Though I had been a believer since the age of five, you might say my adult conscience kicked in around the age of eleven. I believe the Holy Spirit began convicting me of areas in my life that needed to be changed. My biggest fault was that I was a habitual liar. I enjoyed telling stories and making people believe that they were true, especially if I had done something wrong and wanted to avoid punishment. While I later learned to channel that ability into more reputable things, I realized that my lying was wrong and started going to people I had lied to and asking them to forgive me. This was highly encouraged by my parents since they had been taught at the Basic Seminar that maintaining a clear conscience was an essential part of being a mature believer. I remember feeling nervous as I approached someone, my heart beating, and then the embarrassment of admitting my fault and waiting for their reply. In all cases I was graciously forgiven, even with a bit of a chuckle by a few who were tickled by my zeal. I also remember the rush of relief and freedom I felt after each episode, sure that now that I had asked forgiveness, I was free to live life without guilt again… until I would remember something else I had done. While I soon reached the point where I had asked forgiveness for all my major offenses, what I didn’t realize was that I had gained something that would come to be very destructive: an oversensitive conscience.

It didn’t help that two years later I attended my first Basic Seminar and sat under one whole night of teaching about responsibility and maintaining a clear conscience. Because my parents were avid supporters of the ministry, naturally I drank in every word as gospel truth. While the information I learned was nothing new, the seminar only caused my over-sensitivity to heighten. I didn’t want to live an un-blessed life because I wasn’t willing to humble myself and ask forgiveness. And I certainly didn’t want to die while I harbored unconfessed sin. What would happen to me then? Would I earn a lesser reward or incur harsh judgment on the day of recompense because of my failure to make things right? What had initially been a fresh start and the beginning of a more personal walk with Christ at age eleven also became the bane of my existence.

When I was fifteen I had the chance to work as a team leader at a Children’s Institute (CI). I entered the week excited. It was my first real ministry opportunity with IBLP (the Institute in Basic Life Principles) and I wanted to make the best of it. The week went along fine until one night during “cool down.” One of the CI leaders asked a young man to come forward. The room got quiet as the young man confessed to participating in something that had ruined his ministry at the CI. Apparently, the leader had sensed “sin in the camp,” the person had been found out, and it was now being addressed publicly. As the young man shamefacedly walked out of the room, the leader explained that he was being sent home. No other details were given about his offense, but a Scripture was read and a stern warning given to the rest of us lest we should also fall into temptation. We were also instructed not to discuss the situation among ourselves or speculate about what he had done with the threat that we too would be sent home. My mind was whirling. What could have been so awful to get him sent home? What if I unknowingly committed the same offense and got sent home myself? My guard went up as well as my anxiety. The shared excitement among the CI workers turned to heightened unease. Over the next few nights several other young men confessed to participating in “wrong things” that disqualified them from participation in the CI, all the while never really making it clear what they had done. Again, we were instructed not to discuss the matter with any of the other CI workers. Each time there was a confession, my anxiety level increased. I made it through the rest of the week unscathed, but I returned home having no idea how much I had been scarred by my first ministry experience. As I look back, I realize that there were several lessons I’d learned that first week that would lead to further troubles down the road: First, you had to consistently live a blameless life in order to be involved in ministry. A wrong action, an inappropriate thought, even an unintentional offense could disqualify you. Second, any involvement in “sin” could cause God’s spirit to depart and prevent people from getting saved, lives from being changed and the ministry’s work from being done. Third, in order to preserve this aura of perfect ministry, you had to constantly be on your guard lest you give the enemy ground to come in and tempt you.

Later that year I attended a young ladies’ Counseling Seminar at the ITC  (Indianapolis Training Center). This seminar was a prerequisite to other ministry opportunities. I was again excited about attending, especially since I’d get to stay at a Training Center by myself for the first time. The week got off to a good start, I had roommates I got along with and I anticipated an entire week of personal teaching by Mr. Gothard. Though I didn’t enter the week with any feeling of unease, I began to sense a personal unrest as the week progressed. As usual, I took all the messages to heart and did my best to follow the Training Center guidelines. I assumed if I was feeling uneasy, then it must be a problem with me, since everyone who worked at the Training Center was godly and I was the fledgling student. My team leader was a girl in EQUIP, and every morning for team Wisdom Search she read a section out of a little book about cleaning the rooms of our heart. Combined with the other teaching that week, I began to assume that I must have personal issues to deal with. We were supposed to be learning how to counsel others, but I found that the topics consistently focused on how we ought to be improving ourselves.

Then came the videotape about brokenness on Friday night.

The accumulation of my unrest throughout the week came to a head that evening. I had always been shy, I hated getting up in front of people, and every evening that Mr. Gothard asked if anyone had a testimony, I always trembled in my boots (or in this case, my navy dress shoes). It was plain that Gothard enjoyed hearing how his teaching had affected our lives. On this evening, I was convinced that I was sinning because of my lack of brokenness in refusing to share a testimony in public. After all, wasn’t failing to admit something to others the same as a lie? I got up and joined the line forming for testimonies. All the while my heart was beating as I thought about what I would say. I was about five girls away from my turn at the podium when Gothard unexpectedly announced that there was no longer any time left for testimonies. He thanked those of us still in line and said it was time to close the evening. As I look back now, I consider it an act of grace from God on my behalf since it was the only time Gothard ever cut testimonies short during that seminar. I can only wonder what my nervous, guilt-racked self would have come up with to say had I been given the chance.

After that experience, I could never again attend an ATI or IBLP function without feeling constantly on my guard. At one event, we were given a challenge by one of the teachers to consider long-term overseas mission work. IBLP had ministry openings in several other countries at the time, so naturally I assumed that if I ever participated in overseas missions, it would be with IBLP.  Because of my previous two experiences, I had come to depend on my parents to be the voice of reason each time my conscience got out of hand. Every time I was away from home and had limited contact with my family, I would feel abandoned to my own wayward conscience. If I participated in long-term ministry, who would I depend on to know if my offense was truly worthy of confession or not? One evening after the closing session I went up to talk with the teacher who had given the challenge. I explained that I wanted to be involved in ministry, but (without explaining my reason why) I was hesitant to leave my family. She gave me a sad look and reminded me that Christ had said, “he who will not give up father or mother is not worthy of Me.” I was immediately overcome with guilt, and at the first opportunity I called my dad. To my surprise, he said that my family had just read that passage the other day in Wisdom Search. I assumed that he agreed with what the teacher had said. I was burdened for months after that because I thought I was disobeying God by not being willing to accept His call. It wasn’t until later that I realized that overseas missions wasn’t what God had in mind for my life. I wish now that I could take my then sixteen-year-old self, give me a hug, and explain that the verse the teacher referenced had an entirely different meaning than what she intimated. I would lovingly tell myself that God didn’t expect me to prove my loyalty to Him by fulfilling someone else’s call to ministry. I would also have a few hard things to say to those who had encouraged my oversensitive conscience to develop in the first place. Unfortunately, this was not to be the last of my issues.

The worst event by far came a year later. I wanted to work with younger girls and finally had an opportunity to serve as a team leader at a local seminar for young ladies. A few weeks before the event started we received a letter from the leader of that particular ministry encouraging us as team leaders to set aside all hindrances and fully focus on the task before us. My conscience once again kicked into full gear, and I spent the next few weeks examining myself to be sure I didn’t have any unconfessed sin or other blind spots. As the week of the seminar approached, my trepidation grew, and the evening I arrived at the Training Center, I was experiencing high anxiety. I again assumed that because the Training Center was a place of godly living, I was experiencing conviction. That first night, left alone in my room with nothing but my own conscience, I became certain that I was unqualified for the week ahead. The next day, every activity seemed perforated by my lack of confidence that I could effectively lead a team of young girls. Before the seminar attendees arrived, I had the chance to speak to the very leader who had sent the letter and confided to her what I was feeling. A serious look crossed her face as, true to IBLP teaching, she soberly asked me if there was a major offense I hadn’t made right. I told her that I couldn’t think of anything, but continued to be burdened with a heavy conscience nonetheless. During our second discussion, her conclusion was that I was letting the enemy walk all over me. I thought it had to be true, but I had no way of knowing how to prevent that from happening. For the most part, my conscience behaved itself when at home, but as soon as I entered Training Center life, that all changed. In another discussion, she essentially told me to buck up and be strong. Still, the feelings of guilt continued. In my final discussion with her, the leader eventually gave up and suggested I talk to someone else about my problem. I now find it ironic that the very thing she initiated in her letter for good, ended up wreaking such havoc — a havoc that she couldn’t ultimately help me resolve. In innocently upholding the standards of IBLP, she had unknowingly contributed to an issue that went far deeper than one lost ATI girl’s guilt-ridden conscience. I somehow made it through the rest of the seminar, and it was with great relief that I climbed into my family’s minivan when my dad came to pick me up the following Sunday.

My last Training Center guilt-trip experience is one that I laugh at now, though it seemed serious at the time. One winter I finally got the chance to attend a training event that I thought would be “safe.” After breakfast the first day, we were informed that before classes would start, the young ladies in the class would be meeting with the Training Center director’s wife. We were assembled into a separate room and handed an overview of the dress guidelines. Apparently, the entire facility had been gathered together the previous evening and been given a thorough run-down of dress code, specifically those that pertained to the young women. As a class of young women there for one week of training, we were expected to fully comply. We were told that we had to wear double layers and made sure our waist wasn’t defined or we could cause the young men to stumble. The director’s wife used an example of her own clothing. She unbuttoned her bulky sweater to reveal a corduroy dress that was slightly tapered at the waist. Though the fabric was fitted to her waist, there was nothing revealing about the dress. At the time it reminded me of something my mom would wear, and my mom generally wore loose clothing. The director’s wife explained that while she had at first considered the dress to be appropriate, when she realized that a fitted waist could be a stumbling block, she now wore a sweater over it. She re-buttoned her sweater, saying that the dress looked much better with the sweater anyway. She also told us of one young lady who just that morning had been reported by a young man because he could see the form of her nipples through her blouse. (Never mind that it was the dead of winter and there were parts of the Training Center that weren’t adequately heated.) The young lady was taken aside and asked to change because she had caused the young man to stumble. I felt sorry for the young lady but was also concerned for myself. I didn’t want someone to report me for exposing myself thoughtlessly. The familiar feeling of unease again overtook me. The entire week, I checked and double-checked my clothes before going to breakfast each morning, even going so far as to wear several “safe” outfits more than once to be sure I didn’t wear anything outside of the guidelines. I still recall the comment a friend of mine made when I later told her about the bizarre clothing guideline: “If I didn’t wear clothes that defined my waist, you wouldn’t know I was a woman!”

Fast forward a few years later to a Sunday evening where I found myself listening to as guest speaker at church. I don’t remember his topic that night, but one comment he made has stayed with me ever since. He said the majority of our offenses are to those people to whom we are closest, such as family, and not to the world at large around us. I remember being shocked and relieved all at the same time. This was drastically different perspective from what I had imbibed up to that point. According to IBLP teaching, I felt like I was in danger of offending someone every minute of the day, and I could never be right with God until I had asked forgiveness for my offense. What this man was saying was that asking forgiveness should be something done as a means to restore a lost relationship, not to quell feelings of guilt because we didn’t measure up to God’s standard. I don’t remember anything else about that night, but it was the first time that the chains on the link to my guilt began to weaken. It took several more years before I was completely free from my chains, but I’m happy to say that today they’re completely gone.

One thing that has helped me on my road to recovery with this and other issue is to identify specific truths about my situation in the light of both God’s truth and other obvious facts. As I reflect back on my problem and concurrent experiences, there are a few things that come to mind:

First, the problem I had wasn’t my problem, it was the fruit of a ministry seeped in legalistic teaching. The reason I was experiencing my feelings of guilt was the culture of spiritual abuse that exists within IBLP. One of the marks of an abusive leader is that they make their followers think that they have a problem while citing their own wisdom as the sole solution to that problem. Gothard’s teaching created a feeling of guilt in every person who was exposed to it, and then supposedly offered answers on how to resolve that guilt. Only, there never truly was any resolution, only a continual pit of shame and frustration mixed with a self-satisfaction that we were somehow better than the average Christian for following Gothard’s principles. As I came to realize later, true conviction from the Holy Spirit is an entirely different thing from the guilt-laden mind control that I had come to believe was truth.

Second, I don’t have to be perfect to minister. Sometimes the most effective ministry happens when we don’t even know it and when we’re not even on our A-game spiritually. It’s through our weakness that Christ’s strength is made perfect, not because we have a clear conscience or we’ve caught up on all our unconfessed sin. Sadly, this perspective on ministry is prevalent even in many mainstream churches. As I consider this take on qualification for ministry, I often wonder who God would truly consider to be qualified given our sin natures. There is certainly sin that disqualifies a person for leadership in the church, but for the average Christian with common struggles, I believe that the perspective IBLP upheld was unbalanced and degrading.

Third, sometimes it’s okay for people to be offended. Christ caused offense on more than one occasion with the religious leaders of His day. Often, trying to make things right only further opens a can of worms. What I found in the majority of cases was that the person I’d supposedly offended had either completely forgotten about the situation or hadn’t even considered it offensive. I’m not saying that there’s not a time to apologize or that we should stubbornly refuse to admit that we’re wrong. On the contrary: God wants us to confess our sin to Him (1 John 1:9). I eventually came to realize that my conscience isn’t something for me to maintain, it’s something God uses to draw me to Himself so HE can maintain me. According to IBLP teaching, the concept of maintaining a clear conscience puts the burden on my shoulders to be pure enough to be accepted by God and man and only serves to prep me for my next failure. It took me years to realize that there was nothing more I needed to do in order to gain God’s favor. It’s my hope that others would come to that same realization.

We were sold a package deal.

Truth and lies, hope and despair, real and fake — all tied up in a neat package with a bow and sold to us with the label of “Christianity.” The men in the suits with all the words told us that what they taught was true. They said it would fill the aching emptiness in our hearts, that it would get us into Heaven. They told us that it was the only way. We believed them because we were children, and because their voices were the only voices we’d ever heard. With piles of Bible verses and mountains of logic and waves of emotion, they constructed a package deal. And we bought it.

Then we grew up.

When we grew up, we stepped outside the doors of the churches where we had been sold “Christianity” and found that the package wasn’t enough. The neat answers and the principles and the trite songs and the out-of-context Bible verses were dissonant and flat in the world we discovered. Many of us have never set foot inside a church since then.

Some of us clung to the right answers, trying to “walk by faith,” trusting that “His ways are higher than our ways.” Ignoring the cognitive dissonance. Ignoring the unanswerable questions. Trying so desperately hard to please God. Trying so desperately hard to convince ourselves that this was “life more abundantly”. Always nagged by the thought that maybe we just weren’t trying hard enough. Nagged by the fear that the whole thing, the whole package deal named “Christianity,” was a lie.

Then somewhere between the aching loneliness and the lurking agnosticism, in the terrifying darkness, we saw a glimmer of hope. The voice of Jesus whispering above all the words we’d heard about Him. His love reaching past all we’d seen done in His name. His hands gently beginning to untie the neat bow that had tied up the package deal so cleanly and kept us so cruelly from freedom.

So we began, unconsciously, the process of deconstructing our “Christianity.” It’s a long and difficult journey, and often it feels like there’s no compass. See, we’d been taught the Bible was the source of all truth, and that whatever was footnoted with a Bible verse was true. We’d been told that there was only one way to interpret it, and that any other way was wrong and dangerous. Then we began to realize that many of those things so neatly footnoted with Bible verses were simply not true. Not because the Bible was not true, but because the hermeneutic was flawed. We realized that you could find a Bible verse to support any view, no matter how broken or twisted. And so the admonition to “just trust the Bible” held little comfort, because we were unable to read the Bible without hearing the words of all those men in suits selling us truth and lies mixed together.

With that package finally torn open and spilled out, we’re now analyzing it piece by piece.

Evangelism. Inspiration. Music. Evolution. Marriage. Politics. War. Gender roles. Denominations. Islam. Social justice. Eschatology. Capitalism. Abortion. Revelation. Feminism. Immigration. Youth group. Liturgy. Morality. The very nature of Jesus, and of God Himself. These are the things that had been all tied up in the package mislabeled “Christianity,” neatly with a bow on top.

We are an entire generation with the broken pieces of our religion scattered on the floor around us. Slowly, carefully, we are trying to separate the truth from the lies.

Sometimes with exuberant hope, at other times with tears and swear words. When we see our brothers and sisters being sold that same package deal that we bought, we raise our voices in protest. Not because we don’t love the Church, but because we love it too much to see it used as a platform for peddling a package deal of truth mixed with lies.

So when we criticize the Church, please, please listen.

When we criticize the Church, please understand our hearts. Most of us criticize the Church because it’s hurting our brothers and sisters the same way it hurt us. Because we love them too much to stay silent. Because we love the Church. Because what we’re saying matters. Please know that it’s easier to stay silent than to speak about the past. If we’ve worked up the courage to let our voices be heard, it must matter very, very much.

When we we criticize the Church, please remember that we’re not looking for an argument.

We’ve heard all the arguments and probably were on the other side of them not too long ago. If we’ve worked up the courage to let go of long-held beliefs that were our security, it hasn’t been lightly. It’s been with tears and prayers and the terrifying fear that we might be taking a brave step in the wrong direction.

When we criticize the Church, please understand that we’re not just looking for an excuse to sin.

We’re looking for freedom. When we sin, we do it without excuse because that’s the nature of sin. But we’ve been told all our lives that all sorts of things are sinful, with supporting verses and “the Bible clearly says.” Now we’re realizing that many of those “sins” simply weren’t. Remember that story in the Bible, when the Apostle Peter had been told all his life that eating unclean food was a sin, but then God told him to take it and eat it? That’s often how it is for us, except without a booming voice from heaven.

When we criticize the Church, please know that we aren’t ashamed of the Gospel.

We are probably just beginning to glimpse what the Gospel really is, and it’s better news than we had ever dreamed. So when we see a stale, moralistic religion marketed as the Gospel, strangled in tradition and politics, our hearts ache. We remember all too clearly the bondage of that false Gospel. And we are so desperately thirsty for the real one.

When we criticize the Church, please don’t suggest that we don’t value Scripture.

We do, and that’s why we’re determined to read and wrestle with its most difficult questions. For most of our lives the Scripture has been used as a weapon to keep us in bondage, instead of as Good News to set us free. Now we’re searching for life in its pages, and questioning much of what we’ve been taught. We’ll get some things wrong, for sure. But that’s not because we have “a low view of Scripture;” it’s because we still are looking through a glass darkly, and learning to read with eyes wide open.

When we criticize the Church please know that we don’t have all the answers.

We don’t think that we do. (We often value good questions over easy answers, because easy answers aren’t usually true.) We don’t think we’re the generation that will get it all right. All we know is that much of what we experienced isn’t right, and there’s got to be something more. Something better. For the sake of those who’ve grown up alongside us, for the sake of those coming after us, we want to do what we can to make the Church a place of love and truth and hope and righteousness and life.

When we criticize the Church, please allow us space to stumble.

With the loss of our broken “Christianity,” we’ve lost a bit of our identity. We try on different labels, hoping to find something that will fit. Our beliefs are often fluid, especially about the peripheral issues. We’re investigating the controversies and the heresies, the ideas that were always “off limits.” We’ll talk about these ideas, and write about them, and pray about them. Hoping to find something that resonates. Clinging to what is good. Struggling to deconstruct our broken religion and allow God to replace it with a holistic, beautiful, living faith. We’ll come to many different conclusions on the “issues,” but we have this struggle in common. In many ways, this struggle defines us.

When we criticize the Church and our words are reckless and stinging, please forgive us.

Please understand that we have only love for the Church, even if that love is sometimes clouded by hot tears of anger and hurt. Please know that we need the Church, all of us desperately need the Church. We long for it to be the first glimpses of the Kingdom of God here on earth. We long for the day when we can finally be free of that false “Christianity,” run toward Jesus as He runs to meet us.

And until that day comes, we will not be silent.

For example, the Prince could lie and should lie without compunction for the good of the kingdom. While lying would still be a wrong action for the regular people, the goal would make it acceptable for the Prince.

It was Machiavelli who coined the phrase, “The end justifies the means.” Specifically, he meant that the goal of the strong kingdom justified any means. However, again, this same formula was not available for all to use. If everyone did what the Prince did, the kingdom would suffer. The Prince’s goal was above all others because it was for the “greater good.” Suffering, deception, manipulation, abuse — all were acceptable for the goal. The value and legacy of the Prince would be defined by how well he accomplished and/or maintained the goal.

Today if you call someone, “Machiavellian,” you are referring to something negative. Machiavelli would not think of his philosophy as a way to hurt others or a way to serve personal passions. He would think of it as a higher level of good, where means normally unacceptable become not only acceptable, but mandatory.

I would submit that Machiavellian thinking has been in broad use among church leaders for a long time. Some of the easiest examples would be found in fundraising techniques or in maintaining doctrinal control. Whereas deceit would be unacceptable in other areas, it seems almost common among religious fundraisers. Whereas separation and unkindness would be negatives within the church community, they become almost mandated in cases of doctrinal deviance.

Teachers who seem able to compromise for the sake of their ministry may see that ministry as a Machiavellian good, with value beyond normal work or ministry, and thus not limited to the same moral standards. Financially inappropriate practices are rampant within churches and ministries. Abuse and perverted behavior is overlooked or handled within the system. Ineffective products or formulas are promoted for the image, rather than their real value. All for the good of the ministry.

Politicians, community workers, seminary directors, business managers, military leaders — all can be servants of the gospel of pragmatism, the Machiavellian goal. How many times have we heard the phrase, “If it saves one life, it will be worth it all.” The goal sounds noble, far above other responsibilities and worthy pursuits. If the rules of the community are bent in the process, it is argued that the “greater good” was served.

Consider this: Many years ago, the teacher received what he believed was a call from God to build an army of young people who would change the world. His part was to train these young people to avoid the compromises of life and prepare them to stand against the culture with the message of the gospel. He dedicated his life to that goal.

If a spiritual formula didn’t work but still generally moved the ministry toward the goal, it was acceptable for use. If the Scripture had to be twisted to fit, it was good to do so for the sake of the goal. If people had to be used and discarded, that was not too high a price to pay for the goal. Finances were necessary. Loyalty was necessary. People were necessary. Control was necessary. Anything necessary for the accomplishment or maintenance of the goal justified any means. The goal is everything.

I have always thought that Gothard actually believed his own promotions. For well over thirty years I have heard or read of his many gimmicks, formulas, and tools that are “documented” to bring success. I watched people spend huge amounts of money trying to keep up with each new idea, never willing to admit that the previous ideas hadn’t done what was advertised. But it didn’t really matter that they hadn’t worked, as far as Gothard was concerned. As long as some would report desired results, the promotion was a success. If one out of a hundred moved closer to the goal or was held back from compromise, then it was worthwhile.

Reading the Sonic Bloom article and discussion on Recovering Grace has illustrated this idea that the end justifies the means. A product like Sonic Bloom would never be an end in itself. Its only value was to serve the goal. Think of it as a simple logical process. If the goal is to gather an army of uncompromised young people, and rock music compromises, then anything that promotes “godly music” would be good.

I remember hearing it taught at an Advanced Training Institute seminar (perhaps Knoxville?) that playing melodious music in the house while the family was away would somehow be spiritually beneficial or keep evil forces away from the home. Same thing. If anyone reported more peace, less rebellion, better health, or less attraction to rock music and attributed that to playing music which the family never heard, then it was worthwhile to promote the idea. And with several thousand obedient and trusting families, someone was sure to announce that the idea had worked for them. (Especially if there was a chance to give a testimony in front of others.)

The gospel of pragmatism has caused the fall of many Bible teachers, from television evangelists to pastors, even seminary and denominational leaders. The continual focus on the call or the goal, causes a blindness to foolish decisions, deceptive marketing, even sinful behavior.

So what is really wrong with this? It sounds right to be dedicated to a call. But no disciple of Jesus is bound to a call. We are bound to our Lord. He is the focus of our hearts, not the call He has given us. In fact, a case could easily be made from Scripture that the call of God would happen almost naturally for the person who follows the Lord. The call is never the important part; the relationship is what is important.

When a believer receives a call and focuses on the goal rather than the Lord, the implementation of the call is left to the flesh. The person’s background and values interpret the call. If the person has good memories of faithful and effective young people from the fifties, who stood against the music and hair length and clothing of their day, then that image of a “godly” young person may become the desired norm. All kinds of personal preferences can become “principles” when the flesh interprets the call.

The goal for any believer is to walk with the Lord. The call or goal for an individual life will be accomplished in that process. The call is not the Lord. The Lord is the master of the call.

If you are unaware or not convinced of the many scriptural fallacies taught in ATI, please read some of the other excellent posts here on Recovering Grace. The purpose of sharing my story is to warn the best intentioned of you that you will not escape serious negative effects resulting from involvement with ATI.

If it is actually possible to be a normal family and still be in ATI, we were that family. When I say “normal,” I mean that we were truly “in the world but not of the world,” as opposed to the ATI model of completely removing all outside influences from family life. Clothing was not emphasized as a measure of holiness. I wore skirts on Sundays and jeans the rest of the week. We were not banned from higher education. My parents both had college educations and the three of us children were expected to go to college. (In fact, one of my parents’ biggest oppositions when I got married was that neither my husband nor I had completed our degrees. This emphasis on higher education was certainly not classic ATI teachings.)

Sports were not banned as a waste of time or as false idols. My eldest brother and I were on the swim team — wearing Speedos, no less! In fact, we all played organized sports. My dad took it as a source of pride when the boys picked his baby girl to play on their teams, because she was actually pretty good. We were not banned from friendships with the opposite sex. My skiing buddy from age 10-15 was a boy, and we spent most of the days skiing alone, unsupervised.

Music was not restricted according to the ATI guidelines. We listened to music with a mild rock beat. Even hot topics in the general Christian community, like movies and questionable games, were not turned into a huge issue in our home. We went to movie theaters and we played cards. We were not banned from potential negative influences at church. My siblings and I were involved with the youth group and other ministries in our church, and active with church events. I know that we were an anomaly in the ATI environment at the time. Because we were practically the only ATI family in our area, we didn’t face the type of peer pressure to conform to ATI standards that many families experienced. The pressure in ATI for girls to be preparing for only one adult role did not affect us. My parents were adamant that a woman is called to be more than a doormat (cook, housekeeper and baby maker). I remember once my mom telling me that she strongly disagreed with the teaching that if a wife disagreed with her husband, she could do nothing but sit in silence and pray.

A career outside of marriage was allowed — even encouraged. Both of my parents fully supported me in my searching for a career after high school. My parents weren’t typical ATI parents any more than we were typical ATI kids. In fact, my mom had a teaching career herself when she convinced my dad that we should homeschool. Her reasonings were more out of educational than religious convictions. She left her job believing she could give us a more solid education at home. My parents filtered the ATI teachings through their own belief system, instead of blindly parroting everything that came out of the mouth of Bill Gothard. Other than being homeschooled and in ATI, we were a “normal” conservative Christian family.

Here’s the thing, though: We still did all those stinking Wisdom Books. Every. Single. Day. I completed the entire series two and a half times by the time I graduated. So guess what theology I was learning from before I could even read? Can you imagine how many twisted interpretations and applications of Scripture I’m still trying to straighten out? Being allowed to wear tank tops in front of boys made me appear “normal,” but the way I viewed the world was not normal at all. I was taught the wrong definition of grace through my entire childhood! It wasn’t until I went to seminary that I learned about scriptural exegesis. I had learned to recite the Greek alphabet and pronounce the Greek words, and I was a pro at using a concordance to search through key words and find Greek roots. But how to examine Scripture in context? I had no clue. Context is not used much in ATI, since proper hermeneutics and context prevent topically leapfrogging through the Bible to twist verses to an agenda. I didn’t know the difference between “prescription” and “description” until I was 21.

All my years of learning “scriptural principles” had to be revisited, evaluated, and adjusted. I attended a church not influenced by ATI teachings, and once teased our associate pastor that I needed to wear steel toe boots to Sunday school, because every time he taught he was undoing twelve-plus years of learning in about an hour. I was glad to learn the truth, but it’s frustrating and often sickening to compare it to what we had learned! I feel resentment over the numerous hours that I once spent studying the Bible during Wisdom searches only to find that those studies were in vain. The days I thought were spent learning more about my precious Savior turned out to be a man’s legalistic teachings. I wonder if Paul felt this way when he looked back on his years studying as a Pharisee. I wonder if he felt that he had wasted the time, and if he later struggled to wrap his mind around the truth.

These thoughts go through my head every time I see a commenter on Recovering Grace say they’re going to do ATI and just “throw out the bad stuff.” You do that and there’s not enough good stuff left to be worth it!  We were those people. My parents threw out as much as you could and still be involved — and I still am left reeling some days. I can’t feel anger toward them, because they honestly were trying to do their best for us. My parents had started homeschooling at a time when it was definitely not in vogue. Some parents were arrested and their children taken by the state for the audacity to think they could teach their own children better than the established methods of education. Most school supply and textbook companies refused point blank to deal with homeschoolers. But into that uncertain future my parents marched, knowing it was what was best for us. They joined ATI because it was (purportedly) Bible centered, and they felt that belonging to a national organization would help lend some credibility should they ever be legally questioned. Bill Gothard is a pro at subtly twisting Scriptures, and some of his untruths managed to slip through the nets that my parents tried to set up to filter what we learned. The questionable teachings may not have impacted my parents who already knew the Bible and were secure in their relationships with Christ. But to a small child, having “principles” like the authority structure repeated over and over left me open for abuse that I later experienced. I soaked up the teachings thoroughly, as children do. In the Basic Seminar, grace is redefined to focus on man’s work instead of God’s. Bill Gothard’s definition of grace drove the focus of all his publications. With works-based grace as the backbone of your teachings, directly contradicting the backbone of Jesus’ entire message, is there anything left worth following?

When I first left ATI after graduation, I was disillusioned by my time spent at the Moscow Training Center, but still believed that many of the core concepts were valid with just a horrible execution. When my oldest son was born, my husband and I talked about our desires for his education. My husband is also a former ATI student. At the time we were both absolutely certain that we would never be involved in the program or send our children to seminars or Children’s Institutes, but that we might use some of the materials, much like my parents had with me. However, the more I am growing in my faith and the longer I have to look at the effects of Gothard’s teachings, the more I’m convinced that there is nothing of value to be used. The lies are so inextricably mixed in with the few truths, why should I even bother? America is significantly more homeschool-friendly than it was in the early 1980′s, with many more resources available to parents. There are so many theologically sound, Bible-based teachings out there, why would we want one that offers so little value to grace-based Christians and that is riddled with scriptural errors?

Was I as deeply scarred as many involved were? No. And I thank God for this, because even coming from “normal,” I was disillusioned enough that I nearly walked away from Him. I can’t imagine what so many have had to go through. I ask you this: how deep must the inflicted damage be before it it is time to pull back? I think any damage done spiritually — anything that hinders a person’s walk with Christ — is too much. It is without truly understanding that one would point a finger and say, “But it wasn’t that bad. Why don’t you just get over it?” The depth of our scars is not the measure for value. The point is that we never should have had to experience such damaging teachings at all. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” (Isaiah 5:20)

Trading a gospel of grace for a religion of legalism is placing darkness where there should be light. All of us who were involved in ATI were hurt by lies and deception, no matter how normal some of us looked.

It was a repeat of the strains I’d heard all morning. Our tightly knit little church — made up of a few wounded survivors of the last split — was missing nine members. The adults had given me awkward smiles or sympathetic hugs. They were kind enough to refrain from speculating on whether or not the family would ever return to church. The children were more honest. Their friends were gone. They missed them. They didn’t understand why. And it was my fault. For just a few days before I, the daughter, had called off the courtship.

The talk coming from the nursery was the first clue indicating how widespread the effects of my choice would spread. At the weekly homeschool support classes my former boyfriend and I taught at, my best friend was now forced to choose — did she go with his family for lunch as was our tradition, or stay behind with me and eat lunch alone on the sidewalk? More and more often she chose his family, and I encouraged her to go. There was no use making everyone suffer along with me. “After all,” she said, “you did lead us all on.”

Had I?

I had tried so hard to do everything right. I had never kissed — even on the playground. I had carefully squashed out every hint of interest in a boy, telling myself I was young and silly and needed to be at least twenty before I began a romantic relationship. I had worn skirts and evaluated my clothing choices so I wouldn’t cause my brothers-in-Christ to sin. If I found myself alone with a boy, I left or suggested we move to a more populated area. I had listened to the wishes of my parents.

The day after my 20th birthday, I waited on the steps of my kitchen for three hours wondering what in the world my father and he could be talking about for so long. My parents had already checked for my wishes. They had already given their blessing. The boy was everything a good suitor should be — with the exception that he was nine months younger than myself and I’d always imagined someone older. But God’s will was God’s will, and age shouldn’t matter that much. He was smart, already CLEPing out of college. He had goals, held a lot of the same standards, was clean-cut and even handsome.

My father finally came out. “He has asked to court you. I give you permission. If y’all want to meet up or drive out to a movie or dinner or something, that’s fine with me. Just don’t linger alone in the car or in dark places for too long. Don’t stay in the parking lot — go ahead and go inside.” Then we were left alone to clear up the last few questions. Was I okay with this? Yes, I was. Because he was unclear, if we were to marry was I okay with children and how many? My heart began to pound. I was the youngest of three children — all of whom had come into the world far earlier than normal. My mother’s pregnancies hadn’t been easy. He was the eldest of a family of eight with siblings still under school age. And I had a secret. Sometimes I thought I couldn’t have children. Sometimes I wished I couldn’t have children. The idea of pregnancy terrified me to an unnatural extent. But surely that would change. Everyone told me it would change. And if I was going to stay home and homeschool, I may as well do it right and have a bunch of kids. So I gave the “good girl” answer. “As many as God leads.” After all, if being a mother was God’s will and plan for me, he would change my heart when the time came.

And so began our courtship. There were compromises in our families’ standards. His mother vetoed my idea to teach him to swing dance — something I had learned in a class with my brother after years of being told dancing was evil, and we didn’t do it because we didn’t want to be stumbling blocks for others. She even vetoed the 1830’s dance I was hoping he’d help me teach at a local reenactment. Though my parents allowed us to meet up for a movie or dinner, his were not comfortable with the idea, so we honored that. No dances. No movies. No holding hands. I introduced him to the world of theater. He introduced me to Star Wars and classic rock. We had both come from a strict background, but in recent years our families had begun to loosen the reins and lighten up on some of the nit-picky standards.

In my mind, courtship meant that you were careful to choose your friends and guard your heart. That your families spent large amounts of time together as you got to know a young man. That to agree to a courtship meant, “Yes. I think you might be the person God has for me, and I’d like to get to know you better.” So I was a bit surprised when soon after we announced our courtship, people asked when the wedding date was. His younger siblings presented me with drawings of our future house, complete with separate beds for us. Just after that, they teasingly pulled out a list of our first ten children and what their names would be. It was all in fun, so I played along. We were the only courting (or dating) couple in our church, so we were somewhat of a novelty. Mothers in my homeschool group informed me how happy they were that their daughters got to witness my courtship and two young people “doing it right.” However, from the beginning, things felt mixed. I was treated as though I were an engaged woman, praised for my godliness, maturity, and purity — then regulated and monitored like a seductive child who lacked the self-control to keep herself and her boyfriend pure. The night my boyfriend’s mother made him back my car up for me all the way to the end of their dirt road, was the first I seriously began to question the setup of this courtship. I was perfectly capable of driving my car out myself. And then the family stayed on the porch watching me while I walked all the way to my car. What did she think I was going to do? Steal a kiss? If she didn’t think we were mature enough to ride in a car together to the end of the driveway, how in the world did she expect us to feel like adults and move into an adult world? It angered and embarrassed me, but I let it pass. Parents were just trying to protect their children, though I didn’t understand why they were convinced that two people couldn’t be alone for five minutes without falling into temptation and throwing common sense and a lifetime of commitment to the wayside. Maybe some people couldn’t resist — but at this point, I wasn’t sure I even liked the idea of kissing. Touch, even casual and friendly, was something that I longed for, but felt repulsed by at the same time. And it concerned me. I told my mother I hoped some of the rules changed, and that I could hold his hand before we married, because I couldn’t go straight from no touching to a honeymoon.

During this time I auditioned for a play. Theater was my lifeline. In a world where I felt judged at church, I felt accepted without questions at my theater. They giggled at my quaint ways and moved on. In this show, I had a good chance of getting the lead — a romantic lead — and one of my friends whom I’d grown up with was auditioning as well for the opposite role. I knew my boyfriend had been concerned about our past friendship, so I checked with him before I auditioned, in the event that we both got our wished-for roles. There would be no kissing between us. He said to follow my dreams, and I auditioned, landing a role in the chorus. One night after rehearsal, I discovered that my car wouldn’t start. I was forty-five minutes from home, so my childhood friend offered me a ride. We’d never ridden alone before, but I couldn’t stay in the parking lot so I accepted his offer of a ride. He was telling me about his girlfriend when his phone rang. After a brief conversation with his girlfriend, he hung up, frowning that he thought she might be upset we were alone. My hands shook. Would my boyfriend be upset? By the time we got home, I had debated not telling him — but if he found out, secrecy would make it worse. I was nearly sick, and I could hardly stop shaking enough to dial his number. To my surprise, he assured me he was okay with it. He was glad the friend was there to help, and of course I couldn’t stay alone in the parking lot while my father drove all the way over to pick me up. I hung up, relieved, but a little concerned. We weren’t married. We weren’t engaged. And should I be this terrified of telling my boyfriend I had to do something practical? It had always bothered me that I was discouraged from friendship with boys as a child and youth, then expected to marry one and not maintain any friendships with men afterwards. Was I really meant to spend my life only really getting to know one guy?

On opening night, a dozen white roses showed up on my table, creating quite a stir backstage. That was my boyfriend, and I loved his support. He congratulated me after the show for being the best actress in the world — I didn’t believe him, but happily gave the quick hug we were allowed on special occasions. I discovered later from a friend, that he had missed most of my main scene, and later still my mother confessed that he had actually left during every dance scene I was in — which I realized was every time I was onstage. I thought things were fine, until he wrote me, explaining that it really bothered him when other men touched me — to the point of physical illness. It crushed me. I had dreamed of being a film actress since I was four years old — even though my parents threw out the television. I had dreamed of acting across from my husband since I was a teen and was finally allowed to venture into the world of community theater on a few select shows. I wanted to make good films, and I loved being on stage. But eight bars of music dancing with a fellow actor’s hand on my waist, and I was making my boyfriend ill. It was probably because we weren’t allowed to touch. I could hug all my theater friends with a side-hug goodbye, then had to shake hands with the guy I was considering marrying.

He came the next day and we talked for three hours. I had been battling the question — what do I want? To follow my dream of being an actress, to move to music that was so beautiful it captured my soul and made it soar, to act in Christian films and write novels? To marry a man who held my passion for inspiring people through stories? Or to be the elusive Proverbs 31 woman? To marry, have ten kids and homeschool them while working in the kitchen to make nutritious meals? That was God’s will. That’s what I was supposed to want. The reason I didn’t squeal and run across the room when someone carried a baby in was because I was a defect. I didn’t mind cooking. I was good at it. I liked kids and wanted kids — I just wanted them to be dropped off by a stork at my door. I had given my rights to God many times. I had given Him my dreams over and over again. And here I was in the activity that I loved best in the world — compromising, not my standards, but those of the man who loved me. And there was no easy way out. I could continue giving my hand to other men, allowing their touch — and make my boyfriend ill while he watching, knowing that he had kept all forms of touch for me. Or I could give it up. No more dancing. No more theater — for the idea that I could do a show without any sort of touch was just not possible. I had already lost possible roles over my commitment not to kiss.

When I tried to explain, I watched the hurt fill his eyes. This was why I wanted another actor — someone who understood that you could pretend without being emotionally attached. I didn’t want a man who watched with a queasy stomach from the aisles.

So what do we do?
“I don’t know.”
We both sat. He didn’t want me to give up my dreams. I didn’t want to hurt him.
I broached a subject I had once or twice before. “What if this isn’t God’s will?”
He broke and kept whispering, “It has to be God’s will. It has to be.”
We cried together.

My journal became a war zone where I tried to grow up. I tried to put to death the little girl dreams — I wasn’t that good of an actress anyway. I couldn’t act without giving up my morals, and once we married, I’d be raising a family and too busy anyway. I tried to put to death my fleshly desires as I had been taught. I begged God to take away these desires and help me be sweet and good and not afraid to be a mother or wife. I tried learning more about politics and government so I could support him in his dream. I knew what I needed to be. I just didn’t know how to change my desires to match. I felt like a fraud, but I wanted to serve God and fulfill my life-purpose, instead of demanding my own way. So why was I still having doubts? Like God was telling me to call off the courtship? When I mentioned it to my parents, they encouraged me to pray about it and said they would support me either way. When I mentioned it to my boyfriend, he responded that I was simply scared, and that Satan was scaring me. After all, if it wasn’t right, wouldn’t God have told him, too?

I prayed so.

It was almost Christmas when I sat alone on a dock. Praying that God would speak to both of us with the same thing. Praying I would lose this fear. Then praying, “Why?” Why wouldn’t God tell my boyfriend what he was telling me? If he wanted me to obey, He should make this splitting mutual. If my boyfriend was seeking God’s will, he should realize it wasn’t right either. Or was it me? I’d assumed it was my selfishness ruining the relationship. Refusing to give up worldly desires and step into my God-given role as a woman. Then the answer came: “You must obey whether or not anyone agrees that this is My will.” I consented with tears, but it was the first time in a long time that I had peace. I stopped beating myself up for not being the woman that we spent so much time reading about, discussing, and glorifying. I would never be one of those girls. I was a defect.

The next time I saw my boyfriend was Christmas Eve when he presented me with a violin — the very one I had seen and fallen in love with in a store while with his sisters. It represented yet another suppressed childhood dream. I felt horrible. I couldn’t break up with him on Christmas Eve. The doubts crept in again. What if I was wrong? What if I had imagined the voice? How could I possibly be doing God’s will if I was running from being a wife and mother?

In February, right before Valentine’s Day, my mother spoke to his. They agreed that if I thought it ought to be broken off, it should not be drawn out. I’d wanted to tell him myself — to meet up somewhere, but the very day my mother broached the breakup with his, she made him call me on the phone when he got home from work. He didn’t understand. He wanted to know why. I spent an hour trying to explain what wasn’t clear in my head. I didn’t know how to explain that I felt stifled. That I felt controlled. That I felt marrying and having children and giving up theater and dancing and my dreams was killing my soul. The bottom line was, I could only marry one man — and he wasn’t the one. Nor was I someone who would fulfill his needs and emotions. It wasn’t God’s will that I marry him.

“I can’t do that. I can’t just go back to being friends.”
“I know.” I began to cry, clutching the phone to my ear.
He asked me to change my mind. He asked me to keep him in mind. Then he said he loved me.
He loved me, and I felt like a monster.
I loved him too. I just couldn’t marry him.
He hung up, and I went to my mother and cried for an hour.

So here I was, days later, eating the fruits of my choice and explaining to the children at church that I had never meant to run off their little friends. I was scolded for breaking up with him over the phone — that was something only cowards did. But my mother said she could tell I made the right decision. When I asked why, she answered, “When you were courting, you stopped singing.”

Our church disintegrated soon after that as my father announced that it was time we moved on and began finding real church homes and stopped meeting in a house church. I spent the next two years feeling as though I had a plague.

Forming new friendships was hard. I stepped away from every man who expressed any interest whatsoever, warded off attempts by my family and well-meaning friends to introduce me to another “godly man who is perfect for you,” and spent altogether too much time trying to sort out where I had gone wrong, and how I was to blame for the ruining of so many friendships and lives. I didn’t get over my fear of children. I didn’t find Mr. Right. When I was 23, my parents took a job at a foster home and informed me that I needed to find a place to live. My last vestige of “the good Christian girl” died. I couldn’t honor them by staying home until I married, if they were moving out before I got married. I was completely broken, disillusioned, and questioning who God was and what He wanted from me because I had done everything I thought He wanted.

My close friend began adopting a Calvinistic worldview and though God never let me completely fall away without assuring me that He had freely offered me and anyone else salvation, I was thrown into another world of confusion. If she was right, maybe I just wasn’t one of the chosen ones. Surely if I had been chosen, I would have been able to please Him. But if I wasn’t chosen, how was it that there were times I could hear Him so clearly? That he loved me, even though I was no longer sure of who He was anymore. I completely gave up the idea of being the Proverbs 31 woman stereotype. After all, if you read the passage, it starts with a question, almost sounding as though the mother is lamenting “Who can find a virtuous woman?” I bitterly pointed it out to my sister, telling her I didn’t think they existed. But in Proverbs the picture drawn for me wasn’t a woman with a kid hanging on her apron while she whisked batter in a pan and looked over children writing papers at the table. She was so much more — a woman who made her own decision to buy a field, who observed her merchandise, whose husband and children praised her. She was a woman of strength who were fine (and beautiful) clothing. Silk and purple was much more appealing to me than denim skirts and closed-toed shoes. She was a woman of skill, of wisdom and knowledge who was in authority of others. She was a jewel — not a doormat. She made goals and oversaw their completion, not slaved to put everyone’s happiness and needs in front of her own suppressed feelings. It says she has children but it doesn’t specify how many, and they don’t seem to be a huge part of her job-description. Maybe God didn’t want me to give up these desires as selfish desires of the flesh. Maybe the desires were from Him. Again on that same dock, I sat four years later, praying. And a promise flashed into my mind. Not a Bible verse, not a biblical formula, but a promise from God to me. It started out, “If you are willing to wait for a man…”

And I said yes.

So a man was not to be in my immediate future. What was? A complete revamping of my faith and view of God. The very things I had spent my entire life trying to suppress. A promise that if I wrote a specific script, God would produce that film. Dreams of publishing my novels and creating a publishing company which would help support the fight against human-trafficking. Freedom in struggles I had fought since I was a child. Opportunities to act in theater and even see some of my plays performed. Permission to learn and grow. To make mistakes. To admit my flaws and reach out for help. To deal with deep-seated issues I had hidden from everyone — some that were rooted in sin, but others that developed from a misplaced guilt and fear. From the preconditioning to assume that everything bad that happened to me must be my fault in some way because I was too selfish, or hadn’t given something to God, or had somehow encouraged actions toward myself — without considering that some things in my childhood happened to me because other people were acting out of their own hurts and sin, and I was simply the recipient of human failings.

Most of all, I received a chance to become the woman God wants me to be — not the woman I’ve been told the Bible dictates I should be — and she’s really the woman I wanted to be all along.

6 myths that may be keeping you from letting go

by Denise George

I listened quietly as my friend Jamie told me the frank details of the sexual abuse she’d suffered as a child.

“I hate my father!” she blurted out. “He abused me for more than a decade!” Jamie cried. “But my pastor said if I want to heal from my childhood pain, I have to forgive.”

“What did you tell your pastor?” I asked. “I told him I could never forgive my father, that I didn’t want to forgive him, that no one—not even God—would expect me to forgive him!”

Jamie told me all the reasons that kept her from forgiving her abusive father. I’d heard many of them before. In fact, I’d used some of them two years earlier, when a friend I’d trusted to keep a confidence told several women in my Sunday school class about a painful circumstance I was going through. I felt betrayed by my friend—as I should have. But forgive her? That was the last thing I wanted to do! I dropped out of the Sunday school class and avoided her at church. But a year later, when I reread what the apostle Paul said about forgiveness, his familiar words touched my heart in a special way: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32, my emphasis).

As I meditated on that verse, I knew I’d been forgiven much. I needed to forgive my friend, even if I didn’t feel like it. I decided to do so. Later, when I met her and told her I’d forgiven her, she apologized, and we both cried. I wish I could say she and I became good friends again—but I can’t. Her betrayal deeply hurt our friendship, and I was careful never to share another confidence with her. But God’s Word and my decision to forgive set me free from bitterness.

Facing the Challenge

Jamie and I are just two of a legion of Christian’s who’ve struggled with forgiveness because it’s difficult—almost impossible—to do. Yet in Luke 6:37, Jesus says, “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” He elaborates in Matthew 6:14-15: “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” The apostle Paul repeats Jesus’ command: “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13). Surely Paul’s “whatever grievances” covers any kind of hurt, betrayal, or injury another person could inflict!

In talking with hundreds about forgiveness, I’ve discovered six myths that keep us from the healing and freedom God desires for you and me.

Myth 1: Forgiving means the offender didn’t really hurt you.

Jamie thought if she forgave her father, it lessened the severity of his abuse. Yet Jamie’s forgiveness doesn’t deny her father hurt her. In fact, it clearly recognizes the enormity of his evil—if Jamie’s dad hadn’t deliberately caused her pain, she’d have no reason to forgive him.

You would think this title of my favorite hymn would encourage me, but coming from my abuser it had multiple layers of dark, twisted meaning. He was my Christian therapist, but he had used me sexually for three years. During my “therapy” he would impersonate Jesus, talking to me as if Jesus was speaking directly to me through him. If I was particularly struggling, these words would be used to get me to focus on what he was saying, to get me to comply.

On another level this text was his attempt to save his skin. I had recently reported the continuous rape to the Board of Directors of his non-profit organization. They had just called an emergency meeting for that week. This was his attempt to get me to withdraw my accusations.

How did I fall prey to such a twisted man? I am a woman who was raised in Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute (ATI) program.

Over the past two years as I have healed from the ravages of abuse, I have found power and healing in telling my story. I remember the first time I told someone that I had been sexually abused. I stuttered over the words, cringing in shame and crushed by guilt. The more I tell my story and people witness the atrocities that happened to me, the more I have healed. Today I tell you my story without shame.

I was very young when my parents first went to a Bill Gothard seminar. They sincerely believed that his teachings were Biblical and would “turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers” (Malachi 4:6). When I was going into second grade, Bill Gothard opened a pilot home school program and my parents enrolled us as a second year family. I was raised for 10 years in the ATI program — a program which shaped every part of my being.

As a child I was very fearful. I craved security. Since that is exactly what the program offered, I embraced it wholeheartedly. I fully accepted every aspect of being under my authority’s “umbrella of protection.” I believed that if I aligned even my desires (not just my actions) with the desires of my authorities, I would be the most happy. I remember one time a girl from my church made the comment, “Your parents are really strict!” I disagreed. I replied that actually they don’t have “rules” for me. Instead they have trained my heart to want the very things they want for me, so I simply do what they expect without them having to tell me. This was something the ATI program taught parents to build into their children, and I was proud of the fact that I did it so well.

As a result, my teen years were calm and peaceful. I never rebelled. It never even crossed my mind to think differently from my parents. If an authority wanted me to be a certain way, then that was God’s best for me. By this time, I was completely unable to think independently, or (God forbid) ever say “no” to an authority. If my authority’s wishes were truly God’s will for my life, why should I ever say no?

Ironically, this was exactly the outcome ATI was designed to create, and from the outside I was a complete success. However, in my heart all was not well. I began to live in daydreams and feel horribly guilty about them. That was the beginning of the dichotomy between my tumultuous inside life, and the perfect image I showed everyone on the outside.

My family left ATI when I was nearing the end of high school. In the Baptist circles I grew up in, Bill Gothard was seen as too ecumenical. But as far as my life went, the damage had already been done.

After high school I went to an elite Bible College. The lifestyle requirements were very similar to ATI, including the practice of courtship, so I fit in easily. Because of my skills in taking to heart everything my authorities desired for me, I was a success in Bible College. I quickly was placed in positions of leadership. Now I had an even bigger image to maintain and I worked even harder to mask my inner deficiencies.

Around this time, my brother married, and he and his new wife lived with my family. My new sister-in-law turned out to be violent. My well-ordered and peaceful world fell apart and turned to chaos. I would go to bed at night to the sounds of this woman beating up my brother. Over the years, she attacked my mom and dad, my brother, and even me. The structure of our home that was built by ATI did not have the tools to deal with this. My parents, following Matthew 6, simply “turned the other cheek” and allowed the violence to continue. Now the dichotomy between my perfect Christian life on the outside and my hurting disillusioned self on the inside felt even greater.

After graduating from Bible College, I made preparations to go to Bolivia, South America as a full time missionary. I was to be a teacher in a Baptist school for deaf children. I moved there in March of 2004 and in just a few months my life unraveled. I looked at all the stuff I was doing to be a successful Christian: daily devotions and prayer, proper dress, proper music, living in moral purity, working in the local church, evangelism, discipleship, and of course being a full-time missionary. But inside I was so desperately empty! Did God love me? Or even accept me?

After three months I was desperate for help but did not know how or who to ask. And so I made a very loud cry for help: I overdosed on sleeping meds. My coworkers and mission board were shocked. My dichotomy was exposed. Everyone in my world could now see the truth about me: that this “successful” Christian was really a great big FAILURE!

But I saw hope from one source. My dad had a friend from college that he had kept in touch with over the years, and this friend had a daughter and son-in-law who ministered to broken Christians. Because they were family friends, I was happy to hear from them, and when they started emailing me, I was amazed. They helped me see that God loved and accepted me unconditionally. I was so desperate for this truth after my suicide attempt that I decided to move back to the States and receive counseling from this couple.

The problem was that they were not Baptists, nor did they live a lifestyle separated from “the world,” as I had been taught to live. All my authorities (my parents, my pastor, my Bible College) were adamant that I should not go to this couple for counseling. They tried hard to warn me that I was too vulnerable and would compromise my higher standards by being around them. But for the first time in my life I had resonated with their message of unconditional love, so I disagreed with my authorities and directly “disobeyed” them. I was 25 years old.

But I did not learn to think for myself overnight. While I soaked up my counselors’ love and acceptance, trying hard to believe that God really loved me that way, I also became very codependent on them. I was trained to be dependent on others my entire life, and one solitary act of independence could not immediately change that.

As it turned out, my counselor took full advantage of my trained submissiveness and began grooming me for sex. As my counselor, he controlled me emotionally, molding me to the place where I believed I could not survive without him. Over three long years he used my body again and again. I would ask him to stop, but he said God was okay with it, and that when the time came it would stop naturally.

Over the years I was receiving “counseling” from this couple, I learned to self-injure, had multiple suicide attempts, ended up in a psych unit four times, and developed an eating disorder. Finally, I had the courage to ask the counselor’s wife for help and I told her everything. She and her husband had a “reconciliation” meeting with me, in which we were each to apologize. However, they had my apology already decided. I was to ask them to forgive me for seducing him. I was stunned because I had no clue how I had seduced him. But being submissive, as I had been trained to do, I confessed to seduction. As a result, I believed I was a whore and an adulteress, and could never tell anyone my horrible secret of what I had done. The sexual abuse stopped for a while, but because I never asked anyone on the outside for help, it eventually started all over again, and I still felt powerless to stop it.

Mercifully, God rescued me from the cycle of abuse. A man on their Board of Directors (who had been told of the abuse by the couple after our mutual apology session, but had been sworn to secrecy by them) suggested that I move away. I had gone back to school since my return to the States and had become certified as a Sign Language Interpreter, so for the first time in my life I actually had the means to be independent and self-supporting.

So at the age of 32, I began the journey to find a home and a job out of state. I was so excited that I actually had the ability to be independent! While Bill Gothard’s ATI program seemed like a thing of the past for me, my parents still lived in that mindset and lifestyle. I remember so well the day my parents helped me move. We were up early that morning to load everything up and make the drive across the country to my new home. When we arrived, I excitedly showed them around, proud of my new-found independence. But my mom was horrified. She began to lecture me, saying I had done all of this without being under my father’s authority, and wasn’t I afraid of the judgment of God?!

The next day as we were eating lunch, my mom tried again. She said, “Who you used to be is who you really are, and the way you are now is because you are deluded.” It hurt deeply, but I was tasting freedom, and wanted it too badly to give up.

With a great desire to heal, I found an eating disorder treatment hospital and made an appointment. I still believed that my counselor’s sexual relationship with me was all my fault, that I had seduced him, and that I was a whore. The shame I felt was so intense. But that day in the nutritionist’s office, I heard for the first time that what I experienced was outright sexual abuse, and that my counselor had violated counseling ethics in using his position of authority over me to rape me.

After nine weeks of treatment in the hospital I had the courage to tell my parents about my sexual abuse. They were heartbroken and very supportive of my healing. But after a few days, the inevitable came out: My mom asked me if I felt conviction from God for any of my sins. I wasn’t sure at first what she was talking about, but she explained. It was obvious to her that since I had chosen to go against all my authorities’ wishes when I chose this counselor, I had sinned. And of course the sexual abuse was the natural consequence of that sin. I was crushed. Why, when I was already drowning in shame, did Gothard’s principle of authority have to be used to pile on even more? It was this very principle that had held me hostage by an inability to say “no” strong enough or loud enough to those in authority who were abusing me.

Being in treatment gave me the strength to contact a couple members of the Board of Directors and tell them what my counselor had done. The text I received that day in June from my abuser was his last effort to get me to withdraw my accusations before the Board of Directors met. Thankfully, by then I had the skills to calm down and stand firm. In their meeting, the Board mandated that he stop counseling, and later that year they voted to close his non-profit organization. More details have come out since and I’ve learned that I was not the only woman he abused.

Today I am completely free from anorexia, from wanting to injure myself, and from wanting to die. Even more amazing, I am free from the bondage of shame. It has been a long journey, but so worth it. The most beautiful discovery along the way has been a true understanding of God’s grace. When I found the book “A Matter of Basic Principles” and saw Bill Gothard’s definition of grace explained, I finally understood myself and what drove me to work for God’s acceptance. I have discovered that real grace is not something I have to earn; it is completely free. Even more, God delights to lavish it on me! I believe now that my brokenness is a beautiful medium for God’s grace. And so as Romans 5:3-5 says, “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

My parents went to one of the first ATI conferences in Australia and came back excited and eager to embrace this new form of home-schooling. That was when things began to change. Life was suddenly filled to the brim with conferences and Wisdom Booklets and other ATI families. Before I knew it, most of the church families at my dad’s church had also adopted the curriculum, and we lived, breathed, and slept Bill Gothard’s belief system.

Under the teachings of ATI my family grew to twelve kids. And with a church to handle, and 12 kids at home, my mum and dad couldn’t handle caring for us all, let alone schooling us. Instead, older siblings were put in charge of younger siblings (kind of like the Duggar’s “Buddy System”). My older brother resented the responsibility of practically having to be a father to his younger siblings, so he began to bully and abuse us. He first sexually assaulted me when I was ten years old while he was being forced to help me with my homework.

My parents found out a year into his regular sexual abuse of me and insisted that I apologize to him. According to Bill Gothard’s “principles” on dealing with sexual abuse, I was as much to blame as my brother for “leading him on,” despite our several year age difference. We were then forced to “forgive” each other, and once again in accordance with ATI teaching, to never bring the matter up again now that it was forgiven. Since nothing was done to stop him from abusing, and he was not held accountable for what he’d done, the abuse continued with increasing severity and regularity for two more years until I hit puberty.

It wasn’t until I left home at the age of 19 with severe depression and other health issues that I found out he’d also abused four of my younger siblings, and that my parents knew about that too. And so I reported the abuse to child services and they initiated an investigation. In the end, they were unable to prove anything since my older brother was away when they came, and because my dad has thoroughly coached all of his kids in drills on how to answer questions from outside sources from the time we were very young. My siblings have been raised to be terrified of government officials, and particularly police and child services. However the investigation is now on record, so if just one of my eleven siblings speaks out with me, child services will be able to step in.

Because my parents are convinced they are following “biblical” principles, to this day they have not acknowledged their fault in how they handled my abuse, nor have they set up any safety measures to protect the underage children still in their home who are still around my older brother.

Anyone who claims that ATI’s teachings are basically good but are taken out of context by bad people clearly do not understand the depth and darkness to the teachings. A solid adherence to the teachings of Bill Gothard cannot help but cause a cult-like following in families and churches, because Gothard presents his biblical principles as the only way to true success in all areas of life. If these principles are strictly followed, it is believed that success will also follow. If you are not experiencing success, you should just apply more principles and try harder. So in an effort to more perfectly follow the principles and see success in their families, fathers often crack down and become abusive and controlling. The result is that older siblings are often saddled with unwanted parental responsibility of caring for younger siblings, and mothers often feel overwhelmed to the point of neglecting the needs of their individual children.

Specifically, Gothard’s principles for dealing with sexual abuse within families only damaged my family further as it heaped shame and guilt on us girls who were abused and minimized the sin of our abuser. These “principles” did not help my parents respond to abuse the way they should have—it only made things worse. Instead of blaming us (finding reasons why the abuse was our fault) and covering it up in the name of “forgiveness,” they should have protected us from the abuse and gotten help for my brother.

It is sad that after all these years, so many abused kids are growing up and speaking out against this cult, but there are still so many families deep in its grip who genuinely believe Bill Gothard to be a good teacher. I can only pray that one day it will all change and their eyes will be opened to exactly how dangerous these teachings really are to families.

Editor’s note: The following testimony references Bill Gothard’s “Why Did God Let It Happen?” teaching. This teaching has been delivered in several different formats, many of which do not directly reference sexual abuse. However, the Counseling Sexual Abuse document that was distributed at ATI (Advanced Training Institute) counseling seminars applies this teaching directly to sexual abuse. It raised the same issue of “modesty” and “obedience” that this former ATI student struggled with in her own personal story.

Even though my parents divorced when I was nine years old, my mother did everything in her power to raise me to be a young woman who wanted to follow God with all her heart. She made sure I was around healthy, “whole” families with strong spiritual standards. She fully vetted my friends to ensure that I wasn’t spending the night with just anyone, and constantly invited my friends over to keep me from falling victim to all the tragedies that befall many young women in our culture. I remember at eight years old fearing rape because, in my young mind, purity was such an important thing, perhaps the thing that my worth as a person hinged upon. This belief was not particularly due to my mother’s influence; I chalk it up to the culture within the churches that we attended, and I attended church as far back as I can remember.

After my parents divorced, we moved from overseas back to the States. As we settled into our new home near my mother’s family, we found a new church to attend — one that espoused the teachings of Bill Gothard. I remember attending several Basic Seminars before we actually joined ATI. Since I wanted to be the best Christian possible, with every bit of my naïve little heart I lapped up the teachings and took copious notes. I particularly remember Gothard’s teaching on “Why Did God Let it Happen?” I wrote out fifteen reasons I thought God had allowed my parents to divorce, and tried to use those reasons to rid myself of the bitterness I held towards my father for leaving me, not protecting me, and not letting me be like all the girls in “whole” families that I was around. Since this seemed to work, I internalized this teaching and was quite pleased, in a weird sort of way, that I could now have an explanation for everything bad that happened to me and see God use it for “good” in my life.

When I was fifteen and the holidays rolled around, my grandfather came to visit, as he always did. Since my father had left and now lived halfway around the world, my grandfather had easily slipped into the role of my surrogate father shortly thereafter. I adored him, and it helped that I was his favorite grandchild. Whenever my mother thought I was too young to know or hear about certain things, he would always fill me in. He made me feel like I wasn’t a silly child. I remember many breakfasts at his favorite places with just him, and how he could make friends so easily with his quick wit and sense of humor. So much of my childhood happened with my grandfather.

During his visit this particular year, I was very ill and had already been in bed for a few days. When my grandfather came to visit he was always given my bedroom to stay in. My mother made it clear that I was to sleep on the couch on these occasions, and I had always obeyed. However, this night my grandfather came to bed in my room before I could make it to the couch. When I started to get up out of bed, he gently held me down and told me to stay because I didn’t feel well and was already comfortable. I started to fall asleep to his quiet murmurs of how pretty I was and what a heart-breaker I was — stuff he used to say to me all the time. As he spoke, he began touching me under my clothing, and I remember slowly waking in horror as this burning sense of dread paralyzed me. I prayed, begging God to let me wake up as I was convinced I was having a nightmare. I told myself over and over that I was hallucinating, willed myself to be hallucinating, dreaming, anything. I have no idea how long exactly I was there, but I finally was able to will myself to get up and go into our living room.

I sat there shaking, hugging my knees to my chest. I remember wondering if I should wake my mother. Then I realized that if I woke her up, I would have to tell her what happened, and that would make my grandfather look bad because I had disobeyed her. I thought about why God let this happen for a very long time while sitting there, and concluded that it had to be because of my disobedience. If I hadn’t been disobedient, this never would have happened. Also, if I said anything, I would deprive my sister of the only father she had ever really known. An hour or two must have passed, and I finally fell asleep.

For many years after this incident I stuffed this memory; I couldn’t bear the guilt I shouldered since I was convinced I had caused what happened. Even though I buried the memory, I took the guilt out on my body, hating it. I blamed anything remotely attractive about myself as something that had tempted my grandfather and cause a good Christian man — the closest thing I had to a father — to sin.

A year later, I attended an ATI girls’ counseling seminar. After one of the sessions, a girl who had experienced something similar to what I had experienced asked Mr. Gothard during the Question and Answer time why God might have let that happen to her. His answer was that the abuse was to teach her to value her spiritual soul above her physical body and make her “mighty in spirit.” This only added more fuel to the hatred I felt for my own body. I spent so many years wishing I was built like a boy, hiding under turtlenecks and jumpers, wishing I wasn’t someone who was remotely attractive because the abuse was my fault. When I ended up moving to the Indianapolis Training Center a few years later, all my body-hating reached new levels as I was regularly told by the leadership that I was probably immoral due to my father’s affair, and that they were there to “help” me.

My grandfather ended up molesting and raping several other girls, something I didn’t find out about until I was an adult. One of his other victims, who was just a child at the time, was asked by my ATI-affiliated pastor (per Mr. Gothard’s teachings) what she was wearing when the abuse happened and if she had “cried out.” I cannot tell you the rage I felt towards all these men when I heard that question was directed towards a child.

When I realized that what my grandfather did to me wasn’t an isolated incident caused by my “disobedience” and realized that he would never stop, that was the impetus needed to push me to report him to the police and finally begin to forgive myself for something I had never even done in the first place.

Looking back, I see that my grandfather was a classic groomer: He made me keep secrets from my mother, and he pushed physical boundaries way before he actually outright crossed them. And the reasons I was so convinced that God had “let it happen”? I now realize that this just fed into my need as a victim (and the needs of those in authority) to find a reason — any reason — why it had been my fault so I could keep it from happening again.

Points 1 and 2 downplay the sexual abuse victim’s physical suffering as damage to the “least important” part of a person, with no mention of other possible effects of abuse.

Point 3 condemns the victim for self-damage (presumably to mind, will, and emotions left untouched by the abuser) and rebukes the victim for feeling not only bitterness, but also guilt.

Point 4 explicitly suggests that the victim invited the abuse by enticing the abuser or by earning divine wrath. This is a particularly stark example of Gothard’s theology: Gothard presents a God who passively or actively allows sexual abuse as just punishment for “immodest dress,” “indecent exposure,” “being out from under protection of our parents,” or “being with evil friends.” When this document was published, the IBLP operational definition of the term “defraud” was “to stir up desires that cannot be righteously fulfilled,” and a version of this definition is still used by IBLP. In the IBLP document, “Lessons From Moral Failures in a Family,” this concept of modesty and temptation is also applied to the sexual abuse of very young children.

Point 5 explicitly speculates that the sexual abuse victim is likely guilty for some part of the abuse or its aftermath, and appears to directly contradict Point 3, which reprimanded the victim for damaging his or her soul with guilt. “Moral vaccination” seems to reference a concept Gothard shared in seminars and conferences in the 1980s, when he told the story of a woman who struggled with unwanted sexual thoughts and eventually was raped. In the anecdote, Gothard described the rape and the woman’s subsequent aversion to sexuality as inoculation against lust.

Point 6 leads with the default assumption that the abused is usually at least partly at fault, presenting the guiltless abuse victim as an exception. This guiltless victim is told what great spiritual power he or she can expect to be compensated with after being sexually violated. While it appears that we have at last reached a bullet point that doesn’t chide or censure sexual abuse survivors, Point 6 has a dark reverse side that makes it as toxic as Point 4; if the abuse victim is not experiencing all seven evidences of being “mighty in Spirit,” does that mean he or she was not truly faultless in the abuse? If a survivor of sexual abuse does not adequately exhibit “spiritual discernment” and “creativity,” or feel “energy, enthusiasm, joy,” and “inner peace,” is that evidence of guilt or complicity in one’s own abuse? The standard for being “not at fault” is not only to have demonstrated perfect modesty and obedience before the abuse (by IBLP definitions) and to have harbored no guilt or “bitterness” after the abuse, but also to demonstrate seven arbitrary qualities of an extraordinary super-Christian soon after the abuse. It is a subjective test of guiltlessness few could pass.

Point 7 is an interesting choice of Biblical example of sexual abuse, but has some merit. Here Gothard conflates correlation with causation, indicating that Daniel’s wisdom, understanding, and position were direct compensations for physical trauma. Also telling is the absence of rape victims Dinah and Tamar as examples of guiltless survivors. Other IBLP materials denounce these women for inviting or failing to thwart their own abuse.

Point 8 presents a vicious false dichotomy that pressures the abuse victim to symbolically “choose” sexual abuse as a necessary accompaniment or gateway to being “mighty in Spirit.” This is not mere acceptance that the past cannot be changed, nor just a choice to make something positive of the situation going forward; this is a theoretical active choice in favor of being abused. Here Gothard defies his own admonitions to his followers to avoid answering questions about hypothetical situations.

Points 9 and 10 echo Points 1-3 in condemning any “bitterness” the victim may feel — and by word count this is apparently a far greater concern than the sexual abuse itself. The document presumes to know the exact reason for any “bitterness” on the part of the survivor: “He damaged your body.” No other reasons for anger or pain are considered here, and no other possible negative effects of sexual abuse are mentioned. In a trichotomistic document that asserts the importance of the soul over the body and the primacy of the spirit over both of these, negative effects on the victim are relegated exclusively to the lowest level, the physical, then effectively dismissed as petty. This slyly suggests that any continued pain or difficulty the survivor experiences is the result of carnality or insufficient dedication of the spirit to God. The document assumes that the victim is not already dedicated to God, and was likely not adequately dedicated to God at the time of sexual assault. Point 9 is a master stroke of passive aggression against survivors who would dare express any ongoing spiritual or emotional distress resulting from their sexual abuse. It silences survivors whose stories have not yet culminated in complete spiritual triumph.

Instead of the usual IBLP language of tearing down strongholds, reclaiming surrendered ground, and replacing strongholds with “towers of truth,” Point 10 advises victims to reclaim surrendered ground and “cleanse with rhemas.” This contextually unusual choice of language is darkly jarring in light of the feelings of being dirty that so many sexual abuse survivors report experiencing. Point 10 subtly supports the idea that sexual abuse survivors are in special need of purification.

The damaging potential of “Counseling Sexual Abuse” is not theoretical. The damage has already happened. The teachings outlined in this document have had devastating effects in the lives of real people. Click here to read one story directly affected by these teachings.