Basic Seminar

Personal testimonies of finding true freedom through God's matchless grace.

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

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Stories and accounts of the destruction caused by the teachings of Bill Gothard.

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Bill Gothard’s Powerless Gospel

2 March 2016, 09:09

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106

By Dr. Harry Adams Winter 2001 edition of the MCOI Journal Christianity is the faith of the cross. “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”(Gal. 6:14). The sufferings of Christ obtained for us what we could never obtain by ourselves with respect to salvation and sanctification. […]

An ATI Education, Chapter 4: The Law of Grace

17 December 2015, 14:18

Sara Jones

“If a woman doesn’t cry out when she’s raped, God holds her equally guilty with her attacker.” Bill Gothard states this outright in Wisdom Booklet 36; hundreds of people, most of them well-meaning Christians, read and accepted it. I was one of them. I wrote this series for Recovering Grace to give a glimpse into the long, […]

An ATI Education, Chapter 2: Is It Just Me?

19 October 2015, 06:00

Sara Jones

“ATI is not user-friendly.” That was the opinion of one former Advanced Training Institute (ATI) student, now an adult, who skimmed over the materials that our parents had to work with. He was right. The Wisdom Booklets are the foundation of Gothard’s homeschool curriculum. There are 54 of them, and at a glance, they’re pretty impressive. […]

Church Celebrities Who are Above Criticism: Bill Gothard

1 July 2015, 06:00

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141

“He deprives the trusted ones of speech And takes away the discernment of the elders.” (Job 12:20) In a post put up a couple weeks ago, I recounted how, in the late sixties, my dad, Joe Bayly publicly criticized Bob Jones University. He did so in his monthly column in ETERNITY Magazine. It was also […]

The Brilliance of Bill Gothard

29 April 2015, 06:00

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129

Bill Gothard created a cult, and he did a fine job of it. He didn’t create a commune that physically isolated his followers from the rest of the world. He didn’t lead weird sessions with chanting and candles. He didn’t even come up with strange names for his teachings. He conducted his cult in the […]

The Shame of Beauty

16 April 2015, 06:00

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139

1868-skirt-lengths-girl-ages-Harpers-Bazar

Before I was born my parents started following the teaching of Bill Gothard and IBLP, and when I was 5, they joined ATI (Advanced Training Institute), the homeschool program that Gothard developed for the families of his Basic and Advanced Seminars. Gothard emphasized “principles” which simply meant there were many different rules that dictated specific activities in my […]

Ignorance Is Not Bliss

31 March 2015, 06:00

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Ever since our pastor announced that Bill Gothard stepped down, I feel like I have been in a state of shock. I have always been famous for saying, “Ignorance is not bliss.” Now I know just how right I was. I have to reconcile myself to the fact that I was living in ignorance, and […]

IBYC Board Minutes 1977-1980

4 January 2015, 08:23

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For readers interested in the corporate governance of the Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts (IBYC, now IBLP, Institute in Basic Life Principles) during the period leading up to and through the Scandal of 1980, the minutes from Board of Directors meetings are attached. Some names have been redacted, including those of victims caught up in the […]

The Package: Bill Gothard and His Children

1 January 2015, 00:00

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Bill Gothard and His Children: The Unauthorized Short Biography Image of envelope copyright: kchung / 123RF Stock Photo

The Package: Bill Gothard’s Knowledge of Sin

29 December 2014, 00:00

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Suggested viewing from IBYC management for the publication staff, photographed on the sidewalk outside HQ. 1980

Detailed Knowledge Summary Bill Gothard has denied publicly — for 34 years — that he ever had any knowledge of any details of immorality before April of 1980 (the first time that Tony asked to meet Bill privately with a report of what was being discovered). Gothard has made this denial to the […]