Conservative Christians circles in theUSA are currently very much abuzz with the drama happening at headquarters of theInstitute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP)– a Christiannon-denominational para-church organization that has heavily influenced Biblechurches, the home-schooling movement and conservative Christian culture inAmerica since the 1970s. The president and founder of IBLP, Bill Gothard,resigned two days ago, amid extensive allegations of sexual harassment spanningseveral decades.
For years, the worst Bill Gothard andhis teachings had been accused of publically of was being “legalistic,” and oftaking scriptures out of context. But gradually, personal stories about oppressiveemotional and spiritual abuse both at IBLP headquarters and among some of thefamilies who subscribed to his teaching began to come out. Beyond that, lots of the kids who grew upunder his teachings had to struggle well into their adult years to comprehendgrace. It wasn’t until the internetprovided a wide spread forum, and the stories started to include many accountsof sexual harassment by Bill Gothard himself, that he was finally was forced toresign.
So who is Bill Gothard, and what’s thebig deal?
One of the biggest of Bill Gothard’s influenceswas his Advanced Training Institute (ATI) which, for many, was the flagshipcurriculum of Christian home-based K-12 education along with some collegealternative components. Another hugepart of IBLP was its Basic Seminars and Advanced Seminars that taught the manyBasic Life Principles promoted by the movement.
These were purportedly all based on Biblescriptures, but often took scriptures out of context. ATI materials did a great deal of sub-texting,and expanded, explained, interpreted, illustrated and “wisdom searched” verses so far beyondand apart from the original text and context that it created an entire verycomplex counter-culture among those who followed its hundreds of extra-Biblicallaws. Seven principles. 49 characterqualities. Lots of wisdom booklets.
Basic Care Bulletins took generalinformation about disease, preventative care, nutrition and health and mixed themin with Old Testament laws for Jews originally designed by God to show thatrighteousness by keeping rules was impossible. These were "cherry-picked" and applied out ofcontext to modern Gentile Christians living in the dispensation of grace. This in turn led to a long list of dos and don’ts fromwhat you could wear and not wear, eat and not eat, watch and not watch, listento and not listen to, read and not read, think and not think.
The materials had a palatable form ofgodliness, containing a mixture of solid Christian doctrine and Bible verses, basictextbook knowledge in all subjects, woven in with lots of extra-Biblicalmaterials and Bill Gothard’s opinions. Sinceit was packaged all together as Biblical principles, they were often applied as suchwithout question.
Why did so many Christians buy intoit? Two main influencers were timing andfear. Bill Gothard’s principles hit thescene at a very crucial time in American culture. Following the permissive 60s, conservative Christiansin the States were afraid of losing their children to a secular culture thatwas increasing taking a path away from Biblical values. Being the independentpioneering people that Americans are, a few brave Christians decided they wouldfight this trend by educating their children themselves. They went againstmainstream culture although they had little support, and few tools orcurriculum available to help them accomplish their goals. (My mother was one ofthese.) Into this void came Bill Gothard andhis Basic Life Principles. He assured Christian parents they were doing theright thing to home-school if they wanted to be truly committed Christians andhave their children turn out right. He promisedthat if parents followed his pattern, applied his principles, kept his rules,did these things, (but not all these other things), their goals for theirchildren and their families would be accomplished. He offered them hope. By the way, in case you are wondering, theBible doesn’t say you have to home-school to have godly children. There were few alternative choices orvoices, and the seeds of the Bill Gothard influence gradually began to grow andput down deep roots in the conservative non-denominational “come-out-er” typecircles. In the greater evangelicalprotestant Christian circles, not so much.Those American Christians who were less fearful and less concerned aboutprotecting their children from the evil world, and more concerned about goingabout their middle-class lives working, paying their bills, paying off theirhomes, taking care of their families, going to church on Sundays and gettingtheir kids a good public education looked on some of Bill Gothard’s doctrines andpractices as rather bizarre and unnecessary when they crossed the paths ofthose following them. But many others, many conscientiousparents, many fearful parents, many parents insecure in their own ability toraise obedient kids, many good parents just “wanting to do it right”, manyfirst generation Christians wanting to make sure their kids didn’t go wild likethey did, got pulled into Bill Gothard’s teachings and heavily influenced. Thiswas along a few really unhealthy parents and people who latched onto thismovement and its teachings for all the wrong reasons. (My mother was one ofthese.) Because actually, I was. I am a product of the Bill Gothardgeneration. This is why I’m writing thisblog. You see, like me, if you werealive during the Bill Gothard generation (which has actually now spanned morethan two generations, 1961-2013), you were influenced by it. If not directly, then very possibly indirectlythrough the lives of others you knew. There is an excellent chance you are interactingwith the consequences in the lives of people around you now. I certainly am. Allow me to elaborate. Before I was 13 I was told by my mother that Ididn’t need to go to college. Girlsshould live at home until they get married.And then be a stay at home mom. Where in world of 1980s America didshe get this idea from? This concept was first widely preached as a “Biblical” doctrinein America by Bill Gothard. It was alsoheavily reinforced by a book called The Way Home, by Mary Pride that waswritten in 1985 that eschewed feminism and called for Christian women to returnto more traditional roles. This idea which grew into a belief was quicklypicked up by the growing home-school movement at large, into which Mary Pridewas also a primary contributor with her books and magazine on homeschooling. The idea was also promoted by others in the homeschoolingmovement that included other smaller conservative Christian “streams” like the ChristianQuiverful movement, No Greater Joy Ministries (Michael and Debbie Pearl), andthe family church movement. Eventually, girlsstaying at home until they got married was commonly understood to be, in thesecircles, as absolutely “what the Bible says”. Prior to that in American culture,girls (Christian and otherwise) often did live at home until they got married,and didn’t always go to college, but this was either by economic necessity orpracticality- not as a measure of virtue or goodness or godliness orspirituality and certainly not as a practice of any Biblical doctrine. Because actually (in case you are wondering)the Bible doesn’t say anything about going to college or not, regardless ofgender. Another thing I was told in my earlyteens. Dating is bad. Falling in love is a fictional fallacy. Youneed to let God just tell you who your husband will be when you see him for thefirst time. He will confirm His will to you through your parents. This was the early edition of thistrend, somewhat before the courtship movement was in full swing. That developed a few years later in theprogression of conservative Christian extra-Biblical doctrines . This was theidea that parents should pick a girl’s husband because arranged marriages aremore godly. It was heavily reinforced bythe book “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” by Josh Harris which came out in 1997. Many young people were encouraged to vow thatthey would only enter marriage by courtship as a guaranteed way to stay pureand find a godly spouse. This was strongly associated with andpromoted by the Bill Gothard movement.Prior to that in America dating had been a generally acceptable way tofind a spouse for quite some time, and was not considered intrinsically“non-Christian” or worldly by the church.How you were raised and what was in your heart was basically whatdetermined how the dating thing worked out for you. Because actually (in case you are wondering)the Bible doesn’t say anything about dating or not dating. Unfortunately dating had gotten a badrap, partially because of all the promiscuity of the 60s, and parents who cameout of that were trying to counter it with something, anything, to keep theirgirls from getting pregnant in the back seat of a car on a date. The solution presented by Bill Gothard waslike a life preserver to committed Christian parents trying to keep their kidson the right track- Let’s just not let them date at all. Let’s supervise them at all times. And actually, let’s just tell them who theycan marry. That’s how it was in the goodold days after all when almost no one got pregnant out of wedlock and no onegot divorces. That will fix this problem. Bill Gothard taught that dating waspractice for divorce, but a marriage that was built on a courtship wouldlast. And because the last thing anyparent wanted was for their kids to get divorced, they bought it. Bill Gothard also made up anillustration called an umbrella of protection. It was an example he used to promotehis teaching that the husband was the high priest of the home and everyone inthe home should be submitted to him in order to be blessed and protected. But actually (in case you are wondering) theBible never says the husband is the high priest of the home, and never mentionsan umbrella of protection. If you were taught this, you have seenthis picture before- you know exactly what I am talking about. If you weren’t, you probably think it’s weirdand are wondering why the big deal is, and why it matters. Well, for one thing, it matters if youmarry someone from this background. Apastor once made this interesting statement that caught my attention aboutsomeone he had worked with. “The husbandhad an ATI background, and was trying to make sure it didn’t influence hismarriage.” When I asked him to elaboratehe said, “The chain of command teaching in particular. When only one (the man) has a specialrelationship with and direction from God and others listen to God through him,and ‘him’ is fallen and sinful, abuse can follow along shortly.” And the flip side of that teaching isthat it also sets women up to resign themselves to that abuse should it happen,whatever kind it might be. Because ifyour authority is always ordained by God and you must submit to be blessed, youmay have a hard time knowing when it is okay to question it, and stand up foryourself. This concept was reinforced throughbooks that were approved by Bill Gothard and making the rounds like, Me? ObeyHim, by Elizabeth Rice Handford, and,Created to be His Help Meet, by Debi Pearl . This influence also matters when youwork with women who were raised under the umbrella. Bill Gothard taught that children should lettheir parents make their decisions for them and determine God’s will for theirlives. This essentially meant that nomatter what someone wanted to do, had an aptitude for, or felt called by God todo, if their parents didn’t approve it, it wasn’t God’s will and should begiven up in order to stay blessed and protected. Keep in mind, this doctrine was directed toADULT children as well as minors. This by default fell much more heavily on theyoung women than on the young men. Itled to a lot of adult girls deciding it was either too painful or tooconflicting to think for themselves, and they stayed in the habit of askingtheir parents’ permission to do anything of significance long after their lessconservative peers had moved out and gone off to college as the normal courseof events. This unnatural depending on parents todirect life choices after adulthood was crippling. It means there were tens of thousands of ATI girlswho came of age in the 80s and 90s and 2000s who were basically waiting for thenext male authority (a husband) to come into her life and tell her what to donext. And if he didn’t show up (or get selected by their dad) at 18, 19, 20, 21? They often didn’t have many acceptableoptions, depending on their parents. If and when they did enter some job or field,some of them had trouble making decisions in a working environment where theyweren’t supposed to be subservient. Since midwifery was sometimes deemed anacceptable “office” for modest young women (excuse me a moment while I digressand laugh- doing vagin*l exams and pap smears and suturing and showing birthvideos to couples and discussing reproduction, modest?) we got a fair number ofthem deciding to become, or being allowed to become, midwives. I am a daughter of thesemovements. I was homeschooled, neverdated, and planned to live at home until God told me who to marry and myparents approved and blessed my marriage.I read The Way Home, All the Way Home and A Full Quiver, and lots ofBill Gothard’s publications and I believed them all. And although I wasn’tallowed to go to college, I was allowed to apprentice to become a midwife. Which, thankfully, turned out to beone of the best things that ever happened to me. To be continued…
I was born in 1969. Although I was homeschooled from 5thgrade through high school, we did not personally use ATI materials. We did notjoin the BG movement, we weren’t an ATI family. (We wouldn’t have qualified even if we had wanted to. Smallblessings.) I’m pretty sure we never evenwent to a Basic Seminar. And yet, the things that leaked out of that movement into the livesand doctrine of my family and my heart would influence me as much as if I hadbeen right in the middle of it.
