The 'radical' religion that 'turned every father into a CULT leader': FEMAIL lays bare the horrifying underbelly of the Duggars' church - which preached that Cabbage Patch dolls were SATANIC and urged members to 'beat' children who 'disobeyed' the rules
Daily Mail, UK/May 25, 2023
By Lillian Gissen
The Duggar family's meteoric rise to fame and sordid fall from grace have turned the Arkansas brood into one of the world's most famous reality TV dynasties - while also shedding light on their little-known 'radical' religion.
While many watched on in surprise as Duggar patriarch Jim Bob and his wife Michelle forced rigorous rules upon their massive gaggle of children - from banning trousers for the girls to insisting upon strict 'courting' rituals that saw the youngsters banned from even holding hands.
Now however, a new documentary is set to thrust a glaring spotlight on the incredibly dark underbelly of the family's church, The Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) - revealing how the Duggars' somewhat bizarre lifestyle restrictions were in fact just the first layer of what is in fact a deep and sordid religious culture.
Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets is due to be released on Amazon Prime next month - and will see several of 57-year-old Jim Bob and 56-year-old Michelle's own family members 'exposing the truth beneath the wholesome surface of reality TV's favorite mega-family'.
According to producers, the documentary will lift the lid on the 'pandemic of abuse' that ran rife within the religion - which played a key role in the Duggars' popular TLC reality series 19 Kids and Counting, which ran from 2008 until 2015.
IBLP was first started in 1961 by American Christian minister Bill Gothard. It began as a 'local youth outreach' in Chicago, Illinois, and is now described as a 'Christ-centered discipleship for individuals and families.'
'IBLP is a non-denominational Christian organization with a focus on affirming God’s Word and its principles which are vital to one’s daily walk with Christ,' reads its website.
Bill forced members to live by an incredibly-strict set of rules that controlled almost every aspect of their lives - including what they wore, what they were allowed to watch on TV, and what music they could listen to.
Barbie dolls, Pokemon cards, and anything made by Disney were all prohibited. Any songs that had a fast beat were believed to be linked to the devil. And Cabbage Patch Dolls were considered satanic.
But the problems with IBLP ran way deeper than Bill's bizarre hatred for children's toys. In the trailer for the upcoming documentary, members detailed how Bill was obsessed with 'authority' and wanted all members to 'obey' him.
The disgraced minister had intense regulations for how his members should treat their kids and how they should interact with people of the other sex.
He was a firm believer that children should heed to their parents, wives should do what their husbands say, and all should always follow his orders - and he encouraged physical repercussions if they didn't listen.
Bill promoted something known as blanket training - a disputed method in which parents leave their babies on a cloth with a toy just out of teach. And if the child tries to move off the blanket to get it, they get hit.
He also didn't allow his members' kids to be in public school, instead, they had to be homeschooled, which left many of them isolated, lacking basic knowledge and skills, and completely sheltered from the outside world.
The children were forced to follow a curriculum that Bill had created - which focused more on teaching 'slut-shaming' than 'mathematics,' according to one member in the trailer for Amazon's doc.
For nearly 50 years, what went on in IBLP was kept mostly hidden from the public. And when the Duggars were shot to fame in the early 2000s, they painted a picture of IBLP that depicted a squeaky-clean and wholesome religious group.
But that came crashing down when a police report came out that revealed the Duggar's eldest son, Josh, had admitted to molesting numerous underage women, including four of his siblings, in the 2010s - and that his own parents knew about it and failed to report the abuse.
In the wake of Josh's scandal, numerous people who were once part of the group started coming forward and sharing their stories, detailing years of gruesome abuse, torture, and control which left them traumatized for years.
Bill ultimately resigned in 2014 after more than 30 women accused him of sexual harassment. Two years later, 10 of them filed a lawsuit in which they claimed he had inappropriately touched them.
The rollercoaster ride that is IBLP will soon be brought back to the surface in Amazon's explosive, four-part exposé, which will premiere on June 2.
As we prepare for the doc, FEMAIL went ahead and rounded up everything we know so far about IBLP, including Bill's fervent teachings and controversial beliefs, as well as the many harrowing details that former members have already shared about their time in the 'cult-like' religious group.
'God entrusts husbands with the leadership of the family unit,' reads a post on IBLP's website.
'A wife is to submit to the leadership of her husband, coming alongside him as a helpmate - his companion and helper created perfectly to meet his needs.
'Parents are responsible to train their children, and children are to honor and obey their parents in the Lord.'
Micah said that 'as time went on' he started to 'feel like the walls were closing in on him' and his 'soul was being suffocated.'
'Everything about IBLP is detrimental to healthy childhood development, mental well-being and a generally stable sense of self,' he continued.
'It presents a version of God that is distant and demanding. It breeds codependency, depression and attachment disorders.'
Marcela Metlich, who grew up as part of the religious group, also told the outlet that the 'complete authority' her parents had over her left her terrified.
'I had such a strong fear of doing something that my parents did not wish me to do,' she said. 'I [constantly] re-asked myself and re-evaluated everything I did all my life.
'That is the most damaging idea. That your parents are somehow God in this Earth and that God will back up everything they say just because they are your parents, and if you dare do something different all kinds of evil will fall on you.'
Another woman, named Crystal, who asked to keep her last name a secret, explained to the publication that she was made to believe that 'fiery darts of Satan' would hit her if she didn't 'honor her parents.'
'I’m dead serious. This is what I was taught,' she added. 'Even if I disagreed with them, I was to honor my parents anyway.
'If I didn’t, there would be no protection for me, and my life would be ruined one way or another.'
Earlier this year, Jinger Duggar - one of the few Duggar members to publicly slam IBLP - opened up about how being a part of the 'fear-based' organization 'warped' her view of God and left her believing that her life would be a 'disaster' if she strayed from the intense regulations to ET.
'It was based on superstition, manipulation, control, and so my view of God was warped,' she said.
'I was promised that if I followed these teachings from Bill Gothard, this man, that my life would be a success and God would bless me.
'But if I didn't follow every principle that he taught, then my life would be one disaster after another.
'The teachings of Bill Gothard, they have lasting effects, so I am still working through a lot of that.'
It's been said that Bill encouraged his members to spank their kids if they misbehaved - and some children who grew up as part of IBLP have claimed that it turned into physical abuse.
One former IBLP participant, who remained anonymous, told SpiritualSoundingBoard.com that he endured a series of 'beatings' from his parents throughout his childhood - which were brought on by simple things like 'not getting a chore done on time or to the required degree of perfection.'
He said Bill had a 'beating protocol' that he taught parents, and that he even handed out pamphlets on the subject.
'The stipulation was that we had to hold still and submissively accept the beating, and we had to stop crying and be silent and not make a sound,' he recalled.
'[While it was happening, my parents] would tell us what bad, awful, evil, horrible, sinful children we were. This was a specific part of Gothard's beating protocol, found in one of his pamphlets.
'It was implied that we deserved it. “That’s what you get for your sinful disobedience” was the message.
'I experienced unspeakable physical, sexual, and emotional abuse from my mother and father, who were at one point among Gothard’s “model parents.”
'Gothard is not human. Gothard does not deserve compassion. Gothard is not a man, and he does not have the slightest shred of decency or humanity within him. Bill Gothard is a monster in human form.'
Jim Bob and Michelle sparked backlash back in 2012, when they revealed in a blog post that they used a process they called 'Quiet and Still' when it came to parenting their 19 kids, which they described as 'similar to blanket training, but without the toy.' Bill is also known to promote Blanket Training.
'It's not [about] waiting until they do something wrong to correct them, but actually taking moments to train them,' Michelle said in a 2011 interview.
'I'll sit [my children] in a chair, and I'll say, "OK, Mommy's going to sit beside you, and you're going to practice being still and quiet."
'We may do that two or three times a day for about a week, and usually they catch it. What they're learning is self-control. They're learning to obey Mommy's voice.
'Then it can be transferred to when you're in the grocery store and they're sitting in the cart... They can learn to do that wherever they are because it's trained in their little hearts.'
The mother-of-19 said at the time that her favorite mantras was, 'The first time I say it, you obey it.'
Members of IBLP are not allowed to partake in any physical touching with their significant other before marriage. That means no kissing, hand holding, or even hugging each other from the front.
Instead of dating, Bill promoted something known as 'courtships,' which he believed 'allowed young people to have greater effectiveness in their single years and a more fulfilling relationship with their partner in marriage.'
'Many young people are relieved to learn that there is an alternative to the pressures and hurts that often result from dating,' read one of Bill's old pamphlets, which was shared on Reddit last year.
The pamphlet said the definition of courtship is 'two fathers agreeing to work with a qualified young man to win the daughter for marriage.'
It listed the benefits as 'avoiding envy and jealousy,' 'eliminating defrauding and bitterness,' 'horning the father's authority,' 'promoting self-control and moral purity,' and 'basing marriages on God's will.'
Some former members have claimed that the rules regarding relationships forced them to 'repress sexual feelings' and helped 'raise predators.'
'I spent most of my teen years trying to repress my very normal attraction to women,' Micah explained to InTouch.
'I referred to it in my journals as a "monster," some sort of evil thing that I had to destroy or else it would destroy me.
'I knew that I wasn’t allowed to be in love until I had my parents' permission, and I wasn’t allowed to tell a girl that I was interested in her until I had her parents' permission and was prepared to marry her.'
Joy Tremont, another former IBLP member, recalled being 'petrified' over who her father would 'choose as her husband.'
'I remember one guy coming over frequently and thinking, "Oh my God, do I have to marry him? Oh, the horror,"' she revealed to InTouch.
'Or being frightened that whoever I married would make me wear skirts the rest of my life. It was like being boxed in.'
Numerous people who were part of the organization have revealed that they were taught from a young age to never show their feelings.
One former member, named Tiffany Lewis - whose family joined IBLP when she was 14 - told InTouch that had to 'always be cheerful' and 'never express frustration.'
Micah had a similar experience, explaining that he was taught that if he felt 'lonely or sad or unhappy,' it was 'his fault because he did something bad.'
'[IBLP taught ideas like:] if you are unsatisfied it is because you aren’t trying hard enough,' he said.
'You are not inherently good just the way you are, you deserve punishment instead of love, you have to do certain things in certain ways to earn the blessing and approval of God.
'If anyone outside the system questions us it’s because they just are not as enlightened as we are.
'We understand God and the universe better than regular people, we are special, we are going to change the world.'
After eventually leaving the program as an adult, he said he struggled for years to overcome the 'destructive patterns' and 'self-defeating habits' that he had been taught during his time with IBLP.
'I have spent many years (and thousands of dollars) on therapy trying to deprogram and undo all the negative patterns and ideas that were lodged in my head because of the teachings of IBLP and my time in the training centers,' he admitted.
'I’m in a pretty good place now, but I’ve gone through some really painful and difficult years to get here.'
IBLP members are forced to homeschool their kids using a series of workbooks created by Bill - which contain lessons on the dangers of 'lust' and why women should be 'meek'
They were taught using a series of 'wisdom booklets' created by Bill himself. Tiffany recalled: 'They were probably like a 45-page, almost like a magazine format. It wasn’t close to any sort of [real] education if that was all you did.'
The 'wisdom booklets' contained lessons on the dangers of 'lust' and why you shouldn't take too much 'pride' in your appearance.
'How many times have you detected yourself in consulting vanity about your press and appearance?' reads one page of the booklet.
'How many times have you thought more, and taken more pains, and spent more time about decorating your body to go to Church, than you have about preparing your mind for the worship of God?
'You have gone caring more as to how you appeared outwardly in the sight of a mortal man, than how your soul appeared in the sight of the heart-searching God.'
There's also an entire section on the importance of 'meekness' - explaining that women needed to be 'meek' so that 'God could achieve his highest purposes through their lives.'
'In order for Him to do this, we must yield to Him our rights and develop a servant's spirit,' one of the lessons says.
In the trailer for Amazon's docuseries, one woman voiced her frustration over the workbooks focusing more on 'slut-shaming' than topics like math or science.
Tiffany also told InTouch that many children brought up in IBLP never learned basic life skills like adding, subtracting, or even reading.
Bill had rules for almost everything - including what shows and movies his members could watch, what music they could listen to, and what toys their kids could play with.
Micah recalled being told that 'the devil was trying to sneak into his house' if he asked to play with Cabbage Patch Dolls, Trolls, or My Little Pony toys. He also said eating 'white bread' was considered a 'sin.'
Arguably one of the strangest of Bill's teachings was that the beat in 'rock music' was 'inherently evil' and will 'make you want to have sex' and 'kill your houseplants.'
Elisabeth Feehan, whose family joined IBLP five years before she was born, told InTouch that she was grounded for a year for downloading a Taylor Swift album.
'I spent a year isolated and in utter boredom because I just wanted to hear some music,' she said.
Jinger told Fox News that Bill told her family they would die if they accidentally heard a song that had a specific drum beat in it.
She revealed: 'He said anything with this specific beat in a drum is harmful. It’s dangerous.
'He told the story of a young man who was in a car accident and died because he was listening to music with drums.
'I remember one time we were on our way to one of the seminars and somebody turned on music with drums in the car. I was freaking out.
'I just thought, "Goodness, this is it. We’re going to have a car accident because somebody turned this on." I was so fearful. It just consumed my life.'
One woman, named Judy, told BBC that she believed that the organization's strict rules were all made to isolate its followers from the outside world.
'You don't know what's normal. There was no TV and no communication with anyone outside our circle,' she explained. 'We didn't integrate outside the family.'
Bill also had strict regulations regarding what sports IBLP participants were allowed to play.
Tiffany recalled to InTouch: '[They told us] if women did aerobics their parts would fall out of their uterus. That’s what they told us.'
Crystal explained that she was forced to quit dance class when she was age 12 because Bill told her parents that 'shaking her hips' would 'defraud men' and 'stir up desires in them that cannot be righteously satisfied.'
Wearing jeans is also strictly prohibited for IBLP members, and women must always dress very modestly.
'I suddenly felt very sinful [when] I began developing breasts and a butt that began filling out my clothes more,' Crystal said.
'Apparently, too much [cleavage] showing was the cause of all bad things that happened to women.'
She remembered struggling with feels of being 'terrible and dirty' if she accidentally dressed, talked, or acted in any way that would 'lead someone on.'
Elisabeth went through something very similar, explaining that she was in 'constant fear' over her 'sleeves being too short,' or if she 'accidentally showed skin between my skirt and my shirt when she lifted her arms.'
According to the women, Bill encouraged them to not only dress a certain way, but to also wanted their bodies to look the way he wanted them to.
Elisabeth continued: 'He basically advertised that the perfect woman was a size zero.'
In 2014, after more than 30 women accused Bill of harassment, IBLP conducted an investigation into Bill.
The church said that it found that 'no criminal activity' had occurred, but that Bill had 'acted in an inappropriate manner.'
He then stepped down. Two years later, 10 women filed a joint lawsuit against Bill and IBLP, in which they accused them of 'sexual abuse, harassment, and cover-up.'
They alleged that Bill rubbed their breasts and genitals while they were clothed and placed their hands on his groin. Some of the plaintiffs were underage at the time of the alleged abuse.
Afterwards, he denied the allegations to The Washington Post, stating, 'Never in my life have I touched a girl sexually. I’m shocked to even hear that.'
The case was dismissed due to the statute of limitation.
Micah said he often saw Bill 'picking' certain girls as his 'favorites' and giving them special treatment.
'We all knew he had a type, and we knew that he gave extra attention to those girls - promising them special roles in his various programs and outreaches,' he said.
Micah said he often saw Bill 'picking' certain girls as his 'favorites' and giving them special treatment. He said: 'We all knew he had a type, and he gave extra attention to those girls'
Tiffany also recalled seeing Bill 'pulling several young women into his office' during her stay at one of IBLP's training centers.
A different woman, named Jennifer, told the outlet that she never met Bill because she didn't fit into his 'preferred body type of face.'
'Everybody knew … "Oh, this girl looks like a Gothard girl." Which is really sick to think about now, but at the time everyone was like, "Oh, that’s so special,"' she said.
'At the time, I was very, very sad and disappointed that I was never invited to headquarters, and now I realize that was a wonderful thing and actually a good protection from what other people endured.'
The former members also accused the organization of 'victim-shaming.' Crystal told the outlet that after she was raped at age 21, she was sent to a 'Christian counselor' who put the blame on her for the incident.
'She told me it was my fault, that I shouldn’t have put myself in that situation alone with this guy, that I shouldn’t have been wearing that, that I shouldn’t have been around alcohol,' she said.
'I was pretty messed up over this. I still have violent flashbacks and nine years later have to remind myself it wasn’t my fault.'The Duggar family's meteoric rise to fame and sordid fall from grace have turned the Arkansas brood into one of the world's most famous reality TV dynasties - while also shedding light on their little-known 'radical' religion.
While many watched on in surprise as Duggar patriarch Jim Bob and his wife Michelle forced rigorous rules upon their massive gaggle of children - from banning trousers for the girls to insisting upon strict 'courting' rituals that saw the youngsters banned from even holding hands.
Now however, a new documentary is set to thrust a glaring spotlight on the incredibly dark underbelly of the family's church, The Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) - revealing how the Duggars' somewhat bizarre lifestyle restrictions were in fact just the first layer of what is in fact a deep and sordid religious culture.
Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets is due to be released on Amazon Prime next month - and will see several of 57-year-old Jim Bob and 56-year-old Michelle's own family members 'exposing the truth beneath the wholesome surface of reality TV's favorite mega-family'.
According to producers, the documentary will lift the lid on the 'pandemic of abuse' that ran rife within the religion - which played a key role in the Duggars' popular TLC reality series 19 Kids and Counting, which ran from 2008 until 2015.
IBLP was first started in 1961 by American Christian minister Bill Gothard. It began as a 'local youth outreach' in Chicago, Illinois, and is now described as a 'Christ-centered discipleship for individuals and families.'
'IBLP is a non-denominational Christian organization with a focus on affirming God’s Word and its principles which are vital to one’s daily walk with Christ,' reads its website.
Bill forced members to live by an incredibly-strict set of rules that controlled almost every aspect of their lives - including what they wore, what they were allowed to watch on TV, and what music they could listen to.
Barbie dolls, Pokemon cards, and anything made by Disney were all prohibited. Any songs that had a fast beat were believed to be linked to the devil. And Cabbage Patch Dolls were considered satanic.
But the problems with IBLP ran way deeper than Bill's bizarre hatred for children's toys. In the trailer for the upcoming documentary, members detailed how Bill was obsessed with 'authority' and wanted all members to 'obey' him.
The disgraced minister had intense regulations for how his members should treat their kids and how they should interact with people of the other sex.
He was a firm believer that children should heed to their parents, wives should do what their husbands say, and all should always follow his orders - and he encouraged physical repercussions if they didn't listen.
Bill promoted something known as blanket training - a disputed method in which parents leave their babies on a cloth with a toy just out of teach. And if the child tries to move off the blanket to get it, they get hit.
He also didn't allow his members' kids to be in public school, instead, they had to be homeschooled, which left many of them isolated, lacking basic knowledge and skills, and completely sheltered from the outside world.
The children were forced to follow a curriculum that Bill had created - which focused more on teaching 'slut-shaming' than 'mathematics,' according to one member in the trailer for Amazon's doc.
For nearly 50 years, what went on in IBLP was kept mostly hidden from the public. And when the Duggars were shot to fame in the early 2000s, they painted a picture of IBLP that depicted a squeaky-clean and wholesome religious group.
But that came crashing down when a police report came out that revealed the Duggar's eldest son, Josh, had admitted to molesting numerous underage women, including four of his siblings, in the 2010s - and that his own parents knew about it and failed to report the abuse.
In the wake of Josh's scandal, numerous people who were once part of the group started coming forward and sharing their stories, detailing years of gruesome abuse, torture, and control which left them traumatized for years.
Bill ultimately resigned in 2014 after more than 30 women accused him of sexual harassment. Two years later, 10 of them filed a lawsuit in which they claimed he had inappropriately touched them.
The rollercoaster ride that is IBLP will soon be brought back to the surface in Amazon's explosive, four-part exposé, which will premiere on June 2.
As we prepare for the doc, FEMAIL went ahead and rounded up everything we know so far about IBLP, including Bill's fervent teachings and controversial beliefs, as well as the many harrowing details that former members have already shared about their time in the 'cult-like' religious group.
'God entrusts husbands with the leadership of the family unit,' reads a post on IBLP's website.
'A wife is to submit to the leadership of her husband, coming alongside him as a helpmate - his companion and helper created perfectly to meet his needs.
'Parents are responsible to train their children, and children are to honor and obey their parents in the Lord.'
Micah said that 'as time went on' he started to 'feel like the walls were closing in on him' and his 'soul was being suffocated.'
'Everything about IBLP is detrimental to healthy childhood development, mental well-being and a generally stable sense of self,' he continued.
'It presents a version of God that is distant and demanding. It breeds codependency, depression and attachment disorders.'
Marcela Metlich, who grew up as part of the religious group, also told the outlet that the 'complete authority' her parents had over her left her terrified.
'I had such a strong fear of doing something that my parents did not wish me to do,' she said. 'I [constantly] re-asked myself and re-evaluated everything I did all my life.
'That is the most damaging idea. That your parents are somehow God in this Earth and that God will back up everything they say just because they are your parents, and if you dare do something different all kinds of evil will fall on you.'
Another woman, named Crystal, who asked to keep her last name a secret, explained to the publication that she was made to believe that 'fiery darts of Satan' would hit her if she didn't 'honor her parents.'
'I’m dead serious. This is what I was taught,' she added. 'Even if I disagreed with them, I was to honor my parents anyway.
'If I didn’t, there would be no protection for me, and my life would be ruined one way or another.'
Earlier this year, Jinger Duggar - one of the few Duggar members to publicly slam IBLP - opened up about how being a part of the 'fear-based' organization 'warped' her view of God and left her believing that her life would be a 'disaster' if she strayed from the intense regulations to ET.
'It was based on superstition, manipulation, control, and so my view of God was warped,' she said.
'I was promised that if I followed these teachings from Bill Gothard, this man, that my life would be a success and God would bless me.
'But if I didn't follow every principle that he taught, then my life would be one disaster after another.
'The teachings of Bill Gothard, they have lasting effects, so I am still working through a lot of that.'
It's been said that Bill encouraged his members to spank their kids if they misbehaved - and some children who grew up as part of IBLP have claimed that it turned into physical abuse.
One former IBLP participant, who remained anonymous, told SpiritualSoundingBoard.com that he endured a series of 'beatings' from his parents throughout his childhood - which were brought on by simple things like 'not getting a chore done on time or to the required degree of perfection.'
He said Bill had a 'beating protocol' that he taught parents, and that he even handed out pamphlets on the subject.
'The stipulation was that we had to hold still and submissively accept the beating, and we had to stop crying and be silent and not make a sound,' he recalled.
'[While it was happening, my parents] would tell us what bad, awful, evil, horrible, sinful children we were. This was a specific part of Gothard's beating protocol, found in one of his pamphlets.
'It was implied that we deserved it. “That’s what you get for your sinful disobedience” was the message.
'I experienced unspeakable physical, sexual, and emotional abuse from my mother and father, who were at one point among Gothard’s “model parents.”
'Gothard is not human. Gothard does not deserve compassion. Gothard is not a man, and he does not have the slightest shred of decency or humanity within him. Bill Gothard is a monster in human form.'
Jim Bob and Michelle sparked backlash back in 2012, when they revealed in a blog post that they used a process they called 'Quiet and Still' when it came to parenting their 19 kids, which they described as 'similar to blanket training, but without the toy.' Bill is also known to promote Blanket Training.
'It's not [about] waiting until they do something wrong to correct them, but actually taking moments to train them,' Michelle said in a 2011 interview.
'I'll sit [my children] in a chair, and I'll say, "OK, Mommy's going to sit beside you, and you're going to practice being still and quiet."
'We may do that two or three times a day for about a week, and usually they catch it. What they're learning is self-control. They're learning to obey Mommy's voice.
'Then it can be transferred to when you're in the grocery store and they're sitting in the cart... They can learn to do that wherever they are because it's trained in their little hearts.'
The mother-of-19 said at the time that her favorite mantras was, 'The first time I say it, you obey it.'
Members of IBLP are not allowed to partake in any physical touching with their significant other before marriage. That means no kissing, hand holding, or even hugging each other from the front.
Instead of dating, Bill promoted something known as 'courtships,' which he believed 'allowed young people to have greater effectiveness in their single years and a more fulfilling relationship with their partner in marriage.'
'Many young people are relieved to learn that there is an alternative to the pressures and hurts that often result from dating,' read one of Bill's old pamphlets, which was shared on Reddit last year.
The pamphlet said the definition of courtship is 'two fathers agreeing to work with a qualified young man to win the daughter for marriage.'
It listed the benefits as 'avoiding envy and jealousy,' 'eliminating defrauding and bitterness,' 'horning the father's authority,' 'promoting self-control and moral purity,' and 'basing marriages on God's will.'
Some former members have claimed that the rules regarding relationships forced them to 'repress sexual feelings' and helped 'raise predators.'
'I spent most of my teen years trying to repress my very normal attraction to women,' Micah explained to InTouch.
'I referred to it in my journals as a "monster," some sort of evil thing that I had to destroy or else it would destroy me.
'I knew that I wasn’t allowed to be in love until I had my parents' permission, and I wasn’t allowed to tell a girl that I was interested in her until I had her parents' permission and was prepared to marry her.'
Joy Tremont, another former IBLP member, recalled being 'petrified' over who her father would 'choose as her husband.'
'I remember one guy coming over frequently and thinking, "Oh my God, do I have to marry him? Oh, the horror,"' she revealed to InTouch.
'Or being frightened that whoever I married would make me wear skirts the rest of my life. It was like being boxed in.'
Numerous people who were part of the organization have revealed that they were taught from a young age to never show their feelings.
One former member, named Tiffany Lewis - whose family joined IBLP when she was 14 - told InTouch that had to 'always be cheerful' and 'never express frustration.'
Micah had a similar experience, explaining that he was taught that if he felt 'lonely or sad or unhappy,' it was 'his fault because he did something bad.'
'[IBLP taught ideas like:] if you are unsatisfied it is because you aren’t trying hard enough,' he said.
'You are not inherently good just the way you are, you deserve punishment instead of love, you have to do certain things in certain ways to earn the blessing and approval of God.
'If anyone outside the system questions us it’s because they just are not as enlightened as we are.
'We understand God and the universe better than regular people, we are special, we are going to change the world.'
After eventually leaving the program as an adult, he said he struggled for years to overcome the 'destructive patterns' and 'self-defeating habits' that he had been taught during his time with IBLP.
'I have spent many years (and thousands of dollars) on therapy trying to deprogram and undo all the negative patterns and ideas that were lodged in my head because of the teachings of IBLP and my time in the training centers,' he admitted.
'I’m in a pretty good place now, but I’ve gone through some really painful and difficult years to get here.'
IBLP members are forced to homeschool their kids using a series of workbooks created by Bill - which contain lessons on the dangers of 'lust' and why women should be 'meek'
They were taught using a series of 'wisdom booklets' created by Bill himself. Tiffany recalled: 'They were probably like a 45-page, almost like a magazine format. It wasn’t close to any sort of [real] education if that was all you did.'
The 'wisdom booklets' contained lessons on the dangers of 'lust' and why you shouldn't take too much 'pride' in your appearance.
'How many times have you detected yourself in consulting vanity about your press and appearance?' reads one page of the booklet.
'How many times have you thought more, and taken more pains, and spent more time about decorating your body to go to Church, than you have about preparing your mind for the worship of God?
'You have gone caring more as to how you appeared outwardly in the sight of a mortal man, than how your soul appeared in the sight of the heart-searching God.'
There's also an entire section on the importance of 'meekness' - explaining that women needed to be 'meek' so that 'God could achieve his highest purposes through their lives.'
'In order for Him to do this, we must yield to Him our rights and develop a servant's spirit,' one of the lessons says.
In the trailer for Amazon's docuseries, one woman voiced her frustration over the workbooks focusing more on 'slut-shaming' than topics like math or science.
Tiffany also told InTouch that many children brought up in IBLP never learned basic life skills like adding, subtracting, or even reading.
Bill had rules for almost everything - including what shows and movies his members could watch, what music they could listen to, and what toys their kids could play with.
Micah recalled being told that 'the devil was trying to sneak into his house' if he asked to play with Cabbage Patch Dolls, Trolls, or My Little Pony toys. He also said eating 'white bread' was considered a 'sin.'
Arguably one of the strangest of Bill's teachings was that the beat in 'rock music' was 'inherently evil' and will 'make you want to have sex' and 'kill your houseplants.'
Elisabeth Feehan, whose family joined IBLP five years before she was born, told InTouch that she was grounded for a year for downloading a Taylor Swift album.
'I spent a year isolated and in utter boredom because I just wanted to hear some music,' she said.
Jinger told Fox News that Bill told her family they would die if they accidentally heard a song that had a specific drum beat in it.
She revealed: 'He said anything with this specific beat in a drum is harmful. It’s dangerous.
'He told the story of a young man who was in a car accident and died because he was listening to music with drums.
'I remember one time we were on our way to one of the seminars and somebody turned on music with drums in the car. I was freaking out.
'I just thought, "Goodness, this is it. We’re going to have a car accident because somebody turned this on." I was so fearful. It just consumed my life.'
One woman, named Judy, told BBC that she believed that the organization's strict rules were all made to isolate its followers from the outside world.
'You don't know what's normal. There was no TV and no communication with anyone outside our circle,' she explained. 'We didn't integrate outside the family.'
Bill also had strict regulations regarding what sports IBLP participants were allowed to play.
Tiffany recalled to InTouch: '[They told us] if women did aerobics their parts would fall out of their uterus. That’s what they told us.'
Crystal explained that she was forced to quit dance class when she was age 12 because Bill told her parents that 'shaking her hips' would 'defraud men' and 'stir up desires in them that cannot be righteously satisfied.'
Wearing jeans is also strictly prohibited for IBLP members, and women must always dress very modestly.
'I suddenly felt very sinful [when] I began developing breasts and a butt that began filling out my clothes more,' Crystal said.
'Apparently, too much [cleavage] showing was the cause of all bad things that happened to women.'
She remembered struggling with feels of being 'terrible and dirty' if she accidentally dressed, talked, or acted in any way that would 'lead someone on.'
Elisabeth went through something very similar, explaining that she was in 'constant fear' over her 'sleeves being too short,' or if she 'accidentally showed skin between my skirt and my shirt when she lifted her arms.'
According to the women, Bill encouraged them to not only dress a certain way, but to also wanted their bodies to look the way he wanted them to.
Elisabeth continued: 'He basically advertised that the perfect woman was a size zero.'
In 2014, after more than 30 women accused Bill of harassment, IBLP conducted an investigation into Bill.
The church said that it found that 'no criminal activity' had occurred, but that Bill had 'acted in an inappropriate manner.'
He then stepped down. Two years later, 10 women filed a joint lawsuit against Bill and IBLP, in which they accused them of 'sexual abuse, harassment, and cover-up.'
They alleged that Bill rubbed their breasts and genitals while they were clothed and placed their hands on his groin. Some of the plaintiffs were underage at the time of the alleged abuse.
Afterwards, he denied the allegations to The Washington Post, stating, 'Never in my life have I touched a girl sexually. I’m shocked to even hear that.'
The case was dismissed due to the statute of limitation.
Micah said he often saw Bill 'picking' certain girls as his 'favorites' and giving them special treatment.
'We all knew he had a type, and we knew that he gave extra attention to those girls - promising them special roles in his various programs and outreaches,' he said.
Micah said he often saw Bill 'picking' certain girls as his 'favorites' and giving them special treatment. He said: 'We all knew he had a type, and he gave extra attention to those girls'
Tiffany also recalled seeing Bill 'pulling several young women into his office' during her stay at one of IBLP's training centers.
A different woman, named Jennifer, told the outlet that she never met Bill because she didn't fit into his 'preferred body type of face.'
'Everybody knew … "Oh, this girl looks like a Gothard girl." Which is really sick to think about now, but at the time everyone was like, "Oh, that’s so special,"' she said.
'At the time, I was very, very sad and disappointed that I was never invited to headquarters, and now I realize that was a wonderful thing and actually a good protection from what other people endured.'
The former members also accused the organization of 'victim-shaming.' Crystal told the outlet that after she was raped at age 21, she was sent to a 'Christian counselor' who put the blame on her for the incident.
'She told me it was my fault, that I shouldn’t have put myself in that situation alone with this guy, that I shouldn’t have been wearing that, that I shouldn’t have been around alcohol,' she said.
'I was pretty messed up over this. I still have violent flashbacks and nine years later have to remind myself it wasn’t my fault.
'To see more documents/articles regarding this group/organization/subject click here.
