Creating Good Little Robots
by digby
Bill Gothard, Daniel Webster’s mentor:
His opening lecture on self-acceptance closes with a prayer to “give God a vote of confidence for how he has made us so far.” Next comes family life. Children must be totally obedient. A religious teenager, for example, should not attend a church college if atheistic parents order him not to. As for a man’s wife, she “has to realize that God accomplishes his ultimate will through the decisions of the husband, even when the husband is wrong.” Citing I Thessalonians 5:18 (“In every thing give thanks”), Gothard even advises a wife whose husband chastises her to say, “God, thank you for this beating.”
Besides following the chain of command in the family, Christians should also be obedient to their employers and their government, Gothard asserts. Only if an order from a parent, the state or a boss conflicts with God’s explicit commandments may it be disobeyed.
Nothing to see here folks, move along.
Update:
“I enjoy the advice he’s given,” Webster said of Gothard. “I think it’s been a major part of my life. I’m not ashamed of that. What he has said I believe to be the truth.” [St. Petersburg Times, 2/16/97, 9/28/03; Sarasota Herald Tribune, 3/09/97]
Sticking up for Webster: fellow right-wing extremists Glenn Beck and Mike Huckabee.
Huckabee and Beck’s “Black Robed Regiment” pastor are followers of Gothard as well.
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