The other day, I watched a video by Todd Friel titled “Why the Duggars and Millions of Other Baptists Were Deceived by Bill Gothard.” It was awful. I thought he would actually use Bill Gothard’s own teaching to show how badly millions were deceived. He didn’t. He mostly used the slanderous video “Shiny Happy People” to back up his accusations. He never attended one of his conferences, and he didn’t seem to have studied any of his material. He just went off what he read and heard from others.

I looked through some of the comment section. Many were so thankful for Todd, praised him, and bashed Gothard. Since I want the truth, I decided to search for comments from those who actually attended and benefited from his teachings. I found some great ones. Here they are. They are from YouTube, so I used the names they use.

@bock1965:

It is easy for those who have never been there to judge. I attended half a dozen or so Gothard seminars from the time I was 15 up to twenty. I have been a Christian since I was eight and grew up in a Southern Baptist Church. I am 57 now. When I got married, I ended up moving from home and attending churches that were non-denominational, not for any reason other than that was how things worked out. Maybe the church I grew up in was an anomaly, but as far as I am aware, there were no negative repercussions from Gothard’s teaching in that church. In fact, legalism was routinely taught against.

Todd, did you ever go hear Gothard in person? Gothard’s umbrella analogy is no different than you telling us how strictly we must obey the government. Can you deny the principle of authority the umbrella analogy teaches? Have you ever heard of children obeying their parents? What people miss and/or don’t tell is that Gothard also taught that staying in an abusive situation was NOT what God wanted either.

The umbrellas simply taught about not being rebellious. I am certain some people used Gothard’s teaching as a launch pad for their own error. You, Mr Freil, surely believe ALL your sins past, present, and future have already been forgiven, but you would never advocate that as an excuse to sin freely. But some do. Gothard, like all men, was fallible. So am I, and so are you. Maybe I am sounding like a Gothard apologist. Maybe I am, but I was there and saw nothing abusive. His teaching was affirmative of God’s love. Those who took me to his seminars affirmed God’s love. There is a wave of Christian deconstruction going on not only in the present but also retroactively. Please, be careful not to participate.

@beckysmith6375 (who responded to the comment above):

Thank you for your words! I certainly resonate with them. I went to many, many seminars with my parents and later with my husband and young sons. It was the Basic Seminar in the 70s that changed my mind about the path I was on, a path of listening to my so-called “friends” in public school, and not listening to my parents. I repented of my rebellious attitude and invited my parents to attend the seminar with me, which they did the next year. Thus started a routine of much-looked-forward-to yearly seminars in which we would be reminded of biblical truths in a concentrated week-long format.

I thank the Lord for using Bill Gothard in my life to turn me back to my parents, who loved me, and away from bad dating relationships and the harm that they were already causing me. I’m thankful for the many years of familial harmony that the material brought. The seminar also taught me that I had been unloving to my little sister. I was moved to be more considerate of her after the story Bill told about his selfishness toward his younger brother. The story about the father who didn’t keep his promises to his son was moving to my father, who renewed his efforts to spend time with us kids even when he wasn’t in the mood. The teaching on husbands listening to the advice of their wives was a real eye-opener to my parents. My father is a very educated college professor, and my mom is a humble grade school teacher turned real estate agent. The teaching and statement that Gothard made on what parents want and hope for in a relationship with their grown children has always stuck with me and caused me to want to make my parents proud. And the teaching on how to have peace by “yielding rights” is pure gold to me. PURE. GOLD.

I can not overstate how much more peace my life has because I have made that concept a foundational part of my thinking. As a matter of fact, all Seven Principles that were taught were very useful in different aspects of my life. The principle of SUFFERING was possibly the most poignant. I can’t thank Bill Gothard enough for the good he did for me, my parents, and my children. I am also thankful to Mr. Jim Sammons for the content of the Advanced seminar.
Excellent material, and very funny. And also Otto Koning for the Pineapple Story and other tales from the jungles of Indonesia.

Bill Gothard shared the stage with missionaries, businessmen, and many other capable teachers from many walks of life. That in itself shows that Bill Gothard wasn’t a man driven by ego. We did try the homeschool program ATI for a couple of years with our sons, but it didn’t work for me since the material isn’t organized by subjects. It’s more topical. So we didn’t continue with ATI. Did I take every single teaching for the Basic and Advanced seminars to heart?
No, not 100 percent. Some parts I didn’t resonate with, so I just left those by the wayside. A good 85 -90 percent of the material was very useful to our family. And the fact that the seminars, which included nice quality textbooks, were paid for only once and then could be attended for free for a lifetime, made it one of the very best investments my parents and my family have ever made, bar none!

Then @bock1965 responded to @beckysmith6375:

Thank you for sharing your story. I believe very few of the total number of people attending the Institute in Youth Conflicts Seminars had as bad an experience as had been portrayed in this video. As a teen, with a not-so-good dad, I learned a lot about obedience. Mr. Friel did not mention how Bill taught kids under their parents’ authority, wives under their husbands’ authority, and everyone under any authority to pray for those in authority and ask God to guide us through them to reveal His will for us through them.

Joseph was obedient to Potiphar and Pharaoh as part of his worship of God, and God guided Joseph through the authorities he obeyed. Indeed, Joseph’s obedience enabled him to lead a nation and helped him forgive those who literally sold him out. These are the types of things I remember from the seminars. Mr Friel apparently only knows what a few detractors have said. The whole umbrella of God’s protection being legalistic is so, so laughable to me. You were way more gracious in your comment than I tend to be (you did not call out Mr Friel). May God bless you as you continue to apply His principles in your life. Peace..

@keithwiebe1787:

Do you remember being preached about “having a quiver full”?

@bock1965 answered @keithwiebe1787:

Yes, but it was not a “Go have babies at all costs” type of thing. More like “Go have normal marital relations and if God gives you children, accept them as His gifts.’ It would not surprise me if some people went and made as many babies on purpose as they could. I have a good friend with nine kids. They are a great family. I know he is not legalistic.

Too many people are eager to look at situations where folks have lived according to their own will in the guise of following God, only to have bad outcomes, and then say, “Looky there, it did not work well for them. It must have been the teaching that ruined their families.” In some cases, yes, bad teaching can directly cause bad outcomes. I am not convinced that Gothard’s ten commandments state that obedience to and honor of parents is a direct way of securing God’s blessings for a long life. Of course, that does not mean that if your parent tells you to murder someone, that it’s okay. Simply put, Gothard taught that not only was obedience to authority God’s design for both serving Him and receiving blessings from Him, but that getting out of line in the Christian walk will then be harder than need be. Sin always has consequences.

He also taught explicitly that husbands should love their wives as Christ loves the Church. Again, the wives submitting to husbands thing has been abused across all of Christendom, not just in the circle of people who went to Gothard’s seminars. Oh, and before you ask, we have only one child. Limited on purpose? Yes. Although over the years, I have wondered if it was the right choice.

@kimberlypride4046:

My husband and I were part of homeschooling through IBLP. We have six children and found the curriculum to be Bible-based. My oldest three children memorized Matthew 5,6, 7, and Romans 6, 7, and 8, and I John. We went to conferences to help train us in teaching our children. I feel a family that chose Hollywood exposure and fame is not an accurate reflection of the reality of IBLP, like “Shiny Happy People” did. I agree they were legalistic, but I believe that using God’s Word and especially Jesus’ words as a foundation for teaching our children was the best way to prepare them for life. They are all adults now, and I see a great difference between the older children and the younger ones that were not afforded the same educational start, as I had to return to work

@scatoutdebutter:

As a “Reformed” believer who went to several Bill Gothard conferences back in the 70s. I still remember some of the things I heard there in a good light. Nobody’s perfect. Back then, the fundamentalist movement was everywhere. And it was a strange time of upheaval in the country and world; it is the rare church that stayed totally Grace- and Gospel-oriented and Christ-centered, able to smile, as it were, at everything going on all around.

Whatever faults Bill Gothard might have had, like another commenter mentioned, I think people take Bill Gothard out of context. This particular hit piece by Mr. Friel is shameful. I wish I were educated enough to pinpoint the various informal logical fallacies he commits here. Straw Man is the only one I know the name of. It seems as if it were thrown together in a hurry, like within a four-hour time frame or something, and they just had to get it out the door and get it posted on YouTube. I mean, it is almost like a parody of somebody doing a hit piece. How not to do an insightful and accurate hit piece.

Just to add, the short clip about the lady who worked at the Bill Gothard Institute, saying that they made hell seem vivid and real to them; sadly, hell is real, and the more real and vivid we can bear to believe it, the better. Not to be irreverent or too cheeky, but ask Jonathan Edwards (who understood more about God’s Grace and the Gospel and the love of Christ than many) about “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” for example. This really makes Mr. Friel go down in my esteem.

***In conclusion, from me, Lori, I know Bill Gothard wasn’t perfect, yet I don’t believe he was as terrible as many claim he was. It reminds me of the purity movement. Many claimed it caused great harm. It seemed to have only harmed those who fornicated. The principles taught were very good. My children were thankful for them. I believe parents have a far greater responsibility for how their children turn out than someone’s teaching does. It’s the parents who are commanded to teach their children about the Lord all day long, raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and correct any false teachings. Blaming movements that tried to stop the hemorrhaging going on in America weren’t evil. They weren’t perfect since they were led by imperfect people, but they did more good than evil.

The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.
Proverbs 26:22

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