If Bill Gothard Returns to Leadership

Recently I came across a rumor that Bill Gothard has plans to be reinstated on the board of directors at the Institute in Basic Life Principles. When I read that Facebook post, something inside my gut twisted. I suppose I’m not surprised that he would try, but the idea that IBLP leadership would let it happen is shocking if true.

Bill Gothard is a widely known former leader in Christian fundamentalist circles, promoting radical ways of living such as homeschooling, following patriarchal family dynamics, legalistic interpretations of the Bible, and courtship instead of dating. He is still followed and adored by many today, but he lost his position as the president and public face of IBLP in 2014 after over 30 women who personally know Bill Gothard came forward with allegations against him of sexual harassment and abuse. Unfortunately, these cases did not survive the statute of limitations in Illinois and Bill Gothard denied every claim, but he did step down from his position himself, feigning persecution, and IBLP has limped along without him.

Perhaps he plans to return to IBLP after biding his time in his self-relegated desert with claims that God has called him to rise in leadership again. But I hope not.

My friends and I often play getting-to-know-you games like We’re Not Really Strangers. They are games that encourage conversations to reach past the surface-level “I’m fine, how are you?”’s that we get stuck on sometimes. One time during the game I was asked, “Who’s your greatest enemy in life?” and after a moment of thought I said loudly and certainly, “Bill Gothard.”

My parents taught me not to wish bad things for other people. But am I surprised and annoyed that he is still alive at the age of 88? Oh, definitely. I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be throwing a Ding-Dong-the-Witch-is-Dead party when I do hear of his eventual death.

I volunteered at IBLP headquarters the summer I was 13. I remember eating lunch in the richly carpeted room that served as our cafeteria one afternoon and listening to Bill Gothard tell me and all 100+ volunteers who lived there that God had given him an epiphany: that someday he would die a martyr. I can’t remember exactly what he said after, but he seemed almost flattered that he should deserve a death of such ado and drama; it was very Sermon on the Mount, giving “blessed are those who are persecuted” energy.

At the time, I was terrified for him. It was 2009 and the swine flu was fluttering around the news, and that scared me too. I was so young; my mind was still a sponge—hardly able to question my surroundings. I wondered in awe at Mr. Gothard’s calmness. If God told me I would be martyred, I might dig a bunker for myself. Mr. G—as the staff called him—simply put on airs of honor at his opportunity for self-sacrifice.

I walked away from lunch thinking seriously, “Wow, we are really doing something important here.” At the end of the summer, Mr. G wanted my brother and I to stay on as permanent staff members. We said, “We have to go home and finish high school.”

I was the youngest person on staff, but one of my friends on staff was barely older, and she and her brother were permanent staff members who were finishing high school at HQ. That is to say…they read their parents prescribed homeschool curriculum…sometimes. For an organization that shit on public and private school educations so much in favor of homeschooling, they certainly didn’t prioritize the educations of their young volunteers. Something about the opportunity to serve the Lord building our character, and character’s way more important than algebra, anyway, right?

Of course, right. Anything IBLP said our parents ate up:

“Rock music is wrong; it originates from demonic African seances!” Oh dear, say no more! Let’s perform a ritual as a family to smash our CDs with a hammer in our backyard. Not even Positive and Encouraging K-Love survived that lesson.

“Spank your children from infancy; here’s a book on how to do it!” Alright, I guess that’s what Proverbs says.

“Women shouldn’t have jobs; they’re causing the men in the workforce to cheat on their wives!” Got it, we’ll keep our daughters at home until they get married.

IBLP put out books constantly. One of the volunteers wrote one and had me proof-read it, and my recommendation for it was printed on the back of the cover. Remember, I was 13 and had no formal writing education.

When I arrived at HQ, they put me in the shipping department; that’s where most people started out. I worked 8 hours a day in a huge warehouse collecting books to fulfill peoples’ orders. I grew familiar with where all the most frequently ordered books and CDs lived in the warehouse, and I was familiar with the contents of most of them. I must have packed up a hundred copies each of The Pineapple Story and Financial Freedom in my time there.

I think of the families who read the books that I packed up and shipped. How tightly they probably clung to each sentence, no matter how vaguely Biblical it was. I wonder how deeply they drank the Kool-Aid we sold.

I was just barely old enough to have gotten a flip phone from my parents, which I basically just used to call home. I’d give my parents updates on how things were going at HQ, and while they missed their only daughter dearly, I know how proud they were that I was volunteering for the organization that had changed our family’s lives, had saved my parents’ marriage.

Meanwhile, girls I saw there every day at staff meetings and dinners were being sexually harassed and abused by Mr. G. It was all right over my head—I was so young and innocent that I barely knew what sexuality was. All the young people at HQ had been sent there by our parents either as holy sacrifices to God, or for an attitude adjustment. One girl was sent there with severe substance addictions like it was some kind of rehab, as if watching VHS tapes of The Basic Seminar would cure her. Whatever our problems, Mr. Gothard’s New Approach to Life! would fix us all.

Just imagine calling home and saying that Bill Gothard was making sexual advances. Was playing footsie with you under the table at lunch or telling you how to dress or cut your hair the way he preferred. Would any parent believe it? Bill Gothard was like God. He was going to be martyred someday. He could get away with anything. And he had, for fifty years.

I am so beyond grateful that I never experienced any sexual abuse from Bill. But if I had, I do not know if anyone would have believed me if I confessed it. Everyone, even I, was so wrapped around his finger.

There is no amount of purgatory for Bill to wait in before he is justified in returning to a position of influence. If his plan is simply to wait until we all forget what he does to women and until people stop speaking up about the cult that he created, then we can’t stop speaking up. His return will never be welcome.