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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.

Tag Archives: sin

Grace Overflowing

26 June 2014, 12:00

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Our sin, even that which continues in the Christian life, reveals the grace of God. Paul says, in Romans 5, that the grace of God overflows in greater measure than any sin. What that means, put simply, is that you can never “out-sin” God’s grace. Some people don’t like that. Or maybe I should say […]

Dear Mom and Dad

16 June 2014, 06:00

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Dear Mom and Dad, I do not write this out of vindictiveness or anger; rather, I write it out of an inquiring and puzzled mind. I do not fault you for putting our family into the Advanced Training Institute (ATI) program. You wanted the best for our family, and I believe you sincerely thought you […]

Stolen Treasures

11 March 2014, 06:00

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was  originally published on March 11, 2013. A recent article on Recovering Grace, entitled “Moving On,” prompted me to think about the reason it is so difficult to move forward after being victimized by legalism. As I have worked with those hurt by legalism over the years, I have often heard stories about what […]

Marcus’s Story: Touching the Invisible Electric Fence

17 February 2014, 08:00

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I was invited to work at the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) headquarters during the summer of 1992. I said goodbye to my family in Knoxville, Tennessee, where we had traveled to attend the yearly Advanced Training Institute (ATI) annual conference, and climbed aboard one of the many vans transporting IBLP staff back to Oak […]

Silencing the Lambs: Listening to an Evil Report

15 February 2014, 06:00

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See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil. IBLP has a Matthew 18 publication that fits well with each monkey.

Listening to an Evil Report One question often asked of those who have contributed their stories to Recovering Grace is, “If things were so bad, or even illegal, why didn’t you contact the authorities, or at least tell your parents or a lawyer?” Most who grew up in the Advanced Training Institute (ATI) and/or Institute in Basic […]

Anti-Law

7 October 2013, 06:00

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Grace 101 Over the past several Grace 101 posts I have focused on the parable of the sower from Matthew 13 to give us a structure for looking at enemies of grace.  I started with the trampled or trodden path, the hard ground that would not let the seed take root.  But other enemies take […]

Too Good to be True

16 September 2013, 06:00

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Grace 101 Let’s face it.  If we are pointing out enemies of grace, particularly those areas where the path is hard from years of tradition and wrong thinking, we don’t have to go any farther than our own minds.  I define the flesh as the system we developed to handle life.  Perhaps we could broaden […]

Anniversary Milestones

25 July 2013, 06:00

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Dear Recovering Grace Reader, This week marks the second anniversary of the launching of Recovering Grace. It hardly seems possible that a little over two years ago, our website was only a germ of an idea being shared among a large number of former students of Bill Gothard and his Advanced Training Institute and Institute […]

When The Church Prefers Perpetrators

17 June 2013, 06:00

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Occasionally Recovering Grace likes to offer other articles and resources that our readers may find helpful in their road to recovery. The following linked article is very thought provoking and one that everyone should read and ponder. After all, Jesus came to care for the broken and needy, not protect the proud and haughty. “The […]

Remember Your Brethren in Bonds

13 June 2013, 06:00

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In 2 Timothy 3:12, it is written, “Yea, and all who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” I don’t remember much persecution, at least not the kind that the Bible talks about. Sure we were ultra conservative and occasionally got some strange looks from people who had no idea what we were talking […]