Moderator | Recovering Grace

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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.

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Uniquely Me!

6 February 2012, 06:00

Moderator

Journal Entry, September 2009– “I want more!! I really thought I could be happy with this life…but I was wrong. I feel like I’m going to explode. This isn’t me– *sigh* I don’t think it is, anyway. The sad part is, I don’t really know who “me” is…but it’s not this person, I’m sure of that. I […]

My Journey Toward Healing (So Far)

2 February 2012, 06:00

Moderator

This is my story of how I have found healing from my experiences in Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute (ATI) and Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP)–and in my family, as it was under the influence of these organizations. You may not agree with how I came to find healing; you may not agree with my […]

A Response to Bill Gothard

30 January 2012, 06:00

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The year 2011 was an interesting chapter in the legacy of Bill Gothard, the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), and the Advanced Training Institute (ATI). Through what we believe is the hand of God at work, many of those who were raised under Gothard’s teachings began to reach out to–and compare notes with–others who […]

A Legalist Goes Shopping

28 January 2012, 06:00

Moderator

I was musing over how a legalistic mindset makes life more difficult, and wrote the following illustration: Rebecca walks into the shoe store. She needs church shoes. She’s uncomfortable; the first salesman to see her is male. He walks toward her. She immediately does a mental check of her outfit to make sure it’s modest: […]

Sensitivity vs. Callousness

24 January 2012, 06:00

Moderator

Callousness Sometimes Won The leadership at Advanced Training Institute (ATI) training centers could be incredibly insensitive in dealing with personal tragedies and misfortunes. Especially if those situations affected, in any way, the performance of one’s duties at the training center. Sometimes, just the fear that leadership would misunderstand or react insensitively to a situation could […]

The Thing About Purity

12 January 2012, 08:30

Moderator

The funny thing about purity is how the pursuit of it drove so many people into utter promiscuity. Odd statement, I know. But let me explain. It wasn’t the concept of being or remaining pure that led me to that room where I reached the pinnacle of my self-destruction one night. It was a process […]

Snooping, Spying, and Snitching: A Training Center Status Quo

10 January 2012, 06:45

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Former ATI students share stories of how they were watched, spied on, and tattled on regularly At Advanced Training Institute (ATI) training centers, students and staff quickly learned not to expect privacy in any activity. E-mail, telephone conversations, and even letters and packages from home were monitored for contraband and for forbidden contacts, especially with […]

The Glory of Hair

9 January 2012, 06:00

Moderator

Gothard was not shy about what he found to be attractive on a woman’s head–long hair, soft curls. I heard girls reacting to that all the time. There were girls who couldn’t get their hair to hold a curl. One friend said to me, “Look how limp my hair is, and I had it all […]

Energy Givers, Energy Wasters, and Energy Takers

28 December 2011, 05:00

Moderator

A teaching we heard often in ATI was the need to be an energy giver. Let me start by clarifying that I firmly believe that we ought to reach out to others, encourage them with smiles and kind words, look for ways to serve, and just generally be a friendly and nice person. But what […]

Training Center Christmas Memories

27 December 2011, 06:48

Moderator

Recovering Grace asked former Advanced Training Institute (ATI) students what they remembered about the Christmas holidays — and the preparations for them — at the various training centers at which they served. While some of the students had pleasant memories, others remembered stress-filled weeks of onerous, highly-detailed work, culminating in large events that they were […]