Bob Gray before.
17:11
But I can say this, I want to say that every almost if I can't
17:18
say every single time, but I can say almost every single time
17:23
Jack Kyle's name drop. Every time I heard him name
17:27
drop, he would mention Bob Gray Senior Longview Baptist Temple,
17:33
Longview, TX. I heard that so much.
17:36
Every week Jack would mention his name.
17:39
And that's because Bob Gray emulated Jack Hiles.
17:44
And that's what Jack Hiles wanted all the preacher boys to
17:47
do. Be like me.
17:50
Read my manual, read The Fundamental Man, emulate me.
17:55
And that's what Bob Gray did to a tee.
17:58
And that's why Jack Hiles pushed him so hard.
18:01
Yeah, with, you know, with Jack Hiles, when when the man would
18:04
get up and release a new book or a new miniseries.
18:08
They say that every time he released 1, he sold over
18:11
1,000,000 copies. And so everyone was trying to be
18:14
like him. And in the flip side of it,
18:16
everyone wanted to be mentioned by him because if you were
18:20
mentioned by him or you were an illustration in a book or
18:23
something, that's a million people.
18:25
And this is before the age of social media.
18:28
This is before the age of viral Ness.
18:30
This is before, you know, some celebrity can say things.
18:33
And so if you can get a million people to know or hear about
18:36
you, there's a chance that they're going to reach out and
18:39
say, hey, will you come and preach at a revival or preach at
18:42
a conference? And so we'll sort of begin with
18:45
who Bob Gray is. Bob Gray was born in 1946 and
18:51
became known as the preacher's preacher in the ISP circles.
18:56
He was a staunch, as you said, House loyalist.
19:00
He was a frequent speaker at many, many IFB conferences.
19:03
And he passed her Longview Baptist Temple from 1980 to
19:08
2009. So this is a recent moment.
19:11
This is he recently retired and stepped down.
19:14
He's, I believe he's still alive today according to some of our
19:18
research. But what?
19:20
What else about the the history of who he is, Brett?
19:24
You know, let me say something about this, this thing in
19:28
independent fundamental Baptist movement, your goal as a
19:32
preacher, boy, you, you mentioned this James, is just to
19:36
get your name recognized. It's just to be on the platform
19:40
and rub elbows with your heroes and sit on the same platform in
19:46
a suit and tie with somebody that you looked up to.
19:50
And that is the goal. I've got good friends right now
19:53
that they they've accomplished that goal.
19:55
Their goal was to sit on the same platform as their heroes
19:59
and preach and they they got what they wanted.
20:02
That's what that that recognition.
20:05
Sitting up there, everybody look at me, sitting up there during
20:09
the whole sermon, that's what this whole culture, that's what
20:13
it, that's your goal. That's what you go after.
20:16
When it comes to Bob Gray, Longview Baptist Temple became
20:20
one of the biggest independent fundamental Baptist churches in
20:24
Texas. Now, Bob Gray senior took that
20:27
over from Jim Crane, and under his leadership, the church grew
20:31
rapidly, especially through the bus ministry.
20:35
And if there's anything that me and you know anything about
20:39
James, it is the bus ministry. Yeah, absolutely.
20:43
I did do just a quick search yet Bob Gray is still alive and he
20:47
also received, get this Brett, I didn't know this, an honorary
20:51
doctorate from House Anderson College for being such a
20:55
loyalist to Jack House. And you know, no surprise here.
20:59
Like house grade focused intently on soul winning and bus
21:03
routes. By the mid 90s, just a couple of
21:06
years after he had started pastoring, Longview claimed 10s
21:10
of thousands of salvations decisions annually.
21:14
And you, you said the word right there.
21:16
There's a keyword that you just said, and that is the word
21:20
claimed. OK.
21:21
Many of those decisions came through questionable evangelism
21:25
tactics. Coerce prayers, pressure
21:28
children. 0 Follow up. I mean, if it's anything like
21:33
the How's Anderson model, it was 123.
21:36
Pray after me. I'll see you.
21:37
I'll never see you again. Bye.
21:39
Bye, Felicia. Like you're gone After that.
21:42
There's zero. There's zero discipleship.
21:45
It's just pray and you're gone. Yeah.
21:48
And as we think through the influence that this one man,
21:51
Jack House, has had on the independent Fundamental Baptist
21:54
movement, you know, we we talked in our opening series years ago
21:58
when John began this with the J Frank Norris and the influence
22:01
he had. And as we went through some of
22:04
those influential figures, the influence of Jack House, and
22:07
you're going to hear this name a lot over the next couple of
22:10
weeks because his influence was far reaching and far deep in the
22:14
independent fundamental Baptist movement.
22:16
He he was the catapult catalyst for what the movement is known
22:21
for today. Bob Gray senior was one of Jack
22:24
House's biggest fans. As we said, he often said that
22:28
House was his spiritual and physical hero in this world.
22:34
In fact, Gray was a featured speaker at Pastor School and in
22:38
Hammond, and multiple times he was there speaking in Chapel and
22:42
doing many different things in the House Anderson Institute.
22:46
Because he was such a fan, he wanted to be as close as he
22:49
could and as part of this movement as he could because he
22:52
wanted to ride the coattails of what was going on.
22:56
And look what we're saying. We're not making it up.
22:58
It's not conjecture, OK? It's it's just fact.
23:02
You look at Barbara's preaching style, his church structure, his
23:06
view of standards, his view on women, his view on music, and it
23:11
echoed Hiles. And he wanted to be Jack Hiles.
23:16
And he got very close. Yeah, one of the things as we
23:21
look through this influence and sort of piggyback at sort of
23:25
looking at the house Anderson side, everything in this world
23:28
is interconnected. If if how said something at
23:31
pastor school, you could expect great echo it from the pulpit of
23:36
Longview the next week and you could expect hundreds of
23:39
thousands of churches all across the country echoing what was
23:43
said at pastor school the next week.
23:45
And so this was a way of his influence spreading and the way
23:50
that this whole system was working was one man was
23:55
influencing and and really molding these other churches and
23:59
pastors into the one that he wanted him to be, to look like
24:02
him and act like him. Exactly.
24:04
And you know, if you heard him preach, he had.
24:07
They carried that same angry, loud screaming tone that Hiles
24:13
had. There was, you know, we, we, we
24:15
know preachers like this, there's very little grace, if
24:19
any. Lots of shouting, a deep
24:22
emphasis on external experience, appearance.
24:25
And you know what else he was big on?
24:28
He was big on alliteration. I mean, if you can get all the
24:32
points in your sermon to start with the same letter or get them
24:36
all to rhyme, man, you have arrived.
24:39
And so heavy into alliteration. Like you hear some of these
24:44
points, you're like, what? That that that doesn't even make
24:47
sense. Like James, when you have to
24:50
sacrifice making sense to make it rhyme, it doesn't need to
24:55
rhyme. OK, the word of God does not
24:58
require you to make all the words start with the same letter
25:02
in order for you to preach it. And some of those, some of those
25:06
alliteration points were just such a stretch.
25:09
I mean, Stretch Armstrong ain't got nothing on.
25:13
Absolutely. You know, I try to alliterate
25:15
and rhyme, but if it doesn't fit, I don't do it.
25:17
I, I, I sort of have my, my outline, I work through it and
25:21
then I'll send it to my wife and I'll send a couple other people
25:24
and, and they'll, you know, my wife will say, hey, you know,
25:26
you could use this word instead. I'm not a, I'm not a big
25:29
thesaurus guy. I can't, I can't do that.
25:31
So the thesaurus is is a big big help for me.
25:35
I used to try so much to alliterate, just like you.
25:40
I used to spend hours just trying to find the right word,
25:44
and then one day I just gave up on it.
25:46
I was like, man, this is not worth it.
25:48
So I'm like you, if I can make it alliterate, I'll think about
25:53
it for maybe 2 minutes, and if it can't come together in 2
25:57
minutes, I'm just going to move on.
25:59
Yeah, the other day, Brett, I was preaching and in my sermon,
26:03
I, I didn't even realize that I had alliterated.
26:06
And like one of the point was, and I see, you know, I probably
26:09
should have used this word instead of that word and it
26:11
would have all alliterated. And one of the I have a guy that
26:14
takes pictures as I preach and puts all everything on Snapchat.
26:18
And he said the preacher said it this way, but it should have
26:21
been worded this way because it all matched and lined up.
26:25
And I just don't think like that as much as I probably should.
26:28
I know people remember things when you alliterate and you
26:30
rhyme, but let's talk through the culture here for a minute,
26:34
Brett. The Longview Temple culture, the
26:37
culture I'm going to explain like this.
26:40
It wasn't just a church, it was really a Kingdom.
26:43
It was the Longview Baptist Kingdom and Gray was the king of
26:47
that Kingdom and he set himself up on that pedestal and on that
26:51
throne. And this is the model that we
26:53
begin to see from the house influence is this Kingdom
26:57
mentality of it's my Kingdom and I'm going to set this Kingdom up
27:01
the way I want it. Right.
27:03
The church was his fiefdom. Staff was expected to be loyal
27:08
to Gray above all, and questioning leadership meant you
27:13
were in rebellion. Even if you you question
27:16
anything, So what the the result of that is, you employ a bunch
27:21
of yes men. A bunch of men that won't tell
27:23
you how it is, won't give you any constructive criticism,
27:27
won't help you get better in any way, won't pick up the ball if
27:33
you accidentally drop it. That's what you get.
27:36
When you set up this culture, everything in it was about
27:40
performance. Bus route soul save standards
27:44
kept that that all of it was about performance.
27:47
And, you know, his pulpit became a platform for power rather than
27:51
proclaiming the word. Talk about some peas and some
27:55
alliteration right there. You know, dissenters were
27:58
shamed. They were removed or they were,
28:01
you know, ridiculed publicly. Yeah, You know, this environment
28:05
is intense. I'm talking to several men right
28:09
now in counseling that tell me you know, the the culture I was
28:15
in or the culture I'm currently in is intense and I'm, I'm not
28:19
real. I'm just now realizing the
28:23
severity that it's doing to my soul.
28:25
But let's think about the members here that the people in
28:27
the congregation there were they were guilted into constant
28:32
activity, right? If you're not here every night
28:35
of the week, if you're not doing something at the church, then
28:38
you're not going to be this holy Christian.
28:40
And that was this view and focus on external holiness, a dress
28:46
code, a haircut, the entertainment bands.
28:49
And what this leads to is a culture where as long as I look
28:54
right on the outside, it doesn't matter what the inside of my
28:57
house looks like. And a lot of these people were
28:59
in hard home lives, and the husbands were authoritarian, and
29:04
there was abuse and there was hurt and there were things that
29:06
were being done that has promulgated for generations
29:09
after generations. Because as long as I look good
29:13
on the outside, as long as everyone outside of my structure
29:17
sees that I'm holy, then it doesn't matter what happens on
29:20
the inside of my home and the inside of my life.
29:23
And so there was this external performance that was so driven.
29:28
And right, exactly. Heavy, like heavy emphasis on
29:32
dress codes, haircuts, entertainment bands.
29:35
Listen, it would, hey, I don't know about you, but my pastor
29:38
called it the Movie House or called it the Picture Show.
29:42
That was them old school names that they would use for it.
29:46
And you know, you, you mentioned something that made me think of
29:49
this. I remember those days when I had
29:52
to do something at the church every single day.
29:56
Just imagine going to the church, you know, when you're
29:59
not a staff member like I am now, but going to the church
30:02
seven days a week. You were on that property doing
30:06
something. And when people don't, when
30:08
people don't realize is that that takes a toll.
30:12
It overtaxes your people. And even if they don't realize
30:15
it, and again, the women, the women were heavily policed.
30:20
I saw a picture today and I thought about posting it and it
30:25
was what Islam does to women. And what you have is you have
30:31
that this father and this son swimming out in the ocean and
30:35
standing on the beach was this Islamic woman with full garb
30:40
from head to toe in the on the hot beach and a big black
30:44
blanket essentially. And the caption said this is
30:48
what Islam does to women. I thought about that and I also
30:52
think about what the IFB, maybe not to that extreme, but what
30:56
this culture does to women as well, that modesty is drilled
31:01
into girls from childhood and they're they're taught that if
31:06
the man lusts, it's the woman's fault.
31:09
You know, it's it, it's her fault that that she lusts that
31:13
they lust. And in this culture, men have
31:15
all the authority, you know, you could not allow, you were not
31:20
allowed to correct your husband in public, even if he was wrong,
31:26
even if he was making a mistake, you are not allowed to say
31:29
anything. And that right there, the first
31:32
part of my marriage that took that, that mentality, we had
31:36
that mentality because we grew up in this and it, it hurt, hurt
31:41
us at the beginning of the marriage until we, we repented
31:44
of that and I repented of that and, and, and, and got away from
31:48
that. Absolutely.
31:50
And you know, we don't need to forget about the the Christian
31:53
School that was connected for some reason.
31:57
I know the reason that's for a different episode.
32:00
A lot of house model churches after they planted the church,
32:04
they started a Christian School and then after they planted the
32:06
Christian School, then they started a seminary or Bible
32:09
college or institute or some type of higher education
32:12
training as well. My my church growing up same way
32:15
we were heavy bus ministry. Bus ministry was growing.
32:18
We had a Christian School and then right after that we had
32:22
eventually started a Bible college and the Bible college
32:25
only lasted for a couple years, but that was the model we were
32:28
going toward that model. And this Christian School that
32:31
was connected was Texas Independent Baptist Schools and
32:36
Seminary. And later that turned into the
32:39
Texas Bible College And, and it followed the same ideology of,
32:44
of how's Anderson, right? It was King James only, no
32:47
accreditation, strict rules. This is the the model and the
32:51
mindset. If you could take the house
32:54
search manual, which we're probably going to do and dissect
32:56
it. And in a while we're, we're
32:58
looking at these three things. You got to be kingdoms only.
33:02
You can't be accredited by the world because then you got to
33:05
follow the world standards. But we're going to follow our
33:08
own strict standards and our own strict rules.
33:09
And these are the rules you're going to follow.
33:12
Exactly. And this next subject we're
33:16
going to get into, this is where things start to get a little
33:18
dark because there have been multiple allegations, and not
33:23
just allegations, credible allegations of abuse, emotional,
33:28
spiritual, sexual abuse coming out of Longview Baptist Temple.
33:35
You know, as we've seen in other IFP churches and other podcasts
33:39
that talk about this in depth, we begin to see that there's a
33:44
structure. And if you watch Let us pray
33:46
they they dissect this, a lot of the protecting the leadership
33:52
and silencing the victims. It is a sense of we've got to
33:57
protect the highest level of authority.
34:00
And if someone's been hurt, we're going to move them, we're
34:03
going to silence them. We're going to change it to
34:05
where they can't be heard. Abusers are often moved or were
34:10
quietly dismissed in the church structure so that there was no
34:15
outside accountability and no one asked questions.
34:18
It's where did youth pastor so and so go, He felt led to leave
34:22
and go to another place. And it was a quiet cover up move
34:25
or it was just moving from one church system to another.
34:29
It was calling up and saying, Hey, I need this done or I need
34:33
these done for the this this friend of mine and not telling
34:37
what happened. And then years later we began to
34:40
see the change in the hurt and the the cover up that came to
34:44
happen from that. Exactly.
34:47
And you know, this, this kind of this happened in my church too.
34:54
A guy was hired from House Anderson.
34:57
And I don't want to give too many details, too many names,
35:01
but he got into some issues at the home church, sent over to
35:07
the Buddies church, went and started his own church.
35:10
And so, you know, this is prevalent in the IFB.
35:16
But in in 2010, several whistleblower blowers came
35:19
forward and shared testimonies of trauma, abuse and coercion
35:24
under Bob Gray Senior's leadership.
35:27
These weren't isolated incidents.
35:29
These were patterns. And you can tell they were
35:32
patterns. Yeah, this was the year after he
35:37
retired and stepped down. And Gray himself has not been
35:41
criminally charged. There have not been any formal
35:44
charges against him. But what we want to talk about
35:47
is the culture that he created that enabled harm.
35:51
And to this day, many survivors are still processing their
35:54
trauma. They're still trying to figure
35:56
out life because, again, this was a Kingdom mentality.
35:59
This was everything you do must be processed through this church
36:04
and Kingdom. And so when the trauma structure
36:07
gets broken down and you begin flushing through and working
36:10
through these things, everything about your life, everything
36:13
about your faith begins to be questioned and hurt.
36:16
And it's a difficult thing for survivors when they go through
36:20
this. And the worst part is many
36:23
victims are made to feel guilty for speaking up like they were,
36:27
they were told they were hurting God's man.
36:30
This is that mentality of you talk about God's man, the she
36:35
bears will come after you, you'll go crazy, you'll die, bad
36:40
things will happen. You can't criticize God man's
36:43
God's man at all. And it that's just, well, it's
36:47
spiritual abuse is what it is, you know?
36:49
Would you agree? Absolutely.
36:52
This is the fundamental markers of what spiritual abuse is, and
36:58
it is very plain and simple when you look at this.
37:01
This is what spiritual abuse looks like, and it is the
37:05
breeding ground for spiritual abuse, right When you have a
37:09
structure set up like this, with no accountability, with constant
37:13
moving of people around from one place to another, you are
37:16
breeding spiritual abuse. You are allowing it to grow and
37:20
flourish, and you're not cutting the weeds, you're not ripping
37:23
the roots out. It is a horrible, horrible thing
37:26
to do and see. So what happened after Bob Gray
37:30
senior stepped down? So he retired in 2009, and the
37:35
church went through some leadership changes.
37:37
Today, it's been renamed Emmanuel Baptist Church under a
37:41
different pastor. Yeah, his son is actually the
37:45
pastor now. So it's still Gray as a pastor.
37:48
And the legacy of grace still lingers.
37:52
It's still active online. He runs a website and publishes
37:55
books. He continues to preach at
37:57
conferences and writes about soul winning and church growth.
38:01
And you can go and you can see he is the chancellor at
38:04
Independent Baptist Online College.
38:07
And so he's still running a college.
38:09
He's still writing that he's still trying to publish and and
38:12
peddle his influence even today. And he's still preaching and you
38:16
can see some of these videos online of him preaching today
38:20
and the message hasn't changed. He's still preaching the same
38:23
Jack Howles messages. He's still preaching with the
38:25
same flair of Jack Howles, and he's still trying to heddle his
38:29
influence in a way of look at what I've done and look at who I
38:32
am. So there's a new generation of
38:35
IFP pastors who still quote him. He's considered a legend in many
38:40
circles, but it's important to ask the question what exactly?
38:44
Are they inheriting? You know, if we don't critically
38:48
evaluate the systems we come from, we'll end up repeating the
38:52
same cycles. We'll begin being in the same
38:54
area. And so we want to challenge our
38:57
thoughts. We want to challenge where we're
38:58
at. And we want to look and see and
39:00
say, what is this? And why is it the, the, the
39:04
whole premise of our podcast is Galatians 51 to find freedom for
39:09
Christ, to set us free not to be under the yoke of bondage to but
39:12
be set free on the gospel of Jesus Christ.
39:16
And so we must ask ourselves, what is it we're set to being
39:19
set free from? We're being set free from the
39:20
legalism of the bondage that so easily besets us, that these
39:24
things that hold us down. And so we must ask ourselves,
39:28
where are we at? Are we willing to sacrifice
39:32
freedom on the altar of legalism or we willing to sacrifice
39:36
legalism so that we can be set free from these yokes of bondage
39:40
that we are so easily entangled with?
39:43
And often times as we begin to see this, this, this, this form
39:47
of inheriting is there because they saw a movement, they saw a
39:51
person that was elevated to a standard that is popularity that
39:56
is allowing to be preaching at different places.
40:00
And allowing them to be promulgated in a way that would
40:03
be set up for success in the future.
40:05
I'll alliterate it for you there as well, Brett.
40:08
There you go. You know, it's OK to learn from
40:11
the past, but everything should not be carried forward.
40:14
Look, it's OK to look back and see where you came from, to look
40:19
the mistakes that you've made. This actually a very healthy
40:23
thing. But there's a difference between
40:27
learning from the past and living in the past.
40:30
Those are two very, very different things.
40:33
And there's some baggage that we can look back and say, hey,
40:36
these things were done wrong, but we don't need to carry those
40:40
forward into the future. And that's kind of the point of
40:43
what we're doing is we want to go back.
40:45
We want to examine, examine things like this, see where they
40:50
went wrong and what we can do to correct it to go forward.
40:55
He's got a whole new generation of IFB guys that are coming up
41:01
who idolize him. But what we want to do, we're
41:04
we're hoping that this episode gets out to somebody who's
41:07
questioning who's like, man, I'm seeing some of this legalism.
41:11
I'm I'm hearing some of this rhetoric preached and it just
41:15
doesn't line up with my Bible. Like my my pop Paul used to say,
41:20
things are not G hauling. And so you know, that's what
41:25
we're here for. We're here to be that voice
41:29
crying out in the podcast wilderness say, hey, look, this
41:32
is this isn't right. Just because you were raised
41:35
this way and taught this way and preached to this way doesn't
41:40
make it right. You need to get back to the
41:43
Bible, get back to the basics and not the man of God.
41:48
Yeah, As we begin to wind down this episode, I really want us
41:51
to to leave you with four questions, four thoughts for you
41:55
to wrestle with today. If you're in this movement or
41:57
you've come out of this movement, or you were under Bob
42:01
Gray or you were under Jack Howes or some of these others
42:03
that we're going to talk about, begin to ask yourself a couple
42:06
of thought provoking questions. And the first one is this, what
42:10
kind of culture are we building in our churches?
42:13
What we build and what we leave in our churches and what we're
42:16
teaching our children is what's going to be in the next
42:19
generation. If we're teaching abuse and harm
42:22
and mistreatment of women and authoritarianist, then that is
42:27
what the next generation is going to see and take to the
42:29
next level. And so we've got to get to the
42:31
point where we're asking ourselves what is the culture
42:34
that we're having and that we're leading in our churches?
42:38
Exactly. The next question we have to ask
42:42
is are we elevating pastors to celebrity status?
42:46
Are we, are we measuring success by bus routes and and baptisms
42:52
or by transformed lies and discipleship?
42:56
You know, the only celebrity in our churches should be Jesus
43:00
Christ, and we should put no other man or no other pastor in
43:06
that position where we worship him like people like James.
43:09
I'm telling you, after Jack Piles died, there were people
43:12
standing behind the pulpit of First Baptist Church, Hammer who
43:16
were praying to the man. I was sitting in the auditorium
43:19
when it happened. I think one of them was Ray
43:21
Young with this is the mentality we need to get away from.
43:25
We don't need to measure success by how many routes we have and
43:30
when. When I was in the bus ministry,
43:32
the the the second, I had one route, but the second bus route
43:36
I had, what they did is they cut a block of a block of blocks out
43:42
of four routes to create another route just to say we added a
43:47
route. It was all about numbers.
43:49
It wasn't helping anybody. And when I read the New
43:52
Testament, Jesus didn't care about numbers as much as he
43:56
cared about relationships. I'll tell you that when he sent
44:00
the 70 out, he told them, hey, he said look, y'all go out and
44:06
whatever house you go to, stay in that house.
44:09
Don't go house to house. And the reason why he said that
44:13
is because it the culture of the day was to go every day or so.
44:18
You would when you stayed in a new city, you would go from
44:21
house to house to house to house.
44:23
And the idea is you meet more people.
44:25
Jesus told the 70 don't do that. Whatever house you go to stay in
44:30
that house. Eat what they said before,
44:32
because relationships were more important to Jesus than numbers.
44:38
You will reach more people through relationships than you
44:42
will any any other platform. A sermon can be forgotten, a
44:47
social media post can be ignored, and a track can be
44:51
thrown away. But nobody will ever forget how
44:54
you made them feel. That's what this culture is
44:56
missing, its mission. It's missing the relational
45:00
aspect, the discipleship aspect. It's all about numbers.
45:04
And that's not how Jesus thought.
45:06
Yeah, discipleship and accountability is the key to
45:10
growing people for the Kingdom and disciple and church members
45:14
for the Kingdom and, and growing a church is is about
45:18
discipleship and small groups and accountability because
45:22
that's where we begin to wrestle with the heart issues.
45:25
You begin to notice when someone is struggling in in that small
45:29
group and you're able to love and care and and show that
45:31
accountability that is so much needed in our churches today.
45:36
The third question we want to ask is, are we fostering a
45:39
church or a culture where questions are welcomed?
45:43
I often go to the abiding me passage of Jesus's last teaching
45:49
to his disciples before the cross and the crucifixion.
45:51
And he's telling them about a place where he's going to go and
45:55
and he's going to be leaving for a little while.
45:57
And Thomas looks at him and says, how are we going to find
45:59
you? How are we going to know where
46:00
you're at? And Jesus didn't shut him down.
46:03
Jesus brought him in and said, hey, I love the question.
46:07
Let's begin to talk through this and let me continue teaching.
46:10
And we get four or five chapters of John there, the end of John
46:14
talking through Jesus and his disciples.
46:16
And there's questions and Peter's questioning and, and all
46:20
the other disciples are talking through this.
46:22
He didn't silence them. He didn't spiritualize things.
46:26
No, he was a real person who talked with real answers and
46:29
began to help them out through their struggles.
46:32
And oftentimes that's where we need to be at.
46:34
We need to welcome questions and not silence or spiritualize
46:38
things. Exactly.
46:41
And most importantly, the 4th question, Are we pointing people
46:45
to Christ or just to our brand of Christianity?
46:49
You know, when you're in the IFB movement, it's not just about
46:53
being IFB. You know, we all independent
46:56
means every church is independent.
46:58
But now there are cliques and, and in the IFB movement, it's
47:02
called camps. What camp did you belong to?
47:06
Did you belong to the Hiles camp or the Lee Robertson camp or the
47:11
the the House Anderson camp or the Crown College camp or the
47:16
Carl Hatch camp or the Tom Malone camp or the all these
47:20
different camps And this, you know, that there's just no unity
47:24
in it. And that's what the church is
47:26
supposed to do. Are we promoting Jesus?
47:30
Are we promoting our college? Are we promoting our pastor?
47:35
Are we promoting our brand of legalism?
47:39
It's all about pointing people to Christ.
47:41
And that's what we want to stress to people and what we
47:44
want people to get back to. You're absolutely right.
47:47
You know, next week we're going to look at another two
47:50
powerhouses in the independent fundamental Baptist movement.
47:53
We're going to look at Bob Jones University, which necessarily
47:56
wasn't a independent movement, but there was some connections
47:59
with house there. And we're going to look at
48:01
Pensacola Christian College. It's different in many ways.
48:05
Both of these are different, but it's got its own share of
48:08
serious concerns that we want to look at and we want to examine
48:11
from a biblical Christian worldview.
48:14
And hopefully that you're looking forward to that.
48:16
I know we are. We're excited about what God's
48:18
been doing through the series and we hope you enjoyed today's
48:21
episode. You know, thanks for being with
48:24
us for this fundamental Footprints little mini series
48:27
we're having. If you or someone you know has a
48:30
story related to Longview or the IFP movement in general, reach
48:35
out to us. Hit us up.
48:36
We'd love to hear from you. That's right, until next time to
48:41
God. Not the pastor.
48:44
Be the glory. Found my new name, found that
48:48
good grace, found that healing and the tears fell down my face
48:54
when I found my beginning that has no ending.
48:56
I found that second chance, Found my best friend, found my
48:58
forgiveness, found my happiness. I've been singing ever since and
49:00
found my freedom. Thanks for listening to the Four
49:18
Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do
49:21
us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our
49:25
podcast or whichever podcast platform you use.
49:28
Be sure to join us next time for the Four Freedom Podcast.