Examining a Gothard Book, Part 1

One of my blog followers sent me a box of publications by Bill Gothard’s IBLP and other personal teachings quite a while back. So much has gone on in my life that I totally forgot about that box. Recently I came across the box and began looking at the material; oh what a lot to examine and expose!!!

I decided to start with something “easy”: Gothard’s book, 7 Basic Needs of a Wife. It’s an 80-slick-paged paperback. There are so many problems with this book that it would take another book to cover them all! Therefore I will only discuss the most problematic issues. I will be doing this one chapter at a time, so this post is about Chapter 1, “To Depend on God Alone!”

Pg.6:

Love novels and romantic movies are to girls what pornography is to boys. They create an imaginary picture of marriage that is not only unrealistic but also is unattainable.

Um, NO, romance novels and movies are not equivalent to pornography. While some novels and movies can be true-to-life, most are just fantasy and are only emotionally harmful if one indulges too many of them. Porn, on the other hand, is not at all realistic and the people in them are being used and sinning to great degrees.

On page 9 Gothard discusses “Three Levels of Love” and says that God defines the three levels; eros, phileo and agape. These are Greek words and were defined by the Greeks, not by God. Other languages have different words for the same meanings.

Gothard’s example of eros was David’s son Amnon towards his half-sister Tamar, which is fine. But for phileo he says love stops if the person we feel that way towards stops giving to us. So, if you don’t give things to people then you can’t feel phileo towards them? 

But his worst explanation is what he says about agape: “Agape love is not possible as long as we have expectations of those whom we love. Agape love gives to the needs of others with no expectations of getting anything in return. God loved us when we were His enemies. (See Romans 5:10)” So a wife can’t have agape love towards her husband if she expects his love? What if she expects him to provide for her? Expectations don’t always have to be give and take,

Gothard then says the following:

 Ineffective Love: When a wife tries to love God and her husband, neither one gets agape love because her love is divided and it is phileo love, which expects to receive.

Correct Love: When a wife gives all her love and expectations to God, then He is able to love others through her with agape love, which expects nothing in return.

So a wife cannot love God and her husband? Find THAT in the Bible! So if she loves her husband along with loving God, then her love expects to receive something from God and her husband? So she has to give all her love to God and none to her husband? And unless she does so then God isn’t able to love others through her?!? Do people actually love God without expecting anything in return—not even salvation?

Gothard’s idea of love types is downright convoluted, especially when he think God is unable to do something.