Featured Article | Recovering Grace

Have you Shiny Happy People? Looking for more info? Start here.

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.

You are here:

Home
Featured Article

Category Archives: Featured Article

Reflections on Healing After Surgery

21 October 2013, 06:00

RyanR

Within the Recovering Grace community, many often are confronted by well-meaning friends or family who believe that the spiritually wounded should just get over it. The refrains vary from, “You’re being bitter,” to “You just need to leave it at the cross,” to “You WANT to hang on to this.” I recently underwent lumbar spinal […]

The Blessings of God

17 October 2013, 06:00

Wendy B

Bill Gothard’s courtship literature promises rewards to those who do courtship right and consequences for those who date — rewards and consequences that are not promised in Scripture. I’ll take examples from Gothard’s recent courtship teaching, then share my own experience with courtship and dating. In the article “What Is Courtship?” Gothard lists the Foundational […]

Overcoming Relational Aggression

14 October 2013, 06:00

Moderator

Is spiritual abuse and relational aggression happening to you? This is how it used to play out in my life. I just had you over to my house to talk and you pulled my movie collection off the shelf and shivered. I ask you what you are thinking; I would hate to miss any hidden message […]

My Heart’s Guardian: Missing in Action

10 October 2013, 06:00

Moderator

My family joined the Advanced Training Institute (ATI) when I was about 9 years old. I was taught the traditional courtship by ATI and Bill Gothard. Keep my mind pure. If I fall in love with someone who is not my spouse I’ll have less love to give him. My future spouse will ask my […]

Anti-Law

7 October 2013, 06:00

Moderator

Grace 101 Over the past several Grace 101 posts I have focused on the parable of the sower from Matthew 13 to give us a structure for looking at enemies of grace. I started with the trampled or trodden path, the hard ground that would not let the seed take root. But other enemies take […]

“Rocky” Arguments and a Double Standard

3 October 2013, 06:00

admin

Many people over the years have expressed concern with the way Bill Gothard misuses Scripture—not to mention basic logic—in his attempts to validate his dogmatic pseudo-spiritual requirements for “successful” living. A friend of mine recently shared a document (pictured) obtained while attending an IBLP (Institute in Basic Life Principles) conference on effective communication. In […]

What’s Wrong with Guarding your Heart?

30 September 2013, 06:00

Moderator

I was raised in an ultra-Conservative Christian homeschool environment, during what I consider the heyday of the “guard your heart”/purity/courtship movement (90s and early 2000s). Needless to say, that teaching affected and continues to affect me deeply. What started out as a (presumably) well-intentioned effort by parents to prevent their children from experiencing pain, has […]

The Cave

26 September 2013, 06:00

Moderator

Once upon a time, there was a cave, and in this cave, there were a group of people who were captives. They had been there since birth and knew no other life. Indeed, they did not even know they were captives. These captives were chained in such a way that they were always looking at […]

From Rules to Grace

23 September 2013, 06:00

Moderator

In the past few years, since I have expressed many disagreements with the theology of Bill Gothard, ATI (Advanced Training Institute), and his parent ministry, IBLP (Institute in Basic Life Principles), I have invariably been asked how ATI had negatively impacted my life. Here is my story. My family joined ATI in the ‘90s. It […]

Does Jesus Love Me?

19 September 2013, 06:00

Moderator

Jesus loves me. I need to know this. Like, not some kind of empty platitude I say or others say to me. I need to KNOW this. Not like something I sing on a Sunday morning after watching my parents rush around, getting us ready for church. Looking like a perfect child, putting on the […]