I began to seriously consider writing this book in the middle of 2021. As I did, I wrestled with fear, wondering what would happen if I publicly criticized Gothard-like teachings. Would I hurt relationships with friends and loved ones? Would people I cared about stop talking to me? Would they say I had abandoned the faith of my childhood—that I was at risk of walking away from the Lord? I worried I wouldn’t be invited into homes where I had once been treated like family.
I thought about the IBLP conferences I’d attended as a kid. They’d been the highlight of the year. Some of my fondest memories are on the IBLP campus in Big Sandy, Texas. My siblings and I would ride bikes from one end of the property to the other. It was the only time of year we’d see all our friends from other IBLP families. We’d stay awake well past our usual bedtime, playing games and talking. It was fun getting to be with so many friends my age who shared the same beliefs. By criticizing Gothard and his principles, I worried I wouldn’t be allowed back into a setting like that.
No one wants to be criticized by the community that raised them. But conservative, tight-knit religious groups can be particularly harsh to those who decide to leave. This fear of being labeled an outsider is an incredibly effective tool. Leaders use fear to keep people in line and ensure their loyalty. Give someone a sense of belonging, a group of people to share life with, a commitment to a cause, and an enemy to defeat, and you have a powerful recipe for loyalty.
So how did I overcome my fear to write this book? There are two answers to that question. The first one starts where the previous chapter ended: with the Bible’s main character.
Once I understood that the Bible is about God and not me, the next question I asked myself was, “What is God like?” I knew He was holy. I knew He was just. I knew He was in charge of all creation. But I began to understand God as my heavenly Father.
Sure, I had always understood that God is a Father. That idea is all over the Bible. I knew verses like John 14:6, where Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” I didn’t let that truth change me. Yes, I wanted to please God and, at times, I would feel close to God. But I just didn’t think very often about His heart and fatherly care for me. Instead, I spent a lot of my energy focused on His rules for me. I did not understand verses like Psalm 68:5 or Psalm 103:13 or Romans 8:15.
God loves His children. He cares for us. He wants what is best for us. In fact, He promises to work all things together for our good (Romans 8:28).
In Knowing God—one of the books I heard about from Jessa’s husband, Ben—author J. I. Packer shares a great description of how I now think about my relationship with God.
You sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. “Father” is the Christian name for God.1
Packer concludes, “Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption.”2
Growing up, I thought a lot about God as my judge. I thought about Him as the lawgiver and ruler of this world. But I didn’t think much about Him as my loving heavenly Father. He adopted me into His family. That’s an incredible privilege that I didn’t understand.
As I started to think more about God as my Father, I was drawn to this passage in the Gospel of Matthew:
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (7:7–11)
God, the Creator of the universe, wants to give His children good gifts. He does that every day through His creation. He gives us the world to enjoy, including the food we eat, the beauty we experience, the people we interact with, and the love we share. But by far the greatest gift He has ever given us is His Son, Jesus Christ. To truly understand who God is, I had to understand Jesus.
As I started to look for Jesus when I read the Bible, I noticed things about Him that I hadn’t before. Jesus is full of compassion. He restored sight to the blind. He made the lame walk. He fed the hungry. He even brought people back from the dead. He was not afraid to spend time with the worst sinners. He is eager to forgive anyone who repents. He is full of mercy and compassion. He is gentle and lowly. Most profoundly, He is the Savior of the world.
If I had to sum up my search to understand God, who He is and what He’s like, I’d say I found that in the cross of Calvary. A few years ago, I heard a description of the cross that I think describes it so well: The cross is where God’s perfect justice and mercy meet. When Jesus was crucified, He paid for the sins of all who would ever believe in Him. That means you and I can have our sins forgiven if we simply have faith in what Jesus did for us.
At the cross, Jesus took the punishment we deserved. Here’s one way I’ve heard it phrased: God the Father was punishing God the Son for the sins of God’s children. See what I mean about perfect justice and mercy? There’s no greater news in the world. Jesus’ death on the cross freed me from the consequences of sin. I don’t ever have to worry that God will punish me for my mistakes and disobedience—past, present, or future. Because I don’t have to face the wrath of God, I can also enjoy freedom from all other fears. Why worry what others think about me if God loves me as my Father? Why worry that I won’t have what I need if God controls everything and has promised to provide for me as His child? Why worry about what will happen in the future if God has promised that I will one day live with Him forever in heaven?
With this understanding, the things I used to assume would displease God—taking Communion when I wasn’t supposed to or playing broomball instead of praying—no longer made me afraid of Him. If He was willing to give up His Son for me, He wasn’t going to then punish me for a sin I didn’t know about or playing a game with my family.
I still struggle with fear from time to time. There may always be nights where I lose sleep because I think someone is disappointed in me or upset by a decision I’ve made. And if someone I love has a serious health issue, I’ll no doubt feel that familiar knot in my stomach. I may struggle with fear for the rest of my life. But I now see my fear differently. I know that God doesn’t promise to remove it if I have enough faith. He promises to help me when I do feel that familiar fear. In other words, God doesn’t promise to remove all sin and struggles—but He does promise to be my refuge during every trial.
Forty-two times, the book of Psalms says God is a refuge for His people. For example:
The final Psalm I’ll share is, I think, the most practical. Psalm 91:1–2 says, “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the LORD, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’” When I am in trouble—when I feel like fear and anxiety are overwhelming me—this verse tells me what to do. I speak to God. I pray. I praise Him for being “my refuge and my fortress.” I tell Him that I am going to trust Him. And I believe that He will not allow the fear to consume me.
This clear understanding of the gospel is the primary reason I was able to loosen fear’s control and commit to writing this book. The second reason is concern for the people I know and love who also grew up in the Gothard movement.
Most followers of Gothard’s teaching are people who sincerely want to follow God and please Him. And when you are trained to fear the outside world, you do whatever it takes to avoid it. You embrace everything Gothard says, no matter how difficult or frustrating it can be, because the obedience is assuring. It gives you a sense of righteousness and safety. The pitfalls of the world cannot touch you if you truly believe and always obey.
Yet many of my friends and acquaintances are now in difficult circumstances connected to their upbringing in the IBLP world. Their commitment to following Gothard’s rules has kept them from having healthy relationships with others and understanding who God is and what He’s truly like.
Imagine this scenario: A man and woman get married. They immediately start having children because Gothard opposes any kind of birth control. Financially, they are not in a position to own a home because they’re not allowed to go into debt. That means no mortgage. So they live in what they can afford: a tiny, two-bedroom house that they rent. At first, that’s okay because they have only one child. But then more children come. Next thing they know, they’re six years into marriage with five children under five years old. To provide food and clothing for his family, the husband works longer hours, taking on more responsibility or even more jobs. This takes the dad out of the home for ten or twelve hours a day. Since they’re not allowed to send their kids to school, the mom is in her home, with morning sickness from pregnancy for half the year, trying to manage and homeschool five kids. She feels overwhelmed, unable to handle the responsibility of raising so many children practically alone.
Then the husband comes home, and the house feels like chaos. But the wife has to have it all together to keep her husband faithful and satisfied. That’s what Bill Gothard taught her. The house must be clean, she must be happy with no expectations, and the children must be well-behaved. The problem is, she’s struggling to maintain her mental health and physical appearance, which is terrifying because it means her husband may start desiring other women. The guilt begins to build. On top of that, she is told she must be joyfully available to meet her husband’s physical needs. More sex likely means more children, but they are told, over and over, to just trust God.
Sadly, this is not a hypothetical scenario. It’s a difficult situation many people have experienced after buying into Gothard’s principles. Gothard, by the way, never married and never had children. How did he become the leading authority for so many issues he himself never understood?
Unfortunately, Gothard’s principles were also problematic for those who, like Gothard, never married. Women were told, by Gothard and others, that marriage and child-rearing were God’s primary purposes for them. As the years passed and they remained single, many of these women believed life was passing them by. They felt worthless, like they couldn’t fulfill their God-given purpose until a man took interest. While they waited for marriage, they could not start a career or even go to school because women were supposed to care for the home. They needed to remain at home under their parents’ authority, no matter their age, submitting to their fathers’ leadership and control.
So many I know and love have decided Christianity is not for them because all they ever knew was Gothard’s version of it. They assume God is oppressive and overbearing, just like Gothard’s theology. When they see so-called Christians treating others poorly, and leaders like Gothard accepting it, they think God is like that too. My heart goes out to them. I can understand why they don’t want anything to do with Christianity. I’m writing this book because I want my friends in this situation to know that God truly is compassionate and loving. He cares for them. He sees their pain. And the life He wants for them does not look at all like the life Gothard prescribed.
Thankfully, the Lord has carried me through. He’s given me a new understanding of Him and His Word. And He’s given me many wonderful gifts I don’t deserve, starting with my family. When Jeremy and I stood before our family and friends on our wedding day, November 5, 2016, we promised to love and cherish each other as long as we both live. I felt so much relief on that beautiful afternoon. Our wedding felt like the finish line, the end of a season of courtship that had more than a few challenges. But in reality, Jeremy and I were at the starting line, and we had no idea what God had in store for us.
There was no way of knowing all the joys and trials we’d face together in the coming years. I didn’t know Jeremy nearly as well as I thought I did on our wedding day. Through trials like a miscarriage and a move across the country, I’ve seen a depth of compassion and godliness that has drawn me closer to Jeremy than I thought was possible before we said I do.
Jeremy is a servant leader who puts my needs and the needs of our daughters above his own. I thank God each day for my marriage. But on a deeper level, God has sustained my faith through trials, temptations, and questions. I’ve rejected so much of the religion of my youth, but I have not rejected Jesus. And I have only the Lord to thank for that.
I identify with the pain that many have experienced, especially the fear. And I think it’s this fear that has driven so many to deconstruct their faith to the point where nothing is left. But although He has been misrepresented and His teachings applied the wrong way, Jesus is true, His love is real, and His forgiveness, kindness, mercy, and grace are the greatest blessings in the universe.
In John 8:36, Jesus said, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” That is the central message of this book. Jesus is the source of true freedom. Rejecting Christianity because it’s associated with a teacher like Gothard may give the appearance of freedom, but it will not lead to true freedom. Likewise, obedience to man-made rules does not set anyone free. As Gothard would say, “Freedom is not the right to do what I want but the power to do what I ought.”3 Obedience like that gives a sense of freedom because it puts you in charge. But it doesn’t take away the demand for constant obedience. Someone under a man-made religious system can never break free from the demands of that system. On top of that, man-made religions cannot take care of our main problem: sin.
Contrary to what I grew up believing, the ultimate threat to you and me is not the world. Instead, the ultimate threat to me is . . . me. I need freedom not from the influence of the world, not even from a religious system, but from myself. I am born enslaved by my own sin. Jesus said that in Matthew 15:14–20. This passage has been so helpful for me. Jesus was talking to His disciples—His twelve closest friends. They asked Him why He compared the Pharisees to blind guides leading blind people after the Pharisees accused the disciples of breaking their rules.
Jesus taught His disciples—and all of us—a crucial lesson about what is and is not the source of sin. In Matthew 15:11, he said, “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” Something external, like food or the influence of the world, does not make a person sinful. Having unclean hands does not make us spiritually dirty, as the Pharisees claimed. We are already messed up and infected by sin. The world can’t make us more sinful than we already are.
The freedom we need is not from the world; it’s from ourselves. Only Jesus can provide that. His death and resurrection free people from the consequences of their sin. One day, His death and resurrection will free people even from the presence of sin. My prayer is that people will stop focusing on their own efforts and look toward the true freedom, rest, and refuge that only Jesus Christ provides.
The last time I attended an IBLP conference was April 2018. My parents were speaking at the conference on the topic of pursuing a dynamic marriage. Jeremy and I wanted to see them and the rest of my family. It’s not always easy to coordinate time with them all at once, but the conference in Big Sandy provided that opportunity.
The conference theme was “Herein Is Love.” That’s a reference to 1 John 4:10, in the King James Version, which says, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
I don’t remember all the sessions, but I know there were talks about family devotions, being a godly father, and the relationship between science and the Bible. My understanding of God and His Word had completely changed since I first met Jeremy at this conference back in 2015, so I was very aware of just how man-centered much of the teaching was. It was focused on life improvement. The topics were geared toward personal success, thriving relationships, and family dynamics. This was ironic, since God’s character, particularly His love, is the entire point of 1 John 4:10. I don’t remember hearing anyone define propitiation or explain how love finds its greatest fulfillment in the cross.
I was struck by just how much I had grown in my faith. It seemed like ages ago that this conference had played a massive role in my life. I used to think it was the greatest thing in the world that three to four thousand people would show up every year to Big Sandy, Texas.
I no longer felt that excitement. I realized the teaching was not focused on Scripture or the gospel, and I saw sadness in so many families I knew and loved. Many children who had grown up with me in IBLP were not at that 2018 conference. They had rejected Gothard’s teaching. And worse, they had also rejected Christ. They no longer called themselves Christians because what they were taught throughout their childhood proved ineffective. Staying in that bubble and far from the world’s influence had not kept them away from their own flesh. They were still sinners. No amount of protection and rules could change that.
But Jesus offers freedom—true freedom. And when you understand His love, you will never be the same. I know I wasn’t.