Who is Gothard and what does he teach?

[Zooey]

I grew up Fundamentalist, and although there were many things wrong within the Fundamentalist Christian/worldview, I had never been exposed to the extremes you are speaking of. And I grew up going to the Gothard seminars! He just doesn’t teach what you are speaking of, that all these things are sins

:hug3: I grew up Holiness; I know that not everybody is the same in these groups…
But:shrug: my cousin’s husband is all caught up with Gothard & with his ideas…and he no longer will attend the (Fundamentalist Baptist) church that she grew up in, and my aunt is still a member of…because they do not preach against dating, they have voter registration drives each fall, and because there are people that will speak up to him, when he tries to claim that women acting as independent from a man (because life happens, and some of us are left alone in this world)…
He also no longer will bless the food at family gatherings, because a couple of his sisters-in-law, like:blush: me, are not fundamentalists…and he has been taught not to “have fellowship” or to “worship with” us.
“Glen” is probably an extreme. I hope so!! But these are things that are doing the rounds in these circles. Perhaps it doesn’t come from Gothard himself…but it comes from those who are being taught by him & his followers…
Extremes breeding more extremes…and I have other friends who have had similar experiences…

 

[Jeanette_L]

:hug3: I grew up Holiness; I know that not everybody is the same in these groups…
But:shrug: my cousin’s husband is all caught up with Gothard & with his ideas…and he no longer will attend the (Fundamentalist Baptist) church that she grew up in, and my aunt is still a member of…because they do not preach against dating, they have voter registration drives each fall, and because there are people that will speak up to him, when he tries to claim that women acting as independent from a man (because life happens, and some of us are left alone in this world)…
He also no longer will bless the food at family gatherings, because a couple of his sisters-in-law, like:blush: me, are not fundamentalists…and he has been taught not to “have fellowship” or to “worship with” us.
“Glen” is probably an extreme. I hope so!! But these are things that are doing the rounds in these circles. Perhaps it doesn’t come from Gothard himself…but it comes from those who are being taught by him & his followers…
Extremes breeding more extremes…and I have other friends who have had similar experiences…

:console:

 

[anamchara]

I read that the shooter of the churches in Colorado was a homeschooling child. The curriculum that his parents used was apparently by a man named Gothard.

I was just curious about this curriculum. Does anyone know what this man teaches?

I’ve read, but I can’t find any unbiased sources, that it teaches an extreme form of fundamentalism.

As someone who homeschools I am always interested in various curriculums and what they teach.

I don’t think it was the curriculum, although I’ve never looked it over. It was the parent, she sounded bizarre. I’ve met some of these extreme fundamentlist homeschoolers on line :nope: scary bunch. We have a family in our neighborhood who homeschools her kids. She will only teach from the Baltimore catechism and keeps them so shut in that the kids are lucky to see the light of day. I see them in Church and they looked starved for interaction. She controls there every move. it’s spooky.

Now, I think homeschooling is wonderful. I’m thinking of trying it with my older disabled daughter but there is some strange psychos out there. Sorry.

 

[Jeanette_L]

I don’t think it was the curriculum, although I’ve never looked it over. It was the parent, she sounded bizarre. I’ve met some of these extreme fundamentlist homeschoolers on line :nope: scary bunch. We have a family in our neighborhood who homeschools her kids. She will only teach from the Baltimore catechism and keeps them so shut in that the kids are lucky to see the light of day. I see them in Church and they looked starved for interaction. She controls there every move. it’s spooky.

Now, I think homeschooling is wonderful. I’m thinking of trying it with my older disabled daughter but there is some strange psychos out there. Sorry.

You’re right, we can and will find extremists within every form of religious affiliations, it is part of our fallen human nature to gravitate toward the unbalanced - and a constant struggle to stay on the right path for all of us.

 

[Zooey]

I don’t think it was the curriculum, although I’ve never looked it over. It was the parent, she sounded bizarre. I’ve met some of these extreme fundamentlist homeschoolers on line :nope: scary bunch. We have a family in our neighborhood who homeschools her kids. She will only teach from the Baltimore catechism and keeps them so shut in that the kids are lucky to see the light of day. I see them in Church and they looked starved for interaction. She controls there every move. it’s spooky.

Now, I think homeschooling is wonderful. I’m thinking of trying it with my older disabled daughter but there is some strange psychos out there. Sorry.

I’ve met some of them…and I’ve met some of the unfortunate victims of some of them.
Homeschooling is a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, there are always a few people who give it a bad name…

You’re right, we can and will find extremists within every form of religious affiliations, it is part of our fallen human nature to gravitate toward the unbalanced - and a constant struggle to stay on the right path for all of us.

:byzsoc:

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

As a protestant, I am telling you to run real fast away from anything that Bill Gothard is involved with, he is a bad trip. Anytime, he comes to town psychologists become overbooked dealing with the problems he causes in his wake.

A STUDY IN EVOLVING FADISM
The Dangerous Leanings of Bill Gothard’s Teachings
by G. Richard Fisher
pfo.org/evol-fad.htm
pfo.org/bgothard.htm

apologeticsindex.org/news1/an010611-10.html

apologeticsindex.org/i13.html

amazon.com/Matter-Basic-Principles-Gothard-Christian/dp/0974252808

midwestoutreach.org/blogs/bill-gothards-evangelical-talmud-part-1/

jesus-is-savior.com/Wolves/bill_gothard.htm

google.com/search?hl=en&q=Bill+Gothard+exposed±huckabee+theology

 

[panther]

As a teenager, I attended two Bill Gothard week-long seminars (this was over 30 years ago.) I was Baptist at the time, and my church was very strict and conservative.

One of the lessons Gothard taught was that sometimes God allows girls/unmarried women to be raped in order that they can be “inoculated” from sexual sin. He said that a rape would put fear of men into a woman’s heart so that she wouldn’t fall victim to sexual temptation. Then when God brought a husband into her life, she would no longer have an aversion to men, because “perfect love casteth out all fear.”

As I recall, he was in his 30s and still lived with his mother, because he was under her “umbrella of influence,” since he was not yet married. He told us he still obeyed her, because God ordained parents to rule over their children until they were married. After they were married, husbands were to rule over their wives. Even if a husband ordered a wife to do something sinful, she was to do it. God would put the sin on the husband and would bless the wife for staying under that umbrella.

I also remember that he objected to music being performed on instruments, because of some bizarre analysis of how certain instruments stirred up “unseemly passions.” Vocal music was fine, but not instruments, especially for worship music.

I haven’t thought about Bill Gothard in years, and I didn’t realize that he was still around. He preached some pretty goofy doctrines back in the day, and it sounds like some things haven’t changed.

 

[Jeanette_L]

As a teenager, I attended two Bill Gothard week-long seminars (this was over 30 years ago.) I was Baptist at the time, and my church was very strict and conservative.

One of the lessons Gothard taught was that sometimes God allows girls/unmarried women to be raped in order that they can be “inoculated” from sexual sin. He said that a rape would put fear of men into a woman’s heart so that she wouldn’t fall victim to sexual temptation. Then when God brought a husband into her life, she would no longer have an aversion to men, because “perfect love casteth out all fear.”

As I recall, he was in his 30s and still lived with his mother, because he was under her “umbrella of influence,” since he was not yet married. He told us he still obeyed her, because God ordained parents to rule over their children until they were married. After they were married, husbands were to rule over their wives. Even if a husband ordered a wife to do something sinful, she was to do it. God would put the sin on the husband and would bless the wife for staying under that umbrella.

I also remember that he objected to music being performed on instruments, because of some bizarre analysis of how certain instruments stirred up “unseemly passions.” Vocal music was fine, but not instruments, especially for worship music.

I haven’t thought about Bill Gothard in years, and I didn’t realize that he was still around. He preached some pretty goofy doctrines back in the day, and it sounds like some things haven’t changed.

I have to say again, that I attended his seminars probably 3 or 4 consecutive years during my teens and I don’t recall being taught a lot of this, I find it really sickening.

I do remember the teaching on the authority of the husband, which is very common in most Fundamentalist circles, and even most of the Evangelical circles as well, although not emphasized greatly with the latter.

I do know at that time, he was in keeping with most Fundamentalists, in that all of them warned against the secular and sexual messages within Rock music, and the influence they would have on the moral climate of the youth. I don’t recall ever hearing him speak against the use of musical instruments except in that regard.

If I’m not mistaken, Gothard is very similar in philosophy as Bob Jones, so although that doesn’t bode well for him overall, it doesn’t put him in the same league as what we might consider to be cultish or to emphasize in any way violence as a means to a greater spiritual end.

But honestly, I don’t recall hearing a lot of what you have just described, so he must have grossly deteriorated in his thought processes, or I was protected by the good Lord from the contamination of such gross teaching, and I can’t imagine that any church that I had been affiliated with at that time, although very conservative, would ever have thought his teachings on rape to be even remotely scriptural or remotely Christian in nature. :nope:

I’m going to see if I’ve kept any of the workbooks that we used in those seminars, my mother may actually have them stored somewhere (we are all pack rats by nature ), my curiosity is peaked.

 

[Cat]

I grew up in the Conference Baptist denomination. Several rather famous authors/speakers came from my church, including Evelyn Christenson (my pastor’s wife), Gary Smalley, Steve Douglass (President of Campus Crusade for Christ), and John Ortberg (current evangelical speaker and author of several best-sellers).

The reason I’m telling you this is so that you will know that I came from a very orthodox, respected evangelical church, not a “fringe” church.

When I was growing up, everyone in my church went to Gothard seminars.

He taught something called “Chain of Command.” Some of you have alluded to it. Basically it means that there is a chain of command. God is in charge of the Church who is in charge of parents who are in charge of children…forever.

The marriage of a child does not liberate them from the authority of their parents. etc.

Sounds OK. In fact, it sounds really good when you have teenagers who want to date. Dad says no, that settles it. No dating for the teens. No more discussion. Dad’s word is law. Right? Hmmm…

But in our church, Gothardism was banished after a very disturbing incident involving my best friend.

She was from a non-Christian family, and had been faithfully attending our church for several years. In college, she volunteered for short-term mission service and was commissioned (hands-layed-on) to be sent to Japan for a summer of ESL. The church paid for everything.

Everything was all set up and she was so excited.

Then a Gothardite got hold of her. Made an appointment with her, and told her that she was committing a sin to go without the consent and blessing of her parents. (Remember, they weren’t Christians.) She told my friend that if anything happened to her while she was overseas, her parents might reject God, and then their souls would be held against her account.

My poor friend was devastated. Thankfully she went straight to our pastor, who along with the Church Executive Board went straight to this lady and “disciplined” her. She was told in stern language to stop undermining the work of the church.

After this incident, church members were warned to stay away from Gothard seminars. We were told that he had “gone off the deep end” and fallen into heresy.

This same Gothardite is still around our city, an elderly woman now, and is known as a virulent anti-Catholic who confronts Catholic converts and accuses them of grave sin because they rebelled against their churches and their families by converting to Catholicism. I know several women who have been accosted by her, and they describe it as very disturbing.

At one point, she and her husband confronted a young woman who had just divorced her adulterous husband (after 12 years of putting up with his affairs). They told her that if she had truly been a “good wife,” her husband would not have had affairs. They said that she was in rebellion against her husband because she divorced him.

Do you see how the “Chain of Command” teaching can be taken to the extreme by Gothardites? I can really see why some homeschooling families would take this teaching to heart; I know certain groups of homeschooling families who are “separatists.” I’ve met them in various musical settings, and I’ve ached for these kids who are so very naive and out of touch. Maybe it’s a good thing, but eventually, surely, they will have to learn that there’s a very real world outside of their FantasyLand. Are parents really doing their kids a favor to shelter them from everything?

IMO, this “Chain of Command” teaching is not Biblical and is in fact, very dangerous. I am glad that my childhood church stopped endorsing Gothard.

 

[mozart-250]

In the late 80s I was involved in a church that was heavily into Gothard. What I can remember of it is:

• A very strong stand against birth control of any kind including natural family planning methods. Families of 5-10 children were not uncommon in this church. See the Quiverfull movement.
• Absolutely no debt including mortgages.
• I do remember this stuff about needing parents permission for marriages.

There was other stuff, but this is what I remember off the bat. Pretty wierd stuff.

Fortunately the church began moving away from Gothard. We have moved from the area, but I understand the Gothard influence is non-existent by now.

These stories that I hear in this thread are not surprising to me.

I wouldn’t recommend Gothard.