Pieces of IBLP/ATI
As seen in the recent Amazon Prime Documentary “Shiny Bright People,” The Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) put together a basic formula for life (purportedly based on the Bible, but actually based on how Bill Gothard interpreted the Bible) that gave a lot of answers to questions people were asking. It made the Christian life simpler because here was all the answers! It had strong solid practical things to do: black and white, and it was all from the Bible! So if you don’t listen to it, you were not listening to God, you were not doing it the right way.
This appealed to a lot of people who really wanted know good ways to apply the Bible to their daily lives. It finally felt so clear! Bill Gothard was really good at outlining and explaining things in a simple manner that moved into practical application seamlessly. It felt really good to finally be doing something about your faith. I bought it hook, line, and sinker. And yes, I practiced in the mirror to make my eyes sparkle when I smiled so I too could be one of those “Shiny Bright People.” You can read more of my story HERE.
The Advanced Training Institute (ATI) took all the stuff from IBLP and put it into a homeschooling curriculum. This was a natural progression: the information from the IBLP seminar changed your life, and now you want to live a different life, and create a different world for your kids.
Unfortunately (and fortunately), the real Christian life isn’t explained in a simple clear way, with an application to follow. It isn’t all black and white. It is about trusting when you can’t see. About following the Holy Spirit into some places you never imagined. And the answers aren’t the same for everyone, especially not all the time.
The tendency with IBLP is to let it think for you, instead of a daily walk with the Holy Spirit. If the answers are already spelled out, why do we need to trust God for the answers? The tendency with ATI is to cut off from the big, scary world (that is all the bad stuff) so you can cultivate and focus on all the good stuff. But we forget that we can’t run from ourselves. Protecting our kids can quickly turn into fear and fighting for control, making idols of systems and whatever is declared “the right way,” and stated even stronger: “the Biblical way.”
I think what has been so sticky and troubling about my history with ATI is how so much of it starts off with truth. It starts off with the Bible. There is a lot of really good things intertwined with some really horrible conclusions and applications. And it was so much easier to just ignore the bad stuff as not bad “enough” for a long time—or to just chuck it all out the window like many of my friends who grew up with me did. The quiet, dedicated process of unbundling the truth and lies is exhausting and hard. Most of the time I just put it off until something (like a new documentary) brings it all up again.
I really appriciated Jinger Duggar, who wrote a whole book about detangling issues from Bill Gothard: “When they didn’t experience the blessed life Gothard promised, when they struggled with purity, anxiety, and doubt, they questioned his rules. They saw the hypocrisy. They tore their faith down to the studs, and they never built it back up with the truth. Instead they abandoned all religion. There’s a sense in which this is the easy route. It’s less work to abandon the house once you’ve torn it down then to lay another foundation and built it again, brick by brick. I can imagine a world where I abandon Christianity entirely and instead built a new life from my desires. But that didn’t happen because Jesus saved me. His love compelled me to keep trusting Him. I wish my friends knew that same love.” (from “Becoming Free Indeed”)
I am so grateful for parents who “failed” at ATI, even though we tried really hard to make it work. My dad’s understanding that he needed Jesus helped us not turn to the program as the answer for everything. The fact that we didn’t live close to a lot of other ATI families meant we didn’t get sucked into an ATI only world. The fact that we went to a community church that had all kinds of people, not just ATI people helped us stay balanced. Even the hard fact that my mom was sick a lot helped us not get stuck into “this is the only way to live life.” Because that was just too exhausting.
The documentary brings out the focus on authority with the Bill Gothard program. While there is an important principle of authority in the Bible, and a strong example of how authority is serving others, as shown by Jesus: this teaching mostly fed into a lot of power-hungry fathers who dug into their desire for control rather than surrender. And that made for a whole lot of ugly. It never sat well with my dad, when he saw how this principle, as taught by ATI, played out in our family, and I am so grateful.
“Shiny Bright People” brought out how IBLP was another disguised prosperity gospel: obey authority and you will be blessed (well- protected at least). You had two groups of people: the dads, who were in authority, and everyone else, who was under authority. The dads had all that pressure to lead, and everyone else had all that pressure to obey. Even if the dads don’t lead well, you still had to obey because otherwise you won’t be protected: bad things would happen. I am amazed at how quickly it turned into a fear-based religion: and how often I was afraid.
The documentary talks a lot about the “Quiverfull” movement of having as many children as you can. My parents thought this was a great idea, and wanted a home full of children. Sadly, my mother had many miscarriages, and suffered horribly from them, almost dying in an ectopic pregnancy. In all of our family suffering through this, I saw how people responded to our “small” family of 4 (at the time). I saw how they asked my mother “What she had done wrong” to cause this. While I agree that children are a blessing, I disagree that God has called everyone to marriage and lots of babies. This again, is taking a good thing and trying to force it as the “right way” and the “only way,” turning it into a miserable way for many, and a tormenting way those who cannot do it, for whatever reason.
Modesty turned into potato sacks (or else you are asking to be raped-oh my goodness I was scared of being raped), purity turned into courtship and only kissing after marriage (or else you are damaged goods- but if you listen you get all the hot sex all the time). I honestly don’t think most of the people meant this to be the application, but when there is only one way to apply the Bible (Bill Gothard’s way), everyone has to make that one way work, no matter the consequences. And the consequences almost always landed on those who had the least power: the same ones who were promised they’d be protected if they obeyed their authority.
The Amazon Prime documentary talked about how many people in ATI were undereducated, told to stay away from evil schools and colleges and universities, and to “just study the Bible.” I am so grateful for a mom who loved education and helped me have a well-rounded education where I learned to go after what I was interested in. She gave me the push I needed to get started.
The abuse shown in the documentary is real. So many hurting people. Hurting people hurting more people, while they are trying to hard to protect those same people from getting hurt. I remember working in the counseling part of the training center and being shocked at all the incest. “Why is there so much of it? How can this be normal?” I kept thinking over and over. I remember how we had single mothers and kids coming to the training center to get away from the abusive father- but with the whole point being for them to be restored. I never heard about the possibility of him needing to be reported to authorities (those weren’t the “right” authorities, apparently).
The documentary also brings up “the Joshua Generation” just a bit (I wish they had done more) because this was totally true. We were being raised in ATI to go out into government and change it. While I do think political involvement is something that all citizens, including Christian citizens are called to, the way it has fed into Christian nationalism is horrible. The way it has turned into Republican right wing politics being the only way- as God’s way- is ugly and idolatry. Making America God’s country has become more important than serving God by loving others for many people.
I remember the standing ovations that speakers like David Barton got at ATI seminars. I remember reading “The Light and the Glory,” which glorifies Christopher Columbus. I remember my mother reading some of the history books, and when we got to the part of the Trail of Tears, she closed the book and made sure we actually talked and studied about it—because the book certainly didn’t do it. The homeschool books we used did not explain slavery well, at least not to me. I distinctly remember reading an extracurricular book on it, sinking to the floor, broken. I remember thinking, “Why didn’t anyone tell me about this before?”
I am sure there are so many more issues and pieces of IBLP and ATI that need to be addressed. These are the ones that came up for me, and that I needed to bring to the light. Maybe in a couple of years I will find a bunch more. Thank you to my parents for having healthy things in your lives that limited the scope that IBLP affected us. Thank you for the amazing friendships that I continue to carry past the IBLP program. And mostly, thank you God that living life with you isn’t actually what Bill Gothard said.