Mr. Gothard's Sexual Rules: Part Two

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Mr. Gothard’s Sexual Rules: Part Two

Mr. Gothard’s Sexual Rules: Part Two

23 December 2011, 06:00

I Pet 3:7 – Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.

Eph 5:26 – That he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,

Does a man need to have self-control? Yup. Do either of these verses mention this? Nope. More interestingly, notice Mr. Gothard’s approach to having self-control – don’t have sex for 14 days out of each month. In other words, according to Mr. Gothard, regular and lengthy periods of abstinence help to promote self-control (he hasn’t explained this yet but will later).

In contrast to Mr. Gothard’s suggestions, notice what Paul has to say about self-control with regards to sex:
a. to avoid problems with self-control, HAVE sex (I Cor 7:2)
b. to avoid Satan’s temptation, HAVE sex – not having sex can makes you open to temptation (I Cor 7:5)
c. don’t have self-control? Then abstinence is NOT the answer (I Cor 7:9)

What about the woman’s need for protection? I am guessing he pulls the protection part from I Pet 3:7. Most likely he is taking the phrase “weaker vessel” and assuming (because the passage doesn’t say it) that this means the woman needs protection since she is the weaker vessel. The passage doesn’t say anything of protection but speaks instead of consideration and respect to the wife. I suppose one could reason that consideration and respect includes protecting, but the concept of protection doesn’t seem to be what the passage is referring to. If it were, then the meaning would be “Husbands protect your wives so your prayers aren’t hindered.” While not blatant twisting, its certainly a large stretch of the meaning of the passage.

And what of the wife’s need for cleansing with the word? This he pulls from Eph 5:26. After his previously only stretching the meaning of a passage, now he is back to his blatant misuse and twisting. Look at the passage…oh wait, Eph 5:26 is the second half of a sentence, so lets give the whole context:

Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, (26) so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, (27) that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.

If we look at vs. 26 it’s talking about “her” and if we look at vs 25 we see there is mention of the wife, so naturally “her” in vs 26 must be the wife, right? In Mr Gothard’s world, maybe. Look at the whole verse as one stream of thought though. In context, it becomes apparent that the “her” in vs 26 (and vs 27) is in reference to the church and not the wife. It is Christ who washes the church with the word, not the husband who washes the wife with the word.

Mr. Gothard would have us read it like this:
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. The husband should give himself up for the wife to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”

So, if we extend Mr. Gothard’s rendering of the verse, not only is the wife to be cleansed by the word, she is also to be a radiant church to the husband without any blemish or wrinkle….oh wait, I guess it doesn’t make much sense to say the wife is who is being referred to in vs. 26 unless you RIP it out of context. Again, another example of abusing Scripture to support a claim and hoping people don’t notice.

James 1:3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience

Well…in a sense he is right. We shouldn’t resent hardships in life but grow from them. Not sure how the menstrual cycle automatically qualifies as a “testing of your faith.” But like any physical hardship, I suppose it could be. So, I guess here we have a possible stretch rather than outright twisting. Gothard must be okay after all…

The key to his principle here is this: If were were required (by implication, required against our will/desire) to do something every day, then yes, its almost certainly going to become a labor after a period of time. So yeah, if someone was requiring that you had sex every day, then most anyone is going to lose their enjoyment of sex after a period time. Seems to be a reasonable conclusion.

But then, who is requiring the couple to have sex every day? This is a nice rhetorical trick he is pulling here:
1. give an extreme example which obviously leads to the desired conclusion
2. then sneakily apply the same conclusion to all related cases even though they aren’t as extreme as the original example.
So, demonstrate that sex which is required every day is not going to be joyful, and then use this conclusion to argue that, therefore, couples should have an extended period of abstinence…ignoring the fact that the couple was only having sex WHENEVER THEY WANTED TO in the first place. Consider this logic when applied to some other activity:

Bob: I really love to play tennis so I just bought a lifetime membership to the gym.
Gothard: If you were required to go to the gym every day wouldn’t you lose your joy in playing tennis?
Bob: After a couple months, yeah, I guess I would.
Gothard: Then I think to keep your love of tennis, you should commit to refrain from going to the gym for two weeks out of every month.
Bob: But I only go when I want to go and I don’t when I don’t want to go.
Gothard: You should still not go for two weeks out of every month. It will help you to enjoy tennis more.
Bob: <mystified> But I only play when I want to play and don’t play when I don’t want to…
Gothard: You are just bitter and have given ground to Satan. I have a diagram you should see….

Nice little bait and switch there Mr. Gothard. The sensible answer to his logic is, “So stop forcing yourself to have sex every day, and just have sex when you want to.”

Another tool in the Gothard rhetoric bag is to turn a verse’s meaning on its head. Here Mr. Gothard takes a passage which is about the importance of not abstaining and turns it into a passage about the importance of abstaining. Here is how the trick is pulled:
1. first make the claim that abstaining is the key to maintaining enjoyment of sex
2. then find a verse which talks about abstaining
3. then….whooops this passage is actually about not abstaining (except with consent for the specific purpose of praying and fasting)…okay, well let’s just quote the single verse without the rest of the context and overextend its application.

Voila! Now we have a verse which is actually talking about abstaining for 2 weeks each month…hope no one looks closely at it.

He gets by with it because few people do look at it closely. They glance and see that, oh yeah, this verse has to do with abstaining, must be a good support, moving on…

Also, the verse has nothing to do with abstaining being for the purpose of the spiritual, mental and physical health of the couple. NOT EVEN THE OT LAW PERTAINING TO ABSTINENCE MAKES SUCH A CLAIM. Notice he doesn’t ever bother to give a verse to support this claim.

(Continued here in Part 3)

All articles on this site reflect the views of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of other Recovering Grace contributors or the leadership of the site. Students who have survived Gothardism tend to end up at a wide variety of places on the spiritual and theological spectrum, thus the diversity of opinions expressed on this website reflects that. For our official statement of beliefs, click here.

About the author

David Moeller is married and is a father of five children. He grew up in the public school system, but after his family joined the Advanced Training Institute he worked in various training centers from 1995 to 2001. David has been writing about Bill Gothard's abuses of Scripture for over a decade.

23 Comments

jordanmaria December 23, 2011 Reply

Wow. I am completely shocked and horrified by this. I was a kid when my family was in ATI, so I never was exposed to this part.

This might be one of the reasons my parents marriage fell apart. :(
MatthewS December 23, 2011 Reply

It makes you wonder how badly wrong Gothard can get it before people will open their eyes and realize he is not interpreting God's Word, he is twisting it to his own ends.

It amazes me that married couples will let an aged bachelor tell them when they can and cannot be physically intimate.
Pingback : The Sexual Rules of Mr. Gothard – PART ONE | Recovering Grace
SaraJ December 23, 2011 Reply

All this time I've had the vague idea that, if we lived in a patriarchal marriage, my husband was supposed to read the Word to me, or for me, or over me, or somehow prepositional to me to "wash me." Ha, more mind clutter taken care of!

I could read a whole book of these deconstructions. After all, we had to read whole books of the original theology, didn't we?
- Gayle December 24, 2011 Reply
  
  I had that idea in the back of my head too. I can't believe I didn't notice that from reading those verses before. I got my "Gothard" second hand from my parents I am just now realizing how much my beliefs were influenced by this man without my even attending a seminar or reading any IBLP materials.
E. Stephen Burnett December 23, 2011 Reply

Just now, above, I was reading the "tennis" example to my wife, and found myself (as I often do when not wanting to repeat the attributions) giving voices to the "characters."

Somehow Gothard wound up with my best Nixon impersonation.
- "Hannah" December 23, 2011 Reply
  
  lol!
Arlice Gallagher December 23, 2011 Reply

I guess we just ignored these admonitions. But don't forget that in the beginning he wasn't an "aged" bachelor - just a bachelor. I somehow think he must have gotten some sort of thrill from proposing these ideas. He sure didn't find them in the Word of God. We were not in ATI but went to many seminars. I was very astonished the first time someone pointed out his thing about the menstrual cycle being a reminder of Christ's blood shed for us. I didn't believe it but went to the Advanced book and there in my own handwriting was the exact thing. It was another of those things that slipped by in the rush to write everything down. The Lord's Supper is what should remind us of His blood, death and resurrection. Not everyone has a wife and what about the woman who wants to be reminded of Christ's death?
"Hannah" December 23, 2011 Reply

I love how he makes it seem like sex within marriage is a sin. And telling us to "welcome" our period as a "friend"? Apart from being ridiculously hokey, THIS FROM A GUY WHO HAS NEVER HAD A PERIOD?? Yes, sometimes they are miserable. And Billy G, stay out of it! You don't know what you are talking about!
- BeverlyB December 27, 2011 Reply
  
  Though I did find it hilarious that Bill Gothard felt the need to tell staff women (unasked) about how to avoid pain/cramping during their cycles: They should sleep with a light on. Uh huh. Riiiiight. LOL I'm never sure if I should die laughing when I think of it, or be really creeped out that he was giving unasked-for advice on it.
Will Hunsucker December 24, 2011 Reply

Again, truly amazing that so many have said and keep saying "you have to eat the meat and spit out the bones" w/Gothard.

What meat?

The meat of the sound teaching of God's Word?

It's just not there.

What's there instead is the tenacious gristle of Gothard's ideas, opinions and observations, and a horrific disrespect for the plain reading of Scripture.
Laura Iversen December 24, 2011 Reply

while I appreciate the work in taking this apart, can we all just agree that an unmarried man with possibly the gift of celibacy should NOT be giving advice to married people having great sex, instead of sticking his nose in where it shouldn't be, another married couple's life.
- David December 25, 2011 Reply
  
  I can't really agree with that. Paul was single with the gift of celibacy, yet gave advice on marriage, sex, and child raising. And good advice IMO. Conversely, I doubt we would find it reasonable to throw out Song of Solomon as a good model of romantic love and sexual desire because the author was evidentally constitutionally incapable of monogamy. I don't really think Mr Gs advice is bad because he is celibate but because it's legalistic. After all he gives equally bad advice regularly on things he has direct experience in as well. it's his abuse of Scripture and logic, not his singleness, which IMO is the much more serious problem.
  
  And, as the tennis illustration is designed to point out, Mr G is simply wrong about the nature of pleasure, period. His reasoning doesn't make sense when applied to any aspect of enjoyment. IOW it's not bogus because he hasn't experienced sex, it's equally bogus when applied to pleasures even he has experienced. It's his legalistic and mechanistic thinking which leads him astray, not his celibacy. IMO that is.
guest December 26, 2011 Reply

What a momumental ego for one to have to take scriptures and make them say what YOU wish for them to say.What's even more disturbing is many biblical scholar's have attempted to speak with Gothard concerning them and my understanding is instead of welcoming these Godly men.he spurned them and then falsely accused them.Shame on you Mr. Gothard.
Mercy December 27, 2011 Reply

I'd never been in ATI, but I've picked up wisdom booklets now and then from thrift stores and yard sales, and I often found myself confused by them. I'd read Gothard's statements and the Bible verses "supporting" them and be baffled at how they didn't seem to connect. For a while, I assumed I just wasn't "getting it." Eventually, I realized that he was twisting Scripture. It was hard to believe because it all looked so holy, and godly, and separated.
Jaime December 29, 2011 Reply

This is so true, about the bait and switch--and about things slipping by in the "mad dash" to write all the information down! It shocks me with nearly every article I read just how much has wormed it's way into my head without me realizing the source, or the fallacies! Clear twisting of Scripture here!!!
Pingback : Mr. Gothard’s Sexual Rules: Part 3 | Recovering Grace
"Krash" January 26, 2012 Reply

Dave, VERY well written!!!

If, as Bill Gothard suggests, couples are to abstain, either for 7 or 14 days each 28 day cycle, and according to Ephesians, abstaining is only permissible during prayer AND FASTING, then both husband and wife would always have to fast during her period, for the entire 7 or 14 days. First, I can hardly fathom telling my wife she has to fast during her period, and secondly, could the human body sustain a 25-50% reduction in food intake longterm?

So typical of Bill's pseudo-biblical lunacy... "Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm." 1 Timothy 1:7
linda January 31, 2012 Reply

I have so many inappropriate comments to make.
CJ April 7, 2012 Reply

We always ignored that part. I had cycle problems for years. If we had followed this advice, we would never have had sex! Every one is not completely regular on a 28 day cycle. This is idiotic anyway.
- MatthewS April 7, 2012 Reply
  
  CJ, no kidding. This has been a reality in our marriage too. Chalk it up to things single men don't know about real life!
  - Rachel May 14, 2013 Reply
    
    CJ, Thank you! I was finally diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome after years of trouble. My poor hubby would have been celibate for a decade. We wouldn't have any of our four sons. I remember hearing this teaching as a teen and being horrified that no man would want to marry me if he could virtually never have sex with me. Of course, there MUST have been some sin I committed to have such issues. Genetics couldn't have been the reason. So I sinned, or my mom sinned, or my aunts, or my grandmother...family generational sin! That's it! Wait. My DAD's mom had the same problem. Good grief, I was fighting sin from all sides.
    
    It's no wonder I'm in counseling.
Sarah April 10, 2012 Reply

I vividly remember going through this section in the Advanced Seminar...as a single, teenaged, homeschooled, ATI girl I didn't want to think about this!! I WANTED him to move quickly through it because I was so embarrassed!! I mean, honestly, we were sitting in a church auditorium talking about sex!!! (0: Now, as a married woman, I am horrified at what we swallowed hook, line, and sinker...some of it simply because we were too embarrassed to look into it for ourselves!