I was really influenced by Bill Gothard as a college student and that, perhaps, explains why I drifted toward the churches and pastors that I did during that time. Shortly before turning to a confessional Lutheran pastor for help in my jumbled faithwalk, I nearly signed my family up for another Gothard seminar at a local Baptist church. So it is that I read with laughter someone else's experience with Gothard.
Steve, of My Bloggy Blog, writes:
While I did buy into most of what Gothard said; I always found his lectures about Christian Rock unconvincing, but not enough that for one small, but regretful time in my life I gave up the very music that I loved and was a bedrock for my teenage Christian faith. I loved Larry Norman (read my recent blog about Larry here), Randy Stonehill, Keith Green, ect ..but I let Gothard's arguments convince me they where evil, sinful, and not of God. So I exchanged my Christian rock tapes and made a tape of his "10,000 voices singing the hymns" album. But, boy did I go up on the spiritual barometer! Or so I thought. Nineteen years old and driving around listening to "How Great Thou Art" a cappella 24/7. I gave up a Larry Norman/Randy Stonehill together in concert with a full band, because I had "made a commitment" not to listen to CHRISTIAN ROCK!!. Yes Christian Rock...songs about Jesus that have beats and tempos not approved of by Sir Gothard. Aaaahhhhh, my friends thought I had lost it. Like a lemming to the sea I was!
2 comments:
AAHHHHH! Not Bill Gothard, Theresa! Thank God you didn't sign up for that seminar! And I say that with 100% sincerity. I know several well intentioned homeschool families that have been very damaged by his teachings. Talk about pietism run amok! I might have been lured in, too, except that my hubby has a strong aversion to 'group' activities.
Have you seen the research of his teachings at this web site?
http://www.midwestoutreach.org/02-Information/02-OnlineReference/02-UnorthodoxyGuide/105-IKnowSomething/Gothard-IBLP/index.html
Mary
Mary
Yep! Bill Gothard. I remember in college, I borrowed a good friend's notebook from a teen seminar. I can remember studying it and devouring it for hours and days...and telling myself, "Geez! If I had only gone to one of these seminars as a younger teen, then I wouldn't have made so many mistakes in my life. I'd be perfect, like Diane (my perfect friend)." After twenty years of attempting to become more perfect and getting depressed realizing that I'd never attain it, my mind started to go back to those days when I first became an evangelical (Baptist-type). The spring of 2003 was a very pivotable time in my faith walk. I was SO leaning Baptist and at the last minute, I went in to talk to Pastor Ekhoff. He changed my life! He showed me how big God was and how powerful God was and how I could go forward in love and thankfulness. Would Bill Gothard have offered me that? No way! I would have been handed a list of rules to become more disciplined. Thanks for the laugh, Mary.
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