Bill Gothard and his schtick

[Ken]

Resigning in disgrace after dozens of women accuse you of sexual harassment tends to diminish one’s influence.

See for example John Howard Yoder.

Wow, I didn't know about this person's story. The greatest battle we must wage is in our hearts: not allowing the serpent to speak louder or allowing ourselves to be convinced, as happened to Adam and Eve

It was a big deal a decade age. His Wikipedia page goes into all of it.

[JayP]

Now, I really confess I am out of the loop on the folks’ lives, but I would think the Pearls are quite different from Gotherd. To my knowledge they just wrote books. If their books have a following, or are particularly influential, that is different from a Gotherd and his life principles schtick because he literally tried to run peoples lives at a granular level. Most cult like. If I write a book, you can take or leave my advice. Maybe it is just me….I see a big difference.

But I asked because I remember him having a big 8nfluence in a LOT of Anabaptist folks. I do remember the Charity and Charity type churches were very influenced by his teach8ngs. I really do not get how folks take something like his Umbrella of Authority thing and run with it as though Jesus included it in the sermon on the mount.

[barnhart]

I occasionally still run into someone who is all-in on Gothardism. I think it’s mostly died out though.

Unfortunately, the concepts and ideas have not died out and seem to persist in certain circles, particularly among people who have recently left the Old Order.

What were Gothard's ideas? And why did they become so popular?

I think his most damaging contribution is separating the authority of patriarchy from the accountability of church community. Each man became the prophet/priest/king of his own family, wife and children owe him submission and obedience but he is accountable only to God.

He created an expansive eco-system of teaching, theology, psuedo science, education curriculum and schools, para military, conference arena meetings, and book sales that encompassed almost every area of life. For some it was cult-like, for others it was more of a-la-carte, just receiving limited bites to fill gaps in belief or practice. The most direct influence for me was his music morality teaching presented in Bible school. I didn't find it convincing at 18 and still don't.

[Thomas_muntzer]

I occasionally still run into someone who is all-in on Gothardism. I think it’s mostly died out though.

Unfortunately, the concepts and ideas have not died out and seem to persist in certain circles, particularly among people who have recently left the Old Order.

What were Gothard's ideas? And why did they become so popular?

I think his most damaging contribution is separating the authority of patriarchy from the accountability of church community. Each man became the prophet/priest/king of his own family, wife and children owe him submission and obedience but he is accountable only to God.

He created an expansive eco-system of teaching, theology, psuedo science, education curriculum and schools, para military, conference arena meetings, and book sales that encompassed almost every area of life. For some it was cult-like, for others it was more of a-la-carte, just receiving limited bites to fill gaps in belief or practice. The most direct influence for me was his music morality teaching presented in Bible school. I didn't find it convincing at 18 and still don't.

thanks for the explanation

[Praxis+Theodicy]

Now, I really confess I am out of the loop on the folks’ lives, but I would think the Pearls are quite different from Gotherd. To my knowledge they just wrote books. If their books have a following, or are particularly influential, that is different from a Gotherd and his life principles schtick because he literally tried to run peoples lives at a granular level. Most cult like. If I write a book, you can take or leave my advice. Maybe it is just me….I see a big difference.

But I asked because I remember him having a big 8nfluence in a LOT of Anabaptist folks. I do remember the Charity and Charity type churches were very influenced by his teach8ngs. I really do not get how folks take something like his Umbrella of Authority thing and run with it as though Jesus included it in the sermon on the mount.

I don't know of many Anabaptist people who ate the entire Gothard apple, just took bites here and there. Seems like parenting and homeschooling, modest dress and "family values" were big things. Was homesteading a part of the wider Gothard movement or was that tacked on from others?

Anyway, the Pearl's publish (published?) on a blog, so you can bite off just as much as many people bit into Gothardism. And while the Pearl's never built a sort of economic empire of materials and classes and "institutes", their books are just as much "out there". I looked over one book by Michael Pearl where the thesis was an emphatic argument that the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven were two very distinct and completely different/seperate things, and that the knowledge of this distinction leads to the most important knowledge of the gospel.

[ohio jones]

I've heard that years ago Gothard said to a group of Mennonites at a Pastor's Seminar, "I don't know why you people come to my seminars. You already know everything I teach." Well not quite everything, thankfully, but we should have listened.

[Neto]

I attended the "Basic Youth Conflicts" in the Spring of 75. Back then at least, there were no partly filled out "study books" - you literally sat there like a brain-dead zombie trying to copy down every point in his outline, plus try to get the Scripture references. I don't recall that I ever looked at it again, or certainly not much. Then a couple of years later I attended a week or meetings at Calvary Baptist Church in Wahoo, Nebraska (where my brother and sister-in-law attended), meetings presented by the man from whom Bill Gothard originally got the basis for his material. It was a more thoughtful presentation, with time for discussion. But same thing - I didn't save my notes from that long term, and I don't think I was affected by it long term, except perhaps to add to personal guilt feelings about my failures as a leader, because I did fit the prototype or model as taught in those meetings.

Later, here in Ohio, there was a couple (members) who ran the Gothard seminars in our church house. We attended several times (as alumni it was free), and had some of the books. I personally think that any teaching that creates well-defined "boxes" that you'd better fit in or else you're seriously messed up - those writers are messed up themselves. But I think that people had to be in pretty deep before it really had much effect on them, because the presentations style was too much too fast to really absorb it. (Or maybe that just wasn't my style of learning, so that it "rolled off of me like water off of a duck's back".)

[Ernie]

Back in the 80s and 90s Gotherd and his program was rather influential is Anabaptist circles.
FWIIW I never had any regard for him. If he said anything that I happened to agree with I would put it down to even a blind squirrel finds a nut or two.

So does his movement still have any influence? Or are the other such folks I just happen to know that have similar influence today?

I've heard that years ago Gothard said to a group of Mennonites at a Pastor's Seminar, "I don't know why you people come to my seminars. You already know everything I teach."

Gotherd only had influence on a small percentage of Anabaptists. It wouldn't surprise me if only 1% of Anabaptists in the 80's and 90's heard of him. It seems like it is often the folks between old orders and mainstream Anabaptists who go after these sorts of personalities.
I learned some good things from him, and tried to eat the meat and spit out the bones. One of my friends didn't like my critiques of him and wouldn't tell me anything about him that might put him in bad light. And then my friend got completely disillusioned with Christianity. Today he is agnostic and I am still a believer...

In the last decade, it is probably Finny Kuruvilla and Matthew Milioni who have had similar influence with the above 1%. Again, there are things I learned from these men but lots of bones to spit out as well. And again, most Anabaptists never heard of them and will maybe only learn about them 10 or 20 years from now when someone on MN starts a thread about them.

In the 80's and 90's, it was Denny Kenaston, Mose Stoltzfus, and Zack Poonan.

One thing I will say as a positive about Gothard is that he never tried to get Anabaptists to leave their churches, by calling their churches unspiritual or unbiblical. He always encouraged them to go back to their home communities and support their church.
I'll be the first to acknowledge that many Anabaptists have trouble being as spiritual and biblical as they should be. But in general, conservatives and Old Orders are not more unspiritual or unbiblical than the churches of the "parasitic personalities" who try to create a following by taking people away from other churches.

[R7ehr]

Gotherd only had influence on a small percentage of Anabaptists. It wouldn't surprise me if only 1% of Anabaptists in the 80's and 90's heard of him. It seems like it is often the folks between old orders and mainstream Anabaptists who go after these sorts of personalities.
I learned some good things from him, and tried to eat the meat and spit out the bones. One of my friends didn't like my critiques of him and wouldn't tell me anything about him that might put him in bad light. And then my friend got completely disillusioned with Christianity. Today he is agnostic and I am still a believer...

In the last decade, it is probably Finny Kuruvilla and Matthew Milioni who have had similar influence with the above 1%. Again, there are things I learned from these men but lots of bones to spit out as well. And again, most Anabaptists never heard of them and will maybe only learn about them 10 or 20 years from now when someone on MN starts a thread about them.

In the 80's and 90's, it was Denny Kenaston, Mose Stoltzfus, and Zack Poonan.

One thing I will say as a positive about Gothard is that he never tried to get Anabaptists to leave their churches, by calling their churches unspiritual or unbiblical. He always encouraged them to go back to their home communities and support their church.
I'll be the first to acknowledge that many Anabaptists have trouble being as spiritual and biblical as they should be. But in general, conservatives and Old Orders are not more unspiritual or unbiblical than the churches of the "parasitic personalities" who try to create a following by taking people away from other churches.

I agree with all these paragraphs.

[JayP]

I think your 1% assessment is both accurate and misleading. When one considers ALL the Anabaptists, sure that figure may be accurate. I th8nk he had little influence in the older church structures such as the Amish or Old Order Mennonites.
But within the Charity type section and such he had quite a bit of influence. For even if many were disinterested there was always some that were impacted, and so the impact spreads. I think an issue that continues today is those more transitional groups are always more susceptible to the latest thing than say groups like the Amish or even Eastern.

There is an endless two ways to look at such folk. One groups says “I do not agree with everything X says but he has some good points.”
Then others say “Sure, Mussolini got the trains to run on time but the bad so outweighs the good you cannot support that guy.”

FWIIW, I fall into the latter group.