Was a woman raped? Don’t jump to her defense—God might hold her just as guilty as her attacker.

In Wisdom Booklet 36, Gothard discusses the legal penalties for kidnapping, assault, battery, and rape. He writes: “God has established some very strict guidelines of responsibility for a woman who is attacked. She is to cry out for help. The victim who fails to do this is equally guilty with the attacker.” (pg. 1839, first edition)

The Wisdom Booklets were revised and re-released as a second edition in the early 2000s. This particular passage was reworded to say: “God has established guidelines of responsibility for one who is attacked. When a woman is attacked, she is to cry out for help. The victim who fails to do this is considered guilty, even as the attacker is guilty.” (pg. 48, second edition)

Even when given the opportunity to revise his previous statement, Gothard merely restated it.

The “strict guidelines” he refers to are in Deuteronomy 22:23–27:

If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her, then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbor’s wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.

But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die. But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbor, and slayeth him, even so is this matter: For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her.

Most of the Old Testament laws regarding women are problematic when you try to apply them to modern life. For one thing, our nation’s laws are not based on ancient Jewish law. Second, women today are not merely a commodity to be kept pure and sold to the highest bidder. Third, even Christians aren’t bound to follow Old Testament law, much less the whole nation, right?

But Gothard had spent 35 booklets addressing this kind of reasoning, in among “resources” about rabbits, bankruptcy, Abraham Lincoln, sets and subsets, spectroscopy… (Yet again, the volume of information we had to take in was mind-numbing.)

And we didn’t learn his views just from the Wisdom Booklets. They were repeated at every conference, every seminar, in every publication. All other approved IBLP teachers taught exactly the same viewpoint. The teachings soon ceased to be “Gothard’s teachings” and became the truths that all of us accepted.

So before we even asked any questions, we knew who we should turn to for God’s wisdom (Chapter 1: Authority). We knew he had the right answers even when our instincts told us otherwise (Chapter 2: I Am Always Wrong).

We already understood how a woman must always protect herself against a man’s lust (Chapter 3: Eye Traps). In the case of rape, well, God never released Christians from following His Law once we were saved by “grace” (Chapter 4: Legalism), and that went for our country’s laws as well (Chapter 5: God-ordained Government).

So ATI families—my family among them—read that a woman who didn’t cry out was as guilty of the rape as her attacker, and it fit in completely with everything we’d been conditioned to believe. We accepted it.

Then we moved right over it to read about why some people are genetically weak to certain temptations, how eagles illustrate deliverance from evil, and graphing on an X and Y axis.

Had you been so intensively educated according to Gothard’s worldview, it’s highly possible that you would have done the same thing.

**

But…

Those “strict guidelines” haunted me. Because of the heavy emphasis on eye traps and dressing “modestly,” I was highly aware of myself as a sexual temptation to all men at all times. Every time I ventured into public, I risked inciting a man to violent lust and rape.

Gothard assured us that God would deliver those who cried out:

“How has God provided for deliverance from evil through the law of crying out?

A Christian who is attacked by another person is wrestling not just “… against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Eph. 6:12

Because our battle is spiritual, God commands us to cry out for spiritual protection. His law on the matter in contained in Exodus 22 and Deuteronomy 22, and He makes the following promises to deliver those who follow those instructions.

“When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back; this I know, for God is for me.” (Ps 56:9) “… When I am in trouble, incline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily.” (Ps 102:2)” (WB 18, pg 1797, first edition)

But that was a cold comfort. We weren’t talking about an invisible spirit here, but a flesh-and-blood man who could violate my flesh-and-blood body. What if I were attacked and he threatened me with a knife or a gun? What if panic choked me and I couldn’t make any noise? Should I try to shout anyway and at least die in innocence?

The answer was yes, apparently. Gothard explains,

“Some women have been advised that it is safer for them to cooperate with one who would morally attack them than to offer resistance. This counsel not only violates Scripture, but is not valid, as is illustrated in the following account…” (pg. 48, second edition)

What follows is an unverifiable, anonymous anecdote about a man who heard a woman scream, went looking for her, and scared off the attacker. That is Gothard’s sole support for this claim.

If we did suffer rape, though, Gothard’s materials included a chart to help us get over it:

Our “responsibility” was clear, then. It did seem harsh that, at a time when a woman was at her most panicked and most vulnerable, God demanded that she fulfill the proper rituals to maintain her innocence.

But by the time we got to Wisdom Booklet 36, attended all those conferences, read those newsletters, and worked in Gothard’s training centers… that was the God we knew.

He was the God who didn’t speak directly to us, but only through our authorities. He punished us for making our own decisions. He demanded that we keep not only his Laws, but a myriad of other rules provided by Gothard. If we failed in any area, it was because we weren’t being obedient enough or humble enough for God to grant us enough grace.

This was a God who would hold a woman guilty for her own rape.

And no matter how it hurt our spirits to do it, we agreed, because the alternative was destruction at the hand of this same God.

But who was teaching this perspective? Bill Gothard, whose brother maintained sexually abusive relationships with seven women at one time—while Bill knew about it and did nothing to stop it.  Bill Gothard, who himself has been accused of sexually harassing multiple young women.

He bound us up in legalism. He taught us to accept spiritual abuse as part of who God is. Meanwhile, the only principle that Gothard ever really lived by was his idea of absolute authority, which he used—among other ways—to blame women for their own sexual harassment and assault.

Anyone else is welcome to pick out the good parts of Gothard’s teachings from the bad—you’ll have to dig through a lot of nasty bones to find the meat. As far as I’m concerned, he and his theology are indefensible.

**

It was a long and burdensome journey to get know Gothard’s god. It’s been a difficult and painful journey away from him. Parents are grieving that they exposed their children to years of false teachings. We former students struggle with confusion and anger. Many seek real grace and the real God, while many have walked away from faith altogether.

Dear Bill: I can’t speak on behalf of all who once followed you. But I can speak for myself and many others who know the spiritual and emotional devastation you wreaked. Consider this our “crying out” — to the real God, not the angry graceless being you created. We cry out to the God of abounding grace, the defender of the weak and the oppressed.

And he has heard us.

ADDITIONAL ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES
An ATI Education: Introduction
An ATI Education, Chapter 1: Under the Umbrella
An ATI Education, Chapter 2: Is It Just Me?
An ATI Education, Chapter 3: Thou Shalt Not Trap the Eye
An ATI Education, Chapter 4: The Law of Grace
An ATI Education, Chapter 5: We the People Under Authority