Let's talk about Bill
Bill Gothard, IBLP, and the rest of it.
In 1981, Bill Gothard founded the Institute for Basic Life Principles (IBLP). For years, after graduating from Wheaton College, he’d been holding a series of seminars called the Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts, which, ostensibly, was in response to the “rebellion” happening among youths in the 70s. He eventually changed the name to IBLP and started offering seminars for adults called the Basic Seminar which taught what Gothard called the “Seven Basic Life Principles”, an Advanced Seminar which expanded on these life principles, and an Anger Resolution Seminar.
These seminars warned against any teaching that was not based on the Bible and strongly advocated that parents homeschool their children to ensure proper spiritual development. Enter the Advanced Training Institute (ATI), an arm of IBLP that published homeschool curriculum and hosted annual conferences for homeschooling parents.
Let’s clarify a few things up front about ATI/IBLP:
It is not a church. Gothard strongly encouraged local church attendance or starting a home church. He was not a pastor and did not pretend to be one.
It was non denominational. There were Baptist, Pentecostals, Mennonites, Presbyterians, Catholics, and everyone in-between enrolled. There was not a traditional statement of faith anywhere. Everything was based off Gothard’s seven principles. (You can read them here.)
IBLP is only one organization. They had several sub-categories and things for different ministries, but it was all one big ecosystem that, when you were on the inside, didn’t have much differentiation between the separate parts.
My family’s involvement with ATI began when my older brother was about to start kindergarten. My parents had friends who had kids a few years older than me and my siblings were. Those friends came to visit one day and, as the story goes, my parents were struck by how well behaved their kids were. “ATI,” these friends said when asked how they managed to have such well behaved children. My parents went to a Basic and Advanced seminar and then decided to enroll in ATI and homeschool.
My whole life, I was always told that the ATI was a superior way of homeschooling. And the name practically says as much. Bill Gothard was revered as a good, godly man in our house, a fact which was further solidified many years later when my family met Gothard’s long-time friend Ed Reese at Temple Baptist Church.
Homeschooling with ATI looked something like this: We were encouraged to wake up early, make our beds, get dressed, and be ready for school at a set time. For me, getting dressed involved a t-shirt and a denim jumper. We would kick things off with the Pledge of Allegiance, the Pledge to the Christian Flag, the Pledge to the Bible, and round it out with the Doxology. (Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below.) After this, we would dig into the Wisdom Booklets provided by ATI.
According to Gothard, ATI was a wholly Bible-based and complete curriculum (science, math, health, history) and each day started with a recitation of the Scripture. By the time you went through all the Wisdom Booklets (who knows how many there were, too many), you would have memorized the entirety of the Sermon on the Mount – chapters five, six, and seven of the Gospel of Matthew. (Yes, somewhere in my brain, all that is still rattling around.) I think the idea was that if you memorized it, that you would have everything you needed to live a moral life. Sure, this was supplemented by other passages, but this section was the holy grail. In fact, to graduate from ATI, which I never did, you had to quote the Sermon on the Mount and I believe the book of John (don’t quote me on that).
The Wisdom Booklets were divided into topics ranging from health and science to language and Bible. Somehow, someway, Gothard and his team managed to map everything a person needed to know about life back to Matthew five, six, and seven. Need to learn about the American judicial system? There’s a verse for that. Need to learn about the dangers of smoking? There’s a verse for that. Need to learn about the wrongness of evolution and the importance of the Scopes Trial? There’s even a verse for that too. Who knew that such an ancient book (and such a small portion of it!) had so much to say about modern, American life.
These books were supplemented with other workbooks from publishers popular in that circle: Rod & Staff, Bob Jones University, and Christ Centered Curriculum. We never used Paces, Saxon Math, or Abekah, but those were some other popular textbook publishers that families used. My parents made it very clear that the Wisdom Booklets were the most important part of our schoolwork. We’d spend time learning hymn histories, memorizing character qualities, and doing assignments like the one below. I think I went through all the Wisdom Booklets twice.
I met Bill Gothard for the first time when I was 20 years old. This was a very tumultuous time in my life. I’d recently graduated from Bible college, had started asking some very serious questions about the purpose of Christianity, and been in a rapid string of very abusive relationships. I was frustrated, confused, and feeling hemmed in by all the restrictions in my life. My parents, it seems, read that as rebellion. IBLP had recently rolled out a new program called Journey to the Heart, which, according to their website, provides “a time and place where people can really be discipled in their relationship with the Lord” to address “various wrong heart conditions … with the provision that God has made in Christ to deal with those negative heart conditions.”
I didn’t want to go. At all. But I was taught to submit to my parent’s authority (see Basic Life Principle 2), so I eventually relented as a way to get my parents to leave me alone. At the time, Journey to the Heart was limited to single people under the age of 30 and, according to the testimonials, it would revolutionize your walk with God. There were stories of repenting of sin, understanding God in a new way, reconciling with parents, and so forth. I would imagine the desired outcome was to turn me into a Duggar clone, to tame my rebellious heart, and return me to God. After all, most of the stories that came out of these week-long sojourns in the woods were of people who recovered from very salacious behavior.
I flew to the IBLP headquarters in Oakbrook, IL in early summer, where we spent a few days before driving to the North Woods of Michigan. I don’t really remember much of this time except that all the buildings were wood paneled and smelled like mold. As part of the process for the Journey, everyone was required to meet with Bill Gothard one-on-one. The week I went, there were at least 150-200 women in attendance. The “men” would have their own week later that month.
I remember waiting in a hallway to talk to Bill. I’m sure someone told me he was ready to talk to me, but I don’t really remember the details. There were a lot of extremely perky, clean-cut young people milling around at all times. The room was big, bigger than it should have been, with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the property. Bill was sitting at a the end of a large oak conference table with chairs around it. Him at one end and me at the other. He asked me some questions about my reasons for being there, to which I answered the things I was expected to say (to have a better relationship with god, to repent of sin, etc). I was very nervous, which is the overwhelming feeling I have from this meeting.
At one point in this conversation he said to me, “your eyes have the most brilliant countenance. I noticed it when you first walked in the room.” Now, this was a high compliment coming from Bill. There was a lot of talk in the ATI curriculum about eyes and the countenance of one’s eyes. He then invited me to come work at IBLP headquarters. He said that they needed people like me there to help them in the work they were doing. I was stunned. Flattered. I left that meeting and immediately called my Mom to tell her what he said. I cried as I told her what he said to me. She did too. I felt so special, so chosen. Seen.
Now, I see that encounter for what it was. Bill Gothard was in his late 70s. And he was flirting with me. Some naive 20-something who didn’t have a hell of a clue that this was an inappropriate comment from a man who’s own curriculum had taught her that was the type of complement to aspire to. But at this point in my life, I’d been a part of ATI for at least 15 years and Bill Gothard was revered as a wise man of god in our house. I had never actively sought his approval, but once I had it, I realized how much I wanted it.
The rest of the week was spent in a cabin with 10 other girls of various ages and backgrounds. We were led through exercises, guided devotionals that were meant to help bring us closer to god. I left that week more or less unchanged except for the nearly 50 mosquito bites I accumulated that week. If there was a change, it was that flying and traveling on my own made me want more of that. I never went to work at headquarters.
This is fundamentalism. IBLP wanted to raise armies for Christ, which is why they encouraged large families and homeschooling, and created an entire ecosystem to ensure that those kids would grow up to raise copies of themselves.
Bill Gothard preyed on people like my parents – people whose families of origin were messy and broken, people who just wanted to raise good kids, but who had been told that you couldn’t do that in “the world.” He sold them the problem and then sold them the solution.
When I talk to people about my experience, they’re shocked. When people comment on articles about ATI, they’re flabbergasted. “How does this happen?” they say. “How are people so easily duped?” “Don’t they see how messed up this is?” No, they don’t. It’s like the modern, accomplished women who joined NXIVM; they just wanted a better life. Cults like this are an infinity loop of deceit. They prey on people’s actual hurts and then isolate you from the wider population that disagrees with you, creating a feedback loop that keeps you locked in and punishes you if you leave.
It wouldn’t be another decade before Gothard would be forced to step down from leadership at ATI after multiple women came forward saying that Gothard had sexually harassed and/or assaulted them. I can’t help but feel that I dodged a bullet.
Windmill of My Mind
AKA things I thought about this week
It’s Time to Rage by Roxane Gay – I’m just going to let Roxane say what I feel about the leak. I’m too tired to say anymore about it right now.
The Decline of Ohio and the Rise of J.D. Vance by Christopher Caldwell – No one and nothing irks me more. And yet, this is a great piece about why he’s so appealing. Don’t read his book. Read What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte instead.
Even Walart is Worse in the Metaverse by Kate Wagner – I have so many opinions about the metaverse that this Gawker article validates. Also, if you haven’t checked out Kate’s McMansion Hell, you should.