How Bill Gothard and his Institute in Basic Life Principles built a culture of obedience, silence, and sexual confusion that protects predators and puts children at risk.
Appreciate this episode, but it does not seem well researched? Specifically confused by two things:
- Why one of the hosts says in regards to the legal case and formal allegations that they’re not sure what actually happened. The three formally filed legal complaints make it explicit. They come up in the first page of Google results when searching for “legal complaints bill gothard”
- Why one of the hosts says that the women plaintiffs settled the case out of court. This is entirely inaccurate. The women dropped the legal case, in part due to statue of limitations, but formally said they do not recant the allegations. And then Bill Gothard countered sued them. There was no settlement. There was a counter suit. The front page of Recovering Grace details the outcome of Gothard’s counter suit.
Might be worth clarifying or retracting in a future episode.
After writing that reply, I just realized you may have misunderstood something I did say. I *did* mention a lawyer that Jill Dillard hired to retrieve compensation she was owed for participating in "Counting On." That is money that was obtained, I believe, through some kind of settlement. This has nothing to do with the lawsuit against Bill Gothard.
Kristin here. A bit confused by this comment because I said none of these things, and I didn't cover the outcome of the lawsuit here at all. That's because it's a complicated story which involves a potentially crooked lawyer who may not have had the clients' best interests at heart. We only talked about the allegations. You can disagree with my decision to cover only the allegations if you like, but I didn't make any claims about the outcome of the lawsuit.
Again, appreciated very much your work on this story. Not trying to call you out per se. Just trying to clarify a few things. I’m specifically referring to:
1. At approx minute 10:30 forward, in the context of the abuse allegations, you say… “it’s hard to say what happened”.
But maybe you meant it’s hard to know if the women in the legal complaints were telling the truth, or…? The legal complaints themselves make very clear what the women say happened.
2. At 34:25 Jeff says “they sued him, and ultimately settled due to some statute of limitations stuff.”
They did not settle. They dropped the case, and Gothard then sued multiple of them.
Maybe these are minor points in the grand context, but I’m pretty sure they’re important things to the women who came forward. It took enormous courage for them to come forward and challenge him, IBLB, and the entire system.
(Context — I’m directing a documentary film about this story. Happy to talk more offline if interested).
Ah, okay, regarding what I said: I meant that it's hard to say what happened if you base your research only on what is documented at the website Recovering Grace, which we were discussing. Very little is explained in detail unless you go to secular media or to the actual filing, and the website claiming to be the preeminent source of information on Gothard's abuses reduces everything to "sin," making it hard to tell if we're talking about a crime or about Gothard being a general creep. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. I have tweeted at length about it -- I think evangelical media have muddied the waters here and done more harm than good in terms of actually providing clarity about what happened. Likewise, they hired a shitty lawyer understood to be a fixer for the religious right.
I missed what Jeff said about a settlement, and I should have caught that. I'm the one who researched it, and I'm not always the best listener. Statutes of limitations has been floated in the community as the reason this didn't go forward, but that isn't really a sufficient explanation when we're talking about a civil suit. But it had been my intention for us not to cover the outcome of the suit, and we'll make a note of it next time.
Thanks for clarifying what exactly you were talking about. I'm sorry we were unclear in these places.
Oh, one other thing. I probably should have made it clearer that I was talking specifically about the evangelical resource Recovering Grace. I was only able to sort through what happened (to some of the women) by going to the court filing and to secular media. But more than 30 women have come forward, many of whom were not included in the suit. I still have no idea what happened to them because their accounts include innuendo about Gothard's "sin" without actually explaining what he did. Was it sexual harassment or sexual abuse? Both are bad, but it's important to clarify what you're talking about in a supposed resource if you want anyone outside the in-group to understand it. There are MANY accounts in which it is impossible to understand what is being discussed unless you know these people personally and have already heard it from them. I'm sympathetic to the need for victims to tell their stories in ways they're comfortable with, BUT I found it extremely frustrating trying to sort through what they were talking about with everything flattened as "sin." I may have been unclear here, and I apologize for that.
I don't in any way doubt that any of them are telling the truth. We believe victims.
Also, I can get your frustrations with RG using christian-ese instead of legal-ese, (ie sins vs crimes) but there were legal reasons why RG characterized things the way they did. This isn’t a satisfying answer I suppose.
Again, it’s complex, and the RG and legal story demonstrates how hard it often is for victims to navigate a somewhat complex and fluid legal system.
I mean, it's my understanding that RG was warned that they should not go with the lawyer they chose. The problem isn't Christian-ese, which I understand and can translate. It's that "sin" means everything from looking at legal consensual porn at home on your computer to rape. That they don't even bother to explain whether they are talking about predation is the real disservice, when "sin" refers to absolutely everything in evangelicalism.
Appreciate this episode, but it does not seem well researched? Specifically confused by two things:
- Why one of the hosts says in regards to the legal case and formal allegations that they’re not sure what actually happened. The three formally filed legal complaints make it explicit. They come up in the first page of Google results when searching for “legal complaints bill gothard”
- Why one of the hosts says that the women plaintiffs settled the case out of court. This is entirely inaccurate. The women dropped the legal case, in part due to statue of limitations, but formally said they do not recant the allegations. And then Bill Gothard countered sued them. There was no settlement. There was a counter suit. The front page of Recovering Grace details the outcome of Gothard’s counter suit.
Might be worth clarifying or retracting in a future episode.
After writing that reply, I just realized you may have misunderstood something I did say. I *did* mention a lawyer that Jill Dillard hired to retrieve compensation she was owed for participating in "Counting On." That is money that was obtained, I believe, through some kind of settlement. This has nothing to do with the lawsuit against Bill Gothard.
Kristin here. A bit confused by this comment because I said none of these things, and I didn't cover the outcome of the lawsuit here at all. That's because it's a complicated story which involves a potentially crooked lawyer who may not have had the clients' best interests at heart. We only talked about the allegations. You can disagree with my decision to cover only the allegations if you like, but I didn't make any claims about the outcome of the lawsuit.
Hi Kristin,
Thanks for the reply. b
Again, appreciated very much your work on this story. Not trying to call you out per se. Just trying to clarify a few things. I’m specifically referring to:
1. At approx minute 10:30 forward, in the context of the abuse allegations, you say… “it’s hard to say what happened”.
But maybe you meant it’s hard to know if the women in the legal complaints were telling the truth, or…? The legal complaints themselves make very clear what the women say happened.
2. At 34:25 Jeff says “they sued him, and ultimately settled due to some statute of limitations stuff.”
They did not settle. They dropped the case, and Gothard then sued multiple of them.
Maybe these are minor points in the grand context, but I’m pretty sure they’re important things to the women who came forward. It took enormous courage for them to come forward and challenge him, IBLB, and the entire system.
(Context — I’m directing a documentary film about this story. Happy to talk more offline if interested).
Ah, okay, regarding what I said: I meant that it's hard to say what happened if you base your research only on what is documented at the website Recovering Grace, which we were discussing. Very little is explained in detail unless you go to secular media or to the actual filing, and the website claiming to be the preeminent source of information on Gothard's abuses reduces everything to "sin," making it hard to tell if we're talking about a crime or about Gothard being a general creep. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. I have tweeted at length about it -- I think evangelical media have muddied the waters here and done more harm than good in terms of actually providing clarity about what happened. Likewise, they hired a shitty lawyer understood to be a fixer for the religious right.
I missed what Jeff said about a settlement, and I should have caught that. I'm the one who researched it, and I'm not always the best listener. Statutes of limitations has been floated in the community as the reason this didn't go forward, but that isn't really a sufficient explanation when we're talking about a civil suit. But it had been my intention for us not to cover the outcome of the suit, and we'll make a note of it next time.
Thanks for clarifying what exactly you were talking about. I'm sorry we were unclear in these places.
Oh, one other thing. I probably should have made it clearer that I was talking specifically about the evangelical resource Recovering Grace. I was only able to sort through what happened (to some of the women) by going to the court filing and to secular media. But more than 30 women have come forward, many of whom were not included in the suit. I still have no idea what happened to them because their accounts include innuendo about Gothard's "sin" without actually explaining what he did. Was it sexual harassment or sexual abuse? Both are bad, but it's important to clarify what you're talking about in a supposed resource if you want anyone outside the in-group to understand it. There are MANY accounts in which it is impossible to understand what is being discussed unless you know these people personally and have already heard it from them. I'm sympathetic to the need for victims to tell their stories in ways they're comfortable with, BUT I found it extremely frustrating trying to sort through what they were talking about with everything flattened as "sin." I may have been unclear here, and I apologize for that.
I don't in any way doubt that any of them are telling the truth. We believe victims.
Also, I can get your frustrations with RG using christian-ese instead of legal-ese, (ie sins vs crimes) but there were legal reasons why RG characterized things the way they did. This isn’t a satisfying answer I suppose.
Again, it’s complex, and the RG and legal story demonstrates how hard it often is for victims to navigate a somewhat complex and fluid legal system.
I mean, it's my understanding that RG was warned that they should not go with the lawyer they chose. The problem isn't Christian-ese, which I understand and can translate. It's that "sin" means everything from looking at legal consensual porn at home on your computer to rape. That they don't even bother to explain whether they are talking about predation is the real disservice, when "sin" refers to absolutely everything in evangelicalism.
Hi Kristin. I hear you… it is a complex case. Thank you for your graciousness and clarity here.
Thank you for bringing more light and exposure not only to this specific story, but the many contextual issues that surround it.
Cheers and wish you the best.