Rachel Goes to Bill Gothard's "Basic Seminar" Part 1

Revisiting the Seminar That Shaped My Childhood

Amazon Prime’s documentary, “Shiny, Happy People,” about the Duggar family and IBLP (“Institute of Basic Life Principles”), premieres this week. The documentary, which is being produced by same team that gave us “Lularich,” promises to deliver in the drama department. And there’s plenty to work with: Bill Gothard’s alleged sexual harassment of more than thirty young women, all while preaching a message of scrupulous “moral purity,” is exactly the kind of irony that turns a fleeting scandal into a memorable story. And of course Josh Duggar’s recent conviction of possessing child pornography has a shock value that is still reverberating.

The documentary will doubtless include at least some coverage of Gothard’s famous seminars, which were one of his main vehicles for getting his message out. These seminars went by different names. The first was the “Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts,” which later became known as the “Basic Seminar.” But, whatever name they went by, each seminar had more or less the same message: seven “basic principles” for life that were (according to Gothard) the distillation of hours and hours of Bible study, and how to apply them. These principles were “universal and non-optional,” guaranteeing success if they were followed, and conversely, assuring ruin if they were ignored.

Newspaper clipping from the Detroit Free Press, 1977

Bill Gothard’s seminars were part of the backdrop of my childhood since before I can remember. We called it “The Seminar;” in fact it was a long time before I realized that the word “seminar” didn’t refer exclusively to a Bill Gothard teaching event. Whenever the seminar came to Cobo Hall in Detroit, my parents and any of my older siblings who were old enough to go were sure to be in attendance. Although I did attend the children’s seminar when I was seven (where we learned mind-blowing spiritual insights like, “obey your parents”), getting to go to the real seminar was a rite of passage that I never experienced. But by the time I was in my teens - the typical time when young people would be encouraged to join the adults - the seminar was waning in its national appeal, and my family was gradually drifting away from the world of IBLP.

I’ll be watching the documentary, but before I hear what Amazon Prime has to say about this man and his organization that shaped so much of how I was raised, I want to hear it from the horse’s mouth. This is why I am watching an entire Basic Seminar (30-plus hours) leading up to and as I watch the documentary. And the good news (?) is, you’re invited to come along with me, via this Substack series.

My Motives, Explained

Why am I doing this to myself? There a lot of answer to that question that could be considered equally true.

1. My sister says it’s because I’m an enneagram 5; I say it’s because I’m a glutton for punishment, and maybe that’s just two different ways of saying the same thing.

2. It’s low-key research for my master’s thesis.

3. I’ve always intended to revisit the IBLP/ATI materials and the time has just never been right. The timing isn’t necessarily ideal right now either, since I’m doing this little project alongside graduate classes, but with the documentary coming out, it was just too good an opportunity to miss.

4. I feel that I am uniquely situated to dive into Gothard’s teaching with minimal mental/emotional harm. A lot of the work that has been done to expose Bill Gothard has come at the expense of those harmed the most by his teachings, and especially SA survivors. Their sacrifice has been invaluable in shining a light on the IBLP world, but it comes at a huge, personal cost to their mental health, and I don’t think it’s fair to leave all the heavy lifting to those who have already suffered so much. I do have personal experience with IBLP, but I don’t have as much direct experience as many people do. I never went to the Oak Brook headquarters (except once to visit my sister, who did work there), or attended the seminars, “Journey to the Heart” etc. I wasn’t ever (thank God!) a “Gothard girl.” Gothard’s influence over my personal life, though significant, was mostly indirect, and diluted. There is enough distance between 35-year-old me, and the IBLP world, that the material is not triggering to me like it is for others.

Eccentric Homeschooling Cult Leader, or National Evangelical Phenomenon?

So, what’s the deal with Bill Gothard, “The Seminar,” and IBLP, anyway? How relevant is all this in the year of our Lord 2023? Today, people tend to focus so much on the weird eccentricities of IBLP that it gets written off as quirky cult that only got into the news because of the TLC show featuring one of its leading families, the Duggars. The courtship rules, the hyper-modest dress code, and the radical interpretation of the fifth commandment seem to many like something out of another world - or at least, another century.

But Gothard’s seminars, which began in 1964, were once a national phenomenon. In 1973, Gothard’s “Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts” drew so much attention that a New York Times article reported, “more than 16,000 persons filled two auditoriums” to attend the seminar. Here is a picture of the Dallas seminar in 1973, which had over 20,000 attendees:

If the seminar had that kind of broad appeal then, you can bet it was playing on timeless tropes that are still in play today, in one form or another.

The lessons that we can learn from the cautionary tale of Bill Gothard and IBLP will only be taken to heart if we are willing to admit that he was not an eccentric wacko with a few, disturbingly devoted follower. For every oddly-dressed, homeschooling family who came to the seminars with a Quiverfull of children in tow, there were ten mainstream attendees who personally thought Gothard was a little extreme but “he’s the only one out there willing to say this stuff.” My own family attended the conference alongside church friends who didn’t buy into homeschooling, courtship or the rejection of birth control, but were attracted to Gothard’s over-arching vision for a more moral, respectful society, built one family at a time. Many people who attended Gothard’s conferences figured there was no harm in “eating the meat and spitting out the bones,” but this outer circle of casual followers was integral to IBLP’s reach and sustainability, forming a protective cocoon around the inner circle of Gothard’s more fanatical base.

As I seek to recreate for myself and you, the reader, what it would have been like to attend the Basic Seminar, I will be seeking to better understand what it was about Gothard’s message that made it so compelling to my parents, and so many others, because as the saying goes: those who don’t know history, are doomed to repeat it. And for those who come along on this journey with me, I want us to ask: who are the voices today that we - the church - are tolerating because “they’re the only ones willing to say what needs to be said”? I want us to look at the devastation left in the wake of one man’s “ministry,” and ask ourselves if he accomplished anything that was worth that cost. Because we have our Bill Gothards today, too, as time will surely tell.

I want to warn readers that the material I will be talking about may be triggering if you have a history with religious authoritarianism, and especially if you were involved with IBLP. I will be leaving the most sensational stuff to the documentary, but there will be direct quotes from the Basic Seminar and screenshots of the workbook. It’s up to you if you think that following along will be healing, or traumatizing, but please be gentle with yourself and pass this series by if you need to. Otherwise, put on your best navy blue skirt (or khaki slacks), button your white polo up to the top button, pile in to your 15-passenger van, and let’s go to the Basic Seminar.