My hat is off to OTHER Christians who have been trying to expose the fraud of Gothard - here's an example published in 2002.
My hat is off to OTHER Christians who have been trying to expose the fraud of Gothard - here's an example published in 2002.
ping
Excellent article with very well chosen words by Michael Farris. False teachers have plagued the church throughout its history, preying on a natural yearning for easy “self help” formulas to live by and trusted authority figures to live under. But the Bible remains our only true and authoritative guide. Thank you for posting.
I was once a Vision Forum patron. I really liked the “keep the girls at home til married” idea - but as they grew, I realized that was my selfish nature and not God’s design. I also appreciated the focus on modesty that Vision Forum had, but God gave me enough insight to realize that we gave our girls a firm foundation as little girls and as responsible adults they can make good choices for themselves - I didn’t need to tell a mature 13 year old what she had to wear.
The main thing that led me away from Vision Forum (thank you God!) was that God calls us to be in the world, reaching the lost... We can’t do that from a protective bubble that looks like a version of the original Stepford Wives.
Excellent article, I really appreciate Dr. Farris taking a public stand on this.
Christians have been silent about Gothard and his friends for far too long. It’s all about the money.
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Thanks for posting this.
I have been to BG’s seminars and am familiar with the patriarchal kind of thinking that pervades homeschooling.
There are plenty of homeschoolers who you can tell fit the profile.
The women and girls are always wearing long denim skirts, dirty running shoes, have long hair that is usually in desperate need of combing and rebraiding. To a degree, it is a stereotype, but it’s often a very justified one.
One of the comments I got regularly from non-homeschooling people was *You don’t LOOK like homeschoolers* and I knew EXACTLY what they were referring to.
Yes, the kind of stuff Gothard promoted was very legalistic.
I read his stuff on how to resolve conflict one time and found that it was so in depth and detailed and burdensome, that I thought that I could spend the rest of my life just digging up my past to make things *right*. It would literally consume the rest of my life just doing that alone in the way he prescribed.
At that point, I realized how off the mark he was.