Great Commission Similar to Bill Gothard teaching--Cultish

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[GodisFaithful]

I don't know if anyone else has been following what is happening with the organization that Bill Gothard used to head up. 

A website for hurting people was set up by those who grew up in the system.  It is very professionally and tastefully done, and for a while it was helping those who had been abused in some of the training centers or in their homes or for those who just knew something was "off" and needed help in the way the scriptures are twisted by Bill Gothard.  Recently, however, it has come out that many girls (perhaps more than 50) were sexually harassed and worse by Bill Gothard himself.  If you want to check it out, the website is Recovering Grace.  I cannot give you a link because I am the most untechy person within the membership of this forum. 

I wanted to tell you about a recent article.  It is called "Gothard's Biblical Innoculation"  and I can almost guarantee you that if you have left a GC church and have been out for a while, it will sound eerily familiar. 

Here is just the bare bones.  "If you are the leader of a cult-like sect of Christianity, how do you innoculate your followers from teachings of "outsiders"?

1. Disagreement is a Sign of Secret Sin
2.  Scholarship is Misleading
3.  Scripture is Subjective
4.  Dissenters are to be Shunned

They have good info under each heading of how scripture is twisted.

It is also interesting that in Larry Piles book Bill Gothard didn't seem to like Jim McCotter, Jim McCotter didn't like Bill Gothard but did like to drop his name around, and turns out they were both building cultish empires so no wonder they were threatened by each other.  My opinion.  It is documented in the section about Great Commission Academy of Larry Piles book.

Am I the only one keeping a pulse on the Gothard situation (he has stepped down because of the allegations) and what is happening in the GC churches, at least any connected to the national leadership who have not corrected false teaching?  We were in IBLP for a while after we were at Evergreen, and when this stuff about BG hit facebook, I started looking at Recovering Grace.  We had gotten out 10 years ago or more, but I realized, "That was a full blown cult!  But so was Evergreen, because Brent Knox told me to follow him like he was Moses."  That is when I found this web site and learned more of the aberrations of GC.  I said to my husband, "Could we just not ever join any more cults, please?"  I am not saying it was his fault, it was sort of a joke, like, how could we be so misled/dumb!?

[Linda]

My husband and I are following the Gothard thing. Also, the Doug Phillips thing. Very sad.

In fact, World Magazine has picked up on the "follow the leader"/"unity trumps truth" heresy.

Here is a link:

http://www.worldmag.com/2014/03/the_second_great_embarrassment#.UyxioxDlc1c.facebook

[GodisFaithful]

I saw the quote by Mark Darling about how he was scornful about how the "Gothardites" were dressing.

But it is uncanny how much in common the false teaching is between Great Commission and Gothard. 

1.  Huge emphasis on how you look on the outside, but if you ever question or doubt the leaders, the emphasis goes back on the heart.

2.  Putting young, very inexperienced youth in authority over other youth, resulting in terrible abuse in some situations.

3.  Teaching on authority taught until the brain was washed clean of any independent thinking. 

4.  Teaching that those in this movement were a number of steps above ordinary other Christians.

5.  Youth getting out and having trouble making decisions for themselves.

6.  Steered away from higher education in order to devote time to the movement. 

7.  Dating discouraged, putting off marriage highly valued, relationships watched, spying on others encouraged by some authorities.

8.  Articles internally produced could not be trusted to be truthful.

There are a myriad of other similarities, just like any cultish group finds these and other ways to control the minions.  Doesn't it creepishly sound like some of the tactics of Great Commission churches?
 
What is very encouraging is that the youth who were brought up in this are leading the charge to expose it and help each other out of it and out of the brainwashing and twisting of Scripture.  There was an attempt in 1980 to bring down the Gothard Empire because of a huge scandal that was swept under the rug.  But in those days social media did not exist and the efforts by those who saw the truth came to nothing.  But with social media, and the way that those who started the web site so methodically and prayerfully created their forum, the truth has been shouted from the house tops and the whole thing is crumbling.  Some parents and people who have bought into it hook line and sinker don't want to look at the evidence, but something like 95% of the students who grew up in this will not use it with their children.   

[EverAStudent]

Quite right, the first "known" Gothard scandal was in the 80's while we were still in GC.  I think it had something to do with him acting "improperly" with a female assistant. 

However, while we heard about the scandal from dyed-in-the-wool Gothardites the GC leadership squashed all discussion of it because they and Gothard were in the seat of Moses and all negative reports about leadership were evil and shameful to even mention, no matter how true or valid the report.  Of course, leadership could pass along negative reports about their sheep to each other because that somehow was the role of leaders.

In that way they were able to maintain control, using Gothard's own distorted teachings that made true reports about the sinful conduct of leaders into "evil reports."  Thus, the GC leadership continued to use Gothard to keep their heavy authoritarian grip over the congregation.  I think they felt that if Gothard fell then all his control-oriented misuses of Scripture would also fall and they might lose some of their own ill-gotten authoritarianism. 

And there is some truth to their concerns.  When I attended Gothard I began writing down Gothard's biblical errors.  Over time I began to see more and more of those errors incorporated into GC dogma, and it among other things caused me to question the validity of GC teachings and therefore the validity of GC pastoral leadership.  That line of thinking led to my getting repeatedly rebuked by GC leadership for questioning "Moses" and ultimately to my conclusion that it was necessary to separate my family from GC. 

In fact, if getting into GC was the most unwise decision I ever made, then surely leaving must rank somewhere among the wisest???

[GodisFaithful]

I can't help comparing which was most unwise, submitting ourselves to the leadership of a Great Commission church, or joining ATI.

My kids have only good memories of Evergreen.  We left when it wasn't too traumatic for any of our kids.  We got right into a church where a lot of families were in ATI.  We didn't jump in right away.  We had some fabulous friendships there, some dysfunction, but a lot of love. Only when we got into the home school program did I feel like we were sucked into very unhealthy group-think.  Our daughter has thrown away all of her journals because they were all just a parroting of Bill Gothard stuff.  That makes me feel so sad, as a parent, that she would be so stuffed into a mold that she had no voice or personality of her own from those growing up years. She is over it.  She is happily married to a non-ATI wonderful guy, my favorite son-in-law (I only have one daughter.)  But no doubt about it, it leaves an ugly scar.  The hope is that God can make us stronger through a trial of being misled by false teaching, sort of like scar tissue being stronger.  God can heal and bring good out of bad, like the life of Joseph. But I have had a lot seeking my kids forgiveness for my part in this, and for being overly harsh with them.  They have been so forgiving.

But the thought of my kids growing up at Evergreen where they are shunted into the system (from what I gather) of small groups where your life is talked about behind your back by "leaders", of peoples lives being scrutinized for the type of person leaders are looking for, hyper control of dating, etc. is even worse, to me.  With ATI, our family saw some major flaws and drifted away and the further we got the more aberrations we saw.  Our kids were free to keep up on wonderful friendships that they made during that time.  I think our kids saw through it faster than we did.  For the most part, they can laugh about it and move on, not that it is funny how badly abused some kids were.  And the twisting of Scripture is not funny.  But you know how it is, when you can start taking yourself not so seriously, it is a healthier place.

I think that a church that is cultish has a worse grip on a person.  A para-church organization is easier to leave behind, although perhaps that was not some people's experience.  We have been in a church for 10 years that has a pastor who has a whole file of things that he takes issue with Bill Gothard about, on a Scriptural basis.   I didn't even ask him what was in that file (I think I should have) because I was ready to leave it behind.  To me, when people are trapped in an overly authoritarian church, it's not so easy to leave, put it behind you, get beyond it's grip.

When we left Evergreen we tried to put a positive spin on it.  "Oh, well, the gospel is being preached."  Uh, not so fast.  In many ways it is a "different gospel" and a "different Jesus", in that the simple good news of Jesus dying for our sins and forgiving us of all our sins if only we would reach out to Him because He is reaching out to us with love and mercy and grace and He offers us a new fresh life in him. Period.  Peace, love, and joy in our inner most being. Yeah, we stumble and fall sometimes, but He is there to pick us up.  Nothing to do with performing or trying really really hard to make Christ more attractive to the world.  Christ is never going to be attractive to the world, sorry.  That is a different Christ.

I can't help comparing the two cults I was in.  I was in them, so I can call it how I see it.  I think they are cults based loosely on Christianity.

[ustawannabee]

Who is Doug Phillips? A GCx person?

[Linda]

Doug Phillips headed up Vision Forum. Big shot in the homeschool/dominion theology arena.

Messed with his "nanny" and got caught after 10 years.

[GodisFaithful]

Ever A Student,

So you also tie your escape from GCx to Bill Gothard?  In studying BG's errors, it opened your eyes to the authority baloney in your church.  That is so interesting, how the house of cards crumbles. Mike Royal can also attribute his escape to Bill Gothard, as told in Larry Pile's book.  It's a pretty funny story in there.

Perhaps with Gothard's ideas being more scrutinized, some of GC's errors will be more apparent for people to see?  Right after the 1980 scandal is when BG came out with a booklet on how people should not listen to a "bad report" or repeat a "bad report", something like that.  Very timely, for him.  Many, many, many people over the years tried to go to him about his problems, but his MO was to silence with his made up doctrine, fire people, get angry at people, and he has been known to try very hard to ruin the reputations of his critics.  That is why RecoveringGrace people stayed anonymous until recently; two of the staff of RecoveringGrace gave a radio interview in the last few weeks.

So my question is, will the real history of GC churches and the aberrations of doctrine and abuses of the past (excommunications, etc.) and the track record of the guy who really started this whole thing, Jim McCotter, will all of that ever be exposed to any great extent, or will GCx be able to continue to sweep it all under the rug, keep on keeping on rewriting the history and fooling people about underlying stinky problems?  To me, the 1991 "Apology" letter was just a band-aide on a gaping infected wound that they didn't really want to clear up.  They seem to still blame their critics for bad hearts and slander, just like Bill Gothard did.  It was all about being persecuted for righteousness sake.  But if the foundation of GCx is shaky, and the Cornerstone is not in place, then it also could fall like a house of cards.  Just sayin.  What do you think?  Would some wonderful healing in the body of Christ and with people who have been offended be the result?

[Huldah]

Linda and GodisFaithful, I've been following the Gothard and Phillips stories, too. Something just always seemed off about both of them.

There were Gothard followers at a couple of different churches I attended back in my military days. They were completely rigid on any topic where Gothard had pronounced a fatwa, and no amount of Scripture could get them to question Gothard's word. That was a red flag right there.

Usetawannabee, Doug Phillips is one of the leaders of the Christian patriarchy movement, which has elevated the husband-father role to a level that smacks of idolatry. There is also a disturbing emphasis among some patriarchists on the father-daughter relationship, to the exclusion of the husband-wife or mother-daughter relationships. This idea is heavily promoted by Phillips's associate Geoff Botkin, who is a former GC member and (according to this article), was once a business partner of McCotter's.

[GodisFaithful]

Sorry, just noticed that I should have placed this thread in "Outside the Movement" and you guys have already been on top of it.  There are so many nooks and crannies on this forum, it is hard to get up to speed!

[Janet Easson Martin]

Shiny Happy People Reviews

My pastor’s wife shared with me recently about the sad fruit of legalism and people who follow “a man,” as she and her husband (my pastor) had watched “Shiny Happy People.” My pastor and his preaching are refreshingly the opposite of legalism.

I also found a review of this “DocuSeries” from the Gospel Coalition. I agree with the author that a broad brush of Christianity could be implied in some parts of this series, but would certainly not be true. Here are some of the excerpts below:



I had a wonderful homeschool experience, for which I’ll always be grateful. At its best, I see in the Christian homeschooling movement a work of genuine educational reform and spiritual renewal for countless families.

But while I remain firmly in the fold, I have peers—including members of my own family—who have left the church, rejecting not just their upbringing but faith itself in response to evils they experienced and false gospels they were taught. …

And yet even a cursory examination of Gothard’s core teachings reveals his distortion of the gospel. Strict obedience to Gothard’s “principles” guarantees spiritual and material success, like a fundamentalist version of the “prosperity” or “health and wealth” gospel. Disobedience opens you to Satan’s attacks and sudden disaster.

Whatever wisdom or biblical insight was otherwise included in IBLP materials, the end result was a controlling, fear-based religion, where women and children were especially vulnerable to abuse of all kinds.

-Alex Harris, The Gospel Coalition



Amazon’s ‘Shiny Happy People’ Has Lessons to Teach, If We’re Willing to Listen
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/shiny-happy-people/?amp

[WoodBern82]

I do recall from reliable sources... the actual archived sermons of Mark Darling... that he pushed one educational option to parents and that was home schooling.  This was represented in the Shinny Happy People story how the Duggar family and others saw really few other options for their children.   Even a private christian school was not the best option per Mark Darling.   I remember that was one of the instances I thought Darling saw things just one way and that was it.  Today I see quite a bit of evidence that the public school choice is increasingly anti God , anti christian and so we have our daughter in a private christian school. 
Gothard must have pushed home schooling as either the best or the only option for education.  I don't want to say it for certain but that was the impression I got in the Amazon S.H.P documentary about the Duggars.
 

(my pastor) had watched “Shiny Happy People.” My pastor and his preaching are refreshingly the opposite of legalism.

I also found a review of this “DocuSeries” from the Gospel Coalition. I agree with the author that a broad brush of Christianity could be implied in some parts of this series, but would certainly not be true. Here are some of the excerpts below:



I had a wonderful homeschool experience, for which I’ll always be grateful. At its best, I see in the Christian homeschooling movement a work of genuine educational reform and spiritual renewal for countless families.

But while I remain firmly in the fold, I have peers—including members of my own family—who have left the church, rejecting not just their upbringing but faith itself in response to evils they experienced and false gospels they were taught. …

And yet even a cursory examination of Gothard’s core teachings reveals his distortion of the gospel. Strict obedience to Gothard’s “principles” guarantees spiritual and material success, like a fundamentalist version of the “prosperity” or “health and wealth” gospel. Disobedience opens you to Satan’s attacks and sudden disaster.

Whatever wisdom or biblical insight was otherwise included in IBLP materials, the end result was a controlling, fear-based religion, where women and children were especially vulnerable to abuse of all kinds.

-Alex Harris, The Gosoel Coalition



Amazon’s ‘Shiny Happy People’ Has Lessons to Teach, If We’re Willing to Listen
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/shiny-happy-people/?amp




[/quote]

[Janet Easson Martin]

The Best Antidote - GRACE

“We’ve been adding to what Jesus had done
in order to be approved by God”
-Valerie Elliot Shepard

In the following talk Valerie Elliot Shepard, daughter of Elizabeth Elliot, candidly outlines her spiritual journey highlighting being set free from legalism. Around the 23 minute mark she describes a particular study of Galatians her husband encountered through a pastors “retreat” at Westminister College which she says changed everything! The author of this study of Galatians was a man who introduced himself as a “recovering Pharisee”. Through it she realized they’d been “adding” to Jesus’ finished work on the cross.

From Legalism to Grace: My Story - Valerie Elliot Shepard
https://youtu.be/hIgQOHrwTVo



THIS is the ANTIDOTE to any Gothard or GCx toxic living!

[Janet Easson Martin]

Here is the link for the study on Galatians mentioned above.

“Sonship” by Jack Miller

https://storage.snappages.site/B7M7DD/assets/files/Sonship.pdf

‘Over the course of his life, teaching, and ministry, Jack challenged Christians to address a key question found in Galatians: “What has happened to all your joy?” (Gal. 4:15 NIV). He explained this question by saying that “I relate to it because many times I have lost my joy. . . . I have forgotten the power of grace, the joy of sonship.” In that spirit of gospel joy, Jack memorably declared, “Cheer up! You are far worse than you think” and “Cheer up! God’s grace is greater than you’ve ever dared hope”

[margaret]

Janet,

I'm glad you posted that Valerie Elliot Shepard video. Since about 1990, I began my journey from legalism to grace, without even knowing that Ms. Shepard used that same wording! I'm going to watch the video soon!

[Janet Easson Martin]

It was very encouraging, Margaret. I really appreciated Ms. Elliot Shepard’s honesty about doing things for appearance sake rather than out of gratitude to her savior. She says that is what Pharisees do. Understanding God’s unconditional embrace and joy over his children gave her back the joy she and her husband had lost. She was then empowered to love the congregation her husband pastored.

“We love BECAUSE He FIRST loved us.”

1 John 4:19

[Janet Easson Martin]

I was there for several years in the mid 2000's … Intense legalism, fear of man the driving factor of "spiritual growth" ...

The pastor at my original church had often warned of "legalism," but I didn't understand what the danger was at the time, having never experienced it. Many years later though, there I was, smack dab in the middle of a system of legalism that defined even who your friends were and who you were to love. I was beginning to adapt a "GC mentality" about leadership, too.

I started to believe that what my [GCx] leader said was God's will, as others in the group convinced me of this, as did sermons on leadership. I began to de-emphasize the role of the Holy Spirit within me, its ability to communicate to me, and my personal relationship with God (something that had been so emphasized in my first church), and in its place was a series of men whom I was to obey and follow. I listened to a sermon BK [GCx leader abbreviated] gave a few months ago, and he pretty much summarizing this belief. The idea that we are to submit to our "spiritual leaders" even when they are wrong. Even so far as to give control of our life to them (not God, but them). Here are some quotes from it:

“...And so even to give the controls over to God, that's hard, but the real kicker here is God is saying, 'give the controls over to people that I work through, and these people are fallible, these people make mistakes, these people are weak at times. Yea-outta work through it anyway,' that's what God says." -BK [GCx Leader]

... Amazing how such a simple belief can be abused. I don't remember ever even hearing a sermon taught at my GC church on the Holy Spirit, or the Priesthood of the Believer. But sermons on submission and leadership were quite plentiful. This, along with the legalistic culture, had quite an effect on me over time.

The resulting guilt I frequently felt is hard to describe. It would keep me returning to GC, cycling between highs and lows. This legalistic thinking tortured me. I never felt good enough for God. There were always more meetings I could have attended, or more ways I could be involved in the church that I wasn't. I never felt joy anymore, like I used to feel at past churches where sermons focused on God's love for me, and doing things for God out of love.

With works-based thinking, there were only brief periods of happiness when I "overcame my flesh" and went to a meeting I didn't want to go to. Many of my close friends, most who are still in the movement, went through these kinds of cycles as well. I watched in horror as an attitude of legalism drained people of their joy. Even marriage seemed to be set up this way in GC. You were to prove yourself "good enough" for a long enough period of time, and then a leader would "approve" you for marriage. As if your good works had earned you your spouse!

... Like the church error statement, I read this after I left GC, and realized it described my experience with the modern day movement just as well as the past movement. Strange how that keeps happening.

-puff of purple smoke

[Janet Easson Martin]

“Becoming Free Indeed, My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear” by Jinger Duggar Vuolo may offer help and encouragement to children of many GCx families. The following is from the downloaded sample on my Kindle. I have added a few bracketed clues and made words bold to aid understanding of these partial entries.



My faith is still intact, but it has changed. Instead of leaving the faith entirely, I have unthreaded, or disentangled, the truth of Christianity from the unhealthy version I heard growing up. My hope is that this book will be a help to my friends who are struggling to see who Jesus truly is. They were taught harmful and destructive teachings that have nothing to do with the grace of Jesus. They thought that was what Christianity was all about. But it isn’t. …

I came to a point in adulthood when I realized that my understanding of Christianity was insufficient. But today, there is a massive gulf between [Joshua] Harris and me. Instead of deconstruction, my faith journey is one of disentanglement. I’ve come to understand that in the Christianity of my childhood, elements of the true gospel of Jesus Christ were tangled up with false teaching. …

I am messed up because of sin, and no amount of good behavior is going to fix that. I need freedom from myself, not freedom from the world around me. …

…This left me not with wanting to deconstruct my faith or ignore the problems but instead choosing to look deeper into the Word of God. … In recent years, I’ve come to see that the religious system this man [Gothard] built was not reflective of the gracious gospel of Jesus Christ. …

Thankfully, this false teaching was not the end of my story. God’s grace is far more abundant than I realized. It redeemed me, and it can redeem all who have lived, as the apostle Paul said, “in the futility of their minds” (Ephesians 4:17). The grace of God is helping me understand that “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36). In many ways, that verse describes my path from legalism to true freedom. …



Becoming Free Indeed. My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear” by Jinger Duggar Vuolo
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1400335817/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1697167159&sr=8-1