Starting in May, I began uploading my collection of ATI’s Wisdom Booklet homeschooling curriculum to our website. I will add links here as they go up. These versions are NOT intended for educational use, but for journalists and researchers who want to investigate the teachings of ATI in primary sources. Any interested parties are highly encouraged to read through our Inside ATI series and the growing collection of information on Recovering Grace.
Please let me know if you would like to see a specific volume – scanning them page-by-page is a time consuming and tedious process, so it will take months to put all 50+ volumes and parent guides online. The galleries can be difficult to read, so I’ve included compressed PDF versions as well. If you would like full-res versions of the PDFs (usually around 70 MB), email us at HomeschoolersAnonymous@gmail[dot]com.
Discerning God’s Will in Every Decision and Appendix on the Place of Old Testament Law in the Life of New Testament Believers (pamphlet included with Wisdom Booklet package) [PDF]
This post has been a long time coming, and with the Duggar scandal all over the news, it’s been on my mind again. First off, let me say that what Josh Duggar did was wrong, and how the media has handled this story has been pretty awful too. Tabloids have been flippant about sharing police documents with the victims’ names on them, and since the Duggar family has been very vocally against LGBTQ people, who they claim are child-molesters, there are a lot of people eager to point out the hypocrisy of covering up the deeds of a child molester in their midst. I think there is plenty out there on what happened and how it was “handled”, I want to talk about the why. So many people are shocked and horrified that this happened in a “good christian family” like the Duggars, but it didn’t surprise me at all. I grew up in this movement, along with 10 siblings.
Sibling incest is not young, similarly aged siblings curiously looking at each others’ genitals. It is initiated by one sibling, and there is usually a 3 (or more) year age gap. Risk factorsfor sibling incest include power imbalances, parentalized siblings, lack of sex education, and other forms of abuse already occurring in the home. Judging by the general information we have about the Duggars, a lot of these factors are present. The sheer amount of children dictates that the older children care for the younger ones. And in the police report interviews none of the children interviewed even knew the correct names for the human anatomy when it came to genitals.
In a large homeschooling family, older siblings are often in charge of the younger ones. Younger children are expected to obey their older siblings as they would a parent and may face punishment from the parents or even the siblings if they do not obey. This creates a hierarchy where the younger children are basically powerless and have already come to expect that they do not have a say in how they are treated. Sexual actions initiated by the older sibling are not likely to be resisted or talked about in this sort of relationship.
If a parent is physically or emotionally largely unavailable, such as would be the case for anyone with 19 children, parenting younger children can often fall to the older ones. The older child is often experiencing the parental neglect as well, and since they are not emotionally mature enough to handle being a parent, they end up relying on the younger child for whom they have parental responsibilities for emotional fulfillment. Sometimes this leads to sexual actions as well. Other abuse existing in the home greatly increases the likelihood of sexual abuse occurring. If children are used to being emotionally abused or physically abused, they do not have healthy boundaries or understandings of their rights as a human being.
In the conservative christian homeschool worldview sex ed is extremely lacking. We are talking about no knowledge of what sex is, human anatomy, etc. I grew up in this movement. My parents did not allow books in the house with such information. I remember when an art book from my grandparents included a nude sketch, my parents stapled several thick sheets of paper over it. I was told when I was 10 about menstruation and that babies grow in a womb inside a woman’s belly with help from a seed from her husband. I was at several of my siblings’ home births. But that was it. When I was 17, I found a book in the library filled with pictures of fetal development; on one page it showed 2 thermal images of a penis showing how flaccid = cool, and erect/engorged = warm. This was the first time I was aware of the fact that erections were a part of (penis-in-vagina) sex. I went to a different section and found “Seventeen magazine’s girls guide to sex”, and I put it inside of a large history book so no one could see what I was really reading and sat in the back corner on the floor reading as fast as a could. This was how I finally figured out that sex (the thing that only married people were supposed to do when they love each other very much, and was sinful and dirty otherwise) did not magically happen while 2 people slept in the same bed, and I was 17. I was 20 and married before I learned what a clitoris was. I had several children before I finally heard of the concept of “consent”.
This sheltering did not keep me from being a sexual person; it just left me with a complete lack information about it. I had no understanding of boundaries, or consent or even that masturbating was a sexual (albeit normal) act. My point is that it is entirely possible to be a teenage, conservative, homeschooled kid, and have no idea what is sexual and what is not, or what is appropriate and what is not.
So no, given the circumstances of the home, combined with their belief system, I am not surprised by sibling incest. In fact, I think this happens in large conservative families far more than anyone thinks it does. What is truly horrifying is that after setting their kids up for this to happen, Josh Duggar’s parents pushed it under the rug, kept things in house, and didn’t get help for either the molester or the children who were molested. Several of the headlines have claimed that Josh was turned in by his dad; this wasn’t true either. The investigation did not occur until over 3 years after and only because an outsider got wind of it and called the abuse hotline. Jim Bob and Michelle did their best to cover up and move on. They claim because of god’s grace the slate is wiped clean, as if it never happened. Except it did. It happens precisely because of the family system that has been paraded on TV for too long.
And it isn’t just the Duggars; this is basically the tip of the ice berg of what is out there in the conservative christian homeschooling movement. Despite the smiling wholesome-looking exterior, ignorance and repression and isolation creates this kind of set up again and again. When a system teaches that the victim is to blame, refuses to educate on or even talk about sex, treats children as property with no rights, and requires unquestioning obedience, it is not surprising when dysfunction comes to light.
Two Joshes. Both ATI alumni. Both perpretrators of serious crimes.
But each one received very different reactions from the conservative Christian milieu in which they grew up. And those reactions are worth taking a closer look at.
Josh Duggar
Josh Duggar was homeschooled by his parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, with the Advanced Training Institute — the homeschooling curriculum developed by Inge Cannon (the former Director of HSLDA’s National Center for Home Education) for Bill Gothard’s Institute in Basic Life Principles. According to a police report released last week, Josh molested at least five young girls. Josh began molesting these girls around the age of 14, despite him claiming that he “accepted Christ at the age of seven.” Josh’s crimes were not reported for at least a year, and only then they were reported to a police officer who himself was later convicted for child pornography. His parents willingly covered up his crimes as they were on the brink of political and entertainment stardom.
Though Josh Duggar immediately resigned from his position as Executive Director of FRC Action once the police report became public last week, multiple Christian and homeschool celebrities immediately sprang to his defense. Mike Huckabee declared those angry with Josh to be motivated by “bloodthirst” and praised Josh’s “authenticity and humility” for confessing after his criminal actions were forced into the public eye. Ray Comfort pronounced Josh “a brother in Christ” and dismissed his criminal actions as happening “in his BC [before Christ] days. Such were some of us.” Eric Hovind used the situation to preach about Creationism and make a joke about how Josh should be “punished” by working for Family Research Council (the same organization he just resigned from). Rick Boyer praised the Duggar family as “one of the happiest, holiest, humblest families I have ever met” and said Josh has “lived an exemplary life.” Matt Walsh used the opportunity to condemn not Josh but progressives, penning a tirade entitled “The Duggars Aren’t Hypocrites. Progressives Are.” where he not only denounced progressives but also admitted he wouldn’t “immediately run to the cops” if his own son molested children. Chad Bird and Daniel Emery Price at Tullian Tchividjian’s Liberate wrote a poetic defense of Josh entitled, “We are all the Duggars.” Bird and Price waxed eloquently about how, “What happened within this family is many things—tragic and abusive, shameful and selfish, destructive and deceptive. It is all manner of evil, no matter how you look it. But there is one thing that it is surely not: it is not surprising. Not in the least.” Rather, “We are all the Duggars. We are all dysfunctional sinners living in flawed families upheld by grace.”
Like Josh Duggar, Josh Komisarjevsky was homeschooled using material from Bill Gothard’s ATI. Jude said that she and her husband Benedict “had tried to instill Christian values in the boy by pulling him out of public school and educating him at home,” but he had nonetheless “wallowed in depression” due to the death of his grandfather a year earlier. She recalled going into his room at one point and “he had written over and over again on the walls: ‘death’ and ‘die’ and ‘suicide.’”
Right before turning 15, Joshua set fire to a gas station. Since police recognized he had serious mental health issues, he was briefly hospitalized in a mental health hospital and given medication. However, his father did not want him on any medication, and instead sent him to a “faith-based” treatment program.
On July 23, 2007, Joshua and his friend Steven Hayes broke into the home of the Petit family — William, Jennifer, and their daughters, 17-year-old Haley and 11-year-old Michaela. Joshua and Steven held the family hostage for hours. They forced Jennifer to drive to the family’s nearby bank and withdraw $15,000 — on the threat of killing the entire family otherwise. They raped and strangled Jennifer and then sexually assaulted Michaela. William was severely beaten and tied to a post in the basement. Joshua and Steven then doused the house with gasoline and set fire to the house. Haley and Michaela died from smoke inhalation. William managed to escape.
Joshua had specifically targeted the Petit family. A day prior to the killings, he noticed Jennifer and Michaela at a grocery store. He followed them from the store home and made plans to come back the next day with Hayes.
Joshua was found guilty of murder. Evidence of “his strict Christian upbringing, his disturbed behavior as a youth and his parents’ decision not to get traditional psychological treatment for him because of their Christian beliefs” was a significant matter of discussion during his trial. In January 2012, Joshua was sentenced to death. His accomplice, Steven Hayes, was also sentenced to death.
Two Joshes, Two Different Reactions
When Josh Komisarjevsky’s crimes swept across the national, publicized by the media much like Josh Duggar’s crimes, the Religious Right was silent. No Mike Huckabee praised Komisarjevsky’s “authenticity and humility.” No Ray Comfort said he was “a brother in Christ.” No Eric Hovind used Komisarjevsky’s actions to preach about Creationism. No Rick Boyer praised his “exemplary life.” No Matt Walsh said he could relate to not wanting to turn Komisarjevsky in for murder. No Chad Bird and Daniel Emery Price saw themselves and the Gospel in Komisarjevsky.
No, they were silent.
Not a single one stood up and said, “We’re all Josh Komisarjevsky.” Not a single one dared to say such an insensitive remark a mere week after he raped and murdered his victims.
No one said, “Oh, it’s okay he murdered someone, he was young and now he’s sorry so hey, let’s make him a television star again!”
No one should have.
Because not only is that horrible, cruel timing, it is also false. Yes, we all have made mistakes. But not all of our mistakes have involved raping and murdering. And Josh Komisarjevsky is not a darling of the Religious Right, so his raping and murdering and molesting is apparently not worth the effort of the Religious Right to defend.
But many want to defend Josh Duggar. Because something is at stake. Something called reputation. Something that, honestly, Jesus does not demand of us. Yet it’s something we love to value over and against Jesus. And it’s a lie to claim that what’s at stake is the Gospel, like Chad Bird and Daniel Emery Price pretend. It’s a lie to claim that progressives would be hypocrites to condemn Josh Komisarjevsky.
No, we know better than that. Josh Komisarjevsky’s crimes were sins. So we could say “We’re all Josh Komisarjevskys” but no one’s going to. Because when the crime is murder, we take it far more seriously than when the crime is child sexual abuse. No one is tempted to Matthew 18 a murderer. No one drags the family of a murder victim in front of the murderer and demands immediate forgiveness. No one faults the family of a murder victim for being bitter and angry and loud because of the immense pain rendered by murder. But everyone wants to Matthew 18 child sexual abuse. Everyone wants to handle sexual abuse in house. Everyone wants to silence and shut up the abuse victims and survivors and everyone wants them to behave and speak prettily and kindly.
And no one is going to pull a Matt Walsh on Josh Komisarjevsky because we can see the ludicrous nature of doing so. But for some reason, it doesn’t seem as ludicrous to pull a Matt Walsh on a perpetrator of child sexual abuse.
Why?
Why are we so willing to call murder murder — and shocking – but call sexual abuse “yet another sin” and “not surprising”?
Why would we be up in arms if our pastors and religious celebrities wrote poetic, eloquent defenses of Josh Komisarjevsky — but we’re not in arms when they do so about Josh Duggar?
Why would we decry the utter insensitivity to Josh Komisarjevsky’s victims’ families of trying to score theological points less than a week after he wrecked havoc on those families’ lives — but we think it’s appropriate to make the pain of Josh Duggar’s victims’ families into rousing sermons less than a week after their wounds were so carelessly re-opened?
And don’t give me excuses about how Josh Duggar was a teenager and maybe he himself was abused and hey, he offered a public apology. Josh Komisarjevsky’s troubles began when he was a teenager, too, and unlike Duggar, we know Komisarjevsky was abused. We know there are plenty of reasons we could give for Komisarjevsky’s descent into criminality.
There really are no excuses.
The fact is, we have a double standard. We have a double standard for the people we put on pedestals and “only” molest young children versus the people we don’t care about because they are mentally ill and we can dismiss as “demonic” and “evil” and thus explain away their violence. And that double standard is truly damaging, hypocritical, and unbiblical.
What we must be communicating to survivors of child and sexual abuse with this double standard breaks my heart. The way we think we have a right to tear open survivors’ wounds to water our Sunday sermons is, dare I say, demonic.
I recently received a set of first edition Advanced Training Institute Wisdom Booklets – thanks to the generous scrounging of an HA community member. I distinctly remembered a volume of the WBs (Wisdom Booklets) that dealt with sexuality, lust, and immoral sexual activity. At the time, it left me more confused than anything. I thought married couples literally could not catch or spread a venereal disease. My sexual education from the WBs did not include anything on consent or rape, and it placed much of the burden of lustful thoughts on the seductive powers of scantily clad women. While I cannot say with any certainty that the Duggars received the same sexual education I did, our shared curriculum in the WBs and Bill Gothard’s teachings were at least our shared base line for “sexual education.” Ironically, it was the coverage of President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky that prompted me to ask “what is rape?” and not a concept I learned from my sexual education.
A foundational point in ATI and Gothard’s sexual ethic is a lack of agency for men and women as a powerful temptation.Women were saddled with the majority of the responsibly for men’s “lustful” thoughts. Gothard’s characterization of women meant that their immodesty compelled men to sexualize, harass, or assault them.
One of Gothard’s big things was for families to have “bible time” in the mornings, which consisted of reading a Proverb each day of the month, then a handful of Psalms. Proverbs 7 (KJV was what ATI mandated) was always emphasized by my parents, and it describes a young man being tempted and literally led down a dark alley to have sex with a woman of the night. The woman is described aswearing “the attire of an harlot.” Her participation in the public sphere is key to her function as a temptation, and “her feet abide not in her house: Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.” The chapter constantly emphasizes the woman “catching” the man, convincing him to “take our fill of love… with her fair speech.” Despite the highly sensual details provided by the author, the consequences of participating in such actions are clear:
He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter… Many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.
Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths.
Intro section of WB24 echoing Proverbs 7
The message of Proverbs 7 is echoed by ATI’s Wisdom Booklet #24, which focuses on lust, temptation, and provided the basics for sexual education for thousands of ATI students.
A full copy of the volume is included at the bottom of this post, and I will discuss excerpts. ATI and Gothard always encouraged families to apply their WB lessons to everyday life. My parents decided the teachings of this volume meant I shouldn’t play rec-league soccer on a team with girls (I was 16). Wisdom Booklet 24 focused on Matthew 5:27-28, which reads:
“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
Much like Proverbs 7, this WB wanted to emphasize the physical dangers that can come from lusting. However, in typical Gothard fashion, the WB claimed that envisioning an act three times had the same effect on your body and soul as doing the action. Not only can imaginative lusting equal fornication, but the WB claims that lusting can actually make you a violent criminal. “As a result [of lusting], the glands and other bodily functions are activated, and the level of testosterone increases. Recent studies revealed a significant correlation between high testosterone levels and those who commit violent crimes.” I’m not here to say I know what was going on in Josh Duggar’s mind all those years ago, but I can tell you what I felt when I was taught these things as a teenager.
This teaching really messed me up. I assumed I was no better than a sex criminal because I had sexual thoughts. If I wanted to be with a girl, I was no better than a violent rapist. Sexual thoughts are natural for pubescent teens, and making them feel their life and soul are in literal danger by even thinking these thoughts fucks you up. How is it productive sex education to tell young people that they might as well commit the act if they are going to think about it three times?
Another glaring error in the text is the lack of any discussion of consent. In the chapter where we translated the original Greek and made all sorts of assumptions about God, called “How Does the Greek Confirm the Dangers of Partners’ Defiling Their Marriage By Lust?,” there are a number of terms defined, including: honorable, undefiled, fornicator, adulterer, judge, lewdness, lechery, lust, prolifigacy, abandonment, depravity, perversion, dissipation, dissolution, vice, and profanity (all terms defined in the context of marriage). But where is consent? Where is “marital rape” in this list of terms? Michelle Duggar is outspoken about her beliefs on a wife’s subservient role and need to be sexually available to her husband. ATI’s curriculum would have taught no different.
And just to make sure you are grasping the slippery slope put forth by the text – thinking about immorality three times is just as bad as doing it. Immorality is entirely defined by scripture verses and does not address things like consent or marital rape. The Wisdom Booklet’s “History Resource” profiled Hilter, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Karl Marx, and Nietzsche. You guessed it, each one of these people were characterized by how their immorality led them astray or ended up with genocide. Next in history, we learned about how immorality led to the collapse of the Maya, Incas, Ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire. In the Math section, we learned how to “visualize the consequences of lust” with visual graphs.
The “Science Resource” chapter further emphasized the role of women as active “trappers.” The chapter is entirely on different kinds of traps used animal trappers and it begins with “How Do Trappers Illustrate the Enticements Which Satan Uses to Appeal to our Lusts?” This language is borrowed directly from Proverbs 7, which says the seductress “perfumed [her] bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.” Throughout this volume, men are the presumed focus of the lust and women are the dangerous seducing forces that can lead to the collapse of civilizations.
As Wende discussed yesterday, many of Gothard’s teachings explain that victims of sexual abuse may be at fault for being abused. This image has been making the rounds through mainstream media. Its horribly offensive and damaging message are reiterated in other information like this that redirects responsibility for assault to “immodest” victims. Wisdom Book 24 covers this very topic on page 1130. “God’s Laws on Nakedness Begin with Modesty in the Home” begins the section:
The requirement for modesty among family members is given in Leviticus 18. Twenty-four times in this chapter, God’s people are commanded not to “uncover their nakedness” to those near of kin. Whether this refers to an incestuous relationship or nakedness alone, the fact is clear that indecency as well as immorality is forbidden.
Gothard’s insistence on a literal interpretation of Levitical law informs his sexual ethic. Deuteronomy 22:23-24 also advocates stoning raped women “because she cried not.”
If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour’s wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you
Right on queue, WB24 throws in a graphic image of someone being stoned “for incestuous relationships.” It’s no stretch to say that ATI and Gothard continually pushed the idea that victims were, at least partially, at fault for their abuse.
The closest WB24 gets to actual sex education is the medical section on venereal diseases. However, even this led to very basic confusion about how one can acquire a VD.
Venereal diseases are transmitted primarily by a corruption of God’s design for love. When man violates God’s design for marriage and follows his own lustful desires, he suffers grave consequences to his own health.
The section, and WB24, ends with an admonition to “identify the medical consequences of lust,” once again equating mental fantasies with physical consequences. The supposed impacts are VDs, and each sub-heading of the chapter is matched to the appropriate Bible verse.
The distortions of the idea of appropriate sexual relations and consent by WB24 are inexcusable. Men are characterized as dominated by fleeting lust, which are irresistibly stoked by the dress of girls or women. Even family members not excused from discussion by ATI, thus family members are subsumed into the “seductress” category. If a father molests his children, perhaps they are to blame. Such is the thinking proposed by Gothard. Looking back, it’s easy to see how this philosophy can lead to serial sexual abuse because men are relieved of much of their responsibility for their actions, while just lusting is as bad as actually doing the act. Leading many men to think they are beyond help, consumed by their desires. So instead of dealing with them, they repress them, and it only makes it more difficult to deal with what may have begun as natural sexual urges.
I can see just in my own life how this thinking impacted my sexual ethic and ideas of consent at a young age. It made me think that masturbating made me as perverse as sex criminals. I talked with a friend of mine and we would confess our “sins of lust”, and I saw us as struggling with similar burdens. His burden meant he took advantage of underage girls, mine was masturbating in my bed. ATI and Bill Gothard taught me those things were just as bad.
In my many conversations with ATI survivors, sexual abuse is too often a topic of discussion. One woman I talked with was abused as a child, and her family not only blamed her for it, but held exorcisms. They convinced her the demons inside her were “making” men abuse her. Agency and responsibility are replaced by pseudoscience and utterly incomprehensible logic about sex and sexual desire. Gothard used this system to groom his victims, to shame them into silence, to make them afraid to speak up. Why? Because they might have been responsible for the abuse.
HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Sarai” is a pseudonym.
Though she can quote entire books of the bible and finds hidden pearls in every wisdom search, but does not know God’s enduring and unchanging love, it is worthless —
And though she knows her spiritual gift and receives rhemas and knows all 49 commands of Christ and spends hours working on her faith journals —
Though she knows 3/4 + 3/4 = 1 1/2 cups so that she can easily double recipes for her large family (this is where her education will end because there is no need for her to know more in order for her to care for her family one day. She has been told that an education could even tempt her in to the terrible sin of perusing a career! She knows she should be grateful to her parents for protecting her from the possibility of this temptation), but knows not the freely given love of God, all her knowledge is worthless —
And though she joyfully rises at 5 A.M., to make homemade bread and spends so many hours faithfully serving her family —
And though her body has been violated countless times by a sex offender, she joyfully bears and surrenders her personal rights, knowing it is part of a gods plan for her life… Or maybe it was not that bad to start with… Or maybe it was punishment for some unknown sin… Or maybe she did not cry out loud enough… And though she cheerfully receives her spankings and humbly bares her purple and blue stripes as a reminder of her parents love yet she feels no love…. Well it is sad. So very sad —
And though she never wears pants or listens to rock music and avoids all friendships with other foolish children (foolishness is bond in the heart of a child after all) and though she made a commitment to courtship and her father holds the “key to her heart” and though her cabbage patch doll has been burned and every sin confessed —
And though she stays under her umbrella, it does her no good. She does not know God’s love —
Love quietly obeys; love never questions authority; is not vain (let’s not forget Jezebel who was eaten by dog for her vanity. Let’s avoid purple nail polish and flashy jewelry and heavens forbid you ever wear a low cut shirt); Love summits personal rights and always forgives and forgets; love deliverers no bad reports; love bares all pain, sorrow and suffering knowing it is a gift from god to save her from her sinfulness… Or so her mama told her —
When she was a child she saw God through a Gothard tainted screen from inside her little box. She believed the lies. They where all she knew. She trusted a sin filled man named Gothard who promised a better way.
But now she is grown and has throw away the Gothard tainted screen.
She has come out of her little box and into the brightness of God’s unearned, unending, free, abiding, enduring love. She now places her faith in God alone knowing his grace, that is, his unmerited favor, is all sufficient.
Now abideth her faith, her hope and the Love of Christ in her life and the greatest of these is the love of Christ.
Homeschoolers Anonymous 
