I Am a Survivor of the Bill Gothard Homeschool Cult
/When I was six or seven years old, my family joined Bill Gothard’s program: the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP). I remember a hotel room and strangers babysitting me when we visited Oklahoma City for my parents to attend a training. I believe part of the reason my parents were attracted to the program was the support and community provided exclusively to homeschoolers. Homeschooling in the 1980s was pretty isolated, barely legal, with few resources available. All the promises of children avoiding common youth conflicts, along with the calming, sureness of Bill, were attractive, too, I don’t doubt.
My personal experience with ATI (or the Advanced Training Institute, IBLP’s program for homeschool families) leaves me with mixed emotions. While I am grateful for the unique experiences I had and the friendships I formed, I have also spent the last fourteen years (updated to reflect 2023) of my life recovering from the cult teachings and beliefs that have wreaked havoc on my relationships, mind, and emotional and spiritual well-being. The core of my formative years was spent absorbing the Gothard culture and way of thinking. I was taught it was absolute truth. And this became the plumb line for my life and belief system.
Gothard systematically created a community of authoritarian control. Never disguised, the Umbrella of Authority teaching was the foundation of everything he built. Women and children were most vulnerable, but this teaching of hierarchy created a toxic culture in which you either could always pass the buck and shirk personal responsibility in a situation or be shamed, blamed, and disciplined by anyone in a position of authority over you. Our parents were subject to the program directors and Gothard himself, while students were to submit to them as well as to the fellow students who had been placed in a higher position.
The teachings brought forward by Gothard, and others within the fundamentalist Christian construct, fed the worst part of humanity. Those already full of shame or regret or who had a covert lust for power were drawn to Gothard’s programs. Hurting, broken, searching parents flocked to the messages and hope given with the promises of a holy, God-honoring life, but the ugliest parts of their hearts were being groomed instead of becoming healed and whole.
The demons our parents already battled were caged but not destroyed, until one day they had been fattened and so craftily disguised they became unrecognizable in their original form. The demons didn’t die, but instead they got stronger as they feasted on the power of the authority that had been cunningly wrapped in a cloak of biblical truth. And the very children their parents were trying to save were instead destroyed by those demons they had been told were under control.
Growing up inside ATI came with a lot of expectations. Attending my first Basic Seminar was a rite of passage. I was expected to do daily family Wisdom Searches in addition to personal Bible time and Scripture memory, obeying without question and following the plethora of rules from ATI, my family, and my church.
I was groomed to be a keeper at home—a dutiful, submissive wife and mother of many children. There was no other end goal, except supporting a husband in ministry. College was discouraged in our homeschool community until I hit college age, and then suddenly it was okay only because I might need a degree if my husband were to fall ill someday. My identity as a woman was tied to my purity, modesty, and ministry skills.
Starting at about twelve years old, I taught in many Children’s Institutes, and by sixteen I was teaching the Character First! program in several elementary schools in the area where I lived. I also spent time in Taiwan teaching English and traveled to China for English camps—all because of a collaboration with IBLP.
While my friends were going to Headquarters or working at a Training Center, I was different. I had an aversion to what I was seeing in those young people. They would come home exhausted or sick, worked to the bone, kicked out for breaking a rule, or they would recruit others to attend a program with them. I also had no interest in making a tacky tapestry vest.
Students frequently asked each other, “When did your family join ATI?” and the longer you had been in, the more special it seemed. There weren’t too many in our circles who had been part of ATI longer than my family, and that seemed to be the only thing that set me apart. There was also the fact that there were only two children in our family, making us stand out. Once, during a trip to the Knoxville conference, I was asked by a student on the bus, “What’s wrong with your mom? Why only two kids?”
While the teachings of IBLP and the influences allowed in that circle brought me some of the relationships I still treasure today, those same teachings have destroyed or damaged other relationships I dearly value.
My childhood and innocence were taken from me. I became fearful, worried about my appearance: Was I modest or dressed neatly enough, was a man looking at me, was I safe? Was I breaking God’s heart by sinning or not confessing my sins? I always rehearsed the proper things to say to defend my beliefs and constantly analyzed my character to see where it was lacking and what additional development I needed to focus on, memorizing long passages of Scripture and the names of God and their meanings.
Mental health was not something generally discussed, and I believe this lack of understanding and intentional avoidance of the science of psychology helped create an unhealthy culture where unquestioned obedience to authority masked abuse, mental illness, and domestic violence.
The widespread acceptance of IBLP and Gothard’s programs, I believe, show a deeper cause for concern than is understood by the general public. Within Christianity in America today—and this started decades ago with the formation of contemporary fundamentalism and evangelical thought—people are taught to never question a man of God and, if a ministry is sharing the gospel, to ignore any problems for the sake of Christ. The image of a unified Christianity is paramount and tainting the name of a church or a leader is shameful, wrong, and akin to mutiny. Not to mention it hurts the reputation of God himself. Bottom line, those in authority are protected, while the victims, innocent, and hurt are left to conform or rebel.
Most people don’t set out to start or join a cult, but the lures of power and the cajolement of having all the right answers, combined with the natural needs and base desires of the human soul, consumed Gothard and those around him.
The influence of IBLP is far reaching even still today with an impact much greater than most people realize.
My statement could be much longer and more detailed. And someday perhaps I will write in greater length about my experience, but for now, know this: My identity is more than how I was raised. And yours is too.
If you, too, are a survivor of or have been hurt by ATI or IBLP, please know that you are not alone. A support resource is Recovering Grace with their accompanying online Facebook community.
If you too are a survivor of or have been hurt by ATI or IBLP, please know that you are not alone. A support resource is Recovering Grace with their accompanying online Facebook community.