Bill Gothard/ATI

No personal experience with Bill Gothard or anything, but I've read a lot about the early movement and am under the impression that Gothard was a major influence on Jim McCotter and early GCx. Gothard is mentioned in several documents on GCXWeb.Org in relation to GCx.

The Cause: The Joy of Justice was a special double-issue of GC's McCotter-led newspaper, in which "GCI first laid down in black and white, for all to read, its doctrines regarding slander, faction, and church discipline." There were 17 articles written by members of GC, and 2 additional articles by people "outside the movement." Bill Gothard's article, which a list of scriptures regarding church discipline, a hot-button topic in GC at the time that this double issue was created to address, is described as "re-printed with permission." Interesting when such an insular group chooses to publish anything by anybody outside of their group.
Additionally, in that same issue of The Cause, Jim McCotter's "a personal note from Jim" contains the following:
Quote
What a travesty when students from one of the largest Christian universities in the guise of “truth” publicly picket Billy Graham crusades … and we tolerate it. When a leading Christian magazine, in the guise of “journalism” defames Bill Gothard … and we tolerate it. When whole groups are organized to attack Jerry Falwell in the guise of “freedom” … and we tolerate it.
Gothard is discussed in numerous places in Larry Pile's book Marching To Zion. Here are some excerpts:
- Quote
  Apparently, Bill Gothard of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, as well as the Blitz leaders, believes that disagreements are always the result of sin. Gothard applies Matthew 18 to matters of disagreement and has refused to meet with various writers who wished to interview him concerning certain points of disagreement between them; he did so on the grounds of Matthew 18, saying such disagreements ought not to be brought out in public. (In recent years Mr. Gothard has agreed to meet with critics, though to my knowledge he has never admitted any error.)
- Quote
  One of the reasons I was never selected as an elder myself, it was Bill Gothard's fault. I had been to the Gothard seminar way back in '72, and he was speaking in some city west of Ames somewhere, and I thought I'd go back and review, listen to what he was saying again. I invited Jim to go with me (I thought it would be some good material for Jim to hear), so Monday night we got in the car and drove to this place (I think it was two or three hours away), and listened to the Gothard video presentation, and drove back to Ames. Tuesday afternoon I called Jim and said, “Are you going back with me tonight?” And he said no, he wasn't going. And he questioned me about where things were with Today's Student. I said, “Everything's okay. I've worked ahead, and we've got everything okay there.” So I took off without him. Wednesday night as I was getting ready to leave, Mike Stohlmeyer called me and said the elders were getting together and wanted me to come over. There they proceeded to tell me that they had thought about recognizing me as an elder, but that I'd gone to the Bill Gothard seminar, so I didn't qualify.
  
  The irony of this incident is that at least one Blitz leader, Dennis Clark, had attended a Gothard seminar some years earlier and had already been teaching many of Gothard's ideas in the Solid Rock Fellowship and other churches. Further, at a meeting of Great Commission Academy families in Indiana on February 23, 1987, the leaders alluded to some kind of connection with Bill Gothard's home schooling institute, ATIA. As recounted by the woman I call Mary O'Nett (see page 224), the Indiana coordinators stated that GCA was cooperating with Bill Gothard and hoped to have something worked out in the future. Some GCI elders and others were using the ATIA material - for example, elder Jim Coleman, then in Dover, Del., and Dave Rollinson, a GCI member as well as a lawyer for the Home School Legal Defense Association - even though, according to a Gothard spokesperson, McCotter had been forbidding his followers to use it, and the GCA leaders forbade their headquarters staff to use it. Yet at the same time McCotter had been dropping Gothard's name as if he somehow supported McCotter, something Gothard had confronted him on repeatedly.
- Quote
  In Tucson spiritual gifts were taught after the manner of Bill Gothard of the Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts on October 18, 1973, in a day-long session. The effect in the lives of most of the members was, however, minimal, and at the time the leadership showed no greater acceptance of the diversity of gifts and ministries other than mere lip-service. The prevailing Blitz ideology militated against the discovery and use of individual gifts, and there was no follow-up to help the believers find their place in the local body. Spiritual gifts were for a long time rarely mentioned again.
- Quote
  A little later in the letter Charessa wrote:
  
  We just want to be available to help in any way we can to assist people making a step out. The single sisters are having an especially rough time - only two have left. Getting out from under that “umbrella of protection”(83) the authority claims is a scary thing.
  
  (83) A term coined by Bill Gothard of the Institute in Basic Life Principles. This is evidence of Gothard's influence over GCI leaders, even though McCotter forbade GCI members to use material produced by Gothard's home schooling institute, ATIA (see page 22).
- Quote
  On Thursday, November 20, 1986, Donna Janney called Bill Gothard, president of the Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts (now the Institute in Basic Life Principles) to see what he could tell her about GCI. Mr. Gothard stated at the outset “that he would bend over backwards to defend Jim McCotter's actions, because he knows what it is like to be a public figure and have people trying to run him down” (Ken Janney's later reconstruction of his remarks - see page 182). Gothard did allow that he had appealed to McCotter in the past “on some very serious issues, concerning some things which had been done within GCI” (Ken Janney). In response to Gothard's expressions of concern, McCotter assured him that the problem areas would be straightened out.
Lastly, I found another mention of Gothard in Larry Pile's February 6, 1978 "Letter to 'The Dispersion'":
Quote
I know Bill Gothard applies Mt. 18 to matters of disagreement--he has refused to meet with various writers who wished to interview him concerning certain points of disagreement between them; he did so on the grounds of Mt. 18, saying such disagreements ought not be brought out in public. Apparently, Gothard, and the Blitz leaders, believe that disagreements are always the result of sin. (In Columbus, the elders explained Bill Hulligan's disagreement with them by saying his mind had been warped by over a year of sin. They used a similar line against Fred Colvin, myself and others.) This notion, however, is false. While it is true that differing opinions may arise because one's mind is clouded by unconfessed sin in the life, this is hardly the only possible cause. Differences may also arise simply because we all are afflicted with a sin nature--we don't need to look for specific sinful acts or attitudes as the causes of misunderstandings. An even more likely cause is our human finiteness, which has nothing whatsoever to do with sin, active or passive. We frequently find ourselves not seeing eye to eye merely because we, unlike God, are not omniscient--there are great gaps in our knowledge and understanding. So to forbid ones from expressing their disagreements in public (provided they avoid slander in the process) is to manifest a false and autocratic exercise of authority.