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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 […]

Thoughts on “Tangled”

17 January 2012, 06:00

admin

My wife and I watched the movie Tangled last night. For months now, we’d heard from other former ATI students that the movie was a great analogy for spiritual abuse and the journey out of a legalistic system of thought. It’s even been referenced a number of times here on Recovering Grace. After watching it, […]

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

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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 […]

My Life in ATI, part three

13 December 2011, 06:00

DavidA

Courtship? After ALERT, our family moved to North Carolina. I had a crush on a girl back in Texas and told my Dad about it. My Dad thought that our personalities were not compatible, but I was insistent, so he told her father about it. The girl’s father said that they would be attending a […]

My Life in ATI, part one

29 November 2011, 06:00

DavidA

Beginnings. I was raised in a normal home until we joined the Advanced Training Institute (ATI) in 2000. Up until then we did normal family things and went to church. I had friends and held normal expectations of myself — as did my parents. Our family attended the annual conference in Knoxville and quickly afterwards […]

Forced Family Relationships

10 November 2011, 06:03

Moderator

The Advanced Training Institute (ATI) encouraged strong family relationships. This was a big draw for many families–seeing the tight-knit, glowing families that hinted of yesteryear’s ideals. But some ATI parents took it upon themselves to force this family ideal in order to be the perfect ATI family. Most homeschoolers I know outside of ATI have […]

Dear Dad and Mom

7 November 2011, 06:00

Moderator

As many of you are aware, Recovering Grace was born from the hearts of children, now adults, raised using Bill Gothard’s home-school program, The Advanced Training Institute (ATI). We reached adulthood and realized that life was not what we were told…that there are not seven steps to health, wealth and general prosperity. That no […]

Failing Formulas

2 November 2011, 06:30

Moderator

For 23 years I lived with the understanding that there is a formula for everything: “If you do A-B-C, the result will be X-Y-Z.” If I followed the steps of 1-2-3, I’d have a successful education. If I do exactly these things, my marriage will be perfect. If I operate by a specific code of […]