Feb. 6, 2022, 3:30 AM CST
By
Caroline Radnofsky
When the Duggar family caught the public’s eye in 2004 with its first television special, “14 Children and Pregnant Again,” the lifestyle depicted on screen was alien to many viewers.
Conservative Christian parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar did not use birth control, home-schooled their family, wore “modest” clothing — including ankle-length skirts for the girls — and strictly limited influences from the outside world.
Yet some Americans recognized their own values in the fundamentalist Christian family, as well as the influence of one man: Bill Gothard, founder of the Institute in Basic Life Principles.
Gothard once filled convention centers and earned endorsements from prominent politicians, and some of his followers were living out his values on national television.
The Duggar family
has attended and
promoted IBLP events on and off camera. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar,
regular speakers at its semiannual Family Conferences in Big Sandy, Texas, have said Gothard’s teachings
“changed our lives.”
But today, the IBLP is losing income, and Gothard, 87, has been forced out over allegations that he abused young women working at its headquarters. And the Duggars’ shows have been canceled: “19 Kids and Counting” in 2015 amid revelations that their
eldest son molested four of his sisters as a young teen and “Counting On” last year ahead of
his child pornography trial and eventual conviction.
“We do not agree with everything taught by Dr. Bill Gothard or IBLP, but some of the life-changing Biblical principles we learned through IBLP’s ministry have helped us deepen our personal walks with God,” Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar said in a statement.
Dramatic rise and fall
The dramatic rise and decline of the influential fundamentalist ministry and its poster family offer a window into the evolving landscape of American faith.
The
Institute in Basic Life Principles began in 1961 as seminars by Gothard, an evangelical minister from Illinois
with a master’s degree in Christian education.
Over 30 hours, he taught attendees how to lead successful lives by following his interpretation of Biblical principles and warned them away from television, popular music, alcohol, dating and public schools. The
group says more than 2.5 million people have taken the
Basic Seminar.
At the heart of Gothard’s teachings was the importance of respecting “God-given authority.” He
preached a strict hierarchy of divine authority, with Jesus at the top followed by church elders, employers and husbands, who are responsible for protecting their wives and children below them.
In marriage, a man’s role is to provide “servant leadership” while “the woman responds with reverent submission and assistance,”
preached Gothard, who has never married.
One former member said such teachings are damaging. Elizabeth Hunter, 27, was raised in Greenville, Texas, knowing her future role was to be a wife and mother and that her father would one day help pick her husband.
Hunter said her parents had attended Gothard’s seminars and committed to having no television. Like the Duggars, they home-
chooled their children using the
Advanced Training Institute curriculum, which the ministry said was based on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
The family saw the Duggars and Gothard at biannual IBLP events, where Hunter said Gothard was treated “like a god.”
"Nobody wanted to cross him. They feared him, in a way," said former IBLP follower Elizabeth Hunter of Bill Gothard, above. Institute of Basic Life Principles
“Everywhere he went, everyone credited him with saving their lives, opening their eyes. Everyone swarmed him,” Hunter, who no longer follows the ministry, said.
The IBLP’s programs appealed to conservative Christians who had grown up in the cultural upheaval of the 1960s and ‘70s and mistrusted secular authorities to help them raise their families, said Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a professor of history at Calvin University and author of “Jesus and John Wayne.”
“There is this real market within conservative Protestantism for safe and authoritative advice … Gothard was in at the ground floor of this,” Kobes Du Mez said.
Gothard had prominent supporters. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is
quoted on the IBLP website calling the Basic Seminar “some of the best programs available for instilling character into the lives of people.” GOP megadonor Jim Leininger
sat on the IBLP advisory board and then-Texas Rep. Sam Johnson on the Board of Directors until 2012.
The Duggars’ wholesome image made them a
poster family for the IBLP as their TLC show “19 Kids and Counting” became a ratings hit: Elder daughter Jill Duggar’s two-hour wedding special in 2014
drew an audience of over 4.4 million.
Some saw the Duggars as a curiosity; others felt a connection to their way of life, said Beth Allison Barr, a history professor at Baylor University.
“They could identify with male headship, protecting children from the influences of the world. … The Duggar family epitomized a lot of the struggles that Christian families dealt with,” Barr, author of “The Making of Biblical Womanhood,” said.
While the wedding episode was breaking viewing records, the bottom was falling out of the IBLP.
In March 2014, Gothard
resigned from the IBLP board of directors amid allegations he had
sexually harassed and molested women who worked for the organization.
“My actions of holding of hands, hugs, and touching of feet or hair with young ladies crossed the boundaries of discretion and were wrong,” Gothard said in 2014 in a now-deleted
statement on his website that is still linked on
his Twitter profile.
The IBLP said an
internal investigation it had found no criminal activity but concluded Gothard “had acted in an inappropriate manner” and would no longer have any role in the organization.
Twelve women alleged in a civil suit that they had been sexually, physically or psychologically abused by Gothard as minors and that the IBLP had covered it up. The case was dropped in 2018, but the women's attorney, Jonathan Mincieli, would not give a reason, citing attorney-client privilege.
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