Bill Gothard: What Christians Should Know About His Unbiblical Teachings, w/ Don Veinot & Ron Henzel

[Music] welcome to the Alisa Childers podcast where we equip Christians to identify the core beliefs of historic Christianity discern its counterfeits and proclaim the gospel with Clarity kindness and truth and I've just gotten off a call with the authors of a book called a matter of basic principles and it's basically about Bill Gothard and his cultist teachings so I've just talked with Don Veno and Hensel who wrote this book about 20 years ago but it just had an update with a new forward by Ginger Dugger Volo now many of you may recognize that name because I did a podcast episode with ginger and Melissa dhy where we talked through her story of coming out of the unbiblical teachings of Bill Gothard now the Bill Gothard uh teachings have been very influential in Evangelical culture for the last few decades and so this is an important episode for us to understand maybe how those have infiltrated the church and how we can spot them and I loved all the Practical things we talked about one of the highlights of today's episode for me was when Ron talked about how sometimes Cults have Evangelical statements of belief and that can be very disarming for Christians who think oh they're checking the right boxes doctrinally but then there's this authoritarian side um and there can be high control and things like that so we talked through that we talked through the pillars of the bill goth teachings and how that has really infiltrated a lot of Christian homes and churches through home school curriculums and we talked about the continued influence of Bill goth and his teachings and what we can be looking out for so this is an important episode I also want to encourage you to go back into the archives and listen to that episode with ginger because she lived it she came out of it with the Bible as her Authority so here's my conversation with Don Veno and Ron Hensel well I'm so thrilled to have Don Veno and Ron Hensel on with us you guys have written a great book well this is actually the 20th anniversary edition now of a matter of basic principles and it's all about the teachings of Bill Gothard now if any of my audience if that name doesn't ring a bell you might remember my conversation with ginger Dugger voo where she talked about coming out of the uh the gothar teachings and of course you may recognize her family from the TLC shows about was it 14 Kids and Counting then it was 15 Kids and Counting the families with lots of kids you know lots of you guys remember those um but what a lot of people may not realize is that underneath those TV shows and those families there are some really unb IAL teachings and we're going to talk about those today but what I'd love to have you guys do first is tell us a little bit about yourselves what you do Don will start with you well I am I grew up as an atheist my father was an atheist not a uh intellectual atheist he just wanted to live how he wanted to live and God was sort of in the way so uh that was how I grew up I didn't really know anything different I met a young lady when I was the rip old age of 15 she was a Christian she should have dated me she did I'm glad uh she married me she shouldn't have I'm glad she did uh and I became a Believer after our son was born three years later uh she met some Jehovah's Witnesses and had a real passion to try to reach them and came home and said I don't really know what they believe let's figure this out we went and saw my pastor who didn't know what they believed either uh and so it became an adventure to sort this out one thing led to over and over the years we ended up starting midwell Christian Outreach as a mission to Cults and non-Christian religions mostly Jehovah's Witnesses the international Churches of Christ uh and then over time it brings start to doing kind of whoever calls we try to help them uh and these days I spend probably as much time going to events with wiccans and Druids and Satanist the parliament of world's religions which has a gathering this last time of 8500 from around the planet uh to try to talk with them about the gospel compar worldviews so we're missionaries to cult non-Christian religions in the process we end up having to deal with false teaching in the church which is how Bill Gothard entered Our Lives wow uh that's a little bit about our background and how we got started well and I also want to mention for our audience one thing that may be of interest is that Don and his wife Joy co-wrote a book about the anagram with marshia Montenegro and so one of my most popular podcast episodes with was with Marsha talking about the anagram I should say most famous or inFAMOUS depending on who you ask about it but um you know a lot of people tell me that that episode was very persuasive for them of you know being able to let go of the inogram and and even renounce it I had people even tell me they repented of the inogram after they watched that episode so for our audience uh it's called Richard Roar and the enag secret and that's a book that that Don and his wife Joy co-wrote with u Marsha so definitely pick that up Ron tell us about yourself well I oh boy my story is more complicated than Don but I'll try to condense it um I was raised in a Roman Catholic Family um which was um you know in some ways was typical but in some it was a faithful family in terms of having me go to church and learn the things I needed uh nevertheless I became an agnostic uh by the time I was in my teens um shortly after my dad died when I was 15 I began searching uh and that same year I did become a Christian I I I heard the gospel outside the church I was raised in and that did cause a little stress in my family but um I attended a Bible College met my wife there uh worked a little bit in Christian Ministry for a few years and um and then um I had kind of a um hit a spiritual low in my life and as a result my wife and I joined a group we thought was going to help us but it was it ended up being very abusive uh even we would say cultish and uh after about five and a half years in that group I I I felt like I I barely survived it in some ways but I did I did get out and my wife did as well uh and I had a lot of questions and one of the questions was connected to Bill Gothard because the leader claimed that he had once worked for Gothard and that um that made me wonder H how much of what I was went through goes back to something Bill Gothard had taught well at this point I was working at Wheaten College where I eventually got my ma in biblical studies I I went to their libraries I I could find hardly anything that he'd written there um now I didn't know done quite yet but I um I got a call from somebody who was working with um Midwest Christian Outreach and they were calling me about the group just left I didn't want to talk to anybody about that I I just wanted to I wanted to run and hide because I was I mean it was a multip multiple reasons I was embarrassed that I'd been part of it I was uh still kind of afraid of what the leader could do um in my life and I I think I told Dave when he called you know I was like I don't want don't want to talk to you guys I don't but you know you between you and Dave Don you persuaded me to cooperate because other people were getting sucked into this right and um so I did and I in the meantime I started kind of working with Midwest Christian Outreach I didn't really intend to get into this but I did I I had previously worked in cult evangelism so it wasn't totally new to me but to me back then cult evangelism had previously meant Jehovah's Witnesses Mormons things like that I really didn't think that I would be suckered into a group with an Evangelical statement of faith right that was really very I mean very similar in the the kinds of things that happened uh and it involved things that I wasn't familiar with from those other groups so anyways um I also had family connections to Gothard at that time and some of those resulted in some pretty tragic uh episodes so um Don I get a call from Don after I a few years it was what 96 Don 99 no before that we started writing about him in '95 we already done some research on it by then so I think I yeah you called me and and said what do you know I don't know what you said but maybe it was something like what do you know about Bill Gothard you sent me a letter from dick or an article from dick Fisher right and I said well Don I just happen to be trying to find what I can find about this guy because I'm wondering if if there's some connection between his what I experienced and him uh and of course it's a we'll probably get into the details of how this unfolded but um we began working on it and uh it was it kind of there was like a parallel track going on in my life this family thing was happening with my a cousin and and her husband and other things and there was this research I was doing and there was me really kind of recovering from the experience that I'd gone through I mean the 990s were kind of a bummer in a way for me because you know I was still uh trying to put myself my spiritual life back together again but the master's program was helping my the church I was in was helping I was getting a lot of help from those things Plus Don you know Don was helping me Don thanks Don you were helping me so um and maybe working on the project also was helping me clarify things in my mind yeah uh I didn't really expect it would end up uh with a book uh but it did uh I also finished my master's program and and published my thesis privately uh so then we moved down here to Florida we adopted our son from South Korea can't believe he's now a cop he's since found a wife and anyways but that's kind of in nutsh show the smallest nutshell I could find sorry yeah no that I think that's really helpful and one of the points that you just made I wrote down because I think it's something for us all to sort of ponder you know we watch documentaries about these really kind of wacky Cults and it's so easy to sit back and say oh I could never get sucked into something like that I would never believe that but you said you know you don't expect a cult to have an Evangelical belief statement and I've experienced Church environments um one in particular where I I could say that pretty much describes what I went through as well where at least at best it's cultish where you have a a very authoritarian leader you have very rigid beliefs um you're not supposed to go against the grain you're not supposed to question the leader and not these things aren't always on paper written down these are unspoken things and I think that um ultimately all of us are vulnerable to that if we don't really remain rooted in biblical Authority and and um keep our eyes open for those things so I appreciate you bringing that point out which brings us to Bill Gothard so I'd love it if you could just give us a little bit of an overview for anybody who's really unfamiliar with the goth teachings this is honestly really new to me I uh I never really watched the T C shows about the Duggers I I I mean I knew about them and I knew they had a lot of kids and they said and they were Christians but I didn't really know much more about that so let's start with Bill Gothard himself Don who is Bill [Music] Gothard did you know that the vast majority of meat that you're buying in your grocery store is coming from overseas from countries that don't always have the highest quality standards or transparency in fact over 85% of the beef that you buy in the grocery store is imported that's 5 billion pounds of meat that was imported just last year and so customers are buying from places that don't necessarily share their values and this is why I love good ranchers um you can finally remove the mystery from the meat you've been buying from the grocery store you can support local ranchers you can get the quality you trust and you can actually support this podcast by purchasing meat from good ranchers which is a sponsor of our show now they have a really amazing offer for leap year this is crazy if you sign up right now you're going to get free bacon for four years that's free bacon until the next leap year in each one of your boxes so that's uh one and a 12 pounds of their Applewood smoked bacon in every order for four years that's 72 lbs of free bacon that they're going to send you just for subscribing to good ranchers so that's over $900 that's a $900 value so free bacon really awesome good to good ranchers.com use my code Alisa to claim your free bacon and you're going to get a discount as well so use the code Alisa atg goodranchers.com get that free bacon for four [Music] years okay that's a a good starting point because he has still has influence in the church even though many that will be viewing this may not have heard of him directly other than mentioned on the uh on the U series that they just did uh Bill Gothard grew up in L Grange Illinois he um wanted to start sort of a youth program and did a thesis on that uh and in 1964 started doing seminars small seminars a dozen or so people uh on what he called the basic life uh not basic principles Institute in Basic Youth conflicts so what is the problem with youth today is kind of his question now think about the 1960s of course you may not remember that we can think about it I have few years on you Ron and I can think about it we go about it some but but uh in fact our blog this week we using wild in the streets which is a very popular film in 1968 kind of about the times uh is on college campuses we going up in Flames a lot of rebellion and so forth a lot of teenage angst and uh you have this guy by then uh starting to pack out auditoriums one guy standing in the middle of an auditorium stadiums at some points with an overhead projector saying the problem is Authority you don't understand Authority and churches were desperate for some way to rescue their kids from the culture that was going a Miss I understand that the problem is very few looked at what he was actually teaching and so rather than a Biblical view of authority he was teaching authoritarianism which is quite different however when you feel like your family is in danger and your house is on fire you'll turn to virtually anybody so he starts becoming more popular uh to the point he actually had over two and a half million people go through his seminars now here's how this impacts the church then is those who are going to the seminars in Bible on his material some of them become pastors then in churches where they carry these teachings into their churches and pass them on to their people without really not even saying here's where I got it from and so you have a quite a large group of people who believe things that sound biblical but are not biblical so that's kind of his start and how he got going okay uh my wife and I I mentioned I became a Christian three years after my son was born and the church we were going to said you have to go to the seminar uh and we're like no we don't really want to and they said well we'll pay for it it was $75 I think and so we agreed and went the first night and joy started going I can't go back I just can't I can't do this I can't there's something really wrong here now I was so biblically illiterate at the time I go to the Old Testament and see this book Job j o and I say I mean I just didn't know anything about the Bible uh number one number two in the seminar you don't have time to actually look up the passages he's citing because you have at the time you had a three- ring binder you didn't get material in advance you got it in between sessions for the next session so you couldn't read ahead uh and you would write down the notes of what he was writing down on the overhead projector so you never had the chance to actually think about what he was saying in the context of the passage very fast moving and then you get into what we call a yes set and so he'll tell you things like he'll use the word Grace that's a familiar word right we all know what Grace is except we don't because he also gives you a new definition that you just sort of adapt without thinking about it so he tells you Grace is God giving you the power and ability to do his will joyfully now we like Grace and we want to do God's will joyfully but they aren't the same thing right and you don't catch it when it comes through and now that becomes your definition for Grace wow right and he becomes popular largely because of what I would also refer to as a good old boy Network which is this and this is how the anyr is in the church as well we have other false teachings like that the good old boy network is very simple pastor Joe down the street is my friend pastor Joe has Goths material the enr You Pick It Whatever It Is and his church is growing numerically and it seems financially so it must be a good thing so we'll reuse it on our church because I trust pastor Joe and then we tell Pastor Fred down the street who takes it because they know us and they trust us who trust pastor Joe and nobody really vets the material and now it's everywhere wow that's how the stuff [Music] grows have you heard about Carly Jee Los Angeles which is a small Los angeles-based clothing line founded and run by Carly Jee Brandon she is a Christian she's a mom she's pro-life and she makes really cute clothes especially for women in my phase of life and by my phase of life I mean the phase of life where you don't want to or have time to go to the mall and try on a hundred things only to come home disappointed and empty-handed I love that the clothes are cut a little bit on the roomy side so they're very forgiving and they really work well together and now is a great time to check out cjla because she just added 90 pieces to her clearance sale they're having a massive blowout clearance sale right now so check that out but also check out their new Staples collection you know 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acquired a whole lot of property uh he had two he had a a Lear Jet and a turbo prop uh plane we've T we know one of his former Pilots uh he's helped us quite a bit in research um he he grew immensely he had he um he had property in this place called the Northwoods Retreat Center in uh Northern Wisconsin was it Michigan or Wisconsin I forget Michigan okay so it's way up in the Hinterlands you know um what it happened was a side note when he built he built rodway large enough so that the presidential jet would be able to land on it because he was planning the president would come to him of course you know so they they would come to him right so um I forgot that yeah so it he had uh conferences and Retreats up there and it was um I guess he had he had probably very Grand plans for that what was going on though Gothard is still not married he's um he's going to be 90 this year if he makes his makes it to November's born in um 1934 and um so he's he he was he's never married and there it's I like to uh research that a little bit more because I think there might still be people alive who know his family upbringing and what might account for that it's it's apparently this was something his father had hammered into him the idea that better to be unmarried if you're going to be in the Lord's work and of course that was coming from a guy who was married and had several children his dad um so Bill took it to heart as the oldest son and uh he expected his brother Stephen to do the same to remain unmarried um but Stephen you know it wasn't going to be as easy for him and he was you know coming to Bill begging him to allow him to marry so this brings another insight into how this organization worked if you worked at The Institute you had to get Bill's permission to date you had to get Bill's permission to get engaged and to get married I mean it was very controlling for the staff and uh and it could even be controlling for people who weren't on step but just wanted to to work with them in some capacity we could talk about that later but uh so but Bill kept turning Steve down Stephen and um it started happening that he started uh seducing some of the young women uh and uh it there does seem to be evidence now that Bill himself was doing things that may not have amounted to the same thing as brother Steven was doing but they would definitely be disqualifying for Ministry and these were the kinds of things that eventually did result in his termination from The Institute that these things might these things were probably happening back in the late 70s but with Stephen it was it was he was sexually seducing young women who were like half his or well 10 years younger than him at least maybe half his age in any case Bill uh to to apparently to uh manage the problem Bill had Stephen transferred up to the Northwoods Retreat Center in Wisconsin and he sent staff people up there including young women and it just got worse uh and and this came the whole real Scandal uh that just totally blew up uh 79 National Scandal by the time it was done it was around the world in the news and magazines you know I mean bigger things were happening in evangelicalism with Jerry fwell and the Moral Majority you know I mean by this time in terms of of money and and and exposure Bill wasn't as big as he was in the mid early to mid 70s but he's still pretty big he was huge in evangelicalism still very much uh but in terms of coverage I I saw coverage of the Scandal on our local ABC affiliate in Chicago now around that I was living right across town from Bill's Home Church Bill goth home Church uh so this was very close geographically to me and um I would talk to people from his church about it now looking back it's pretty clear they were very much in the dark uh you know how somehow he managed to keep a whole lot of information from getting out even though his board knew about it even though there were certain individuals across the country like Earl rodm marer president of Western Seminary who knew about it uh somehow he managed to really keep a pretty tight lid on it however what did happen is the seminar business went bust it right he uh he wasn't he was he was it's hard to overstate just how big he was I mean how do you he was filling out 20 30 40,000 seed auditoriums in the 70s with his overhead projector and I mean he wasn't Taylor Swift let's face it okay yeah but he was he was a Phenom that people took notice of and he but ironically largely forgotten well uh he wasn't able to fill to get the capacity crowds that he had had been getting in the seminars in the early 80s uh but it I was already alerted through people I knew at his home Church which was lrange Bible Church um that he'd already planned to shift his Focus to H schooling and uh so this was early 19 around 1980 I was told that at the Oakbrook headquarters he had renovated it uh a portion of it to include a a a large printing facility [Music] and uh docks for for trucks to come in and out to take large quantities of material to wherever they needed to go you know maybe air shipped or whatever in any case uh plans were a foot to to have a a major redirection of the ministry the the seminars continued I'm I'm told uh he would occasionally even make live appearances not in places as big as he used to but still in not Tiny Places uh but most of the most of the seminars were uh were done on VHS cassettes uh which were new we remember when they were new I still remember those too I do remember [Music] those do you love coffee do you love shade grown coffee do you love direct Trade coffee do you love coffee that is is pesticide free and mold free and really high artisan quality well if you're like me you love really really really good coffee but do you also love the pro-life cause well you can bring those two passions together with 7 weeks coffee I absolutely love this coffee company a because of all the reasons I just said but also because it's run by 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order again that's 7weeks coffee.com use my code Alisa for 10% off [Music] let's let's back up just a little bit let's back up because what I'd like to do is give our audience just a a feeling for what the basic teachings were because I I definitely want to get and touch on that homeschooling element because my understanding and you can correct this if this is wrong is that one of the ways a lot of these teachings got into the average home of the average Christian was through the homeschool curriculums that became so popular um but let's talk about what the teachings actually are and this this may be kind of a tough question to ask you to do it this succinctly but if you could pick like the maybe three to five major points that would summarize the basic teachings of goth rism you know what would those points be because I do know that a lot of the teaching had to do with the family right and the roles like gender roles and so for a lot of people who might be complementarian they're they're attracted to this because they're thinking oh this is good this is traditional family values and and gender roles but it went beyond that a little bit from my understanding so so talk Don you can start with you know what were the teachings that we would need to be aware of that were maybe the most unbiblical ones that kind of hallmarked this movement okay he starts you off the very first night with what he calls the seven non-optional principles of life now that's key because they're non-optional in other words you don't have an option they're non-optional right although many people think that they are they're he tells you they're not uh and they are uh designed thank God for your design and the foundation of genuine self-acceptance number two is Authority this is key number one key to everything else that he does Authority uh responsibility is three suffering is four ownership is five freedom is six seven is Success on the surface they sound okay until you start understanding what he's saying in them so auth Authority is on the first night he tells you that Authority is a key element and to tell you that then he goes to a biblical story of Jesus and the Roman Centurion uh and tells you that this is a teaching about Authority right the centurion's servant is sick he goes to Jesus asks Jesus to heal him Jesus says good I'll come over to your house and he goes no no I too am a man under Authority I say go do this and they go do it I go do that go do it uh and so from that we get this idea of an umbrella of protection if you stay under the umbrella of protection which is your pastor father uh whatever male headship it is then you're protected tells you so you know your car is not going to break down you're going to have a good job hot wife hot husband whatever stay under the umbrella of authority you won't get acne your kids will be well behaved and will be great but if you get out from under this umbrella of protection then you are in rebellion and Rebellion is as a sin of Witchcraft so we go back and we deal with this we go okay well is number one is this a story about Authority or something else and what we discover is it's a teaching about Jesus it's not about Authority it's about power who has power Jesus has power and because he has power and because he's God he doesn't have to go to the house because he could just speak and the servant will be healed it's a story about who Jesus is it's not a story about Umbrellas of protection but you're in there shaking your head filling out your little forms and you bought it next you a definition of getting out from under the umbrella of protection which I mention is getting out from under the umbrella of protection is rebellion and Rebellion is as a sin of Witchcraft so you are safe as long as you Alicia stay under the headship of your husband but if you get out from under that headship all manner of evil might befall you that's a lot of fear that's a lot of fear well you know one thing I would like to say Don uh looking right at the basic textbook the basic seminar textbook um and he's he he kind of sneaks up on you with the authority teaching that is his first most important foundational principle but in the basic seminar before he gets to that he has this whole chapter on the acceptance of self and he talks about uh forming attitudes about yourselves evidences of self-rejection basic insights on self-acceptance uh you know and this kind of softens up the audience right kind of like it's it's a soft cushy feeling and you know this this comes right on the heels of Philip Reef's book uh in 1966 the Triumph of the therapeutic you know so we're we've entered into this therapeutic age uh and Goth you know this is he's pretty Savvy to this you know he he understands that people are we're talking in in either Freudian youngian or Eric sonian terms about relationships now in going into the 1970s and he he he parlays this you know he he uses this in his teaching to kind of because Authority this is the same time when I'm in school and my teachers are warning us about Authority look what happened in Germany look what happened about you know look at all these guys who said we were only following orders so how do you soften up an audience because you're about to give them something that's kind of going against the grain of what's being put into the educational system in the 1970s it's going against the grain of what's happening on college campuses of course that's why a lot of the parents are there you know because they're they don't want their kids joining the SDS or the yippies or you know they don't want to see them in the news you know um and so he softens you up with all this talk about self- acceptance and what we've learned from meeting with people who know him personally is he he didn't really practice this himself he to this day this 90y old guy almost 89 he's got dark hair do you see my hair I'm not 90 this hair has been like this for a while uh he wears lifts in his shoes because he is kind of short so you know he talks about self-acceptance accepting the way God made you and he doesn't practice it so back to you Don okay that's all I have to say the authority established getting out from under of authority is rebellion Rebellion is the sin of Witchcraft and then he does this other interesting thing as the night goes on is he turns to Jesus as a child and says the only story we have of Jesus uh is at the age of 12 and he remained behind uh when his parents left Jerusalem and he remained behind in a temple and they came back and frantically were looking for him and then he says this is an amazing thing Jesus had to make the tough decision to get back under his parents umbrella of protection now think about what that means if you get up from Under the Umbrella you are in Rebellion Rebellion is the sin of Witchcraft one two Jesus had to make the tough decision to get back under his parents umbrella protection which means what he was out from under it to begin with oh W yeah and the first time we met with him when I raised this up there was uh my Pastor Ron uh and two others were were with us the first time we met with him and I raised this thing I walked him through here's what you teach in the first hour yes here's what you say about Jesus yes I said okay so if Jesus had to make the tough decision to take back under the um parent umbrella protection that necessarily means he was out from under to begin with doesn't that mean he's a sinner and therefore cannot be our savior how does that work he he said what did he say something like oh we would never say that of course no no he didn't say that he he thought about it and he did his look up into the left corner of the room and he finally said because they said either you're teaching is wrong or Jesus is a sinner he said no my teaching is right and Jesus isn't a sinner but he couldn't tell us how that works right wow another thing he teaches is that circumcision is a moral requirement and I suggested that there's a small book in the New Testament he might be interested in Reading called Galatians de with his issue wow yeah so it's been an interest so those you know those are some of the big things Authority being number one he lives in what we would call a patrio Centric teaching the are essentially property of the male head of the family another thing he taught was uh no birth control right uh having the biggest family you possibly can uh and that's where my family story comes in uh which when I began researching it had not developed to the point that it had by the time we first met with Gothard and some of his uh staff is this a good time to share that Don do you think sure it also answers the 19 en counting why they have so many children because yeah rightful movement you have to have as many children as you can until God stops it yeah right sometime in the mid90s U we had a family get together I hadn't seen my dad had died you know years ear ear and not there a whole bunch of people on my dad's side of the family I hadn't seen in decades and uh some of some of it was because they had lived in different states and things like that well in any case um part of my family that lived in uh Northeast Indiana came to this family gathering I had seen the the wife in this family my cousin had used to babysit me when I was a kid you know uh and she was pregnant and she was in her 40s and I thought well people do that you know it that kind of thing happens the thing is she had um three kids who were in elementary and going one of them in middle school and she had a baby that she had just delivered like uh maybe less than a year earlier and this was so this is our fifth pregnancy which again I I'm you know I'm not going to sit in judgment on anything like that but I found out that they were really into Bill Gothard and it was kind of weird because here I was kind of researching him and I uh I was vaguely aware that there was some connection but I didn't realize how deep it was so they went home we had a great time together I tried to avoid giving them my opinion about goth they had a lot of questions for me because they knew I was in a biblical studies program you know and I just kind of held back I I I wanted to have a pleasant time with my family um and so uh after they went back a few weeks later my mom calls up and says you need to pray for your cousin because she has a brain tumor and uh so what happened was they lived way up in Northeast Indiana now they had been doing everything goth now which meant that their previous uh child was home delivered uh and she couldn't do that now because she could not have the surgery while she was pregnant but she had to have it as soon as she wasn't which means they had to drive down to Fort Wayne have the baby the next day she had to be rolled into brain surgery to have this tumor removed um when they came out when she came out of surgery uh her brother her sister-in-law and her parents were in the room with the oncologist my my uh her brother and sister-in-law are pharmacist so they have some medical background they asked a lot of questions and and the the oncologist said this is one of those tumors that could have been in her brain when she was a little girl in a kind of a seed form and something triggered it my cousin uh her brother asked could it have been the pregnancy the late in life pregnancy and the oncologist said yes it it it could have been uh okay what do you do about that well all I know is that a couple weeks later my mom calls up and she's Furious I mean we were we were really close when when we were little we lived pretty close to the family got they were close to us and my mom goes who is this Bill Gothard and I said why do you want to know well Sher was pregnant again and my mom had found out it was because they were trying to follow Bill gothard's teachings her her mother had said to her um you know had said to her uh you know honey you know what the doctor said that this is highly risky now now I was right about this this time maybe a little earlier that we were still we had been looking for materials to do more research on goth and a man in Ohio had sent us a box a couple how many boxes all I know is I got a call from you Don you said Ron do you have any room in your house you didn't have enough room in your house for these boxes of books and videotapes and all kinds of things and I got them to my house and I'm looking through it and I find this thing that he's got a deck of books from the Medical Training Institute of America what is that well it's headquartered at the same address as The Institute and basic life principles it's Bill gothard's MTI his medical training institute now we knew about his uh at you know Advanced Training Institute what is this well he's got a booklet he's got a booklet in there about circumcision why you should do that and he's got a booklet in there about basically having large families and and the booklet says that what the booklet ask a question well what if you're told by your doctor that the pregnancy might be dangerous to the health of the mother and the booklet says trust God instead of your doctor right is what it says so by now I kind of had an idea what was going on in my cousin's family she went they she had to go through the same routine drove down to Fort Wayne delivered the baby sixth child um went into surgery only this time it didn't go so well the tumor was bigger Buri deeper in her brain she had a stroke on the operating table when she woke up she was in a coma for a while when she woke up she didn't remember anyone she had no recollection of anybody eventually I forget how long it took but she recognized her mother and the first words some of the first words to her were mom they tell me I have six kids how did I get six kids wow she was never the same she's since passed away uh that meeting I confronted Bill Gothard with this I showed him the place in his booklet where they teach this and one of his VPS looked at me and said well sometimes you just got to use common sense I don't want to tell you what kind of feelings I was having so so here here we have so mentioned early on uh maybe even before we started the book has three guiding things in it one are his teachings biblical uh any important areas they are not two does he live according to his teachings whether they're biblical or not the answer T is no he does not third is anecdotal how do his teachings affect those who follow him this is just one example of what happens yeah there's a cost to pay to teaching yeah there that and and so much of cultish kind of teachings end up in abusive situations like the one that you've just described I want to Pivot just a little bit here um and get your thoughts both of you on on something I don't know if you have read the book um the making of biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison bar I don't know if you're familiar with that book are you I've kind of paged a little bit through it yeah um yeah well one of the one of the things she claims so she she kind of she says she skirted the fringes of the Bill Gothard movement she tells some stories in the book now overall um I'm not a huge fan of this book in fact I've done a couple podcasts um about it um but but I want to maybe H have you guys help us unpack something so you know she she told about um some of the gothar teachings which we would all agree are unbiblical right we would agree that those are not biblical teachings but then she connects those with the doctrine of complimentarily with that term I think a broad just kind of 30,000 foot definition of that is just the Biblical teaching that men and women are equal in value and worth and dignity but they have different roles to play in the church and the home that's essentially at the bottom of complementarianism now in the book um the making of biblical Womanhood she I just want to read this quote and get your guys thoughts on this because I think that one of the most important things we can do for people who might find themselves in cultic types of of churches or environments is learning how to untie the knots and um not throw out the whole baby with the bath water just because maybe there was an abuse of a Doctrine um so she says this I only skirted the fringes of the bill goth movement but I can tell you from experience that it was a whitewashed tomb I think we would agree so far um but then she goes on she says uh she told a friend that she was thinking maybe there's a link between complementarianism and abuse and her friend said no there's no proof to that and here's what she says this is a declaration she makes in her book she says but there is we can no longer deny a link between complementarianism and abuse and so she's essentially saying that if you teach people that men and women have different roles to play in the home and in the church um and that maybe even our biology might indicate what those roles should be as a woman for example my body was designed to Bear children and to feed newborn babies and that should tell me something about what the newborn baby needs from me and um what my role might be to play in that we're living in a culture that would say that's crazy talk that's old-fashioned that's abusive to women to say that um you know to even hint that perhaps a woman should stay home with her child or something along those lines um help our audience with that and we'll start with you Don um you know how might you for somebody who's saying look I I wonder if complementarianism does lead to abuse did that lead to a Bill Gothard how could we untie those knots okay there's 's a difference between what something teaches and how someone may misuse it that's a really important aspect so you just use the word Authority for example well what does that mean you have to start not defining it and and biblically um Let me let me do it this way I I like word pictures better you have a difference between being a cattle driver and a shepherd both of them may get the job done but one of them is more volatile than the other right and we are called as pastors to be Shepherds not cattle drivers we are called as husbands to be shephards not cattle drivers and so it starts with husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church now if we are living that way I have to tell you something something those that you are leading and that's the key word leading will follow because you're a good leader they may do What You demand because you're abusive but that's not the same thing as leading and that that's how i' phrase it I'm married 50 I'll be married 54 years this year and my wife still likes me which is a really plus that's a good sign accomplish yeah but you know my task is to serve her to the best of my ability to help her be the best that she can and there are areas where she submits because I'm the head of the house not because I'm the boss of her there's a difference between the two and that is often missed and unfortunately goth dism attracts some not all but some who are already abusive and then take his teachings as sort of a credit card to behave badly so it is it isn't essential in a teaching it is a misuse of the teaching Yeah by those who are are abusive right like you can't you can't say that we should have no leadership because there are leaders who are abusive yeah Ron did you want to add something to that yeah um you know I don't know how much this counts Don but I can vouch for you you know I've watched their marriage for the last 30 years of our relationship uh but what the reason I don't know if it counts is because I'm just a cisgendered white male so that's right your opinion does not count at all you get no opinion I also happen to think complimentarily I have a wife who doesn't want to be the head of the house I don't either I don't either trust me so it's like it kind of works out well when you have that situation but what happens when you don't have a wife who you know who's happy in that role you'll end up with conflict and I think a lot of the result of the conflict may be interpreted as abuse but it's really interesting there was a study done um in the Journal of Family Violence in uh published in 2012 February 2012 the title of it was relationship between a galarian ISM dominance and violence in Intimate Relationships and the the study was probably buried because it it said things that people just really aren't happy about one of the quotes say a women's own high egalitarian attitude and high dominance score were associated with higher victimization of men wow uh another thing in the study studies examining men's and women's use of physical violence indicate that the number of women using physical aggression is either comparable to that of men or higher than that of men wow uh what they found was is that you know apparently a lot of men for some reason just don't want to hit their wives you know even though they could but there are a lot of women who well like it says so the the the studies have not born out uh at least not I mean I'm I forget if I looked if I read that portion of the book of of Bar's book uh to and if I looked for documentation because that's what I look for what studies what are you basing this in is it anecdotal information right or is a study like the one I found here right I have plenty of anecdotal information about abusive men from complementarian households but the vast majority of men in complementarian households are not abusive and I think some of the more uh left of center or Progressive uh women in the church have a BAS basically admitted that you know that they they can't there's not enough evidence to establish any kind of causal relationship and you know this as far as the goed connection to it is concerned I mean I was I I was taught complementarianism before they invented the word before the word was coined in the 1990s um I I was or not to be telling Tales out of school but um I I got a call from Wayne grud when I was working at weaton in in foundation and corporate relations because he was looking for funding for the Council on biblical manhood in Womanhood and I was I kind of landed in the role of uh a grant proposal writer there and he asked me if I could find somebody to give uh you know uh find funding for cbmw and as soon as he said it I just like turned turned white I I mean whiter than I am and uh and I said I just we didn't have you know digital resources really back then and so I knew this was going to be a huge challenge finding someone with that narrow and interest um he sent me a copy of the book uh biblical manhood and Womanhood recovering biblical manhood and Womanhood and um I I I remember thinking oh complementarianism yeah this is this is found in Charles ry's book balancing the Christian Life that was published what 1960 something you know I mean this is not new right right this is um you know it the idea that the man is the head of the house now and should be the only Mal should be Pastors in the church and so on is is not new uh now some of the stuff that I've heard and even read is it wrong for a woman to be a police officer okay I I don't that's not the way I was taught complementarianism in when when I was in Bible College is it wrong for a woman to work outside the home well I I was raised with a grandmother and a mother who worked outside the home uh and you know so no I I well there's like a there's a spectrum to it too you know it you can ask 10 complementarians how they Define it you're going to get 10 different kind of places they fall on the Spectrum but no that's very helpful that that's very helpful now we are we there so so many places we can go we are like coming close to being out of time I don't want very Qui go ahead Don very quick okay uh I would I would suggest getting the book 95 thesis for a new Reformation chapter nine okay deals directly with this question of uh of headship very biblical Dr Don Williams does a great job with that that's one two we have an article on our website uh The Cult of the cult of U Godly Womanhood by K Campbell she does an excellent job on this topic three I want to just mention the Proverbs 31 Woman this is very important in this whole discussion because without the proverbs 31 man you wouldn't have the Proverbs 31 Woman Who did real estate transaction she took care of the home she did all these kinds of things and we don't even know I mean my my line is we don't even know if the guy had a job uh right he didn't have a problem with her being doing the kinds of things that she was doing outside the home yeah and yet she's held up as the example for women today what about the proverbs 31 man where's he in all this equation that's an important thing and he rises up and calls her blessed that's the end of that that's good very good um I always liked the Proverbs 31 Woman because it said her arms are strong for her tasks and I always had kind of like more muscly arms and I thought see I she had buff arms too it's okay as we come to a close here I I want to make sure our audience maybe can grasp the continued influence of the of goth rism so maybe just as we close out here briefly talk about what type of presence The Goth thir teachings still have in The Homeschool curriculums where people can you know be like help us discern that what what do we need to look out for what do we need to just stay away from how can we discern this not just in h school curriculums but maybe just you know wherever these teachings might be found Don we could start with you and then we'll go to Ron well the first thing I would say is the first thing I start with everybody who's been in a group like this that contacts us is a text without a context is a pretext understand how to read the Bible in context so that you can check out your pastor leader whoever you're listening to as Joy sometimes says just because you hear from the pulpit doesn't mean it isn't really stupid uh well-intentioned people can say things that are just wrong uh that's one two authoritarianism ranks very high in cism it's it's a patrial Centric movement not a complementarian movement there's differences uh three his understanding of Grace is very deficient uh because he tells us that Grace is something that you earn well that means it's not Grace because Grace by definition is a kindly attitude toward the undeserving we don't earn Grace it is God's attitude toward us in spite of who we are not because of it it's good Ron uh as far as how how much is uh remains of his influence you you know he he didn't invent all these ideas right so most of them were there before you know he came around he he uh you know his particular way of combining them and artic them is probably unique to him but excuse me but he um you know he he took he took he was using Lumber that was already laying around to to make this uh and a lot of it's very stubborn and part of a subculture that you know gravitates toward that kind of a thing uh you also have people out there who are uh claiming falsely that he doesn't teach any of this stuff uh I have had people cancel me on social media uh just because I gave Ginger duer volo's book a good thumbs up you know and why did they do that well because they have a friend who is in gothis who's told them that that Ginger's book is all lies well I happen to know it's not you know and I don't just have one person who goes to my church I used to have I used to go to a church where some of gothard's Staff went you know some some people who actually worked at The Institute were employees there uh were were members of my church and were employees including the man who ran Bill gothard's printing press was a member of my church so I mean I know of what I speak and we met with Bill Gothard a lot there was a period where we met for about six weeks every Monday we called up mon with Bill just to talk about man yeah he called me he summoned me to his office once I said I'll call Don they said no don't call Don we just want you and they tried to do stuff you know they tried to intimidate me uh I've had a lot of experience with Bill goth and Don has had even more yeah so anyways well good all right well I I so appreciate you guys coming on um very quickly Don tell everyone where they can get the book and anything else that you want them to know about connecting with you and and your ministry and you as well Ron am.com order it right from there give us a good rating uh it's also on Kindle if you have other digital uh ways of reading books it's you can get it pretty much any digital uh book seller it's there as well okay all right well go ahead Ron did you have a way for people to connect with you thank you okay well I want to thank my guests uh Ron henzel and Don Vino what a great discussion if you found it particularly helpful I want to invite you to like this post wherever you see it shared on social media send it to your friends via email or on social media also really helps us out so much if you leave good reviews on the audio podcast platforms wherever you're listening to this and of course subscribing on YouTube liking it on YouTube If You See It Go by just press like it really helps get the algorithms going to get this into the newsfeeds of more people so thanks so much for listening today and as we pursue Christ let's remember to keep a sharp mind a soft heart and a thick skin we'll see you next time so for me and I will pray for you no turning right or left will make it through the road that's narrow and the gate that small don't give up it's going to be worth it [Applause] [Music] all

Channel: Alisa Childers

Views: 80,142

Keywords: apologetics, progressive christianity, deconstruction, live your truth, another gospel, historic christianity, alisa childers, podcast, philosophy, christianity, truth, gospel

Id: _bFu-Z9l0Fk

Length: 64min 21sec (3861 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 25 2024