A Review of Pavilions of Protection (written by Bill Gothard, Ph.D.)
By Pastor Barry Black
In the last
issue of the MCOI Journal we reviewed Bill Gothard’s
book, The
Exceeding Great Power of God’s
Grace.
Due the limitations of space in a publication such as this
a book review cannot be an exhaustive critique. Instead, we
will highlight some of the more blatant issues. There are
seven chapters in Pavilions
of Protection. Even the most
casual student of Bill’s teachings concerning the
“principle of authority” can see that what once was an
umbrella is now a pavilion…wow, it grew! But of course,
that is what leaven does (Galatians
5.9). But fear
not, in chapter seven, Bill returns to his umbrella
analogy. Two main points are recurring themes in
Pavilions
of Protection. I will try to
limit this review to these two major themes.
Theme
1
Whether he realizes it or not, rather than pointing to
man’s sin nature (and thus man’s sinful behavior), Gothard
sees everything through the “eyes” of whether or not one is
“under the umbrella (or pavilion) of protection.” In his
“Introduction: Consider These Points” he explains that he
has written this little book because the “Biblical
principle of protection under authority” is under attack.
He then quotes or sort of quotes (without attribution) from
our book A Matter of
Basic Principles: Bill Gothard and the Christian
Life. We say “sort
of quotes” because he also changes a few words in the
process. The quotes are from pages 97, 98 and 99 and appear
in his book like this:
The
essence of Gothard’s teaching of submission is not getting
under the domination of authority, but rather getting under
the protection of authority. According to Bill Gothard,
authority is like an umbrella of protection and when we get
out from under it, we expose ourselves to unnecessary
temptations which are too strong for us to overcome….When
is Gothard going to supply us with a Scriptural basis for
this idea? He is not…. He is not teaching Scripture, but
rather his own ideas.”
By using ellipses (the …) he avoids having to actually
address or respond to the biblical material in the book
that used to demonstrate his views as not biblical but only
his opinion. By not giving attribution he to some degree
keeps the reader in the dark as to where the quote came
from and therefore the possibility that his followers might
read it in context and discover he is playing fast and
loose with the text. Something he does often. He then goes
on to write:
With
challenges like this against the clear teaching of God’s
Word, a message such as the one contained in this book is
mandatory.
In time past Gothard has never actually demonstrated his
view through a “clear teaching of God’s Word” and he
doesn’t begin with this book. He contends:
For
someone to claim that there is no Biblical basis for
enjoying God’s protection as long as we remain under
God-ordained authority is to either overlook or reject the
first lesson of the Bible.
This gives the impression that he will be supporting his
view with a “clear
teaching of God’s Word” starting with
“the
first lesson of the Bible.”
In the introduction, and then in the summary analogy,
Gothard mentions Adam and Eve in the garden. A story we
have normally understood to be their fall into sin through
rebellion but was actually something else. In his first
mention, Gothard says this:
God
created Adam and gave him jurisdiction over the entire
Garden of Eden, except for the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. As long as Adam remained under the authority
of God’s commands, he experienced God’s blessing,
fellowship and protection.
The first
question that comes to our mind is, “protected from what?”
There was no sickness, nothing to break down, no concern
for stuff in fact, we read in Genesis 1:31:
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
Well, we have an idea of what Adam and Eve were supposedly
protected from as Gothard enumerates what they are exposed
to as a result of the loss of God’s protection:
God
then created Eve and placed her under Adam’s protection and
God’s commands. When Adam and Eve went beyond the limits of
their jurisdiction,
they lost God’s protection
and exposed themselves and all their descendants to the
destruction of Satan’s deception.
So, if they were under God protection and that protection
includes being protected from “Satan’s
deception” how did Satan
get past God who was protecting them and deceive Eve? This
does not seem at all comforting. If while under God’s
umbrella of protection, which protects from Satan’s
deception, Eve was deceived and as a result got our from
under God’s umbrella of protection are her and Adam any
worse off than they were while under the umbrella of
protection. It doesn’t seem so.
Another problem here is that saying that
“they
lost God’s protection”
(which as we
have seen wasn’t very effective) is completely
different from saying that Adam and Eve sentenced
themselves and all mankind with sin’s penalty. But for the
sake of argument, if Gothard is indeed making these
equivalent or synonymous, then we seem to have a
theological problem here. Redemption through Christ
(eternal salvation), would be equivalent to
“getting
under God’s protective authority” and has
nothing whatever to do with having peace with God but
rather the process of realizing we need a security guard to
protect us from bad things in life and getting to the place
where that security guard can protect us. However, as we
have seen, the God Gothard portrays is probably not our
best choice if being protected from bad things in life and
Satan’s deceptions is what we have in mind. But Gothard
“muddies the water” even more when he states on page 32:
God
is the ultimate “umbrella” over all people and nations. He
governs in the affairs of nations and rules over all the
universe. He sets up rulers and takes them down. He defines
the parameters of His “umbrella of protection by His law
systems. He gave Adam and Eve a law system composed of ten
commandments. Four were given directly to Adam and six were
given to Adam and Eve together.
As long as Adam and Eve remained under this legal
structure, they enjoyed ideal living and freedom from death
and destruction. However, the moment that they stepped
outside this protective “umbrella” they experienced death
and destruction.
WHAT? One would
look in vain through Genesis 1-3 to find
“a
law system of ten commandments.” Rather what
we find in Scripture is Adam and Eve fell into sin when Eve
was deceived by Satan and partook of the fruit, and then
gave the fruit to her husband and he ate (Genesis 3.1-6).
That was the one thing that God told Adam
not
to
do, and if he did, he would die (Genesis 2.16, 17). Thus
all of mankind was plunged into sin and the penalty of sin
which according to Romans 6.23:
For
the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal
life in Jesus Christ our Lord.
As a result death passed upon all men, Romans 5:12:
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one
man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to
all men, because all sinned
Theme
2
Gothard equates all human authority (parents, government,
etc.) with the authority and protection of God and makes
the broad assumption that all authority is biblical and
must be followed. In the Introduction, he writes:
Who
has the final authority over decisions that are made in the
home: parents or teens? To a large degree parents have
surrendered their God-given responsibilities to the wills
of their sons and daughters. The results are disastrous:
wrong friends, drugs, promiscuity, depression, and
suicide.
Gothard’s
either/or thinking is evident here. Either they have
someone who makes all of their decision for them or they
are doomed to “wrong
friends, drugs, promiscuity, depression and
suicide.” In truth,
the “disastrous results” he lists are ultimately the result
of the sin nature, and do not simply stem from the problem
of who will be “the
final authority over decisions that are
made.” If what
Gothard is saying about protection is true than we would
have to conclude that those spoke of in Hebrews 11 were not
heroes of the faith but rather were individuals who had
gotten out from under the protection of authority and
suffered the consequences of not being under authority. In
truth, all of us suffer the consequences of living in a
fallen world. Sin ravages us all and will continue to do so
until all is delivered up in to the Father’s hands.
In Chapter
Four, Gothard continues this second theme:
Just
as a Roman soldier had to get under the protection of his
shield, so we must consciously place our minds, wills, and
emotions under the authority of God’s Word and the
direction of the Holy Spirit. Those who reject the
authority of their parents and other God-given leaders are
usually those who have placed their minds, wills, and
emotions above God’s Word and the Holy Spirit. They are
soon plagued with doubts about the authority of Scripture
and the reality of God. The more they seek answers, the
more confused they become.
So, what he is
saying here is that human authority is in some way equal to
the authority of Scripture and the direction of the Holy
Spirit. Now if human authority is equal to the authority of
Scripture and the direction of the Holy Spirit and is our
protective shield then one cannot really know the will of
God directly from the Scripture or the Holy Spirit but only
through them as the human authority reveals it to us. In
addition, Gothard adds this concept to the definition of
faith itself and claiming the Scriptures, in fact, that
Jesus defines it this way:
One
aspect of faith is the confidence that God is able to work
through a structure of authority in order to accomplish His
will. This kind of faith was illustrated by the wisdom and
discernment of the centurion who came to Jesus for the
healing of his servant.
He told Jesus to just speak the word, because he was
unworthy for Jesus to come into his home. He knew that a
command from Jesus would be effective, because he stated:
“I also am a man set under authority, having under me
soldiers, and I say unto one, Go, and he goeth; and to
another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this,
and he doeth it” (Luke7:8).
The response of Jesus is significant: He marvelled and said
to the crowd, “…I have not found so great faith, no, not in
Israel” (Luke 7:9).
Jesus was not
teaching a “future Gothard non-optional principle of
authority” here. He was simply stating that the centurion
demonstrated great faith by believing that Jesus was able
to heal the servant without even going to the house. In
other words, Jesus was able to heal the servant “long
distance”. This was a miracle which Jesus did for the
express purpose of revealing Himself as the Son of God, not
to show how “God
is able to work through a structure of authority in order
to accomplish His will.” Bill
Gothard’s “principle of authority” as seen in his idea of
“the umbrella” or “pavilions”; is rightly identified by Ron
Henzel, Senior Researcher for Midwest Christian Outreach,
Inc. as the “error of anachronistic (chronologically
misplaced) reasoning. This happens when someone projects
contemporary culture into their interpretation and
application of scripture. This happens all too often. It is
a “bait and switch” approach (also called “the biblical
hook” approach) in which a person can wrongly interpret and
misapply God’s word, whether purposely or inadvertently.
Bill Gothard has done this consistently in his down through
the years and his book Pavilions
of Protection is certainly no
exception.
Barry D. Black
is Pastor of Anchor Bible Church HYPERLINK
"http://www.joybaptist.org/"
www.anchorbible.org
Barry’s e-mail address is: HYPERLINK
"mailto:barry@anchorbible.org" barry@anchorbible.org
L.L. (Don) Veinot Jr.
Bill Gothard,
PH.D.; Pavilions
of Protection, Institute in
Basic Life Principles, Oak Brook, IL, 2006, 5
Bill Gothard, PH.D.; Pavilions
of Protection, Institute in
Basic Life Principles, Oak Brook, IL, 2006, 5&6
Bill Gothard, PH.D.; Pavilions
of Protection, Institute in
Basic Life Principles, Oak Brook, IL, 2006, 6
Bill Gothard, PH.D.; Pavilions
of Protection, Institute in
Basic Life Principles, Oak Brook, IL, 2006, 6
Bill Gothard, PH.D.; Pavilions
of Protection, Institute in
Basic Life Principles, Oak Brook, IL, 2006, 6, italics
added for emphasis
Bill Gothard, PH.D.; Pavilions
of Protection, Institute in
Basic Life Principles, Oak Brook, IL, 2006, 32, italics
added for emphasis
Bill Gothard, PH.D.; Pavilions
of Protection, Institute in
Basic Life Principles, Oak Brook, IL, 2006, 5
Bill Gothard, PH.D.; Pavilions
of Protection, Institute in
Basic Life Principles, Oak Brook, IL, 2006, 17
Bill Gothard, PH.D.; Pavilions
of Protection, Institute in
Basic Life Principles, Oak Brook, IL, 2006, 18, italics
added for emphasis
Don Veinot, Joy Veinot & Ron Henzel,
A Matter of Basic Principles: Bill Gothard and the
Christian Life, MCOI,
Lombard, IL., 2003, 97