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.

Tag Archives: rock-music

No Place for Shame!

16 May 2012, 06:00

Joshua B

21

Talking about my family’s involvement in ATI & IBLP is something that is so incredibly difficult for me, mostly because my family refuses to talk about and would like to pretend that it never happened. It wasn’t until I was 25 years old and found myself having panic attacks, intense feelings of shame, and anxiety, that I […]

To My Daughter

14 May 2012, 06:00

Moderator

40

Dear one, I am sorry for all the mistakes I made along the way. I looked to a program to validate what we believed we should do for our children by home educating them. I was more concerned about finishing the “race” (all the required booklets) and having good reports to send off to Headquarters, […]

Others may….

28 March 2012, 06:00

Moderator

25

You cannot! If I had $5 for every time I heard that phrase growing up, I would be very rich. My mom said it when she wanted me to yield to a standard that was set in our home. Mr. Gothard said it when he wanted us to buy into his particular brand of elitist […]

A Response to Bill Gothard

30 January 2012, 06:00

Moderator

275

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

44

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: […]

The Phony “Consequences” of Rock Music

14 November 2011, 06:00

admin

109

One the foundational tenets of Bill Gothard’s teachings is the idea that one’s level of spiritual maturity is directly connected to the number of commitments one makes to God. On the website description of the IBLP publication “Seventeen Basic Commitments” is found this statement: “Spiritual maturity is related to the number of Scriptural commitments that […]

Missing the Beat

3 November 2011, 06:04

RyanR

15

One day several years ago while doing some spring-cleaning, my wife and I stumbled across the personal journals we’d each kept while on staff at the Indianapolis Training Center. For the uninitiated, journal keeping is touted as a very important discipline within ATI/IBLP (Advanced Training Institute and Institute in Basic Life Principles) ranks, right after […]

A Call for Discernment

7 October 2011, 11:02

Moderator

58

Recovering Grace in many ways is a result of the efforts of other Christian leaders who throughout the 80’s and 90’s tried to warn of the dangers inherent in the teachings of Bill Gothard, the Advanced Training Institute, and the Institute in Basic Life Principles. Although many people involved with Gothardism did not listen, some of us […]

When Analogies and Anecdotes Dictated the Music Standard

21 September 2011, 06:30

RyanR

25

Anyone who has spent significant time under Bill Gothard’s teachings can tell you that he likes to use analogies to illustrate his points. While there is nothing wrong with analogies per se, they are a terrible basis upon which to build doctrine. Why? What happens when you come across two analogies that advocate opposite conclusions? […]

Broken Glass

19 September 2011, 07:00

Wendy B

13

As I am going through this process of recognizing and healing from the effects of growing up with IBLP/ATI,  I find that daily life can often draw parallels to what I am feeling internally. I was washing a window in my kitchen today and realized that one of them is broken. It is pointless to […]