More allegations against Institute in Basic Life Principles, Gothard

If you would, follow this trail of sinister apostasy:

• Pettit lives on planet earth - Gothard lives on planet earth
• Pettit lives in the US - Gotharrd lives in the US
• Pettit is a US citizen - Gothard is a US citizen
• Pettit is a Christian - Gothard is a Christian
• Pettit is a conservative - Gothard claims to be a conservative
• Pettit resides in South Carolina - Gothard has set foot in South Carolina before
• Pettit knows people who know Gothard
• Pettit has (gasp!) actually spoken at places where other people (gasp!) personally know Gothard
• Pettit needs oxygen to survive - Gothard needs oxygen to survive

Look at this! Clearly, they are both false teachers. There is just way too much similarity here to be a coincidence. I hope somebody takes this for action …

Here is some clarification: http://www.discoveringgrace.com/questions/

Search for Petitt’s name and you will see his justification for going including an email response to someone about it before he went.

–- Moderator [Jim Peet] added the following from the above link (so no need to search for it) –—

“Dear —–:

Thank you for writing and expressing your concerns about my speaking at Independent Baptist Church.

According to my sources with Independent Baptist Church, Mr. Gothard is not an official member of the church and Pastor Shoaf did not recommend that Mr. Gothard retake the reigns of IBLP.

Since purity is a Biblical command and Independent Baptist Church is committed to teaching and encouraging Christian teens to be pure then I will keep my commitment to speak at their upcoming banquet.

God bless!

Steve Pettit

SO - this is quite a LONG time ago… We’re talking 1970’s .. Gothard’s mother attended LaGrange Bible Church. From what I understood that is the church he grew up in.. (not POSITIVE - but that’s what his Mom told me. As a teenager I attended there off/on with a friend .. worked VBS every summer for 3 or 4 years. Met his Mom .. I had attended IBYC my freshman year of high school - and was fascinated by the fact that I was meeting him mother.

I attended high school at Marquette Manor (at the time Christian Academy .. now Baptist Academy). There were families that had parent(s) working with Gothard. He did NOT attend Marquette - in fact I seem to remember thinking it weird that he seemingly did NOT have a home church.

Interesting side note .. as it was pointed out that someone had an objection to his attending a Bible church / not a Baptist church… I was saved at Summit Bible Church when I was 7 years old.. laugh.. didn’t start going to Baptist churches until Junior High…

Regarding Pettit and this, Pettit spoke at a church where the pastor has, in my view, made an egregious mistake in endorsing Gothard’s return to ministry. Egregious because Gothard really doesn’t have a good reputation among outsiders for obvious reasons. So even if we overlook some of IBLP’s weird theology, a good pastor should stand against Gothard returning to ministry until he’s either exonerated (I won’t be holding my breath, looking at the lawsuit) or has made a lot of restitution and spent some time in the penalty box.

But that said, for Pettit to be culpable here, we have to assume that he knew of this at the time, and was also familiar with the accusations against Gothard. I can’t go with that—too much assumption for my taste. That said, if the church was endorsing IBLP despite its weird view of grace and Matthew 18, I can see Pettit refusing to speak there because Gothard is really contradicting the Gospel by making grace into works.

One other thing to note here is that when I read through a summary of the charges, it struck me that a significant portion of the victims were people who already had a history of being victimized. Now I haven’t done a statistical test of that portion vs. what we’d ordinarily expect, but it did strike me that it is possible that someone learned to have an eye out for people who had already been victimized—now take a look at that weird exegesis of Matthew 18 again. You get somebody in, tell them they’re damaged goods, and then tell them they’ve got to be good wares to complain. That would explain a lot of the silence over the years.

If true, that could actually be a problem for Gothard beyond what (thank you, Joe & Greg) appears to be perjury on Gothard’s part. Another famous man from Chicago, a used furniture salesman, was sent to a little island off San Francisco for tax evasion, and if Gothard’s got a pile of money that he hasn’t reported as income, I’m guessing the same would apply to him. He was famous for not taking much official income, wasn’t he?

It is also my prayer that “our tribe” would develop a little more discernment regarding people that get big names. Let’s be blunt; if a pastor can’t parse out “charis” or “chesed” enough to realize that Gothard’s definition is, charitably speaking, garbage, it’s time for him to step down from the pastorate.