MK forum

Was Bill Gothard ever married? He visited Tambo sometime in the early to mid 60's when his ministry was starting. I remember him preaching to us on the same material later published in his seminar notebooks. (These six things doth the Lord God hate, yea, seven are an abomination.) I remember him as a single man and that may be part of the reason he was so dogmatic. It is easy to be dogmatic about how to raise children and how a family should function when you are not responsible for or accountable to anyone else in the family. His teaching about living at home and submitting to your father until you were married was totally unrealistic for a girl raised in a primitive jungle village. There really was no option but to leave home, go to college and make a life somewhere else unless he expected her to marry a native and live as the natives did. While I loved the villagers, I wouldn't wish the life of a tribal woman on any of my children.

I agree on the Gothard teaching. Crazy stuff there, including no birth control use. There was also the speaker who traveled around and wrote books, taught how how you should spank until a child "breaks". Both of these teachers did a lot of harm.

People actually accepted this kind of advice and teaching? How tragic! The fact that he said you should "break" a child is heart wrenching.

Jane Doe

They did and they do. I had a Gothard supporter drop by my blog recently to write what a great man he is.

Bill Gothard did get married. I don't know how his kids turned out.
But his whole ministry went kind of weirdo after awhile.

About the submitting to your dad thing . . .in '85 or '86, at Via we had a speaker for a retreat . . .he had this whole series on loving your daddy, hugging your dad, letting him be your sweetheart until you were married. The thing is, we weren't with our dads! And we made some sort of vow and wrote it in our Bibles. I read it sometime recently and was like, "what the heck is this?". It was actually kind of creepy . . .anyone remember that? I think he did a tour of MK schools . . .

No, Bill Gothard never married and has no kids! He lived with his parents until their death, now he lives alone. He still runs his empire, which now includes a home school wing. The Duggar family of 19 and Counting are his most famous adherents.

Oh, the lectures about spanking were more painful to me then the actual . . .I was too scared to death to not jump and run when he said so, so I actually didn't get hit a lot. But dad would take off his belt when we were rowdy, and holding both ends together make it snap. He would laugh when we got real serious real fast. Were you ever told that the Bible gave the father the authority to spank his wife if she was disobedient? Mom would roll her eyes and whisper that he never did it, but we were horrified and distrusted a lot of what he said after that . . .

I don't think Bill Gothard got married either. I remember him coming to Tambo

Nope, definitely not married. Still running Basic Life Principles seminars, has his home school wing ATI, and other "educational" organizations designed to keep children of ATI from ever coming into contact with non-ATI educators: Alert Academy and Veritus Institute.