'Cult of Character' Xtian Reconstructionist Bill Gothard, Character First! plus a possible Palin

[Shallah Kali]

connection.

I found this blog post last night about how Palin brought Wasilla into the Character Cities program
Is Sarah Palin a Gothardite? Wasilla’s ex-mayor and “Character Cities”
http://www.cincinnatibeacon.com/index.php/contents/comments/is_sarah_palin_a_gothardite

After some googling I found out some of the reasons why having anything to do with Gothard is a bad thing

Cult of Character
How the ‘secular’ Character Training Institute is working to build evangelist Bill Gothard’s vision of a First-Century Kingdom of God—one city, one state, one school board, one police force and one mind at a time.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2450/

The concept of obeying God-granted authority runs through virtually all IBLP-published materials. “The key to understanding authority is identifying four areas of God-ordained jurisdiction: parents, government, church leaders, and employers,” reads an introductory passage to Basic Life Principles Seminar. “When a decision is to be made, we must ask, ‘Whose jurisdiction is this under?’ God gives direction, protection, and provision through human authorities. If we rebel against them, we expose ourselves to the destruction of evil principalities. … This is why ‘rebellion is the sin of witchcraft.’ “

snip

The list of Character First! seminar attendees already reads like a who’s who of top corporations and government institutions: McDonald’s, Burger King, Aflac, Costco, Coca Cola, the Correctional Corporation of America, the Better Business Bureau, Tyson Foods, the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Bureau of Prisons, the Arkansas Prison System and the U.S. District Attorney’s office are all mentioned, in addition to more than a dozen school districts (including Denver, Memphis and Ft. Lauderdale), and eight healthcare companies and hospitals.

snip

In the blue book and other IBLP materials, the 49 character qualities take on a more strident and extremist tone. “Obedience” is defined as the “freedom to be creative under the protection of divinely appointed authorities. All legitimate authority comes from God. He is the One who sets up rulers and takes them down. … God ordained government to carry out his will in matters of justice.”

snip

To take but one example, the workbook materials distributed to the prisoners in the CCA-run Grants, New Mexico, women’s prison include a breakdown of “basic life principles,” including “Moral Purity,” “Yielding Rights” and “Proper Submission.”

“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord,” reads one of the biblical selections. Emphasis is placed on “courting” rather than “dating;” on women obeying their husbands; avoiding the “addiction” of all forms of music except for those written and/or approved by the IBLP; preserving marriage at all costs; and on the need for Christians to respect, obey and submit to church and government. These institutions and their rulers, as the workbooks explain, exist because of God’s will.

dogemperor who has written much about dominionist and reconstructionist groups has posted many times about Gothard. Here is one on W and Ken Blackwell's connections:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/30/135025/272

Another on Mike Huckabee's connections which details more of the abusive practices by gothard's groups
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/1/19/192431/131/Diary/Mike_Huckabee_Member_of_destructive_Bill_Gothard_cult

Firstly, I am not exaggerating when I refer to Bill Gothard's material as a bona fide Bible-based cult. Gothard's material more than meets the criteria for coercive religious groups; Rick Ross Institute considers it a group of grave concern, among others.

Gothard's teachings are almost assuredly responsible for the tragedy of Michael Murray's church shooting and death, up to and including what ended up being a terminal mental breakdown caused both by being raised in the abusive Gothardist system and his later involvement in Youth With A Mission.

Gothard also combines in his own way two of the most disastrous, mind-bending, damaging tactics ever used in coercive religious groups--the practice of "deliverance ministry" (which teaches that literally anything can be infested by demons, and is essentially a "Christianised" version of the same stuff Scientologists teach about "engrams", "body thetans", and "suppressive persons"; Gothard has specifically taught, among other things, that Cabbage Patch Kids are possessed by the devil and that adopted kids are damned to suffer due to "generational curses" inflicted on them by their natural parents) and an even more coercive (in comparison) version of abusive "cell churches" and discipling/shepherding movements (Gothard rather explicitly teaches that everyone must have a "covering"--a shepherd over them--and that this "shepherd" who has their "covering" can never be opposed or even questioned for any reason).

It is, again, not a case where I am exaggerating to state these are the two most harmful methods ever devised by coercive groups. "Deliverance ministry" enforces an almost complete isolation from the outside word and even essentially teaches that any doubts about the group are due to demonic oppression or possession; people are often subjected to violent, occasionally involuntary, "exorcisms" where mental breakdowns (some requiring inpatient treatment in psychiatric units) and suicide are not uncommon sequelae. (Matthew Murray himself was a known victim of this who eventually snapped and killed seven people including himself when he was unable to escape.) Gothard's program is known to be extremely isolating even in comparison to the general isolation of neopente dominionist groups in general; even Christian music with a "rock beat" is absolutely prohibited (and yes, people participating in his programs are required to sign contracts promising not to play music with a "rock beat"--rather ironic, seeing as Huckabee seems to regularly play bass guitar).

[Coventina]

1. I was raised by Gothard-loving parents & have attended his seminars

Although, this was back when I was a teenager.

I still have lots of Gothard's materials packed away in boxes, so it's not readily accessible to me right now.

Basically, going from memory, it's extremely authoritarian in nature. And also very, very conservative. Almost NO music is acceptable, nothing with a discernable rhythm, any sort that appeals to the body.

Demons and evil spirits are everywhere, but you can pray for a protective hedge to surround your loved ones.

The earth is NOT overpopulated, it's mostly empty. But they conveniently don't mention how much farmland is required to support each human being. But anyway, it's your duty to have as many children as possible, in order to produce more God-fearing, right-minded people.

On edit: I remembered something else. Gothard had/has a big book that uses animals as examples of good character traits. For some reason, the one that sticks in my mind clearly is the rabbit. It talks about a female rabbit in winter. She's pregnant, but short of food. So her body re-absorbs the fetuses growing within her in order for her to survive the winter. Why do I remember that particular story? No idea. But looking back on it now, it sure seems to undermine a "pro-life" position!!

on a further edit: More is coming back to me now...

According to Gothard there is no such thing as "rights", like "human rights" or "civil rights" or anything like that. Claiming "rights" is rebelling against God-given authority. No one has "rights" you only have "privileges". That might just be the most scary thing about this guy. Can you imagine such a regime?

And they never made ANY secret about trying to take over the U.S. government. It was always with a lot of pride that they would announce various government officials instituting their policies.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. Maybe because it indicates that if God didn't want a woman to be

pregnant he would allow her to re-absorb the fetus - and since he didn't, that means she MUST have the baby because it is God's will.

Biological reality notwithstanding.

[Shallah Kali]

3. This reminds me - Gothard is part of the Quiverfull movement (the Duggar Clan) - link

Before I get quoting thank you for sharing your experiences. According to the In These Times article they are still using the animal examples for character traits in their materials.

Dominionism and child abuse, part 2
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/14/114136/732/786/371430

Bill Gothard has been all too familiar on these pages. From his promotion of the bizarre concepts that Cabbage Patch Kids are possessed by demons, to his Joel's Army paramilitary camp, to his Joel's Army gulag he formerly ran in Indianapolis--you could say ol' Bill has been quite the regular here.

Today's post is not going to be the exception here, either. As it turns out, Bill Gothard is also big on handing out advice to parents, especially in the "Quiverfull" movement--including to none other than the very poster-children of "Quiverfull", the Duggar clan--already up to seventeen little God Warrior sproglets.

snip

The "Quiverfull" movement is very closely connected to the scarier parts of the Joel's Army movement--which teaches explicitly that the generations of kids growing up nowadays are a "Joshua Generation" meant to establish a dominionist reign of terror over the rest of us to "Secure God's blessing" before the Rapture occurs--and, after the Tribulation, to come back down from heaven and throw the lot of us into the Lake of Fire.

snip

Gothard is known to have set up an extensive system of control that rivals the cultic systems in Scientology or the Moonies for levels of coercion; in addition, he claims that illnesses are caused by "generational curses" (in "deliverance ministry" circles, caused by something as simple as your mom having worn a peace sign in the 60's or your great-grandmother having had her fortune read at Coney Island--or your great-great-great-great-grandmother having been a Cherokee or being brought across the oceans from Africa in a slave ship and not having been Christian in the first place), has promoted involuntary exorcisms on the unwilling (which is not only incredibly abusive and capable of causing permanent psychiatric injury but is actually fatal to a known ten to fifteen people a year in the US), is known to use abusive "shepherding" tactics (of the sort that are now widely recognised as highly abusive), runs front groups to try to market dominionism in public schools as "character education" programs, will in general not discuss his tactics unless you have been recruited into his programs (a dead giveaway we are dealing with a frank cult here), and promotes "Quiverfull" stuff in his own way by claiming in essence that "God will provide" for women having extreme amounts of kids and that parents shouldn't have Caesarian sections (and again attributes infertility to having Cabbage Patch Kids in the house)...among other things.

[Coventina]

4. Which makes it interesting that Gothard never married & had kids

At least, he hadn't when I was still a teenager.

Still lived at home with his parents, under his God-given authority figures.

That's another thing, unmarried children are not supposed to leave home & live on their own, ever!

[Shallah Kali]

6. Wikipedia says he is 74 and still unmarried and childless

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gothard

re: unmarried offspring must stay under authority of parents - what is it about getting married that suddenly would make a person fit to be their own authority? there is no logic about it other than if it is an issue of property and calling kids property is just plain *WRONG**WRONG**WRONG*!

[Karenina]

5. K&R!

:kick:

[Shallah Kali]

7. locked in prayer closets, forced to sit in their own urine for hours, marching & chanting for hours.

Rick Ross has copies of this and other articles on Bill Gothard here http://www.rickross.com/groups/gothard.html

Here is the article I got the above info from at it's original source:

Culture Wars
Follow this leader and your kids will obey their masters and join lockstep with God. Or else.
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2002-09-12/news/culture-wars/

Inside a converted 300-room hotel, the prayer closet is a little room where kids are taken when they disobey staff at the Indianapolis Training Center (ITC). Once locked inside, the misbehaving youths are forced to sit and pray to Jesus, sometimes for days at a time. Some juvenile ITC residents have said the evangelical Christian teens and young adults who staffed the center sometimes forbade them from going to the bathroom, forcing them to sit in their own urine for hours. Some have complained of beatings with paddles by untrained staff that left bruises and welts. When not in isolation, the kids are forced to march and chant and pray, with gospel music playing almost constantly.

snip

I've written about Gothard before. Three and a half years ago, I discovered he was behind Character First! and looked into his bizarre ministry <"Little Soldiers of the Culture War," February 18, 1999>. The seat of the 66-year-old Christian guru's power is in Chicago, where he runs a little empire, reportedly worth $63 million, called the Institute of Basic Life Principles (IBLP). Gothard, who has been preaching for decades and claims 2.5 million followers, teaches that Jesus Christ is at the top of a "chain of command" in which authority figures, teachers, employers, elected officials, and, of course, preachers-- are ordained as leaders by Christ and should be obeyed without question."God expects you to consider that you are working for Jesus Christ on your job," he instructs his followers in IBLP seminars, which are held around the country.

In Gothard's world view, husbands are dominant over wives (another of Regier's stated beliefs), and wives are forbidden to work outside the home. Marriages must be arranged by fathers, and divorce is not allowed. Rock beats and, oddly enough, chords in minor keys are considered a subversion of God's harmony. Television and other forms of popular culture are largely shunned as evil. Gothard even dictates how people should dress and when married couples can and cannot have sex. And, like Regier, Gothard is a big believer in corporal punishment, preaching that the "wrath" of parents leads children to God.

snip

The fact that the Bushes are tied to a neo-fascist like Gothard shouldn't really be surprising. Both the president and governor pretend to be moderates, but they surround themselves with right-wing ideologues.And when it comes to radical agendas, a little more national obedience couldn't hurt, especially when it comes to the planned attack on Iraq.

And though the invasion, without further justification, may seem like an unprecedented act of naked aggression, the order is coming from the highest authority on Earth, so who are we to question it? As Gothard will tell you, George W. Bush is a representative of Jesus Christ himself.

[Cleita]

8. This is seriously disturbing.

I can't believe in our age of global communications that people would be conned into these kinds of beliefs but apparently they are.

[KatyaR]

9. We have mandatory Character First training at my company.

It sucks. We have to go once a month and see a stupid video and then break into groups to answer questions about this month's character trait. During your birthday month, your supervisor has to pick a trait and then get up in front of the company and talk about you and how you exemplify that trait in your work habits. Most of the time, the bosses have to get information from the employee themselves or from their friends in order to have anything to talk about.

This company charges an arm and a leg for their materials, and every employee in the company has to be "enrolled" in the program. We spend tens of thousands of dollars each year for our "membership."

The owners of my company are fundie right-wingers who think that morality and character are more important than anything. As you probably can imagine, they don't have a clue about how to run a company. They have pretty much run us into the ground, and we are shedding assets like crazy right now to keep the debtors away.

They want everyone to respect each other and treat everybody the "right way," but my boss has refused to give me a performance review or a raise for the last two years. HR can't even get him to budge, and he's the #3 guy in the company. I sometimes get the feeling that he's not doing it because I'm not a churchgoer.

I don't think that's very respectful, do you? :sarcasm:

[Shallah Kali]

10. 'Palin is a modern-day incarnation of the Biblical prophet, Deborah' - editor of Charisma Magazine

please go to the article below for hot links to source articles.

New revelations re Palin and dominionists
http://dogemperor.newsvine.com/_news/2008/09/16/1874569-new-revelations-re-palin-and-dominionists

he links with Gothard are particularly disturbing. Gothard's nest of fronts are among those directly provable to be running training camps for "God Warriors With Guns" and also have a history of links with "Christian nationalist" secessionists and racists. This is, of course, on top of actively infiltrating police and other public safety agencies to convert those to wings of "Joel's Army", and the promotion of religiously motivated child abuse so extreme that it's been linked to murder-suicides due to those being tortured finally snapping.

snip

As Grady wrote in this week's column, the gender of the Old Testament prophet Deborah "didn’t stop her from amassing an army; she inspired the people in a way no man could. She and her defense minister, Barak, headed to the front lines and watched God do a miracle on the battlefield."
Grady continues: "In her song in Judges 5:7, Deborah declares: 'The peasantry ceased, they ceased in Israel, until I, Deborah, arose, until I arose, a mother in Israel'... Sometimes it takes a true mother to rally the troops."

snip

Even worse yet, there's reports that Joel's Army and other dominionists are literally making imprecatory prayers for McCain's death...so Palin can be president.

The explicit promotion of Palin as a latter-day end-times prophet is disturbing indeed--and a dangerous sign, a strong sign that Palin getting close to the Presidency could have the whole world's fate riding on it.