Roger Marsh: Greetings, and thank you for joining us here on Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh, and we have a unique interview to share with you today, one that is very close to Dr. Dobson's heart. It was recorded several years ago and features Dr. Ken Hutcherson. If you've never heard of Ken Hutcherson, fondly known as Hutch, well, you are in for a treat.
Ken was the senior pastor of Antioch Bible Church near Seattle, Washington, until he died of cancer in December 2013, at the age of 61. An African American born in Alabama in the era of segregation, Ken experienced blatant discrimination and other hardships due to the color of his skin. He went on to play in the National Football League from 1974 to 1976, playing defensive middle linebacker with the Dallas Cowboys, San Diego Chargers, and Seattle Seahawks. He then spent more than two decades training young people to be on the offensive for Jesus Christ. He was the author of several books, including The Church, Before All Hell Breaks Loose, and Hope Is Contagious. Ken Hutcherson is survived by his wife, Patricia, and their four adult children.
Now, Dr. Dobson loved Ken Hutcherson, and the two men were very close friends while Ken was with us. According to Dr. Dobson, he and Hutch would check in with each other on the phone, as friends do, regularly, even as often as once a week. They stayed close throughout the years, even though they were separated by hundreds of miles. Dr. Dobson felt a tremendous loss when Ken went to be with the Lord. He had a great sense of humor, incredible stories of triumph against the odds, and a deep love and reverence for his Savior, Jesus Christ. Well, I'll let you hear that for yourself right now. Here is Dr. James Dobson and Dr. Ken Hutcherson on today's edition of Family Talk.
Dr. James Dobson: We are really pleased to have a man's man here with us in the studio today, someone whom I have come to appreciate and respect profoundly. Our guest is Dr. Ken Hutcherson. I call him Hutch because he's my great friend. He's the founder and senior pastor at Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, Washington, which is right next to Seattle, or part of it, I guess. He is a powerful defender of righteousness and the cause of Christ. He is adamantly pro-life, he is adamantly pro-marriage and pro abstinence, and many of the other things that we believe in. He loves the Gospel, and he preaches it straight. Hutch, I'm so glad to have you back with us today.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Anytime I can be with you, Doc, the privilege is mine. Thank you so much.
Dr. James Dobson: This is the eleventh time that you have been here.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: And you still want me back.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, sort of. It is always fun talking to this man. When I said that he's a man's man, he is really big enough to back up the pro-family agenda that we just talked about, and he's got the guts to do it. I don't know anybody that will take on the issues quite like Ken Hutcherson. He's a former NFL football player. He was a linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys, for the San Diego Chargers and the Seattle Seahawks. I have to tell you, I would not want to be a 180-pound tailback coming through the line and seeing him waiting on the other side. Do you miss NFL football?
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: No, Doc, I don't miss football at all. I just miss the checks.
Dr. James Dobson: It would be nice to go back and collect some of those, wouldn't it? Your church in Redmond, Washington, now has, I think you told me, about 3,500 people.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Yep. They call it home. Yep.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah, and it's a going place.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: It's an exciting place, Doc.
Dr. James Dobson: I told you that I want to get there and visit you. Tell them what you said to me about 20 minutes ago.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: I said, "I don't know, Doc. I don't know if you're going to come and visit us. We're like Lays potato chips. You can't do us just once."
Dr. James Dobson: Well, it's so good to have you here. I want to talk about you this time. We've talked about many other things when you've been here.
We were in Washington, D.C., a little over a year ago, and we were riding in a car together. We're on the way to Mayday for Marriage there in Washington, D.C. I guess that was 2004, wasn't it?
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Yeah. Right.
Dr. James Dobson: All right. In that conversation, you began talking about your childhood, and I was asking you questions. I said to you on that day, "Listen, I want to have you share some of these thoughts and some of this history with our listeners," because I was absolutely fascinated. Before we get to that, however, you just returned from Latvia.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Yeah, I sure did. I had wanted to do some things that could really change the world. I think that God has His hands on certain people that He's given opportunities to do things, not only in Samaria and Galilee, but in the outer parts of the world.
With adoptions, with family values, with religious freedom, that's all been attacked. I was invited by some pastors. I went in December, and we had over 14 nations there. Over 4,000 people came, and God just blessed it. They asked me to come back because the homosexual community in the EU is really pushing to take over Europe, and really to take over the UK. Latvia was one of the only countries, Doc, that stood up, and so they are really getting bombarded.
I go, "Hey, I know how to fight this fight," so I went there and met with parliament. I met with the minister of integration. I met with the minister of interior. I met with the minister of human rights. We talked about the freedom that God has given religious people, and this country must stand. I got a letter from the president of Latvia, who doesn't like me very much because she is kind of behind this movement, even though 85% and more of the people are not. Her son is gay, and because of that, she had an agenda. They had one bad incident in the whole country of Latvia, and they're trying to change all the laws. So I went there to tell them how they could keep that law from changing.
Dr. James Dobson: Now, you have fought those battles in Seattle too, because there is a very strong activist homosexual community in that town. You're not against homosexuals as-
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Absolutely not.
Dr. James Dobson: ... people. God loves every one of them-
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Amen.
Dr. James Dobson: ... and does not want them rejected or wounded.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: That's right.
Dr. James Dobson: But the agenda that they come with is not biblical, and you have to oppose it.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: I tell them all the time, I say, "Listen, I'm a pastor. I say I believe the Bible. I say that I'm going to follow the Bible. You don't follow the Bible, so evidently I'm not going to be for you. I want you to join with me in obeying the Bible, and I will stand against anybody or anything that tells me I cannot stand on what the Bible teaches."
Dr. James Dobson: You took on Microsoft and the leaders over this issue, didn't you?
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Absolutely, I did. I said, "When you had your internal policies of same-sex benefits," I said, "I never said a word to you." I said, "I got 200 or 300 of my parishioners that work at Microsoft." I said, "Did I ever say anything to you?" They said, "Well, no." I said, "Well, when you took your policy, stepped out of your four walls, and I saw you down in Olympia, our state capital, pushing for same-sex laws being changed in our state," I said, "when you started making your policy my policy, you made a serious mistake, because you just gave me the right to make my policy your policy inside your four walls. If you think I'm kidding, you keep pushing it." They backed off after several meetings.
Dr. James Dobson: All right. I want to know how you got to be the man that we see today, a man that, as I already said, respect highly. Let's go back to your childhood.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: You bet.
Dr. James Dobson: You were raised in a very, very strong family with a mom and dad who loved the Lord, took you to church. Oh, did I get that wrong?
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: You got It. Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: Tell me about it.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Well, I'm an illegitimate child, doc. My mother was never married. She turned 15, July 6th, and I was born July 14. I was over 12 pounds.
Dr. James Dobson: Oh, my goodness.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: We was almost brother and sister in ways because we were so close. My grandmother raised me mostly because my mother was made to go back to school. My grandmother said, "You made one mistake. You're not going to make two," and so she made her go back to school to finish high school. My Big Mama, I called her. I loved my grandmother.
Dr. James Dobson: I called my grandmother Big Mama too.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Big Mama. Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: Sure did, from the South.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Exactly, bro. She was the only thing that literally was keeping me human. I was always out there. I was renegade. It was just born in me, I guess.
Dr. James Dobson: And you were big from the earliest-
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: I was big from day one. Yeah. My dad had nothing to do with me. Very occasionally, my father came from what we call the black bourgeois side of town, his family was well-off, so to come over to what we called Bear Mash, was where I grew up, Doc. Now, that literally was what we believed, that if a bear came down here, it would get mashed, and we lived that.
My aunt lived next door to me, and she was the local liquor house. She had all the drunks there. As a little boy, I remember a guy getting killed right in front of me with a rock. A guy hit him in the head right in front of me, standing on the porch, killed him dead as a doorknob. We would call the police in our neighborhood at night, and they wouldn't show up until the next day, just to see who was cut or hurt.
My aunt was so tough, and that's where I learned my toughness from. When people see how I grew up, they go, "How could this guy ever become sane?" I didn't become sane until I met Jesus.
She was going out with this lady's husband, who lived across the street from us, and the lady started talking one day about her going out with her husband. My aunt got mad and says names that we won't say on the Christian radio here, and says, "She wouldn't dare speak out loud against me." They said, "Oh yeah, she's saying that, about you better leave her husband alone." She said, "Well, I'm going to show you right now whose husband he is."
My aunt took a large shot of white lightning, downed it like it was water, walked across the street, knocked on the door of this woman's house, and says, "I hear you're telling me I can't mess with your husband anymore. Well, I'm telling you, I'm coming here right now to take him home. He is going to stay with me tonight." She said, "No, you're not." Back in the day, you remember the old barber sharps with the long straight razors?
Dr. James Dobson: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Everyone was afraid of my aunt, Aunt Mae. She pulled this razor out and sliced my aunt across the back of her face, down her neck, with that razor. My aunt took that razor from her, Doc, folded it up, put it in her pocket, beat her up in her own house, and then told her husband, "Pack up. You're going with me tonight."
Dr. James Dobson: My goodness.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Pulled him out of the house, brought him over to her house. You remember, she got sliced open with that razor. With my own eyes, she took kerosene, poured it down her neck on that cut, and then took a needle and black sewing thread and sewed her neck up while she drank and talked that night.
Dr. James Dobson: That is tough.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: I mean, tough.
Dr. James Dobson: Now, you grew up in that atmosphere.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: I grew up in that.
Dr. James Dobson: So, you saw a lot of violence as a child.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Extreme. I mean, violence, violence, violence. It was survival of the fittest because there wasn't the programs that you have today. I remember getting electricity in my home as a little boy. I remember having to wonder, "What will we eat? Where would the food come from?"
My grandfather was one of the biggest alcoholics that you've ever seen in your life. He would work all week, Doc. Looking back now, I can understand, because he was treated subhuman. He would go and he would work. There was no blacks on TV. There was no blacks on radio, Amos 'n' Andy later on. If you remember some of those shows, it was always depicted as indolent and lazy and shiftless and comedians. That was what we had.
He was so frustrated of taking care of seven kids. They had 14 kids, all born at home. Seven lived and seven died.
Dr. James Dobson: My goodness.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: You can imagine what he was going through. The only relief he had was to work all week, come home; by the time he got there late Friday night, he had drank all of his money up, and he came in fighting. And the one he would fight was my grandmother. My grandmother was asked many a day, "Just leave him. He's going to kill you one day." He did worry her to death, literally. She said, "Listen, I married him for better, for worse. Right now, it just happens to be worse. I gave my word to God, and that was it." Now, that was the secret hiding underneath me that kept me sane as long as she was alive.
Dr. James Dobson: We are talking to Dr. Ken Hutcherson, the pastor and founder of Antioch Bible Church in the Redmond, Washington. We've been friends for a number of years, and he is a walking miracle, what God has done with him. To be as committed as he is to the cause of Christ and being willing to defend it against all odds, comes out of that environment where there wasn't a man in your life that you could respect. Did you go to school and carry that violence into your environment?
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Oh, absolutely. The one thing I learned was white people didn't think that black people were smart. I read all the time, because I didn't like people very much. My mom and I moved out from my grandfather's and grandmother's house when I was six. I hated leaving my grandmother, even though I had an uncle. There was six girls, one boy that lived.
When we moved, I spent a lot of time alone, and I would sneak down to see my grandmother every now and then. But I did a lot of reading, because I realized through this reading, if you can't beat them, use them. If they think you're dumb, man, what an advantage it is. You can act dumb and get anything you want.
Dr. James Dobson: Did you survive academically in school? Did you do well in school?
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Oh, my goodness, yeah. I was so competitive that I said, once I finally got to go to an integrated school, I said, "Ain't no white person in the world going to beat me in anything." If a white kid got a B, I wanted a B+. If he got an A, I wanted an A+. If he got an A+, I'm going to find some way to bring an apple to the teacher to get some extra point.
Dr. James Dobson: You lived in an environment of racism. I think there's still an awful lot of people in this country who don't have any knowledge of what he's talking about. I've lived long enough to remember it. As a matter of fact, Shirley and I really enjoy watching old black and white movies from the '30s and '40s and so on, and it is embarrassing-
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Embarrassing. Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: ... to see the way blacks are depicted. It's no wonder there is that residue of anger that's-
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Oh yeah, and to live that, Doc. It's one thing to see it on television. It's another thing to be the person on the television. That's who I was, and that's how I had to live-
Dr. James Dobson: Did you hate white people?
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Oh, Doc, there is no words for the hatred I had. That's the reason why I played football after integration started. I was a better baseball player than I ever was a football player. I had a tryout for the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team when I was 14. My mother wouldn't let me go because she knew I would probably get into some serious problems if I had money.
To hurt white people legally, I started playing football. I'd hit someone with a baseball, and they got mad; or I'd spike them when I slid into the base, they got mad. But I can knock them out in football, and they patted me on the back. I said, "Man, now this is a game."
Dr. James Dobson: And you were good at it.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: God had given me a lot of ability and a lot of talent in that game. I was good at it. The end of my junior football year and my senior year, Doc, they wouldn't even let me practice in pads. The last day I practiced in pads in my high school, and this is before I met Christ, this is my B.C. days, I sent three white kids to the hospital in one practice. That's how vicious I was. But being an honor roll student, what are they going to do?
Dr. James Dobson: Well, they give you a scholarship. Where'd you go to college?
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: I became a Christian my senior year in high school after a real bad motorcycle wreck my junior year. I was not supposed to ever walk again, straight, and I was never supposed to play any athletics again. I didn't know it. Doc, I thought it was me. I didn't know it was God giving me a second chance.
I got hit by a car, on a motorcycle, one of the few blacks in our whole city and community that had a motorcycle, because I was running a protection agency. Kids would pay me so much money a week not to beat them up, but I said it was because they needed protection. I was making a pretty good living.
Dr. James Dobson: You're a bad dude is what you were.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: At this time.
I got to the hospital. They rushed me to the hospital. I'm going to tell you what hatred can do for you. It can make you so stupid. Doc, you didn't lose any sleep over me hating you. The whites in the community had a little fear and trepidation because they could run into me, but they weren't losing any sleep. Hatred was eating me alive. The only thing I could do was to have more hatred.
It got to the point where hatred was controlling me so badly that when my grandmother passed away at age eight, I did not have one voluntary conversation. If my mom talked to me, I would answer. But after my grandmother died, it took me eight years before I had one voluntary conversation with my mother. It wasn't until I became a Christian.
Dr. James Dobson: How did you become a Christian?
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: When I was all alone in that house and I used to read, and Mom would go to work, and my grandmother passed away.... No, it was before my grandma passed, because I was five. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans was on a TV show one night.
Dr. James Dobson.: She was on this broadcast many years ago.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: I watched them because I wanted to see Trigger. I didn't like white people, but-
Dr. James Dobson: You liked horses.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: I love horses and dogs, to this day even. I was going to watch to see if they was going to let Trigger do some tricks, so I'm watching, watching. Sure enough, God was gracious enough that He brought Trigger out at the beginning of the show, and I watched the remainder of the show because Roy, he's going to bring Bullet out, he's going to bring Trigger back. And they start talking about losing their daughter, Angel Unaware, the book they wrote, and they said that, "We believe she's in Heaven," and that she died before the age of accountability, and that everyone one day is going to have to face this God guy.
It scared me to death as a five-year-old, that Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, with Trigger and Bullet and guns, had to bow down to this God guy. I didn't have the slightest idea who in the world He was. I remember them talking about the age of accountability, they thought was 12. I go, "Man, I've got about seven years before I have to deal with this God guy." I thought it was someone you meet on the street, and he says, "I'm God. What are you going to do with me?" That was my concept of God.
11 years later, my senior year in high school, after that motorcycle wreck, I was back on the field. I had worked hard because the doctor told me, that was white, I never would do it again. I told him, "You're a liar. No white man is ever going to tell me what I'm not going to do." I would crawl out of bed at night to work out. I thought it was me, but it was God giving me that second chance.
11 years later, senior year in high school, I thought about what Roy Rogers and Dale Evans said. I said, "God, if you're real, I can't do it. Here I am." I said, "I know how to make A's," so I went and picked the Bible up to study it like I had to take a test on it. I know how to obey my coach. I said, "God, now you are my coach." I know if I want to be on first team, I had to know the playbook. I started putting in five, six, seven hours a day in the Bible, and I've never had one backsliding day since.
Dr. James Dobson: My goodness, what a story. That is exciting. And the hatred went away, didn't it?
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: The first thing. Man, I had spent 16 years trying to prove there wasn't a white person in the world better than I was. When I bowed my head that day and said, "God, if you're real..." He hit me so strong. He says, "You spent all this time trying to prove there wasn't a white person in the world better than you. Guess what? I died for white people too, and you're no better than any white person." That's when I start standing for any discrimination and any wrong, which led us to the ministry we're going to be dealing with, adoption.
Dr. James Dobson: That was the end of your racism.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: That was the end of my racism that day. When people tell me, "Well, I was just raised that way. I'm just that way," I tell them, "You don't know God, and quit telling lies on my God, because He changes lives."
Dr. James Dobson: Well, He certainly does. Hutch, your story is very inspirational to me, and I know that our listeners feel that way too. I'd really like you to stay with us for another day because we still need to hear about where you went to college, and I'd also like you to talk about your NFL football career, and then, of course, how the Lord brought you into the ministry. But for now, Hutch, thanks so much for being with us today.
Dr. Ken Hutcherson: Thank you so much, Doctor.
Roger Marsh: You've been listening to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. That was part one of Dr. Dobson's classic interview with the late Dr. Ken Hutcherson. Ken's story is a great reminder that no one is too far or too hard or too broken for God to reach and change. God can use anything, even an old TV show, to speak to someone's heart. In Ezekiel 36:26, we read, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." Let Dr. Ken Hutcherson's testimony be an encouragement to you today to keep praying for your friends and family who don't yet know the Lord. They are not lost causes. God is too powerful for anyone to be a lost cause.
To learn more about Dr. Ken Hutcherson or to listen to any of today's conversation that you might have missed, visit drjamesdobson.org/broadcast. That's drjamesdobson.org/broadcast. Or give us a call at (877) 732-6825. That's (877) 732-6825.
Finally, remember that you can also write to us here at Family Talk. Dr. Dobson loves to hear from listeners in that way, and we make sure that every letter and every card that we receive is read. Now you can let us know what you think about a broadcast, even suggest a guest you might think would be a good fit for the program. You can even request a resource through the mail if you'd like.
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Now, on behalf of Dr. Dobson, his wife, Shirley, and the rest of the team, thank you so much for your prayers and your support. Please join us again next time for part two of Dr. Dobson's interview with the late Dr. Ken Hutcherson. That's coming up right here on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. Until then, may God continue to richly bless you and your family.
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