Did anyone here ever attend one of the Bill Gothard seminars?

[xfundy]

Gothard was a preacher-man who never married and allegedly molested at least 30 women. His group also authored the home-skooling materials the Duggars use to "teach" their kids.

He also had seemingly thousands of "institutes" on many topics, all with the same bullshit inside. I was forced to attend his "The Institute on Basic Youth Conflicts" sideshow. Every night for a week my family dragged me to a huge arena in my hometown to participate in this nonsense, which included having a 3-ring binder with cheesy graphics, charts, pull quotes, a series of die-cut cards printed with Gothard BS — 'suitable for framing' — and "exercises" to play along with the rest of the fundies there.

Everything in the presentation, all six or so nights of it, was BS I'd had drilled into me since childhood. I don't know how many hundreds my parents threw away on this, but it was definitely wasted.

Found one of the binders last year after my mother died. It was even worse than I remembered.

[AndreaCG]

1. Glad you escaped the cult

[xfundy]

2. Thanks!

As the 'damned librul' in the family, including most of the extended family, I got blamed for more than my share while my sociopathic fake 'christian' sibling lied, stole and was abusive to my parents in their final days.

[cbayer]

3. I am so sorry that you were forced to do this.

It helps me understand where you are coming from.

[xfundy]

10. If that's the best you can do as an apology for attacking me originally,

I'll accept it.

[cbayer]

12. I am sorry if you feel I attacked you originally.

I have no recollection of doing so, but if I did, I do apologize.

[xfundy]

13. Thank you.

[rug]

4. I never heard of him. You prompted me to look.

You probably know this site:

http://www.recoveringgrace.org/

If a tenth of these stories are true he should be behind bars.

Thanks for a hint of where your user name came from.

[xfundy]

5. Consider yourself lucky.

It was like being in a coliseum full of robots, each rapt in attention, each being reprogrammed simultaneously. Local church choirs and probably the 'institute's' own choirs performed nightly. The man is a scammer from way, way back.

This was when I was about fifteen, still years away from becoming an ex-fundy.

Going through that site now, thanks.

[rug]

6. I did encounter some similar grops, but not at 15.

It's hard to fight back at that age.

[xfundy]

7. I tried to get out of it.

But they were determined to force me to go. Siblings went along fine, but they were always fundies, still are.

I was a believer, but mainly because I was scared not to be.

This is only a small part of the xfundy experience. I hesitate to offer more.

[rug]

8. There's no need to go into it.

These groups do enormous harm. Dishonesty, coercion and hypocrisy are powerful toxins. I haven't gone through it myself but from what I understand they create an extremely warped worldview which is hard to shed. The trauma is real and persistent even when out of it. Everyone who leaves has a different reaction. Some can just walk away. Others ricochet.

Even without these experiences, I often find it difficult to obtain a clear, unbiased perspective on religion in particular. A sense of perspective and balance, when possible, I find is the best approach. Otherwise, we all end up howling at the moon and each other.

[xfundy]

9. One's experience of religion can be completely different from another's.

This was mine. Yours was obviously more positive, hence my howling at you a couple of years ago. Sorry about that.

[rug]

11. Same here. Not that there's anything wrong with an occasion howl.