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Articles about how Bill Gothard mishandles the Bible to support his legalistic viewpoint.

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Tag Archives: ati

A Parent’s Perspective – Sixteen Years in Bondage

22 August 2011, 06:00

Moderator

41

Our journey into the Advanced Training Institute (ATI) began when my second child was about 6 months old. I remember quitting my job as a nurse to become a stay at home mom, and thinking that it was quite a sacrifice. Then, about two years later, my husband came to me and told me that […]

Is This for Real?

20 August 2011, 06:00

curtisd

9

Sometimes I wonder if I’m really living my life Or if I’m just living what I’m supposed to be. Am I really even a person? Is any of this true? I lie awake at night and wonder who I am. Are you just dying to know that You’re not pretending, Wondering if any of this […]

Courtship Promised to Protect Me, Pt 2

18 August 2011, 06:30

JoyS

18

After my courtship with Josh failed, my parents did back off on having power over directing my love life. The fact that I lived several hours away from them helped to keep them from having much influence. The truth of the matter was that I had fought the idea of courtship for years. I just […]

To Russia With Love, part 2

18 August 2011, 06:15

RobertM

12

My fourth year in Russia was the most difficult, but in a much stranger way. At the beginning of the year, I was given the assignment of interpreting for a family. I was told that this family had been a problem in the past year and had not been expected to stay, but now it […]

To Russia With Love, part 1

16 August 2011, 06:15

RobertM

10

When my family began homeschooling in 1985, there were only a handful of homeschooling families in our state of Mississippi. Homeschooling ended up being very positive for our family. It brought us closer together and closer to the Lord. We used several different  homeschooling curricula over the years, and there were a couple of years […]

Prisoner of the Glass House

15 August 2011, 06:00

MicahK

12

My childhood and the home I was blessed to live it out in, was shaped from my infancy by teachings from Bill Gothard’s seminars (I was born just months before my parents attended their first of many of his seminars). I can still recall, however, in my youngest years a deep sense of idyllic peace […]

The Unfair Bonus

12 August 2011, 06:00

MatthewS

13

Jesus must have enjoyed short stories. He used parables frequently. One of those stories appears in Matthew 20:1-16. It arrested my attention recently and I wondered how someone would tell the story in today’s world. Perhaps something like this: The strangest bonus Jim ever received was for a large project he worked on for six […]

Courtship Promised To Protect Me, Pt 1

11 August 2011, 06:00

JoyS

40

  Courtship. It’s a buzzword for people, not just in ATI, but in several conservative Christian groups. Bill Gothard defines courtship: “Courtship is experiencing the blessing of God by loving the Lord Jesus Christ and honoring both sets of parents. The purpose of courtship is to determine a couple’s readiness for marriage and to discern the […]

Breaking Free

10 August 2011, 07:00

Moderator

31

They were raised in a normal America. They had children and then, in reaction to the symptoms of societal misdeeds, they were drawn to an organization (the Institute in Basic Life Principles) that held a checklist of answers to life’s every question. (clothing, hair style, vocabulary, music, activities, toys, pets,education, culture, friendships, dating, marriage, raising children, […]

Muzzling the Ox

9 August 2011, 06:00

Moderator

14

In many ways, I’ve been pretty lucky when it came to the whole Advanced Training Institute (ATI) experience. I always thought that the double standard that my parents had was weird: we could wear jeans on the farm or to work with my dad, but not to town or where anyone would see us. I […]