John Stancil: Scripture, Sex, Success

John Stancil--IBLP Board Member

A little history

Curtis Hutson was a mailman who started preaching revivals in his free time. When he was just 22, he preached at Forest Hills Baptist Church near Decatur, GA.  The story goes that by the end of the week the pastor had resigned and the church had called the kid mailman with no formal training to replace him. Inspired by a message by Jack Hyles, Hutson eventually quit his post office job to focus on evangelism full-time.

Hutson pastored Forest Hills for twenty years, bringing the membership to nearly 8,000. (His lack of education did not prevent Hutson from serving as president of Baptist University of America from 1974-1980!)
  
John Stancil was 14 when he "trusted Christ as his personal savior" and joined Hutson's church. Young John worked his way up from janitor to director of the bus ministry, which brought in over 2,000 attendees on a given Sunday. He also married Brenda Cannon, with whom he had three children. The couple wrote a booklet on bus ministry (Busing--the Real Bring) which was published by Sword of the Lord in 1975.

1n 1978, Dr. John Rice invited Curtis Hutson to come to Murfreesboro, TN, to help edit "Sword of the Lord". Hutson edited the publication from 1980 until his death in 1995. Hutson also tapped his friend John Stancil to join him in Murfreesboro. The Stancils moved to Tennessee where John worked as Sword of the Lord's conference director and circulation manager for several years.

Scandal

In 1988, John and Brenda Stancil divorced. Five months later, Jack Hyles himself officiated at John's marriage to Yullie (Yuok) Chong, a Korean student at Hyles-Anderson College.

According to one source:

Brenda said she later learned that "he had been seeing Miss Chong in Indiana for quite a while before his divorce became final and that he had spent Christmas of 1987 with her and her family after telling our children he would be home alone. She was in Murfreesboro on at least four occasions . . . ." All this was while the Stancils were still married.

One of those visits calls attention to an even more unfortunate and unsavory matter. Since college regulations called for Miss Chong to stay with someone else while at Murfreesboro, arrangements were made for her to visit in the home of Mrs. Doris Roberts, a Sword employee of long standing and Stancil's secretary, business manager and close confidant. Conveniently, the latter was given a plane ticket to visit her son in Florida at that time, leaving Miss Chong without proper chaperone.

A lady who went to the house to meet her and get acquainted relates, "When I got to the door, I found she and John there alone making love on the sofa." (She defined "making love" as "lying fully prostrate, clothing in disarray, with movement, stroking, kissing, and bodies touching"; she said she could not "say for certain if sexual intercourse was occurring or had occurred," a matter that seems immaterial when considering the fact Stancil was still married to another woman.) The lady watched for a while, then left and went to a friend's house nearby and asked her to return as a witness, finding "the two were still on the sofa." The lady placed her business card on the window of Stancil's Mercedes-Benz and left.

The affair made waves in the wider Independent Fundamental Baptist community. John Stancil's career as a Baptist conference speaker was over.

Buses and Music

Months after their wedding, John and Yullie Stancil took stock of their their marketable skills. 
Buses. Religious publishing and marketing. Music. 

They bought their own bus and began conducting charters for schools and churches around Murfreesboro. They called their new company Anchor Trailways & Tours. By 1995, their fleet had grown to about ten buses and they were ready for the big-time. They moved their company to the Nashville area where it has grown to a fleet of more than sixty vehicles. 

Stancil is reported to have “a doctorate in transportation” and calls himself a “stickler for detail.”  Fort Campbell in Kentucky, home of the 101st Airborne Division, is Anchor Trailway’s largest account.

On the side, John Stancil also runs his own IFB publishing/evangelism company--Anchor Bible Concepts. ABC sells King James Bibles (including the Scofield Bible) and soprano Yullie Stancil's three musical recordings.  One of these albums was produced by IBLP's offshoot Principle Music in Indianapolis, with orchestration composed by Loren Elms and Tracy Ann (Collins) Biddle. The album was released in 2002. According to the IBLP website, Yullie Stancil "has a beautiful singing voice and uses it to promote Godly music." John Stancil currently serves on Bill Gothard's Board of Directors at IBLP. 

Another of Yullie's albums was produced by The Crown College of the Bible in Powell, Tennesee. John Stancil is also chairman of the board of Crown College, which was founded by Temple Baptist Church's pastor Clarence Sexton.  Sexton, a speaker at Bob Jones University's Bible conference last year, has been criticized for praising Jack Schaap, who is now serving prison time for having sex with a minor.

On a happier note

John's ex-wife Brenda Cannon Stancil became a reporter for The Examiner in Beaumont, TX. As an award-winning journalist, she writes with compassion and grace. She has championed single parents, battered women, those treated unfairly by the justice system, and others--offering them hope. After years raising her three children alone, Brenda married Ted Henley in a shipboard ceremony.

Just for fun

I am personally amused by this photo of John Stancil donating a $10,000 check and bus services to a country music charity concert.  Apparently Anchor Trailways has a close relationship with the Nashville music scene, frequently shuttling artists to shows in Muscle Shoals, AL. This despite the strong stance taken by IBLP and Stancil's conservative church against music with a backbeat!

Virginity and Vaginas

What is virginity?

It is a physical state, right? A clear line as yet uncrossed. A "before" condition that can be "lost" accidentally, "given" intentionally, or "taken" from an unwilling victim. A status applicable equally to deserving men or women, boys or girls.

Glad you asked! Science can give us no true medical definition of virginity. It's actually quite an imprecise concept, carrying many different meanings in different times and different places. (One medieval philosopher distinguished between four different kinds of virgins.) Virginity is difficult to specify and impossible to prove, not that that keeps people from attempting it!  And it is revealing that no one ever suggests that males be tested for, or offer proofs of, their virgin status. Because virginity has historically been almost exclusively a female characteristic.

Over the centuries, there was a lot of talk about hymens, (especially after they were identified by anatomist Hilkiah Crooke in the 17th century) but this tissue at the base of the vagina is not consistent enough to use as proof of anything. The tissue currently known as the hymen imperceptibly changes shape on its own as a girl develops, it doesn't always bleed when stretched, it often expands the vaginal opening on its own before a girl's first penetrative intercourse, and contrary to popular belief it neither "pops" nor "breaks". Hymens vary in shape (physicians identify five primary shapes), thickness, durability, flexibility, and resilience. To promote a more accurate view of the function of the hymen, the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education has renamed this body part the "vaginal corona".

Men evidently liked connecting the hymen to lack of sexual experience because it played into the women-as-chattel concept, and it excused rough first-time sex. According to Deuteronomy, blood-stained wedding night linens could save a woman's life in ancient Israel. If her parents could not produce these tokens of her sexual "purity" (essential for the pedigree of her offspring), she could legally be stoned to death by the men of her city. Dr. Iman Bibars, working from Cairo, Egypt to empower all voiceless women, knows how deeply these cultural patterns affect today's values, "The honor of the family and of the men are in between the legs of the woman."

Women have suffered so much physical and psychological pain on account of this part of their bodies invisible to themselves that some resort to expensive and invasive hymenorrhaphy surgeries to rebuild "breakable" hymens that will ensure "virginal" blood on the sheets. They use birth control pills to coordinate menstruation with honeymoon sexual activity, or invest in discreet fake virginity kits. Others declare themselves "born-again virgins", as good as new.

Jessica Valenti writes in her excellent book, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women:

"I've become convinced that virginity is a sham being perpetrated against women…"

"[W]hen I argue for an end to the idea of virginity, it's because I believe sexual intimacy should be honored and respected, but that it shouldn't be revered at the expense of women’s well-being, or seen as such an integral part of female identity that we end up defining ourselves by our sexuality."

As a young woman, much of my value was framed by my sexual in-experience. Sheltering—often to the point of isolation—was needed to maintain my "purity" (hymen? vaginal corona?) intact. This high value on sexual naivete motivated the bans on kissing, on dating, on wearing swimsuits or slacks, on walking unaccompanied down our straight two-lane country road to the stop sign visible from our mailbox.

When I was a young woman of twenty, my dad bought a round-trip ticket to unexpectedly accompany me on my connecting flight from O'Hare Airport so that I would not go rebelliously astray on a trip home from Oklahoma City. At the time I was more than mystified. I was being stalked by my own father to prevent me from going where, with whom? I had the uneasy feeling that the whole situation was somehow related to my sexuality, which I already sought to repress as much as possible.

The perceived state of my vagina supposedly increased my value to God, to my family, and to potential mates. I have been to weddings where the bride's father bragged publicly that (as far as he knew) she was a virgin while the guests sat uncomfortably, trying to focus their thoughts on the floral arrangements, the church pews, or anything but the girl's genitalia. The groom's parents never commented on the experience of their son's penis.

Again, Jessica Valenti:

"Present-day American society—whether through pop culture, religion, or institutions—conflates sexuality and morality constantly. Idolizing virginity as a stand-in for women’s morality means that nothing else matters—not what we accomplish, not what we think, not what we care about and work for. Just if/how/whom we have sex with. That’s all."

It is time to abolish the virginity concept. As Emily Maynard put it in her article "The Day I Turned in my V-Card", I'm done enforcing oppression in the name of purity.

Characterizing a woman (making a judgment of her moral character) as a virgin or an ex-virgin tells us nothing and too much at the same time. This sexual "status" doesn't tell us if a girl feels safe and respected or is being coerced and abused. It doesn't tell us if she understands how her body works or what makes her feel good. It doesn't tell us if she can identify healthy relationships, if she knows how to say no. It does not tell us if she is strong or weak. It tells only that someone is concerned with what has been in her vagina and when.

Once upon a time, not many decades ago, a pregnant woman could not teach school once she began to "show". Here in America's Heartland, even as a married woman there was shame in being exposed as a sexual being. Let's walk away from shaming women for their sexuality.

Let's discuss responsibility. Let's shine a light on abuse.

Let's teach young men about respect and consent. Let's teach young women about their right to choose boundaries that are healthy for them.

And let's stop determining the quality of a woman's heart and mind by the experience of her vagina. 




For more reading:

• Virgin: The Untouched History—non-fiction by Hanne Blank
• The Abstinence Teacher—a novel about Christianity and American sexuality, by Tom Perrotta
• Re-Making Love: The Feminization of Sex—a feminist history of the sexual revolution by Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess, and Gloria Jacobs
• Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls—a therapist describes the pressure girls are under to be sexy but not sexual, by Mary Pipher

Why We Need Abortion

Abortion is nothing new. For as long as sexual intimacy has provided pleasure and birth has been painful and life-threatening, some women have taken their fate into their own hands and attempted to prevent "nature" from taking her course. 

In her article for the New York Times, Kate Manning lists some of the dangerous and horrible methods used by desperate women throughout history to induce miscarriage. In the mid-1800's, newspapers carried numerous advertisements for abortifacient remedies. And in 1930, one-fifth of the reported maternal deaths were caused by [illegal] abortion. 

"What is most striking about this history of probes and poisons is that throughout all recorded time, there have been women so desperate to end a pregnancy that they were willing to endure excruciating pain and considerable risk, including infection, sterility, permanent injury, puncture and hemorrhage, to say nothing of shame and ostracism. Where abortion was illegal, they risked prosecution and imprisonment. And death, of course."

Consider Jan Wilberg's story of her risky and illegal abortion in 1967 after a single sexual encounter with her boyfriend. A teenager, a college freshman, Jan did not have the security of a home herself in which to raise a child. Neither was the boyfriend prepared to provide one. She describes the feeling of being trapped in a dark corner while her boyfriend could be nonchalant:

"It wasn’t right to punish women who have been cornered by circumstances — unplanned pregnancy, no job, no money, no options — by daring them to find the $250 illegal abortionist in their city or worse. It wasn’t right that women should have to pay for a mistake with their fear, risk their future health and their very lives while men could walk away and be free." [emphasis mine]

Today, thanks to brave doctors, good medical schools, and Roe v. Wade, abortion is among our safest procedures. Bearing a child carries more risks than abortion. According to Amnesty International's report on maternal health, nearly half of pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended and two women die of pregnancy/birth complications every day. African-American women are four times more likely than white women to die of pregnancy-related complications. If the pregnancy is deemed high-risk, those odds are even higher. According to the 2010 report, the state of Georgia has a maternal mortality rate of 20.5 per 100,000 live births and reporting of maternal death is not even mandatory there!

"More than a third of all women who give birth in the USA – 1.7 million women each year – experience some type of complication that has an adverse effect on their health."

According to a study by ANSIRH of the effects of abortion on women's health and economic situation, specifically comparing women who received abortions with those who wanted abortions but could not obtain them (turnaways), the women who received abortions were better off than those who continued the unwanted pregnancy.

"When a woman is denied the abortion she wants, she is statistically more likely to wind up unemployed, on public assistance, and below the poverty line.

"Turnaways were more likely to stay in a relationship with an abusive partner than women who got abortions. A year after being denied an abortion, 7% reported an incident of domestic violence in the last six months. 3% of women who received abortions reported domestic violence in the same time period. Foster emphasized that this wasn't because the turnaways were more likely to get into abusive relationships. It was simply that getting abortions allowed women to get out of such relationships more easily....

"... the Turnaway Study found no indication that there were lasting, harmful negative emotions associated with getting an abortion. The only emotional difference between the two groups at one year was that the turnaways were more stressed.

"...But turnaways did face a greater health risk from giving birth. Even late stage abortions are safer than giving birth. The researchers said at the APHA meeting: 

'We find physical health complications are more common and severe following birth (38% experience limited activity, average 10 days) compared to abortion (24% limited activity, average 2.7 days). There were no severe complications after abortion; after birth complications included seizure, fractured pelvis, infection and hemorrhage. We find no differences in chronic health conditions at 1 week or one year after seeking abortion.'"

 [emphasis mine]

We can see that even if a woman is able to give up her baby for adoption, carrying a pregnancy to term is no simple solution. Of course human life starts at conception, agrees Mary Elizabeth Williams, but the story doesn't stop there: "Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal."

"... We make choices about life all the time in our country. We make them about men and women in other nations. We make them about prisoners in our penal system. We make them about patients with terminal illnesses and accident victims. We still have passionate debates about the justifications of our actions as a society, but we don’t have to do it while being bullied around by the vague idea that if you say we’re talking about human life, then the jig is up, rights-wise." [emphasis mine]

Besides, most women having abortions are already mothers raising children. The choice is as much about those children's lives as about the mother's. Yes, abstinence prevents pregnancy, but how effectively can a married woman use that? Every contraceptive method fails, and not every sexual encounter can be planned against in advance (I am speaking of rape, including marital rape, but one could also include carelessness caused by alcohol). There are women who long to be mothers to the children they have, and another pregnancy would prevent them from caring for the little ones that already need them desperately.

Those families holding signs in the Life Chain, will they pay for a planned-against birth? Will the crisis pregnancy center provide iron tablets? Perhaps the nuns protesting contraceptives will reimburse a woman's employer for missed days of work? Cover antidepressants and counseling? Provide daycare? In ten years, who will help cover college bills for the older children? Or ought their education be sacrificed to provide food and daycare for the surprise addition to the family? Choosing to raise a child is a commitment that far outlasts the free diapers, crib, or donated maternity clothes. It spans decades and affects every life choice from then on.

Personally, I believe there are worse fates a human being could suffer than being aborted before taking a breath. Abortion needs to be legal because we value human life. I was "pro-life" because life was cheap, men were designed to reproduce themselves, women were intended to bear men's children, and we wanted as many Christians as possible. When I realized the value of each human being, the immense responsibility of parenthood, the lifetime effects of childhood nurture on the adult psyche, and the awful societal price of ignorance, poverty, and abuse, my view of abortion evolved, too. This is why I am glad that a courageous doctor is reopening a women's clinic in Wichita, at the same location where the late Dr. Tiller provided abortions until his murder.

Last week, Michelle Kinsey Bruns told her story to a train car filled with Catholic teenagers on their way home from the annual "March for Life" in Washington, D.C. "By eighteen it had begun to seem I might survive my childhood, but I didn’t believe I could survive being responsible for someone else’s. Since then, though, I have survived and thrived in a way that would have quite simply not been possible without the abortion that cleared a path for me to eventually get here." [emphasis mine]

As long as human beings begin their growth inside women's bodies, we will need abortion. As long as women can conceive against their will, we will need abortion. As long as human birth is difficult, we will need abortion. As long as we believe children are precious, we will need abortion.