The Secretive World of Bill Gothard

[Joanne98]

During the early seventies, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary was the largest seminary in the world. It was the flagship of the Southern Baptist Convention. Around this time a new movement started that was drawing participants around the nation. It was named the Basic Youth Conflicts Seminar. It drew between 10,000-20,000 participants per event. Eager minds sat for days listening to lectures from Bill Gothard, the founder. His teachings were contained in the popular notebook that was not to be shared with anyone who did not attend. Followers were warned not to speak with others about what was taught. A veil of secrecy engulfed the meetings.

A couple of results from these annual meetings were standard. For one, the church I belonged to would lose members. To counter this, the church arranged for members who had been to the seminar to share testimonies about how wonderful the indoctrination was. Another result was that some women who attended Southwestern without the blessings of their father would leave the school.

A local pastor led what was known as a church that embraced Gothard. He would come to chapel and just about every few moments he would refer to Bill Gothard's principles. Later on that decade this pastor was part of a fundamentalist takeover of the seminary. A school that by and large viewed the Gothard movement with a bit of caution, would have new direction. Later on this same pastor became almost as enamored with David Barton as he was with Gothard.

Today participation at these seminars has dropped off to a fraction of the original attendance. The name was changed to Institute on Basic Life Principles. The impact on the Christian culture is still there. Bill Gothard sends out weekly emails to over 90,000 pastors across the world. You could imagine the interest I had when I received a copy of Gothard's Advanced Seminar Textbook. Someone donated the secret book for a garage sale. I found the contents to be beyond what I had imagined.

Gothard was criticized by people outside of his seminar crowd as placing himself above medical Doctor's advice. The book is full of such. He promotes teaching the fetus as well as adopting Freudian sexual theories. Accused of teaching Judaism as Christianity, Gothard promotes the idea of arranged marriages. Some have written his legalistic view of Scripture is not Biblical. He once wrote that Cabbage Patch dolls were supposed to prevent women from giving birth, among other gems. These other strange ideas flow from the book.

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/1/17/153531/736

[DCKit]

1. Geez, Joanne! Trying to make the Mormons and Scientologists sound mainstream?

And all this time I thought the Cabbage Patch dolls were demons.

[Joanne98]

5. LOL

[notadmblnd]

2. Queue the Twilight Zone theme song.

[northoftheborder]

3. Glad to hear his followers are dwindling.

I think this (early Gothard) was part of the beginning of the fundamentalist and "new church" (non denominational) era. I actually went to one of these conferences along with some friends. Two of them did leave our church and joined one of these "new churches". Another eventually left her church and joined a splintered group. I did not buy into it. Was shocked at some of the teachings. It was interesting, though, and gave me an insight into some of the religiosity that followed.

[yellowcanine]

4. If I recall correctly, Gothard promoted beating to "break a child's will"

Or at least some of his followers took it that way and the result was child abuse.

[Joanne98]

6. I never heard of him before. Sounds nasty.