# Bill Gothard and the Unpaid Bills of the Church ![[Assets/749d415fe96292a6a0565d539257538a_MD5.jpg]] ## Metadata - Author: [[Don and Joy Veinot]] - Full Title: Bill Gothard and the Unpaid Bills of the Church - Category: #articles - URL: https://midwestoutreach.org/2023/06/08/bill-gothard-and-the-unpaid-bills-of-the-church/ ## Highlights - We pointed out to Olivia Crist what we demonstrated in our book – If one does not fully understand Bill Gothard’s core foundational teaching, one won’t understand why it has had such a negative impact on his followers. His foundational teaching, which informs everything else, is his “umbrella of authority” doctrine ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1612386991/22588184)) - Bill Gothard is a mystic and a religious eclectic. He eschews studying the Bible in its historical-grammatical context and instead claims he memorizes large portions of Scripture and waits for God to give him the rhemas ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1612386991/22588189)) - On the first night of the first basic seminar, Bill Gothard explains that authority is an “umbrella of protection.” Those who stay under their “umbrella of protection,” the dictates of their alleged “authority figure,” will be protected from temptation and life’s troubles, etc., and they will prosper. On the other hand, if they get out from under their umbrella of protection, they are in rebellion, and rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. To imbue this teaching with supposed biblical authority and scare people into unwarranted submission, Gothard quotes a portion of 1 Samuel 15:23, as you might guess, out of context: For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft (KJV) In the context of 1 Samuel 23, Samuel is addressing King Saul for his flagrant disobedience to specific instructions he had received from the Lord ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1612386991/22588192)) - In this setting, the authoritarian leader wields God as a big club to threaten any of his followers who may question or disobey his dictates. Gothardism is, like the First Century Roman culture, a Patriocentric system in which females are personal property and must obey their male authority without question. To do any less than blindly obey is to get out from under their umbrella of protection and risk God’s wrath. At the wedding of his daughter, a father transfers his authority over his daughter to his new son-in-law. The husband is now her “leader,” who she must hear and obey unquestioningly. If a father passes away, his authority over his wife and family passes from the father to the eldest son, according to Gothard. And here is another way a woman can be passed from authority to authority – If she is sent to work at IBLP “Headquarters,” the authority over her passes from her father to Gothard himself. Wow. That type of “ownership authority” is not biblical at all and can and does produce horrendous outcomes. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1612386991/22588211))