On June 2, 2023, Amazon released a four-part documentary on the Duggar family, Bill Gothard, Insitute in Basic Life Principles located on the former Ambassador College Campus in Big Sandy, Texas. It is a fascinating expose of how religious fundamentalism rips apart people's lives who are involved in it.
On several Facebook pages dealing with Armstrongism and its damaging effects on the lives of former members, many are discussing how this show eerily parallels many of the things we were taught in Armstrongism, particularly when it comes to obedience, patriarchy, and power structure in the church.
If you ever watched the Duggars show or even just saw a few clips you quickly saw how subservient the mother was to her husband, how she spoke in a soft voice, and how she dressed in prairie style colting with Puritan collars. The children were always happy with smiling faces and obedient to their parents.
Michelle Duggar dressed like many women in the Worldwide Church of God did, and how some still do in the extreme legalistic groups of Armstrongism today. I remember one Pasadena deacon's wife who always walked behind her husband when they entered the church and stood one step behind him whenever they stood together. She was never exactly beside him or in front of him. Make-up-free and no hair coloring all because of Herbert at one point in the 1980s's forbade makeup for the third or fourth time just to spite his wife he was divorcing. Her dress was always long dresses like what Michelle Dugger wears. This deacon's wife was not the only one like that in the church, there were many others and still are today in the church.
The Gothard empire had several campuses around the country that trained young people and adults in its far-right, fundamentalist, reconstructionist teachings. Many of its extreme teachings centered around sex and the proper place of a woman in the hierarchy. Victims of rape and abuse in this empire were accused of causing the problem because women tend to be harlots that lead men astray. It is always the woman's fault, much like how Armstrongism treated its women at times. Whenever problems of child abuse, rape, and sexual assault came up in Armstrongimsm it was always quickly hushed and the church never talked about it. Most of the time the woman was made out to be the problem for causing it.
A lot of the focus on the show is the arrest and imprisonment of one of the Duggar boys for child pornography and how the Duggar family covered up his abuse. Like the Gothard empire, Armstrongism had a huge problem with sexual predators in the church, from the abuse of children to sexual assaults, stalkings, rapes, and other things the women had to deal with, many times from ordained ministry! All of these things were swept under the rug and hidden from members. Incidentally, that deacon who lorded over his wife was also found out to be sexually abusing Imperial High School boys on trips to Camp River Glenn where he was to be a chaperone. This is the same guy who went on to help start the Global Church of God and Living Church of God where the leadership was all aware of his proclivities.
The Duggars, like all followers of Gothard, homeschool their children with lessons that are so far out there that it borders on absurdity. Sadly, I remember several Pasadena families that used those same lessons to homeschool their kids because Pasadena's schools were too worldly and god forbid, they taught evolution!
Gothard was sued by several women for sexual abuse and they tell of their ordeal in the show. It is also interesting to watch as they kick him out of the Big Sandy Hall of Ad building soon after all of these allegations emerged. The Big Sandy buildings are pictured frequently when it discusses the IBLP and Alert Academy - it's a pseudo-militaristic training ground for teenagers and men in the church with the goal of making them leaders in the world to change society.
It is also interesting to watch the video of the conventions this group had and still does. It looked like a Feast of Tabernacles gathering of Armstrongism with the same slick-talking preachers hoodwinking members with heretical teachings.
Like with Armstrongism, there are thousands who have left the church and they too are not afraid to tell their stories. The daughter of the Duggars and her husband, relatives, and former members tell chilling and shocking stories about what they believed and how it was to be a member of this fundamentalist cult.
The parallels at times with Armstrongism are eerie. You will not be disappointed in viewing this program.
