THE EFFECTS

Within ATI, Bill Gothard was viewed as a sort of demigod. I remember attending the annual conferences where he was lauded with 10 minute standing ovations. We awaited every word that he said with baited breath, and took it all as gospel truth. We didn’t ask questions, we just accepted it. And that was the norm in ATI. Bill was all about controlling people’s minds through anecdotes that would strike fear, and using scriptures out of context to say things that he wanted them to say.

I remember one particular story that illustrates how the ATI world seeks to control people. A friend of mine’s sister-in-law had died tragically in a car accident. It so happens that she had recently been listening to some form of contemporary music. Well, her father wrote a letter to Bill Gothard basically saying that God had killed her for her rebellion. Bill was on the brink of publishing it (thousands would have read it), and only stopped it when a number of her friends flooded him with calls and letters. This was typical of him. Fear and guilt are a powerful method of control. When one’s view of God is so skewed that you fear retribution if you take one wrong step, it is very easy to be controlled.

So, how did all of this thinking affect me as a child? Well, I began to see God as someone who existed to judge me for my failures. I had to live my life in just the right way so that He wouldn’t take His hand of blessing off of me. I learned to obey my mom and dad not because they loved me, but because God would shorten my life if I didn’t. I actually made three public professions of faith in Christ because each time, I wasn’t sure if I had done things the right way.

This mindset led to several character and personality flaws that began to manifest themselves in my early teenage years. These issues are battles that I still face even today. While I must confess that these issues are the result of sin within my own heart, they were heightened by the culture in which I was raised. And I can honestly say that these first two flaws are prevalent within the ATI world.

First and foremost was a prideful and arrogant attitude about people around me, in and out of church. I followed the rules and they didn’t, so obviously I was a better Christian. As such, I didn’t associate with them.

Secondly, I developed an incredible ability to lie and deceive others about who I was. I knew I wasn’t perfect on the inside, but it wouldn’t matter as much if people, including my parents, didn’t know. Some of my offenses included cheating in school and watching things on TV that my parents didn’t approve of (TV made its way back into the house for only the most strictly approved viewing, mostly of Gothard-approved videos). Still today, I have a strong tendency to cover up failures and avoid transparency, even within my own family.

The third personality flaw, which I don’t think is as prevalent in the ATI world, started when I was around 14 or 15, and continues to be a struggle until this day. I developed a form of obsessive compulsive disorder which was completely debilitating for around a year or two of my life. The best way I can describe it was a constant overwhelming fear of messing up, whether it be forgetting to pray before I ate, or accidentally offending someone. I remember nights where I would spend 30 minutes doing something as simple as locking the doors before I went to bed, because I was afraid I wasn’t doing it right. Bizarre, I know. At the root of it all was this oppressive fear of failure. As an aside, my parents took me out of piano lessons at this point, thinking that the pressure of competition was the cause. We also burned a few piano pieces that I was playing at the time, because we were taught that certain music carried demonic powers.

Those who know me now don’t really see this side of me, because it’s not debilitating the same way that it was. But it still manifests itself as extreme perfectionism and an inability to accept any kind of failure. My wife can attest to this. My post-graduate schoolwork, for example, has been known to cause me great emotional stress, as I simply can’t deal with the prospect of failure.

MUSIC AND TRAINING CENTERS

The Indianapolis Training Center, 2001

As a budding musician, many of the writings of the ATI and Independent Fundamental Baptist leaders were prevalent in my life during my teenage years. Some of the authors I read and believed included Frank Garlock, Tim Fischer, and Bill Gothard himself. I won’t go into all of the details of their belief system, but suffice it to say that any music with a “rock” beat or pop sound was considered sinful. Still today, any type of contemporary Christian music is strictly forbidden in ATI circles. It was in this area that I became particularly legalistic. I wrote letters to my pastors, disdained my music ministers, and judged other teens over their music.

Between the ages of 15 and 18, I spent around two years of my life in ATI training centers, both in Oklahoma City and Indianapolis. I’m not quite sure how to describe training center life to someone who hasn’t experienced it first hand, but the best description I can think of would be a monastery. The majority of my time was spent in Oklahoma City, working with a branch of ATI called Character First. It was an organization that produced and taught character education curriculum in the public schools, which in and of itself wasn’t a bad thing.  The life itself wasn’t really so bad either, but the rules and legalism were oppressive. I personally got in trouble for engaging a girl in casual conversation, but that was pretty much the extent of my “misbehavior.” I however, saw several others sent home or assigned extra workloads because they didn’t follow the rules to perfection. I still remember with horror as one young man was forced to confess pornography use to the entire training center. I felt humiliated for him. I remember when the entire group of students was almost denied a field trip because they failed a random pop quiz on the book of Jonah. However, they were allowed to go if they wrote out the entire book by hand. My memories of those days aren’t all bad, but I wouldn’t go back in a million years.

This post is continued here…