A Victim of Bill Gothard's Story: Escaping a Cult & Finding Freedom with Emily Elizabeth Anderson
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- Опубликовано: 6 апр 2022
- Links to things mentioned:
Emily's blog Thriving Forward
thrivingforwardblog.com/blog/
Emily on Facebook:
/ thrivingforwardblog
Stories about the lawsuit against Bill Gothard
www.washingtonpost.com/news/a...
/ with-lawsuit-withdrawn...
Patreon:
/ baremarriage
Here is the link with Knix.com
redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fknix.com&key=fdca749bda65f8445d29ae7a4952e9e2
Here is the link with Knix.ca
redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fknix.ca&key=fdca749bda65f8445d29ae7a4952e9e2
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I just finished reading Jinger's book "Becoming Free Indeed".
I knew I had a different childhood but didn't realize how different. I discovered that my parents had followed Bill Gothard. My father was very legalistic.
He still is.
I grew up very much like the Duggars did.
I left home at barely 17. I didn't let my parents pick out my husband.
I've been married well for 11 years and my husband recommitted his life to Christ recently. He went full on reformed Baptist and scared me badly with similar beliefs to how I was raised. He has since calmed down but I just realized that the legalism I was raised with is not the truth.
I am finally disentangling the true gospel from the "rules" that were engrained in my very bones! I also just didn't realize how abusive my childhood was.
I am now facing my childhood trauma at age 31. I am the oldest of 8. I took care of my always pregnant and very sick mother from age 3 on. I cooked meals at age 6. I literally raised one of my siblings at age 7. I even potty trained her.
I could probably write a book.
The trauma has always been there but I didn't realize I needed to heal from it until now. Its time...
Jinger’s husband is reformed
Writing a book would be very beneficial for yourself and others! I would buy it!
Yep!! If you go to church and they talk about God all the time and there's no talk of Jesus.... *HUGE* red flag!!!
As someone who grew up in ATI, I am so thankful for people who are continuing to speak out about how harmful it is. Thank you for sharing, Emily, and thank you Sheila for continuing to call out dangerous and toxic teaching. -Bonnie
I think the fact that Recovering Grace respected your boundaries when Bill wouldn't is very telling.
I've been watching all these sorts of interviews lately. I grew up on the edge of IBLP but as Emily says, it was during formative years. Between a Baptist education from 5th-12th, a black and white sort of father who was more Word of Faith, and my only friends as teens being in IBLP type patriarchy, by osmosis, even when I didn't really agree, I picked up so many harmful messages of shame and guilt. At 40 with three kids, I have been watching Shiny Happy People and these sorts of interviews and am finding unexpected, but good, uprooting happening in haunting voices or guilt I have always wondered why I couldn't get rid of.
I have a friend that was groomed by Gothard also…thank you so much, Emily, for sharing your story❤️
Wow! I’m glad your mom left with you! That suggestion was so SUS! Leave your parents so young?!? These men have too much power!
He still does unfortunately even though he isn't in the day to day anymore he still rules with and iron fist
What an important testimony. Thank you so much Emily and Sheila.
What a wonderful episode today! I am so blessed by it!
We used the Character Sketches books for devotions growing up and my sister went to a Basic Youth Conflicts conference which really helped her find Christ. Thankfully, the law she learned there was balanced by the gospel and grace she found at home with our wonderful, gentle parents. I knew she had changed. When I got married and started my own family, I ordered the Character Sketches books. Looking through them, I found it very unscriptural and manipulative in its application. Now I understand why.
That is an excellent point….why do you need umbrellas under umbrellas? Isn’t the Jesus umbrella enough? I am beginning to think the reason why BG started this CULTure was to groom young girls (and I mean girls..not women). I also find it strange Gothard never married unless that was because he is attracted to girls instead of women.
Thank you Emily for your story.
I asked about the IBLP umbrella in your live the other day and I’m so happy YT suggested this episode to me after that haha 🤣 I grew up in this cult as well, and still have family members in it. I loved what she said about Jesus, cause I’m still getting there. I’ve heard from others that one of the most healing things I will do after this is reading the gospels.
I fell for basic youth seminars. I had such fun meeting up with friends there and actually have good memories, but I realized eventually that it was crazy. I am saved by grace and grace alone.
I love hearing these stories. My story involves the Bill Gothard cult. I was homeschooled, but not in his thing, however, we went to the basic and advanced seminars and I studied the books from them that I got on my own. The way he twisted scripture always left me so confused! I have been untangling the twisted stuff and learning what the Bible actually says and also studying what makes healthy humans and healthy relationships. As you said, if the fruit is rotten than it isn't of Jesus. I was told that patriarchy just had to be done the "right way" and then it would be good, but it just never is. In the best of cases it still isn't healthy, and I believe that a good God would not tell us to relate to each other in ways that are harmful (*cough-patriarchy-cough*) So, if what I was told isn't healthy- I have been asking myself- IS that really what the Bible says and teaches? Spoiler alert! No. God's designs for us are NOT systems that hurt us.
@@BrianReplies Actually, my assumption/beliefs going into my studies was favoring patriarchy and male headship. So assuming that I am trying to find my beliefs in the Bible is false. As I study from Greek and Hebrew scholors and compare what historians say and so on, I am actually changing my beliefs to what I am learning the Bible actually is saying rather than the beliefs I was taught based on culture and men's biased interpretations. In reality I am throwing out the bathwater and keeping the baby Jesus.
It is incredibly difficult to change ones long held beliefs, and this has been a careful and years long journey for me. I am not finished learning.
I am curious though, do you not believe that God is good? Your comment seems to imply that my belief in a good (while also just) God is a wrong way to view him and approach his word?
@@BrianReplies what you seem to be saying is that it doesn't matter what evidence there is of gendered hierarchies being damaging and hurtful. That it is a good and right teaching because you believe God placed that hierarchy there. But calling evil "good" does not make it so. Ignoring that the fruit is rotten because you believe the tree is good does not make the evidence, the fruit, actually good based on your belief.
It matters what real humans experience and see for themselves when a certain teaching/belief plays out in real time. And denying or minimising real life evidence of harm is not Christ-like or loving. Denying evidence of harm and just saying that we should keep believing and living out what caused the harm because "God said it was good" thinking the evidence isn't evidence at all, is immature and unwise and actually calling evil "good" and good "evil"..
A good God does not call evil "good"--
Jesus said that we would know if something is from God by its fruit. The evidence is important. Mature Christians will not throw out real evidence that proves a teaching is bad because they want to hold onto their belief that the teaching is good and from God.
We need to be wise and not blindly follow traditions just because we always have. It is quite difficult to change long held beliefs, but Christians do need to recognize the rotten fruit of wrong teachings so that we can be continually growing more christ-like and loving God and our neighbors better all the time.
@@BrianReplies You are right that in the worlds eyes "good" does not include justice and God is equally good as well as just. In fact, his goodness is evidenced in the justice towards people like the false god worshipers you mentioned who had the oportunity to repent and chose not to. Our human ideas and especially secular ideas of what is good is not sufficient to explain and allow for God's holiness and justice. We need to be careful however to not to call evil good and good evil. Talking about how God wields justice on wilfully unrepentant people in the Bible, and good vs evil, is a different discussion to how God loves His children and what he wants for us and what his design for humans originally was. The consequence of sin was that the humans could not be in the garden and were seperated from God, but that is not God's good design. Gender hierarchy is also the consequences/evidence of sin, it is not God's good design for humans. As Christian's we are being redeemed and brought back into relationship with him and back to the garden as it were. Similarly, as Christian's we can function more closely to the healthy equality, side by side, joint, one- flesh relationship that he said in the beginning was very good. The only thing that God said was not good (before sin entered the world) was that it wasn't good for the human to be alone. Hierarchy structures place men alone. This is not good. Women should not rule over men any more than men should rule over, but men should also not be alone in their rule. God designed women specifically to be WITH men. When woman was created, now God said it is *very* good-- not because women should be preeminent, but because now the man was no longer alone.
All that said, I do believe that people can have a distinction between who can be ordained and yet still believe in the equality that I mentioned. In the book "Recovering from Biblical manhood and womanhood" the author does not advocate for women to be ordained. So there can be some honest discussions there. The strong hierarchy gender order though in every other relationship is not God's design, but rather evidence of sin in this world. I am one of the people who believed this version of men and women and had no idea that I was promoting the evidence of sin as the goal or ideal. This is calling evil good and good evil.
@@BrianReplies You misunderstand. I do believe that what God says goes. What I am disagreeing with is YOUR interpretation of what God is saying.
@@BrianReplies also, I am not going to get into this much, but I actually have seen and experienced the "other side" of the headship teaching and the fruit of that was also unhealthy human behavior. It did not result in good fruit. And what I mean by good fruit, is a relationship where two christians who love God and are following him are relating in healthy ways (for their mind and bodies) so that they are growing and functioning in the world together in a mature way. The teaching you describe actually led to the man feeling alone with unhealthy co-dependant type relating, bad communication (because, you don't learn to communicate if he just makes the decisions).. just stuff like that.. the mental load became too much for the man and it was over-all just unhealthy and wrong. But people just kept telling them that she had to submit and he had to lead. That teaching works for selfish imature men who aren't already giving to their wives and for the wives who are domineering and want to rule over men. But for the christians who are meek and humble and giving and self sacrificial --this teaching is poison. You can see how a teaching might help some people (to make them swing the other way) but it doesn't help the people who don't need a big swing they just need to see what the goal/ideal of marriage should be. The headship/submit model you and your type advocate has the result of keeping men imature and unable to communicate and keeps them alone, as well as keeping women imature in their faith and looking to their husband (rather than Jesus) to save them. It does not lead to christian maturity and love and healthy mental and emotional well being.
We are all on a journey however and God can use teachings like the headship/submit stuff to move us towards growth (like I said, with the selfish man or a domineering woman)-- but is that teaching God's original created design for humans? Nope.
this is like the crossover of without a crystal ball and Sheila! because stories like this are their content intersecting.
It sounds like Emily and Jinger should meet and form a strong young women’s team 💜💜 U think they would be a formidable team 🤗❤🤗keep speaking the truth Emily you are strong and courageous.
I've been following both of you on Facebook for a while and appreciate the contributions y'all have made to helping me deconstruct from many of the IBLP and IFB false teachings. Thank you for all you do. -Dee
Emily I appreciate you work to tell the truth. It is so sad what happened in the name of Jesus.
Threatening people with car accidents as a consequence of disobedience? So much for "traveling mercies" (which is a weird phrase to begin with).
My mother was a very emotionally abusive mother and serious control freak, I’m so lucky she didn’t find Gothard it probably literally saved my life she got off on beating me with her fist, hand, fist and belts😭
Please answer questions in Episode 147 for Thurman Opper ! Thank You
So true and the beatitudes are also all about the character of Jesus and through being born again, His Spirit came to dwell within us and this is also grace, that He works all thing in us. We´ve got the treasure in clay pots. He is the treasure and we are the clay pots.
2 Cor. 4:7 and so on.
It is beautiful how God is with us through the blood and through the Spirit.
All thanks and all the glory to the Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for our sins, Who rose from the dead, Who gave His holy Spirit and Who sits at the right hand of the Father and Who is soon and very soon coming to take us home!
God bless you all !!!
The Gospel is amazing !!!
Everything you explain about Bill proves he is a narcissist
The legalism I've heard about with group, sounds eerily similar to the legalism of the United Pentecostal Church.
I went to a Gothard event about 50 years ago that was called Basic Youth Conflicts. I thought it was just fine and never considered that Gothard might be a fraud. I guess all of the success and idolization in the following years changed him.
Shiela did you have any family that lived in Fremont Ca. ?
I've noticed these folks never EVER use the name of Jesus.
It's always " God says" "God wants you to. "
Good example being the Transformed Wife and her fan base.
The Transformed Wife is so toxic!
@@cindycaricos3379 indeed. She preaches obligation sex and submitting to abusive reprobates and not holding sinful men to account contrary to the Bible.
Strange how the stories in the bible were taken from much older Egyptian writings and Greek mythology and philosophy.
Yes. There were 40,000 stories submitted to the making of the Bible. So can one even imagine what was not included!
Creepy behavior from a groomer! My goodness, that he kept finding her out of crowd sounds like he’s a psycho looking for vulnerable victims.
❤❤❤
Ha, I also was raised in the Midwest and married a man from Oregon, who definitely didn’t have all that patriarchy baggage ☺️
The comments below trying to refute Emily’s own lived experience are examples of DARVO which abusers use to discredit those who expose them: Deny, Attack and Reverse Victim and Offender. There seems to be a very professional effort to discredit Emily using power and money to defend an abusive system.
Oops I meant this as a reply to the bottom comment attacking Emily saying she did this for money
Exactly Sheila! Uproot this _bad tree_ and plant something better, aligned with Jesus Christ!
But working for Bill and moving gets her out from under the umbrella of her father. He is causing her danger according to his teaching. He is being inconsistent.
Do you think that one of the characteristics of these fundamentalist cults is great criticism of other Christians, esp. from the pulpit? That has been my experience. It has always repulsed me.
Hmmm...now I know why your so anti-Mr.Gothard..
I’m a little confused. You say he didn’t teach about Christ but the oaper you showed, the umbrella example, had CHRIST at the top not God.
Coming from the IBLP and ATI cult they put Christ on it, but when you said Christ they corrected you to use God instead 😞. If you used Christ you would literally get punished by them. I watched one girl who went to Oklahoma City training center and was asked to leave the next day when she was caught talking to a boy who she had know for years. Her dad had given her permission, but when she tried to talk about the Umbrella saying Christ they literally shut her up and told her no that's God, there reason was God was 3 in the same, and to always use God never Jesus 😞😞 she was told to leave the next day
@@Thebinative If you want to know what God is like, look to Jesus. He's the image of the invisible God. I think that verse us in Colossians.
@@stephenkammerling9479 I don't think that really has anything to do with my comment, thank you for the insight though
@@Thebinative Your comment gave insight into the fact that they were denying the Deity of Jesus Christ, so I think my response to your insightful comment was very appropriate. Of course what Gothard or his staff said is outright heresy. I was quoting a Scripture concerning who Jesus really is, and there are countless more I could have quoted, and the context of the verses would have enforced the truth even more. I'm 73, and I recall my Baptist Church getting involved in Gothard's teaching in the early 70's, and I went to his basic seminar. I don't think at that time most pastors were aware of Gothard demanding that his people don't talk about Christ, but say God instead. Also Gothard telling his people not to say Christ may not have happened until many years later. Eventually the extremes of Gothard's teachings tore my church apart and many people including myself and family left. The church thankfully recovered, getting the extremists out, and the church actually became more representative of the community where it is located. That, right there is a WHOLE different story.
In Jinger Duggar's testimony about being into Gothard's teachings she mentioned that she and her now husband played back some of Gothard's lectures, and one where Gothard ssid a person needed to clean his or her life up before coming to Christ. Jinger said she was shocked, and she wondered why she didn't catch that error immediately.
I hope people listening to all these horrible stories about that guy bill (which i never heard of and don't want to) get a bad idea about homeschool.
I live in Canada and the transgender perversion agenda is being pushed so hard. Homeschool is the best choice in my opinion
Home-schooling is wonderful. I think the problem is some Christians use homeschool to control their children instead of educate them.
I'm not here to defend ATI or IBLP but she's not being totally honest. In the wisdom booklets we spent a lot of time memorizing and studying the Sermon on the Mount, there was talk about Jesus. We were in ATI for years & regret it, but it is not that Jesus isn't mentioned. There is a lot of studying the New Testament, but the Spirit is missing.
Emily is not being honest about her stories.
ruclips.net/p/PLxFImQgZ7ecM61Jsi4HKgVaUd0dd0UbOZ
Why on earth would you choose not to believe her? Why would you choose to believe professionally produced propaganda designed to protect the powerful people who oppressed and abused so many young girls?
That is professionally produced DARVO🤮🤑🤮
@@stregalilith So anytime a woman says she is abused, it's true. And if you show that she is lying, then you are guilty of DARVO. Is that your position? So women never lie, right?
What do u think about the war in Ukraine?
What is wrong with Shaunti Feldhaun?!
Why are you the only authority on this subject? Who dubbed you the authority on it? I’m not trying to be mean… I’m genuinely curious.
We conducted the largest study ever been done of women's marital and sexual satisfaction, surveying 20,000 predominantly evangelical women on their marital & sexual satisfaction, and then asking them if they had ever been taught or had ever believed certain typical evangelical teachings about marriage and sex. From that, we could identify which teachings hurt sex & marriage. All that went into our book The Great Sex Rescue! We also analyzed the best-selling sex & marriage books, of which For Women Only was one. We found that Shaunti taught a number of the most toxic messages, and indeed was one of the main sources of one of them. On our rubric of healthy sexuality teaching, she scored 11/48, and was third from the bottom of the 13 books that we studied. It's all in The Great Sex Rescue! She also popularized the idea that men want respect and women want love, but she did so using a double-barrelled question, which was flagged by her survey expert as being problematic. Then she never asked women. When others did ask women, women answered the same as men, so she assumed a gender difference without actually looking. For an example of the problems with her survey questions, we take one apart here: tolovehonorandvacuum.com/2021/01/fixed-it-for-you-we-fix-a-survey-question-so-it-doesnt-enable-date-rape/
You’re throwing out these words like “legalism” and names but you’re not saying what these people teach that’s so legalistic. 🤔🤔
And also… what’s wrong with teaching modesty? 🧐 I’m so confused as to how this is a helpful podcast.
What is deconstruction and how do you do this??
Legalism is when you specify you have to do things a very specific way or you are not one of us - in cults the conclusion is you are not a Christian and are going to hell if you don't follow their rules exactly. As an example there are rules on what women can and cannot wear. Biblical modesty is about not flaunting your wealth whereas many cults turn it into "if a woman cuts her hair/wears pants/wears anything but a long-sleeved blouse" she is not following God.
Deconstruction is taking time to read the Bible, research, and observe the world and see if what you were taught fits those realities. It's about discovering what the sect of the religion you were raised with might have added or twisted and learning to relate to God in a healthy way.
Deconstruction can and often does mean, walking away from one's faith. Like in the case of Kevin Max of D.C. Talk re-examining his faith in deciding he no longer believes what he once did.
In this case they're using deconstruction from what I can tell to say that they deconstructed from the cult they were in.
It's not always clear what people mean by the terms they use.
Ministry leaders have a huge responsibility not to behave in the ways that these people did obviously.
I worry that people will blame Jesus for something he never did. Anytime you have man involved in telling people what the Bible says there is a potential for abuse. Praise God the scriptures are readily available in anyone's language and we can study the words of Christ for ourselves.
Many many people who claim the name of Christ and especially ones who do ungodly things in the name of Christ do not actually know the Lord Jesus Christ.
Makes sense that the enemy would use religion as well as secularism to lead people astray.
Matthew 7:21
Is answered by John 6:40
There is several examples of Jesus condemning legalism in the Bible in actions. So on the Sabbath day the Pharisees made it legalism to the point of having no common sense when it came to 'rest'and went mad when Jesus healed people on the day and he questioned them if one should do good or save someone's life on the Sabbath. They went wrathful and tried to kill him for him for speaking logic and sense. They turned into a day where you couldn't do common sense things like help someone in need because you were supposed to be ' resting.'
Legalism is if you obey the 'law' or 'rules' things will go better for you, if you don't you will be in trouble
I got saved under His ministry. I knew and went through his ministry and homeschooling. His teaching was incredible. Both my kids are in their 40s and doing wonderfully. I can't believe how much you are twisting this teaching. The fact that you're on here trying to destroy his reputation. It makes me wonder how much money you're after.ally think you need to deal with the hurt from your dad's Abuse.
I and my family went to the "Basic Youth" seminars that would come to Seattle once a year back in the late '70s and early '80s. I was a teen so I didn't absorb a ton of what was being taught, but I do remember looking up a lot of Bible verses and starting to learn how to study the Bible, and also applying at least once principle which had a big affect on me. I don't think that "all" the teaching is screwed up. I'm sure much of it is good. However I do believe this young lady and the others I've read about who describe the way Bill acted with them because all the stories are so similar - you can't make that stuff up (unless you all meet beforehand and agree to tell the same story).
@@blossombolton9829 Yes, same with Benny Hinn, Gothard, or any false teacher, it’s not that they’re telling 100% lies. All it takes to spoil the milk is a little bit of bile, and that little bit of falsehood is all it took to turn Gothard’s ministry into a legalistic nightmare.
What’s incredibly telling is when you start comparing some of BG’s main teachings to what the Word of God actually says. You’ll find that BG quotes very partial passages of scripture to support his false teachings. Go back to the basic manual and look at his teaching on ancestral sins and the need to aids out all sources of it in your family history. BG quoting only the first part of Exodus 20:5 as the support for this heretical teaching while completely ignoring the second part of the verse is one example of many of BG’s heresy.
When I first started asking questions to people that were deep into IBLP, I was met with the same exact reactions that Emily goes into during this interview. I was accused of going against my “Godly authority” and was even officially turned over to satan when I wouldn’t back down with my questioning of BG’s teachings.
If your basis of your walk with Christ is in anything related to IBLP or BG’s teachings, I’d really question if I was truly a Believer.
Oh sweetheart the Kool aid Bill gives is sweet but in the end it's bitter. Read the stories from Recovering Grace. Even Josh Duggar is a prime example of things you did not see with IBLP and ATI. Bill's own brother had a wife but yet lived with his mistress on IBLP property and we where all told (those who knew) to say nothing or it would literally take away our chance of getting into heaven
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