Bill Gothard?

[steve-in-kville]

My wife and I attended his "seminars" back in the day, before we were married. Seems like he was all the rage, even among the Anabaptist crowd. What ever became of him?

[Biblical Anabaptist]

Unfortunately the same old story.

https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/201 ... ian-right/

While there are some that feel that the Gothard teaching was a real stepping stone in their spiritual journey, I feel the overall impact on the church was not positive.

[Grace]

https://www.recoveringgrace.org/

[AnthonyMartin]

I attended both seminars early in my teens. My dad was a healthy skeptic and the result was some good dialogue and it drove me deeper into scripture study and excellent dialogue with my parents.

Overall the impact on my life was positive. I did observe a lot of negative impacts from many who followed blindly without the healthy skepticism. So I can't hate on the material, but I don't promote it either.

[ABC 123]

The man was a genius salesman. He marketed a way (via his seminars) to get to God and a guaranteed way of having your life turn out, if only you'd do these 7 steps (or however many steps he said). Conversely, if your life was in any way disappointing it was because you didn't do it right.

Jesus is not the primary focus of his presentation, yet that is a subtle fact that many missed.

[steve-in-kville]

Nothing shocks me anymore.

[Dan Z]

I grew up hearing about Gothard, but never attended as a young person. My wife had attended a number of live "Basic Youth Conflicts" events with her family in her teens, and we went together to the basic seminar once with our young children about 30 years ago, because I wanted to experience this teaching that had been so formative in her life. Gothard was certainly more fundamentalist than we were, but I was appreciative of the fervent and direct call to faithfulness I heard, and the teachings that felt biblically grounded. I think I left the event generally positive but with some misgivings - and questions about what felt a bit too much like a personality cult.

A few years later (in the mid 90s I believe) many of our friends from the Charity Christian Fellowship movement got caught up in Advanced Training Institute in a big way - as radical conservative homeschoolers coming from a Fundamentalist/Anabaptist hybrid they were ripe for the movement, and became some of it's most ardent adherents for a while. Their plain dress I'm sure made them a conspicuous addition to the regular buttoned-down Gothardian crowd. I was always a bit of a Gothard skeptic, and I remember being both intrigued and concerned by the Charity connection to the movement. Knowing more now about the hermenutical conflicts between Fundamentalism and Anabaptism and can understand where my angst was coming from. I'm not sure when the Charity-Gothard connection ended, but it had pretty-much faded away by the end of the 90s I think.

[steve-in-kville]

Not sure why, but Bill Gothard reminds of a suit & tie version of Denny Kennison.

[ABC 123]

Denny Kenaston was MUCH more apt to preach about Jesus, though.

[Dan Z]

Not sure why, but Bill Gothard reminds of a suit & tie version of Denny Kennison.

Their messages were foundationally different, but they both spoke with an unflinching conviction and prophetic authority that moved hearts and minds, and ultimately they both were given more veneration and authority than was humanly healthy.

That being said, having sat under the teaching of both men (Gothard to a limited degree), I remain exponentially more appreciative of brother Denny's teaching than brother Bill's. If for no other reason than that Denny never commercialized what he was called to share like Bill did.