Gothard: Part One || Sexual Abuse Allegations

1 Corinthians 13:1 (ESV) "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal."

As I address this subject, this very delicate subject, I hope and pray to speak only in love.

The intent of this article is not to slander Gothard, but to highlight his behavior and to bring to light the stories of the victims, who to this point have largely been unheard by the public.  If you have not yet read the stories you can do so at Recovering Grace. (The Gothard Files - Sexual Misconduct)

Is it my desire to presume Gothard's guilt while the jury is still out?  Absolutely not.  

I've been asked a variety of questions both before and after I posted on Facebook... "Is this true?", "Are the victims credible?", "Is Gothard going to come forward?", etc.  I will try to address these questions and others.  If you have a question that you feel is not answered, please ask it.

I'll be up front about it, I don't know the answer to all these questions.  What I do know is that Gothard's behavior fits that of a molester, and not only does it fit, the fit is so perfect it's incredible.

In VGALA's Understanding and Litigating Childhood Sexual Abuse, the following table is laid out.

Spotting the Molester Behavior:

• The molester identifies a vulnerable, emotionally needy child
• The molester gains the parents/caretakers' trust
• The molester engages the child in peerlike involvement - defined as giving gifts and compliments as well as offering a sympathetic, understanding ear
• The molester desensitizes the child to touch
• The molester isolates the child and introduces secrecy
• The molester will manipulate the child to keep the secret
• The molester uses a position of authority to 'acquire' the child
• The molester uses a position of authority to keep the child compliant

(Sharman, J. Michael. Understanding and Litigating Childhood Sexual Abuse, 5th Edition, 6.1 Spotting the Molester's Behavior in Grooming the Child, 2014)

It's not that Gothard's behavior fits just one or two of these behaviors, it fits every single one of the behaviors, and in the order laid out in the table.

The molester identifies a vulnerable, emotionally needy child:
In every story, Gothard approaches the young girl and asks her to come work for him.  Not the other way around.  Gothard handpicks these young girls for reasons that at the very least are not legitimate. He picks a girl with no secretarial experience to be his personal secretary and handle the business of a multi-million dollar organization.  He sees girls for the first time and as he's introduces himself, asks them to come work for him without seeing any examples of their work, knowing anything about their work ethic, and without any references or recommendations.

The molester gains the parents/caretakers' trust:
In all of these stories, Gothard has gained the parent's trust through his seminars and conferences and the parents are only too willing to see their children go to work for a person they not only trust, but respect and revere.

The molester engages the child in peerlike involvement:
The stories share another common theme, Gothard compliments the girls looks and "countenance" and asks them directly, or indirectly through others in the organization, to wear their hair, clothes, etc. in a certain way.  Gothard gives gifts, money, compliments and offers a sympathetic ear to the young girls, in some cases going so far as to make them tell him what they're dealing with.  "What are you writing?"...she covers the letter with her hand...he takes her hand and leads her to the couch..."I want to talk to you about this"

The molester desensitizes the child to touch:
In each story, Gothard begins holding the girl's hand while praying, then begins holding her hand incidentally, and then goes even further.  For the sake of keeping this article appropriate to all audiences I won't go into explicit detail here, but you can read the extent of his touching in the victim's stories.  And all this while teaching that it is wrong for any unmarried guys/girls to touch and also pretending that he is adverse to any touching.  "I...spontaneously hugged him. He stiffened like a board and I quickly drew back...realizing that several hundred people were watching us"

The molester isolates the child and introduces secrecy:
Gothard asks the girls to spy on others, tells them how they are a special person and forces them to get rid of things connected to their past.  "This is your new life" "This is where God has brought you."

The molester will manipulate the child to keep the secret:
Gothard is overly protective of the girls, telling them who they can and can't be friends with, having them sit by him when traveling - even against the instruction of the airline, asking what they have told their parents, forcing them to make their phone calls with him in the room, etc.

The molester uses a position of authority to 'acquire' the child and The molester uses a position of authority to keep the child compliant:
As I mentioned already, these girls are all from families where Gothard is put forth as a great man of God who is an authority of the whole family.  Gothard takes this further in each girl's life individually, placing himself directly as the father figure in their lives and as was mentioned, monitoring phone calls and what they were telling those on the outside.


"So Gothard's behavior fits that of a molester, but does that make him one?"  As I said earlier, presuming his guilt is not what I want to do.  But the fact remains that his behavior fits and fits perfectly.  Look at the facts, read the victim's stories, and you make up your own mind.  If you come away from this believing he is completely innocent of all wrongdoing, I do have to suggest you came here with your mind already made up. Something that Scripture says makes you a fool and you should be ashamed of.


"How many victims are out there?"  On the Recovering Grace website five victims have come forward with their stories in the last few months alone, and RG has talked to a total of 34 victims (so far).  How many more victims are out there who have not yet told their stories or may never tell their stories?  There's really no sure way of knowing.  According to various studies/sources, the majority of victims will never tell anyone.

"The usual response to atrocity is to try and remove it from the mind. Those who have been traumatized want to flee the memory of its occurrence and those who are exposed vicariously in the telling of the story soon discover that they want to flee as well. We find it too terrible to remember and too incomprehensible to put into words. That is why we use the phrase, unspeakable atrocities. The great tension is the futile attempt to forget the unspeakable while it continues to live on and, at times, scream in the mind."  Langberg, Diane, Ph.D. Trauma as a Mission Field: Genocide, Trafficking and Rape as Weapons of War (2011).

“most child victims delay disclosing for significant periods of time and many had never disclosed at the time their abuse was discovered in some other manner.”  Payne, M.L., Hansen , D.J., Factors influencing children to self-disclose sexual abuse. Clin Psychol Rev. (2002).

 The Finkelhor/Dziuba-Leatherman study estimates that only 3% of child sexual abuse cases are ever reported to the police.  Finkelhor, D., & Dziuba-Leatherman, J. Children as Victims of Violence: A National Survey (1994).

What I do know is that the 34 could just be scratching the surface.

The average sex offender in a survey conducted by the Bureau of Justice had only two known victims and five known offenses on his criminal record when the investigation started. By the time of the offender’s second round of polygraph testing, each sex offender had confessed to an average of 110 victims and 318 offenses.  Ahlmeyer, S., Heil, P., McKee, B., and English, K.  Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 12 (2), 123-138, Table 1 (2000)

That's not a typo.  110 victims is the average!


"Why did the victims take so long to come forward?" "Doesn't that make their stories less believable?"  As was mentioned above, a person's response to something like this is to remove it from the mind.  Additionally, Gothard taught that a person hears from God through their "authorities", and one is never to speak out against or speak badly of an "authority".  The courts in our Country have held for some time now that because of the nature of these crimes, the delay in coming forward does not discredit the stories.  In Wilson v. Commonwealth, 46 Va. App. 73 (2005) the court ruled that a delay of several years was reasonable, and in Corvin v. Commonwealth, 13 Va. App. 296 (1991) the court stated that the victim's delay in reporting was not "incredible".


"Is Gothard really a child molester when all the victims were at least in their teens and most of them were adults?"  "Wouldn't that make him just a sexual offender?"  If he sexually touched one minor then he is a child molester.  Just because these victims were not all underage does not mean that he is not a child molester.

2. The Regressed or Situational Child Molester.The second type of child molester is known as regressed (or situational). Their primary sexual attraction is to adult females.  The regressed or situational offender's sexual involvement with children often develops as a result of their responses to external stress and situational difficulties that they experience.  Unlike the victims of fixated molesters, the victims of regressed/situation molesters are usually female.  Supervision of Sex Offenders in the Community: An Overview, Center for Sex Offender management, http://www.csom.org/train/supervision/short/01_02_03.html  (to my knowledge all of the victims that have come forward are female)

You may ask "isn't a person innocent until proven guilty in our country?"  Yes, in our court system.  But not in the court of public opinion.  The legal status of these victims is disputed, I'm inclined to believe that a few of them have a legal case, but many of them will never have their day in court.  Is that any reason to not share what the victims have finally gotten the courage to disclose?


"Will Gothard ever come forward publicly?"  Probably not.  You can read letters from the victims to Gothard and his responses to the same on RG and not once does he apologize or admit wrongdoing.

“Denial is a very powerful force in a sex offender's view of his or her victimizing behavior. Offenders either deny or seriously minimize their deviant behavior. Denial is a formidable obstacle to...getting the offender to take responsibility for what he or she has done.” 
Sex Offender Risk Reduction Center, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction 

The sex offenders’ denial, in effect, is what emotionally allows them to commit their crimes: “Individuals with deviant sexual interest will not commit sexual crimes …unless they are willing to hurt others to obtain their goals, [or] can convince themselves that they are not harming their victims.”  Hanson, R. Karl and Morton-Bourgon, Kelly. Predictors of Sexual Recidivism: An Updated Meta Analysis 2004-02

"The clinical research confirms what our common sense already told us: Sex offenders deny responsibility in order to avoid feelings of shame, confusion, embarrassment, inadequacy, responsibility, and guilt."  Happel, R. M., & Auffrey, J. J. “Sex offender assessment: Interrupting the dance of denial” American Journal of Forensic Psychology, 13(2), 5-22 (1995).

"Isn't it incredulous that something like this could be true about a renowned Christian leader?"  Unfortunately no, it's become quite common.

Perhaps the most horrendous story of a Christian leader involved in sexual abuse in recent time is the story of the Assistant Dean of Regent University (a Christian university in Virginia Beach, VA), Stephen McPhersen, who with his wife abused three underage girls from a local children's home.

"Court records show the McPhersons manipulated the teens into submitting to fondling, kissing and other sex acts. They cited Bible verses that they said justified the abuse and, afterward, would pray together for God's forgiveness."  In Re: Stephen Lee McPherson, VSB Docket No. 09-000-078314 and Commonwealth v. Melina McPherson, Virginia Beach Circuit Court CR09000219-00  (Sharman, J. Michael.  Understanding and Litigating Childhood Sexual Abuse, 5th Edition, 7.3 Former Regent Assistant Dean, Wife Guilty of Child Sex Abuse, 2014) 

After reading this you may feel sick, I hope you feel sick, but please do not for one moment let that stop you from doing more research into this issue or keep you from reading additional articles. Closing your ears and mind to this is the worst possible thing you can do at this point.

As a child, Elie Wiesel survived the abuse of Nazi Concentration camps. The greatest pain, he said, is not the hurtful action of your enemy, but the indifference of those who should care for and protect you. His conclusion was that:

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.

The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.

And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

Do not ignore what you know.  Do not be indifferent.  Scripture is very clear on this subject.  Proverbs 21:13 (ESV) "Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered."  If God cares that much about someone's financial state, how much more do you think he cares about someone who had their innocence taken away by a man who used His name to perpetrate the abuse?  How much more will He close his ears to those who refuse to hear the cry of victims of sexual abuse?  

"But what about Gothard?  Didn't he do a lot of good?"  That depends on how you view his material/organization.  Within hours of my initial post on Facebook about the situation, people from opposite ends of the spectrum commented how much it had helped them and how much it had hurt them, respectively.  I do not put myself in the place of God to judge him...personally that is. If he apologies for what he has done and takes steps to make it right and is truly repentant than I have to forgive him. If the Creator of the universe can forgive him, who am I to deny him the same.  God is, however, quite clear on the subject. "It were better for him that a millstone were hung about his neck and he cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to fall." Luke 17:2 (KJV21)

As far as his teachings, I will be addressing some that may have led, or at the very least lent to his behavior.

Stay tuned...

Jonathan Smith
with Bekah Sikora