Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Redefining the Seven Basic Principles: Success
The Principle of Success.
Success is a concept that everyone can get behind, and Mr. Gothard has up to this point done a good job of leading up to this principle...teasing and flirting with his audience that he will be giving wonderful information about how to have true success. What he actually delivers in these sessions is his own personal brand of meditation.
The very idea of meditation was, in my home ridiculed until the word sprang forth from the mouth of Bill Gothard. I'm sure this was in part due to the popularization in the late 60's of Transcendental Meditation, or TM as it became known. It's easy to ridicule what you do not understand or the things that "don't apply" to you. The image given to me of meditation was one of bald-headed monks sitting for hours on end with no other goal than to "empty their minds" or of drug addled hippies swarming after the next great swami. In my conservative, white, middle-class, Southern Baptist home the concept was condemned simply because it came from the far east and was practiced by Buddhists and must therefore be associated with the worship of false gods.
One could say that Bill Gothard revolutionized both success and meditation for Christendom by redefining it based on a single verse out of the Old Testament. Joshua 1:8 states “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success”
Based soley on this verse and his own theories Mr. Gothard defined Success thus:
"Discovering God’s purpose for my life by engrafting Scripture in my heart and mind, and using it to “think God’s thoughts” and make wise decisions. Meditating on Scripture brings Life Purpose."
Meditating was likened to the ruminating of sheep and cattle...(which if you really think about it could turn your stomach)...These animals have multiple stomachs none of which can draw the full nutritive value from the food that has been eaten, so that they must eat and vomit and reingest their vomit multiple times to get anything out of their food. Yep.... a very appealing analogy for sure.
Citing the reversal of his own bad grades, Mr. Gothard appears to have a clear case in his favor for this idea, yet he fails to mention that the discipline it took to memorize anything has a positive effect on schoolwork. He also fails to mention that the confidence that comes from doing one thing well translates well into doing most things well. And then he begins to tell us that "God's law" is the ONLY thing we are to study...mentioning (with great emphasis) the story of the Rabbi and the student who asked if they could study other religions, to wit the Rabbi replied with Joshua 1:8 saying that if the student could find a time that was neither day or night, then they would be allowed to study other beliefs during that time.
I believe that it is at this time that he introduces the Advanced Training Institute...a home education and apprenticeship learning program that is based in using the Bible to teach all academic subjects. Need to learn science?....there's a verse for that. How about Arithmetic?....there's a verse for that. Medicine? Grammar? History? Language?(of course the options are Greek...) well, we have bible verses to cover everything under the sun...and then some.....all taken out of context with the subjects sufficiently spiritualized to be unrecognizable.
The real question at this point I think, is "Does it work?" like, ANY of it?
Actually the question I have been asking myself as I write these posts is even more important to me...
Is there ANY good to be taken from this experience, or was it just a waste of twenty years of my life?
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Redefining the Seven Basic Principles: Freedom
The Principle of Freedom
started this small series of posts in an effort to retell my own story in a more positive light. To try to "re-experience" my youth in a way that made those years not feel quite so wasted. Up to this point, in my mind, I have largely succeeded, but this very post has been a headache for me for weeks. I am beginning to believe that there are some things which have no redeeming value, and this is one of them.
Saturday at the Seminar brought a new and exciting definition to a concept as old as humanity...Freedom. The Principle of Freedom was posited as Enjoying the desire and power to do that which is right, rather than claiming the privilege of doing what I want. This definition was strengthened by tying it to "moral purity".
The thing is, under the guise of freedom and moral purity a litany of rules and regulations, or as Bill like to call them, "convictions" regarding personal behavior were laid down and "Others may, I cannot" became the mantra of the faithful, the battle cry of the Christian elite. Injunctions were given against all but certain types of music, against dating, divorce, remarriage, family planning and a multitude of other "worldly activities" Even higher education was targeted because it gave a sense of accomplishment(translation: PRIDE).
Of course what invariably happens when you give people lists of objectives, happened. We took up the battle cry and dashed it against our peers, placing ourselves on pedestals of holiness, cloaked in the fine garment of "freedom", looking down on the world and other believers muttering to ourselves the exact same words as the Pharisees of old "Thank you God, that I am not like other men...."
To be fair, Gothard was partially correct...Freedom is not "exercising the privilege to do what I want", but neither is it "the desire and power to do what is right" Those two things are actions and freedom is a state of being. Freedom is something you have or do not have, not something you do. Freedom is quite simply the ability to make a choice.
The logical fallacy of the definition is in the implication that "what is right" and "what I want" are opposing factors. That the "right" is somehow appropriate while my desire is inappropriate. One could go into questioning who gets to decide what is "right" or "wrong" at this point, but that argument is neither here nor there. The reality of the situation is that piling rules, whatever you want to call them and whoever chooses to make them, on anyone, whether yourself or someone else, does not a free man make.
I have tried to find a positive here in what I was taught and I cannot do it. Because of these teachings I do not know how to create a meaningful relationship of any type. I second guess my every move even to this day, I judge others by a standard they know nothing about and does not even apply to them.
It has taken me years to learn the true definition of freedom and several more to learn that "right" is just as subjective as "desire".
But maybe the biggest lesson to be learned here is that if there is "only one course to choose between" then there is no choice, and by extension, there is only slavery.
started this small series of posts in an effort to retell my own story in a more positive light. To try to "re-experience" my youth in a way that made those years not feel quite so wasted. Up to this point, in my mind, I have largely succeeded, but this very post has been a headache for me for weeks. I am beginning to believe that there are some things which have no redeeming value, and this is one of them.
Saturday at the Seminar brought a new and exciting definition to a concept as old as humanity...Freedom. The Principle of Freedom was posited as Enjoying the desire and power to do that which is right, rather than claiming the privilege of doing what I want. This definition was strengthened by tying it to "moral purity".
The thing is, under the guise of freedom and moral purity a litany of rules and regulations, or as Bill like to call them, "convictions" regarding personal behavior were laid down and "Others may, I cannot" became the mantra of the faithful, the battle cry of the Christian elite. Injunctions were given against all but certain types of music, against dating, divorce, remarriage, family planning and a multitude of other "worldly activities" Even higher education was targeted because it gave a sense of accomplishment(translation: PRIDE).
Of course what invariably happens when you give people lists of objectives, happened. We took up the battle cry and dashed it against our peers, placing ourselves on pedestals of holiness, cloaked in the fine garment of "freedom", looking down on the world and other believers muttering to ourselves the exact same words as the Pharisees of old "Thank you God, that I am not like other men...."
To be fair, Gothard was partially correct...Freedom is not "exercising the privilege to do what I want", but neither is it "the desire and power to do what is right" Those two things are actions and freedom is a state of being. Freedom is something you have or do not have, not something you do. Freedom is quite simply the ability to make a choice.
The logical fallacy of the definition is in the implication that "what is right" and "what I want" are opposing factors. That the "right" is somehow appropriate while my desire is inappropriate. One could go into questioning who gets to decide what is "right" or "wrong" at this point, but that argument is neither here nor there. The reality of the situation is that piling rules, whatever you want to call them and whoever chooses to make them, on anyone, whether yourself or someone else, does not a free man make.
I have tried to find a positive here in what I was taught and I cannot do it. Because of these teachings I do not know how to create a meaningful relationship of any type. I second guess my every move even to this day, I judge others by a standard they know nothing about and does not even apply to them.
It has taken me years to learn the true definition of freedom and several more to learn that "right" is just as subjective as "desire".
But maybe the biggest lesson to be learned here is that if there is "only one course to choose between" then there is no choice, and by extension, there is only slavery.
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