When I was a senior in high school, I attended a week-long conference given by Bill Gothard and loved it! It was a like a breath of fresh air learning about being a wife, mother, and homemaker instead of only learning about feminism, college, and careers as I was learning everywhere else. I didn’t think much about it after that week, but I just remember loving what was taught.

Of course, now, everyone seems to speak evil of him and what he taught. I was thankful when I saw that Michael Pearl was going to talk about him. I was excited to hear what he had to say on his YouTube channel (beginning at the 1:05:08 mark), because I have believed that people were far too critical of him, especially after listening to a woman expose all the lies being told about him.

I typed up the discussion the best that I could here since I wanted many to read it!

Question: Have you heard about Bill Gothard and Basic Youth Principles? If you have, I was wondering what your thoughts are concerning his principles.

Michael Pearl answers: Some of the people we knew went to listen to his seminar, and they were thrilled. They had gotten rid of some bitterness in their lives. Their marriage had been put back together. They were very excited about it and wanted me to go. So Deb and I went and sat hour after hour for several days. It was very well put together, very consistent, good, wholesome teaching: basic principles of life, very good. When we left, Deb was excited about it, and I said, “It was the best humanism I had ever seen. It was Christian humanism.” (Deb was so angry with him for saying that!) It was a human centered experience: how to make your life better with Christian principles.

Over the years, we had different friends that went there and started making wheat bread or homeschooling or whatever, and it was a great blessing in their life. But I saw a trend through the whole thing. The people were becoming totally absorbed in a movement that expanded into dating and courtship and different principles, and a system made up of diet and full of lifestyle stuff. It wasn’t a study of the book of Romans or Colossians. It was not about worship. It was not about soul winning. It was about myself, and it was good since a lot of people needed it. In fact, a couple of months ago, I said to Deb, “We need to come back around to the things Gothard taught. I see people full of bitterness now.”

What I’ve seen, I know there’s a lot of negative press on Gothard, most every movement fades out in time because people change, the times change, and there’s always people sour and bitter that they said they followed it but they didn’t, that they were part of it but they had hidden sin or whatever. Those people grow and infect other people, and it creates a bad flavor for everybody. That’s happened with the Gothard movement, but I was never a part of it. Deb was never a part of it. We saw it on the outside, and we appreciated what they were doing.

We also saw the deficiencies in it. The deficiencies were because people saw it as an answer to their entire Christian life. That was the problem rather than an add on. Some problems occurred. I laughed at some of the courtship stuff. I thought it was pretty silly. I laughed at some of the things I thought were infantile but as a whole, it was a ministry that changed history in America and something to be valued. If I were Gothard, I would be very satisfied with the things he’s accomplished. And if I were a critic of Gothard, I would be very careful about criticizing something that God did use.

Nathan Pearl answers: I went to Basic Life Principles four times. The first time I was 14, and there’s plenty of stuff I don’t agree with but it was very helpful for me. It helped me to memorize Scripture. It gave me a lot of stories and principles and things that have been a blessing to me over the years like how to talk with people, getting over fear, and how to deal with conflict. It was foundational. It was good for me. There were a lot of marriage principles that were good. Some of the authority things I don’t 100 percent agree with. I think the ultimate struggle I saw come out of it was an emphasis on the external instead of a relationship, but it enhanced my life to go to the Basic and Advanced seminars. The Character Sketches were very good. I grieve at seeing people spending so much time and energy being bitter who were following Gothard’s principles.

Debi: The fact is that God raised up ministries and then He’s through with them but at that time, He needed to bring people back to basic principles, and it was good. It’s basically over as far as I can see.

Michael: It would be good for people to have a rerun of it now.

My thoughts: I don’t believe Gothard ever set out to be a church. I believe he saw what the sexual revolution had done to our culture and wanted to get people back to basic biblical principles. He did do a lot of good. I wish I could have gone through more of his seminars and Character Sketches as a young woman. No one else was teaching those important principles. In fact, I didn’t learn most of it until I was 45 years old when I read Debi Pearl’s book but even she didn’t teach through Romans or Colossians. She taught me how to have a strong marriage and for that, I will always be thankful. Her husband taught me through Romans and Colossians, however. I have listened to every single teaching Michael Pearl has done through the Bible. I do attend a solid biblical church where our pastor teaches verse-by-verse through the Bible now too. I love God’s Word. Bill Gothard filled a gigantic hole that had been abandoned by the older women in the churches and most pastors many years ago. Many were blessed by him.

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Romans 12:2

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