In my early 20s I went to a conference presented by youth pastor turned lifestyle guru Bill Gothard. (He didn’t present ’em in person; we watched videos.)
Bill Gothard. Wikipedia
Gothard is hugely popular among
I’m picking on Gothard a lot in this article, but he’s far from the only guru who does this. Financial gurus like Dave Ramsey claim they also gets their ideas from the bible. Leadership gurus like John Maxwell say much the same thing. Political activists on both the Christian Right and Left claim the basis of all their thinking comes from bible. Hey,
Because of Gothard’s never-borrowing teachings, I actually wound up leaving my Fundamentalist church. ’Cause the church wanted to take out a loan so they could hire two pastors. It was a bad idea for lots of reasons, but Gothard had convinced me borrowing was a sin, so I was outraged when the congregation voted for the idea. “Well they’re not following God,” I concluded, shook the dust off my feet, and started going to my sister’s church.
Where in the bible are we commanded to never borrow? Well we’re not. In fact we’re commanded to treat people fairly and graciously when they borrow from us,
So how’d Gothard convince me it’s not acceptable? He claims it’s a
Not one of the “biblical principles” of Christian gurus are biblical commands. ’Cause if they were, the gurus could simply say, “The L
Assuming, of course, these aren’t human ideas,
Not that gurus really think about that. They have something they wanna teach, think they can prove it with the bible… and as demonstrated by the way they quote scripture, really don’t give a rip
So I’m certainly not saying there’s no such thing as biblical principles. Just that we oughta pay attention to whether the “biblical principles” we dig out of the bible are legitimately something God endorses. ’Cause if he does, you’d think he’d have explicitly said something. He’s not shy, y’know.
Deducing a biblical principle.
Y’know how there are laws of nature?
They’re not literal laws. Nobody decreed ’em. Scientists deduced them: They looked at nature and determined there are certain fundamental, foundational truths by which basic physics works. Like gravity—what comes up must come down. (Or to state it more accurately: Every object’s mass distorts spacetime, causing masses to attract one another; the object with a greater mass is less likely to move from its position or trajectory in space; hence it appears smaller masses “fall” towards larger ones.
As I said, nobody decreed the laws of nature. There are certain Christians who claim God decreed ’em: When he created the cosmos, he didn’t just say “Let there be light,”
Yes, God made a complex universe. But it doesn’t run by divine decree—as demonstrated whenever God ignores the laws of nature.
(Remember that, by the way. It’s a point I’m gonna return to in a bit.)
God never spelled out the laws of physics. Scientists had to deduce ’em. Likewise God never spelled out any of the “biblical principles” which many a Christian preacher bases their sermons on, and many a Christian guru bases their books and seminars on. Christians had to deduce them. And sometimes they deduced them rightly… and sometimes not. But unless we double-check to make sure these preachers did their homework and quoted the bible properly, we don’t know which is which. And sad to say, Christians seldom bother to double-check anything. We accept the teachings because they appeal to us. Not because we know the scriptures well enough to say amen.
Gothard shares the principles he deduced, in his seminars. He claims they’re totally foundational to the moral universe. Christians learn ’em, and now base their lives on them. They treat these “basic life principles” as if they’re biblical commands. Just like I did with not borrowing. (I still go out of my way to avoid borrowing. It’s that ingrained in me.)
But whether God actually created such “principles” or not—whether Gothard actually detected the ancient middle eastern worldview, which ain’t necessarily that
Yet when Gothard teaches these principles, he makes a point of warning his listeners: When we violate them there totally are consequences. He’ll share testimonies of people who violated them, and thereby suffered consequences. He’ll quote proof texts which indicate we’re in deep doo-doo with God if we violate “his” principles.
And culturally conservative parents love this about Gothard. That’s why they send their kids to him. They wanna perpetuate conservative Christianism, and scare their kids into behaving themselves by dangling the wrath of God over ’em. Fear’s a really useful motivator. It’s not of God, but still.
Debt’s a bad idea. Not a sin.
Fundamentalists respect the bible. It is God’s word y’know.
Problem is, sometimes they respect it so much, they fail to recognize the bible’s not just a book of instructions or commands. That not every verse in the bible has to be followed as if it’s one of God’s laws.
But must we obey every command? Like the commands
- Some of us say we absolutely should; they’re in the bible, they’re commands, God said ’em, we do ’em.
- Others say we don’t need to, because they’re Old Testament commands and Jesus nullified them with grace. (
He did not, andthey don’t know how grace works. ) - Still others point out that
since the Holy Spirit indwells believers, he makes us ritually clean, not the commands; we don’t need to be pure for temple because we’re already God’s temple,1Co 3.16 and therefore the cleanliness commands are optional in the Christian Era.
That’s the top three interpretations; there are others. Some are well-thought-out. Some are purely selfish justifications for
Most Fundies are fully aware not every bible verse must be obeyed like law. But many Fundies aren’t. New Christians and young people—you know, like those who attend Gothard seminars—aren’t. So when Gothard starts listing proof texts for why his “biblical principles” must be followed, Christians aren’t always aware some of those texts aren’t commands. They’re advice.
You know, like Proverbs.
Gothard quotes an awful lot of Proverbs. Hey, there’s a lot of good stuff in there! But proverbs aren’t commands. They’re
Commands, laws, and rules are the stuff we aren’t really meant to debate; we just do as God says. We can study the rules so we can understand God better, but still: Do as God says. Whereas wisdom is the stuff we do debate. Probably should debate. And figure out with our commonsense. But Gothard isn’t teaching wisdom. He certainly thinks he is, but he’s perpetuating an old, but popular, Christianist misinterpretation of wisdom: “Just obey God. You’re wise if you do, foolish if you don’t.”
In Proverbs, Solomon comments a borrower is a lender’s slave.
Yeah, I realize in saying this, older Fundies are gonna erupt in fury. “It still applies! It’s God’s word!
Gothard deduced it’s a “biblical principle” to avoid debt. And yeah, voluntarily going into debt is certainly not the wisest course of action when we could, say,
But sometimes debt is unavoidable. If you have a government job, but the government shuts down and your paychecks stop coming—yet the president orders you to go to work anyway—you haven’t the time to get a second or third job to pay your bills. As much as you’ll try to avoid it, you’re gonna go into debt. And if you’re convinced debt is sin, you’re gonna feel like you’re forced into sinning… and no you weren’t. Sometimes life takes a downturn. Economies shrink, famines and recessions happen, jobs get lost, people get sick. We live in a fallen world, so life is suffering. But suffering isn’t sin, nor do we suffer because we sinned; our sinless Lord Jesus suffered too. To everything there is a season,
“Biblical principles” which aren’t of God.
The “umbrellas of protection.” It’s not in the bible, but man is it a popular teaching with sexists.
In fact the devout man also becomes an umbrella, keeping all sorts of woes away from his wife and children so long that they stay under him. And like I said, the simile falls apart easily: What is God’s umbrella not deflecting, which necessitates the husband to be an umbrella? Or maybe God’s umbrella is a sexist umbrella and only works on men. I dunno. I just know no umbrellas in the world work this way. Hey, I didn’t invent this illustration. But Fundies use it all the time. Gothard has it in his books.
We Fundie kids were taught our place was under the Mom-umbrella, and she was to stay in God’s good standing by being under the Dad-umbrella. Since my dad’s
We were taught this “umbrellas of protection” folderol is a biblical principle. It’s not. Not just ’cause the word “umbrella” isn’t found in the bible whatsoever: God never assigned child-rearing solely to women, but to both men and women.
See, that’s what a lot of sham “biblical principles” are about: Promoting American traditional values as if they were God’s idea. Like the “biblical principle” which condemns rock music: It’s not based on a valid reason, like when songwriters write immoral lyrics. It’s Gothard’s claim the backbeat (the rhythm found not in every rock song, but definitely in 1950s rock) is the inverse of the human heartbeat, and is inherently anti-human. Seriously; he teaches this. And if it’s anti-human, yada yada yada, it’s not of God; don’t listen to rock. Listen to what Gothard likes to listen to: Hymns.
And don’t get me started on all the bizarre “biblical principles”
How can we know whether a “biblical principle” really is taught in the scriptures? Simple: Double-check all the preacher’s proof texts. Are they quoting the bible accurately? Or are they bending it to make their case? Are their interpretations of scripture reasonable, or are they stretching the verses’ meanings beyond commonsense?
I know. Sometimes we’re really gonna like their conclusions, and be perfectly happy to accept their “principles” because they suit all our prejudices. Don’t. That’s how they get away with it. They scratch itching ears in just the right way.
But the end result is
So any time someone claims “It’s a biblical principle,” make sure it truly is one. If the bible verses they quote sound unsuitable, or misused, examine those doubts. ’Cause
God’s Will.
