Sara Jones | Recovering Grace

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Articles about how Bill Gothard mishandles the Bible to support his legalistic viewpoint.

Personal testimonies of finding true freedom through God's matchless grace.

Living and thriving through the grace of God.

Stories and accounts of the destruction caused by the teachings of Bill Gothard.

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An ATI Education, Final Chapter: Guilty Silence

4 January 2016, 14:55

Sara Jones

168

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 […]

An ATI Education, Chapter 5: We the People Under Authority

23 December 2015, 06:00

Sara Jones

Rejecting your God-given authority doesn’t just affect your personal life. It can destroy a whole nation. I mean, just look at the French Revolution! In Wisdom Booklet 18, Gothard spends several pages discussing the the 18th century French Revolution. He chose as his “chief cause” the fact that many intellectuals of the day had rejected […]

An ATI Education, Chapter 4: The Law of Grace

17 December 2015, 14:18

Sara Jones

“If a woman doesn’t cry out when she’s raped, God holds her equally guilty with her attacker.” Bill Gothard states this outright in Wisdom Booklet 36; hundreds of people, most of them well-meaning Christians, read and accepted it. I was one of them. I wrote this series for Recovering Grace to give a glimpse into the long, […]

An ATI Education, Chapter 3: Thou Shalt Not Trap the Eye

14 December 2015, 12:15

Sara Jones

“Ye are the light of the world; a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.” According to Bill Gothard, this verse clearly directs women to avoid clothing with “eye traps” that might attract a man’s lustful attention. As a quick recap, my previous articles explained: 1. Bill Gothard set himself up as the final authority […]

An ATI Education, Chapter 2: Is It Just Me?

19 October 2015, 06:00

Sara Jones

102

“ATI is not user-friendly.” That was the opinion of one former Advanced Training Institute (ATI) student, now an adult, who skimmed over the materials that our parents had to work with. He was right. The Wisdom Booklets are the foundation of Gothard’s homeschool curriculum. There are 54 of them, and at a glance, they’re pretty impressive. […]

An ATI Education, Chapter 1: Under the Umbrella

15 October 2015, 06:00

Sara Jones

How do we grow in wisdom and character? How are we protected from temptation? How does God give us direction for our lives? Say it with me, ye thousands of Gothard’s alumni: “By staying under authority.” Authority is the foundational principle of Gothard’s worldview. “Our faith multiplies as we see how God speaks to us […]

An ATI Education: Introduction

12 October 2015, 06:00

Sara Jones

If a woman doesn’t cry out when she’s raped, God holds her equally guilty with her attacker. This biblical mandate is familiar to every student and parent who went through Bill Gothard’s Wisdom Booklet #36. Reading it as a bald statement like that, it’s hard to believe that a thinking Christian would admit to believing […]

Stolen Dreams

24 August 2015, 07:14

Sara Jones

Through IBLP and his “homeschool” program (the Advanced Training Institute), Bill Gothard stifled hundreds of dreams in the name of godly living. As the first wave of apprenticeship students reached teenager-hood beginning in the 1990s, all of us naturally needed to explore and develop our own gifts. But as we sat through Gothard’s sessions in […]