Jim Logan, the Stephen King of Fundamentalism

Did you know that demons can be sexually transmitted? That many Vietnam veterans' problems are caused by demons picked up from prostitutes? That a person can be "demonized" through listening to music, watching TV, or by playing Dungeons & Dragons?

Welcome to the world of Dr. James Logan, "the demon whisperer", "the Stephen King of ATI", pastor, adviser to missionaries, and conservative fundamentalist exorcist.

Jim Logan

Logan told one audience that he gets calls about house hauntings every day: "We dedicate the ground. Many people miss the ground." He tells about a missionary in Vienna, Austria who had to leave Europe because his "fourteen-year-old son got full of demons from listening to rock music". Logan claims parents in Missouri are teaching fourth and fifth graders to call up demons in the mirror and he believes government officials have demons assigned to them to influence them to oppose Christianity.

I would not know Jim Logan's name were it not for Bill Gothard. Gothard's signature teaching on the "Umbrella of Authority" taught followers that obedience and submission to the will of "authorities" (husbands, parents, employers, pastors, law enforcement officers, and government officials) would protect them from the attacks of Satan, which could not penetrate the "umbrella". Thinking for one's self or acting against the wishes of authorities was venturing beyond the safety of the umbrella and would expose one to the invisible danger of demonic influences.

But the Umbrella of Authority teaching would have had no teeth if we had not been convinced that demons were real, and scary. And that's where Jim Logan comes in.


Jim grew up in an "ungodly" home; years later his stomach still knotted at the sight of his father. Logan was drafted during the Korean War; he converted to Christianity when he was 19, through the ministry of Dawson Trotman and the Navigators. He attended Biola University, and then Biola's seminary, Talbot School of Theology. But he received his training in "deliverance" straight from Fred Dickason at Moody Bible Institute. Dickason, a professor and theologian, authored Angels: Elect and Evil and other books on demonology and "warfare".

Jim Logan spent over seven years with Child Evangelism Fellowship in Warrenton, Missouri where he served as a vice president. He also pastored at least two churches.

In 1987, Dr. Mark Bubeck founded the International Center for Biblical Counseling (ICBC International) in Sioux City, Iowa. (Read more about Bubeck's belief in demons here.) Jim Logan joined the ICBC staff in 1989 and stayed for sixteen years. Eventually, new centers were started in Indiana, Colorado, and Texas, becoming independent over time. (ICBC International has since merged with Deeper Walk Ministries to become Deeper Walk International.) Logan started his own Biblical Restoration Ministries in Sioux City in 2005. According to Logan's website, none of the counseling staff or their associates are "professional or licensed counselors, therapists, psychiatrists, medical or psychological practitioners." Logan has carried his "expertise" to numerous countries counseling missionaries, working especially with CEF, Navigators, and J.A.A.R.S.


Somewhere along the way, Logan became pals with Bill Gothard. Gothard was stuffy compared to the irrepressible Logan. Logan liked to tell how he was the last member of his family to give up television, watching his favorite shows alone in the garage after his wife and kids refused to have anything to do with it anymore. Logan like to joke and tease (behavior that would earn IBLP staff a rebuke for "folly"), and he would frequently interrupt himself with loud laughter, releasing the tension in an auditorium made anxious by tales of noises in shadowy rooms and men's voices coming out of small children.

The two men had at least one thing in common: a love of stories. Gothard soon invited Logan to speak at numerous Institute in Basic Life Principles seminars around the country, addressing homeschooling parents and pastors. Logan and Gothard frequently told each other's stories and recommended each other's teachings and materials. Logan helped Gothard write an IBLP publication (Life Purpose Journal Vol. III) that is no longer available. More recently, Logan helped lead IMI, an IBLP program developed to train young men to be pastors.

Gothard and Logan shared similar views of "iniquity", "warfare", and "ancestral spirits". A fetus conceived out of wedlock, for example, had to be prayed over to break the ancestral demons passed on by his/her conception. The brightness of the eyes were supposed to reveal an individual's spiritual state: "The eyes show me if Satan's clouding your mind" (Logan). While Gothard tended to avoid talking about demons directly, he had a lexicon of coded terminology he was comfortable with: carnality, evil, spirit of rebellion, heaviness, darkness, principalities, ground, hedge, attacks, tormentors, protection, and deception. Logan didn't beat around the bush; he was matter-of-fact about strange voices coming out Christian missionaries who had been invaded by demons.

Logan became a fixture at Gothard's ATI conferences. After listening to his tales of hallucinations, seizures, and demons being let loose in homes because of Cabbage Patch Kids or evil art objects received as white elephant gifts, or even "twin beds gotten from homosexuals", families would go home frightened. Some parents burned their children's toys, even putting dolls on barbecue grills while the kids watched in anguished terror. Parents like mine cleansed our home of Winnie-the-Pooh and all other "talking animals". Others banished Cabbage Patch dolls, My Little Ponies, clowns, superheroes. We knew our parents were dead-serious about our welfare: they were willing to make burnt offerings to keep us safe.

Despite having no credentials, Logan was frequently sought out by ATI parents at a loss to "fix" their rebellious or depressed sons and daughters, who must be affected by demonic influences. But he could be contradictory. Despite recommending Gothard's book against Christian rock music, calling it "awesome", Logan still found some Christian artists acceptable. He told one family that he listened to Amy Grant, and recommended Michael Card's "Sleep Sound in Jesus" album of lullabies at an ICBC conference, saying that the songs would keep children from having nightmares. Far more disturbing is the allegation that he failed to report claims of sexual abuse made by those he "counseled".


Gothard had been teaching his "Umbrella of Authority" for decades, when he had a new breakthrough. In 1992, Gothard introduced his Strongholds concept. He soon developed it into a fancy new package complete with diagram illustrations explaining how any sin or disobedience or "bitterness" could "give ground" to Satan in a person's soul. And if Satan had enough "ground" on this imaginary chessboard in the mind/heart, the victim would be plagued by temptations and troubles.

Notes from a lecture by Gothard, 1992

For years, Logan says, he helped people gain freedom from demons using the "direct confrontational method": he would speak to the evil spirits and command them to speak back. With the discovery of Strongholds, he could switch to a "less invasive" approach, helping people pinpoint the acts of disobedience whereby "the enemy" had been given permission to invade their inner being. By confessing and renouncing these "sins", a Christian could be "freed" from cross-dressing, anorexia, depression, "bondage" to masturbation, or any number of "torments".

In 1995, Moody Press released a book by Jim Logan entitled Reclaiming Surrendered Ground. Though written by a ghostwriter (provided by Moody), it was based on Logan's messages, with a foreword by Baptist preacher Charles Stanley. The book, along with some of Neil Anderson's writings, is still a standard resource recommended by Gothard for those who want to conquer "lust". It also received endorsements from Erwin Lutzer and Warren Wiersbe.

That same year, Dr. Kenneth Copley joined Jim Logan and Mark Bubeck to open an ICBC branch in Carmel, Indiana. In 2001, Moody published Copley's book on spiritual warfare, The Great Deceiver. Jim Logan himself wrote the foreword. Besides offering "counsel" in spiritual warfare, Copley was an instructor for teenagers in Gothard's EQUIP program at the Indianapolis Training Center. The ITC worked closely with Judge James Payne of the Marion County Juvenile Court, who sent young offenders to the ITC to be mentored by graduates of the EQUIP training.*

In one talk available on YouTube, Logan addresses a group of young people at an unspecified IBLP Training Center. Uninhibited as usual, he rambles about "helping" counselees with anorexia, who can never have "victory" as long as they have pride in their life, because God resists the proud. "If God himself is resisting you, you're doomed." Likewise with rebellion: "When I push away authorities, God will push me away," says Logan. However, Logan then turns to complaining about the food served at the training center, seeking support from his listeners who dare not express their  "rebellion" for fear of unpleasant consequences.

"If I'm nasty, it's for fun. If I didn't like you, I wouldn't be nasty... I've earned it," Logan bluntly reassures his nervous audience. One minute he is claiming that he came upon an altar where human sacrifices had been made in the woods on on the JAARS campus ("human bones, that used to have meat on them"), and minutes later he is mocking the modesty of Islamic women.

Logan seems to find Hell particularly amusing. At one point he chuckles, "Look at all the brilliant people going to hell". At another conference he breaks out in a loud belly laugh describing a small child being threatened with eternal torment in flames. Could it be that, deep down, this "good news of the Gospel" is just a joke?

The people who come to Logan may be suicidal, homicidal, depressed, or mentally ill. His office provides a data sheet where they are instructed to mark if they have hostility toward those in "deliverance work", if they gossip, if they have practiced any martial arts, and if they have desires for bestiality or premarital or lesbian sex.

While he may not come across as especially bright, Logan captivates audiences with his rambling yet spellbinding yarns of what he describes as encounters with demons.  And far from being politically correct, Logan can sound downright racist, warning against the "animism" inherent in native American, African, and Filipino culture. He has a story of demons "throwing dishes out of cupboards" because a house was built over an Indian burial ground and another of an African musical instrument causing a child to threaten a sibling with a butcher knife. The sister of the Ambassador from Togo asked Logan to come pray for her children and bless their new home. Logan says his interpreter saw Chinese spirits in the house, which had formerly housed a family from China.

Sometimes, Logan progresses from simply rambling to incoherent, weaving yarns that don't even make sense. For example:

In Indiana, they wrap an egg with yarn and put the egg in fire but the yarn doesn't burn and they bury it; "...and that group of people has the highest suicide rate of teenagers in America".

"The same spirits that stalked the Philippines walk in the Caribbean and terrorize the people on the island of Maui."

Logan claims one of his CEF missionaries, Larry, was a "self-styled Satanist" before converting and going to Indonesia. To break ties with his old life, Larry got rid of a glass pendulum he had used in Satanism, throwing it into a city dump near Seattle--but it beat him home, sitting back in its box at his house when he returned. So Larry and his family took it back in the dump and prayed that God would keep it there and this time it stayed. According to Logan, Larry still has "spooky eyes" from his previous occult involvement even though he is "clean".

These stories, and many others like them, are what I grew up on. When I ask myself how I could ever have accepted some of Gothard's most egregious "principles", I think of Logan. That's how. Because Logan claimed to have evidence that the spirit world existed, that Satan wanted to kill me, that there were real unseen dangers I needed to be kept safe from, that obeying my parents would keep strange voices from coming out of my mouth, or books from flying off my shelves. That the name of Jesus was my talisman against evil (unless God wanted me to learn a larger lesson from suffering).

My parents believed it, too. To them, Logan was just another Christian voice telling the truth, like Hal Lindsey (author of Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth) and Mel Tari (author of Like a Mighty Wind). That's why we turned the placemats upside down when we ate at a Chinese restaurant (don't read the zodiac!) and asked the waiter for almond cookies instead of fortune cookies. In the Merriam-Webster dictionary that I've owned since I was twelve, the chart of zodiac signs is scribbled out in black marker. We never took a newspaper because it would be too easy for someone to read a horoscope.

Mom chose to give birth without assistance rather than trust midwives who might be into "Eastern religions". We left church services when demonic music was played under the guise of worship. We did not acknowledge Halloween.We said a prayer for safety before each and every road trip, even we were only headed to the post office.  And Mom refused to consider using the Saxon math curriculum (popular with other homeschoolers) because she had seen "ghouls" in a word problem.

So it was huge for me to reconsider the nature of Satan. Ultimately, my faith in God required a cosmic enemy--an evil being trying to snatch my soul and longing to drag me into hell. My theism rested on a belief in a "personal" devil, and when I lost my fear of the demonic, my fear of god went tumbling after! My husband, who sat under Ken Copley's instruction for an entire week in the EQUIP program, lost a lifelong fear of the dark after finally reaching the conclusion that the "spirit world" is nothing more than a fantasy of human imagination.

Jim Logan has spent his life alternately frightening people of, and presuming to rescue people from, a phantom menace. Despite his lack of credentials, many badly hurting individuals have unfortunately been led to believe that Jim Logan's teaching could provide the help they sorely needed, and many more children and teens were further scarred in the process.






*Last year Dr. Copley's adopted daughter came forward, accusing him of sexually abusing her even while the family lived at the Training Center. Another victim has come forward accusing Copley of sexually abusing her while she was seeing him for counseling at ICBC. By the time Copley's daughter decided to seek legal action, Indiana's Department of Child Services was being run by Judge James Payne himself. Dr. Copley is currently a pastor at The Cross in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Spanking

Do not withhold correction from a child,
For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die.
You shall beat him with a rod,
And deliver his soul from hell.

Proverbs 23:13-14

The problem, of course, is that children do die.

One Christian minister includes a disclaimer with his sermon on discipline: "Of course, you must not be too severe. It’s possible to beat a child to death." But even if their bodies survive, their spirits are wounded and something beautiful and trusting inside their hearts has died.

In recent weeks and months, numerous bloggers have discussed the abusive child training methods advocated by Michael Pearl. Below are just three examples of adult children reflecting on the way spanking was utilized in their homes.

Samantha, from her post "Raised to be a Monster":

What is so frightening about these teachings is that they blur the line so badly. They’re insidious, because to parents who have absolutely no desire to harm their children, these teachings, on the surface, seem alright. There seems to be cautious admonishments for parents to have discernment– all the while telling them that if you do not drive rebellion out of their heart you are damning their very soul.... Parents are sucked into viewing their child as the enemy– you are in a constant, never-ending battle for the fate of your child’s soul, and you cannot give up.  

Rochelle, in "When Love Means Hitting":

“I spank you because I love you” is the same thing as “I hit you because I love you.”

Saying this gives children confusing messages about what’s ok and what’s not ok. In fact, more than just abusing the child by hitting them, spanking tells the child that they are worthless and sets them up to more vulnerable to being in abusive situations their whole life, because they don’t know boundaries of abuse.

Quick Silver Queen, writing at The Eighth and Final Square: 

You know, the verse in Proverbs that says foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child but the rod of correction will drive it from him. And the verse that the heart is wicked and who can know it. So the first problem is, they don’t come to parenting with the view that these are people. They come to parenting with the view that these are wicked little sinners who need a radical change, whose thoughts and feelings and opinions and likes and dislikes don’t matter because it is all selfish willfulness.

My parents were taught about spanking as their Christian duty very early in their parenting when someone gave them the pamphlet "Children, Fun or Frenzy?", written by Al and Pat Fabrizio in the late 1960's and still a standard of parenting guidance in many Christian circles.

My obedience to God to train my child requires that every time I ask him to do something, either "come here," "don't touch," "hush," "put that down" - or whatever it is, I must see that he obeys. When I have said it once in a normal tone, if he does not obey immediately, I must take up the switch and spank him enough to hurt so he will not want it repeated. Love demands this.

It wasn't long before we all knew the biblical arguments for spanking. "I'm doing this because I love you", my dad would say earnestly as he pulled out his belt or a wooden spoon. After all, "He who spares the rod hates his son..." (Prov. 13:24) and "whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives."

"For what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons." (Hebrews 12:7-8)

When Dad spanked us, the session usually ended with prayer. Spanking was a common subject of conversation when we got together with other homeschooling families. Out of earshot of our parents, we would compare experiences and swap tricks for getting more leniency. At our house, Mom spanked harder, and longer. She thought not crying was a sign of resistance and pride. But screaming at the top of our lungs didn't seem to lessen the spanking's severity.

Some years later the whole family sat through a series of evening lectures at the local Mennonite church listening to Ray Wenger describe how a godly family should look. His own family was a shining example, singing in harmony together in matching dresses. Afterward, my parents got copies of the lectures on cassette. I listened to them when I was bored while doing the family ironing.

In his message on discipline, Wenger gives very specific guidance for hitting children who "resist the parent's will". As soon as an infant can understand words like "no" or "stop", he says, they are old enough to spank. If they are uncooperative at diapering time, for example, "They're very exposed--give them a good crack where it counts."

Wenger believes the rod should be a parent's first resort. (He recommends a 3/8" wood dowel from the hardware store as a "symbol of authority".) “It needs to be severe enough to be worthwhile. The child needs to learn that the way of the transgressor is hard," urges Wenger.

According to Wenger, "Time out" takes too long and requires a busy parent to monitor the child the whole time. Spanking, on the other hand, is quick and simple. And because the technique is in the wrist, a wife "can spank just as effectively" as her husband: "Your wife can learn to do that with great gusto," Wenger assures the Christian dads in his audience. Quoting the Old Testament, Wenger repeats his formula: the rod, combined with reproof, gives wisdom. Withholding the rod deprives the child of this wisdom.

Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child;
but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. (Prov. 22:15)

Another voice for spanking was the late Denny Kenaston, founder of the Charity Fellowships. Another ATI family gave my parents a collection of Kenaston's sermons, in which he advocates "The Holy Art of Spanking our Children", and "The Rod of Love".

Kenaston's version of spanking is both creepy and utterly theatrical. "Bring the Bible along with the rod", he says, and then recommends the parent start crying with the child before the spanking begins. The parent is to calmly assure the child that the parent is not angry with them, but that the spanking is directed by God: "Open up your heart to this spanking and say, 'I'm going to get everything I can out of this spanking!' Then, "maybe let them have a little prayer... after that, it's time for the spanking." Kenaston does not permit any wiggling or kicking. The child is to put his/her head into a pillow or into the couch cushions and take the spanking quietly. Not one swat or two, but a "thorough spanking": "Spank them till you sense in your heart that the work is done....the work is in the heart."

Kenaston's last step involves the parent kneeling beside the child, weeping, putting an arm around the child, and praying. "Maybe sing a song with them... Tell them, 'You are my dear son, you please me in so many ways, you bring so much joy to my life'... Isn't that how God spanks us?" Kenaston's widow Jackie is now a part of Michael and Debi Pearl's speaking "ministry".

Debi Pearl & Jackie Kenaston

Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis and his brother Steve released a parenting study in 2006. The workbook stated, "Our children are sinners", and went on to quote an 1888 book by John Charles Ryle:

Parents, determine to make your children obey you--though it may cost you much trouble--and cost them many tears! 

They also quoted the more popular Tedd Tripp, author of Shepherding a Child's Heart:

The rod underscores the importance of obeying God.

And John MacArthur's Successful Christian Parenting:

Short, stinging strokes to the backside... should be painful enough to make the consequences of disobedience sufficiently distasteful and unforgettable.

Larry Tomczak, who helped co-found Sovereign Grace Ministries, is another well-known advocate of spanking. In 1982, he published a book disturbingly titled: God, the Rod, and Your Child's Bod.

Sounding like an echo of Bill Gothard, Tomczak explains, "The primary goal in loving correction is to produce godly character..." Tomczak stands by his parenting advice today, despite being named a defendant in a lawsuit alleging decades of abuse, and continues to sell his book The Little Handbook of Loving Correction.


"Were your parents abusive?" my counselor asked.

I didn't know what to say.

For decades, I accepted the answers given. They didn't want to do this; spanking us was what God required. My parents were showing me how to obey by being obedient to him. Like Abraham, they were also showing God how much they loved and trusted him.

Yes, it involved hitting us and causing us physical and emotional pain. Yes, it left bruises that they didn't want others to see. Yes, we closed the windows before spankings so neighbors wouldn't be concerned. Yes, spankings went on and on until a child's will broken. Yes, many meals were interrupted and the rest of us suffered from indigestion. Yes, we stopped alongside the road on trips and the rest of us had to get out of the van so the offending child could be spanked in private. Yes, we kept a wooden spoon by the changing table, and one in the diaper bag, and one in the car. Did I grow up in a abusive home?

In my mid-teens, I gave my first spanking. I had been left in charge, and my toddler brother defied my authority. Having studied Gothard's material on taming lions in a Wisdom Booklet, I quite calmly followed the instructions I'd been taught. I'd seen it done so many times, it felt natural. My sweet and precocious little brother was surprised, and never caused a bit of trouble for me again. The hierarchy had been established.

When I had children, my husband and I discussed spanking. We set limits for ourselves, to keep from repeating anything so drastic as my childhood experiences. But as time went on and we recovered from old wounds, any kind of spanking became increasingly distasteful. We doubted its morality as well as its efficacy, and sought out other approaches to parenting that better suited both our goals and our values.

I regret spanking my children. I regret being harsh or violent with them when there is more than enough harshness and violence in the world. I regret thinking they were born broken sinners I needed to fix.

I am glad my kids still love to cuddle with me now, glad they are learning that inflicting pain is never a valid way to control another person, glad they protest bullying and injustice--no matter who's doing it. I'm glad they are patient as we navigate this adventure of parenthood that is more an education for us than it is for them.

Because of getting to know my children and glimpsing life through their eyes, I am a more compassionate human being.




Related posts:

The Mask of Modesty

Not on Your Side, Debi

13:24

Violence Against Children

Children, Fun or Frenzy

Reflections on my Childhood, Part II

"God, Thank You For This Beating"

The May 20, 1974 issue of Time ran an article about Bill Gothard entitled "Religion: Obey Thy Husband". I wasn't born when the article was published, but I know the scene all too well. These excerpts are particularly poignant.

Standing ramrod-straight in a business suit, Gothard lectures with few gestures, fewer jokes, no vocal theatrics and as props, only an easel for sketching and an overhead projector... Yet his hearers sit in rapt attention, jotting in thick red notebooks.

A few years later, my parents were "jotting in thick red notebooks", and a decade later, they brought me along. Gothard still stood "ramrod-straight" and despite years of working at his centers, I have never personally seen him in anything but a suit.

Gothard even advises a wife whose husband chastises her to say, "God, thank you for this beating." And Gothard adds to Christ's words from the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. But you know what you are doing through them to build character in me."

This standard Gothard fare enabled many abusers. Sadly, tales of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse abound in groups of cult survivors raised under Gothard's influence.

...Gothard ... favors fasting, tithing and Bible memorization, while opposing liberal Bible criticism, much of higher education, highly rhythmic music, working wives, explicit sex education and any sexual arousal before marriage. As for homosexuality, Gothard says that when it is made "a normal way of life, then it's all over for a society, and we are right at that point."

Dating could get you shunned from the group, yet there have been a number of sex scandals at Gothard's IBLP headquarters. Gothard himself has been accused of sexually harassing young women on his staff. Others have carefully followed Gothard's "principles" only to find themselves married to abusive spouses, or spouses with whom they were sexually incompatible or to whom they did not even find themselves sexually attracted.

Gothard, cheerfully convinced that he teaches only what the Bible does, is less concerned with his critics than with administering a budget that should reach $8 million this year. The money goes into a 200-acre headquarters complex in Oak Brook, Ill., where a staff of 70 answers 200 spiritual "Dear Abby" letters per month, prepares advanced seminars and is developing a national training center for pastors and schoolteachers, as well as a "character curriculum" that he hopes many colleges will adopt. According to Gothard, they should scrap conventional subjects and rebuild courses around 49 virtues, including diligence, loyalty and tact.

The "character curriculum" eventually evolved into the Advanced Training Institute homeschool program (the Jim Bob Duggar and Congressman Dan Webster are two well-known ATI fathers), and later the Character First program which has continued to promote Gothard's vision of submission to authority to school children, orphans, prisoners, U.S. Air Force recruits, and Navy SEALs.

The Stepford Daughters

When Bill Gothard announced the new EXCEL program, a kind of fundamentalist finishing school for girls, at his newly-obtained training center in Dallas, Texas, I had no interest in attending.

Pay to learn about nutrition, stain removal, window treatments, sewing, and scripture memory? I spent more time on those at home than I cared to. More importantly, I was close to my brothers and at 19 years old couldn't imagine anything more dreadful than being locked in an aged Texas hotel for two months studying home economics in the exclusive company of females.

While I did end up visiting the Dallas Training Center in April of 1995, it was for a very different IBLP event (another story!) and the men far outnumbered the women. We did walk in the park, walk downtown to church, and marvel at the old southern furnishings and antique elevator. I was exceedingly grateful not to be stuck there for an eight-week program.

Last week, I came across this article from the Dallas Observer in which journalist Julie Lyons describes exactly what I missed. Here are the highlights:

Virgin Academy

At Dallas' old Ambassador hotel, Mr. Gothard's good girls learn the virtues of remaining pure

By Julie Lyons Thursday, Jul 20 1995

It is one of the stranger sights in South Dallas: each day, when the weather is fair, 125 teenage girls stream out of the Ambassador hotel and cross the street into Old City Park.

The girls are dressed almost identically, in navy blue smocks and skirts and crisp, lace-collared blouses, their long hair cinched with bows or bands. All but a few of the teens are white.

*****

No, these teens aren't part of the exhibits at Old City Park, or some lost tribe of Girl Scouts. But they are vestiges of values past, students in an eight-week religious finishing school--works in progress at a factory seeking to build pure and perfect teens. The program is called EXCEL, which stands for "Excellence in Character, Education, and Leadership." It costs $900 per teen.

The girls, who range in age from 15 to the early 20s, come to Dallas from all over the country for the year-old residential program at the Ambassador. Though they hail from a variety of evangelical and fundamentalist churches, they've all been nurtured in the "basic life principles" of well-known Bible teacher Bill Gothard--principles that include unquestioning obedience to their parents, future submission to their husbands, eschewing rock music and television, and remaining chaste.

Gothard, 60, is an unassuming Chicago minister who still lives with his mother, has never married, and drives a 1971 Oldsmobile during the few days of each month when he's home near the ministry's headquarters in suburban Oak Brook, Illinois. His design for EXCEL, he told the Observer, is to provide "apprenticeships" for future "home executives."

Part of the plan is to protect the girls from the pernicious influences of decadent American culture. "I would plead with you parents--protect your sons and daughters from the philosophies of the world," Gothard says in a videotaped lecture. Families, he adds, "should be building walls around their sons and daughters."

Accordingly, all of the EXCEL teens are home-schooled, enrolled in a division of Gothard's ministry called the Advanced Training Institute International. Gothard also runs a residential program called ALERT for young men.

While some of their peers in public schools cultivate a rebel pose--piercing their navels, neglecting to wash their hair, extolling nastiness--these girls carry on dreamily about becoming virtuous wives and mothers, and protecting their virginity.

They rise early and spend their days listening to speakers talk about Christian virtues, and learn the crafts of sewing, calligraphy, interior decorating, and "home hospitality." They spend their spare time writing home and memorizing scores of Bible verses. The girls follow a strict regimen from morning till night; few distractions exist.

*****

Few people, even in the evangelical community, realize just how much impact Bill Gothard's teachings have had on American Christianity.

Consider how few people get your total, undivided attention for even an hour or two during a week--meaning the person is talking to you, lecturing and exhorting, and you're not talking back. Then consider that nearly two-and-a-half-million people have given Gothard not just an hour or two, but 20 grueling hours for instruction, squeezed into one week between eight-hour workdays and Saturday errands. That's how long Gothard's Basic Life Principles seminar--the "basic seminar," shortened somewhat from its original format--takes.

Gothard has never advertised the seminar, which costs $75 for an individual, and $125 for a married couple (seminar "alumni" can attend subsequent sessions for free as often as they want). And at first glance, it's hard to understand just what the attraction is.

Gothard, after all, is not a great speaker by conventional measures. There's nothing about his approach that suggests he's given any thought to entertaining his listeners, let alone that he's hip to the attention deficits of the MTV generation. His seminar consists of one blue-suited guy--either a pea on a stage in a giant coliseum, or a talking head on a video screen--preaching in a Midwestern monotone for 20 hours about what he calls "Biblical principles."

For visual aids, Gothard prints block letters in magic marker on an overhead projector. As his bow to multi-media, Gothard performs an exercise called the "chalk talk"--in which he paints serene landscapes with mountains, palm trees, and pale, hovering crosses using sticks of brightly colored chalk. While he paints, rubs, and blows away chalk dust, he expounds on the Bible.

Gothard never raises his voice, never shouts, never solicits an "Amen." He never pleads for money--or even takes up an offering. He punctuates his lectures with amusing tales from his childhood.

Yet people leave these mass gatherings testifying how Gothard has enabled them to understand the Bible for the first time. The key, they say, is his practical, step-by-step instructions for dealing with complex problems. "I know it's rather simple to give steps," Gothard says. "Scripture is given to us as a foot lamp--enough light for the next step."

While sophisticated ministers have frequently scoffed at Gothard's paint-by-numbers theology, he has clearly mined a deep need for down-to-earth Bible teaching--especially on youth and family matters.

Gothard began presenting the seminar in 1965. While it is often identified with teenagers, in fact adults make up a large part of the audience. The basic seminar will be offered at the Dallas Convention Center on August 21-26--one of a few national locations where Gothard personally presents it, instead of appearing on videotape.

Tim Levendusky, one of Gothard's staff members at the Ambassador, says some 60,000 people from this area are seminar "alumni."

The seminar centers on what Gothard has identified as the seven "principles of life": design, authority, responsibility, suffering, ownership, freedom, and success. With occasional flashes of humor, Gothard explains the principles and pulls out hundreds of brief scriptures to back them up.

It's difficult to sum up the seminar in a few words, but it's clear that one aspect of Gothard's teaching, the concept of a "chain of command" in home and society, has gained the most currency among evangelicals--and caused the most controversy.

Gothard teaches that all individuals must be under some authority--an "umbrella of protection"--or they are in rebellion against God; it is the only way to be useful and to deflect the temptations of sin.

Children, of course, are under their parents' authority--until they marry, Gothard says. At that time, a young woman is transferred to the protection of her husband. Under his authority, she is counseled to submit and develop a "meek and quiet spirit." If she disagrees with him, she is taught to make an "appeal"--nonetheless deferring to any decisions he makes, as long as they don't require her to do something immoral.

"God worked through...a chain of command," Gothard says. "When he wanted something done, he simply gave the word, and the appropriate one down the line carried it out."

The young husband must answer directly to God--as well as any other legitimate authorities in his life, such as an employer, pastor, or government. He is also encouraged to seek his wife's counsel. If he wields his authority like a tyrant, God will send a "harsh messenger" to warn him that he has abused his right. "As long as we're under these umbrellas of protection," Gothard says in the videotaped seminar, "Satan cannot get through with destructive temptations. Whenever we get out from under that, we are opening ourselves up to tremendous destruction."

While some evangelical critics have pointed out the devastating effects a strict "chain of command" can have in a family where there is physical or verbal abuse, Gothard says the principle of authority never fails those who adhere to it faithfully.

"I'm not at all concerned that these [principles] will not work," he insists. "Only that you will not fully, quickly apply them. Apply them all and you will see results."

When girls come to EXCEL, they voluntarily place themselves under the authority of Bill Gothard. They see nothing ironic about putting so much faith in the social teachings of a man who has never married or had a steady girlfriend.

Gothard squeezed in a rare interview with the Observer during a recent swing through Dallas. Our conversation was only supposed to last 20 minutes, but Gothard answered questions for 45, disregarding an aide's conspicuous signals--ahem, ahem--as time ticked away.

This boxy, elfin-faced man, looking precisely as he does in the videotaped seminar--he seemed to be wearing the exact same navy suit, white button-down shirt, and bland spotted tie--seemed entirely devoid of affectation. In fact, at one point in the interview, he looked down at his pants and realized with a chuckle they were a different shade of worn blue. "I guess I got the wrong jacket for this..."

Gothard lives with his mother in a Chicago suburb. His father, to whom he often refers in the seminar, passed away a few years ago. He says he lives on a modest salary from his multimillion-dollar ministry--which has more than 1,000 staff members--owns no property, and still drives a 1971 Oldsmobile. "I never have to lock it up, and I never lose any sleep over it," he says proudly.

Asked if he will marry some day, Gothard pauses, then says, "Uh...I would like to. Yeah, I really would." His lack of time at home, he says, has hindered him from making the commitment earlier.

Gothard realizes that, with his strict behavioral guidelines, dress code, and ban on all rock music (Gothard won't even suffer "Christian contemporary" rock, because he believes its addictive beat invites sensuality), he's going against the grain of evangelicals' attempts to reach young people.

****

Gothard believes the temptations available to teenagers are far deadlier than when he began his ministry in the 1950s on the streets of Chicago, preaching to gang members. Today, kids "are more concerned about what their friends think than about what their parents think or about what God thinks. We find that we can help them, but we have to separate them from all of their former influences."

Young people at EXCEL and ALERT, he says, have the opportunity to grow up in relative innocence.

"The young people here are not juvenile delinquents," Gothard says. "But we all need to have either discipline within, or controls without. And part of EXCEL is to train these young ladies how to have inward disciplines, so when they're on their own, they don't have to have people prodding them on the outside, but they're driven from within."

Gothard's ministry launched Dallas' EXCEL program in fall 1994 at the Ambassador, to pass on instruction in virtue to Christian girls.

****

Today, the Ambassador--whose ancient elevator was the first installed west of the Mississippi--shares a neighborhood with several fleabag motels, a day-labor hall, and homeless shelters.

The hotel was dubbed the Dallas Training Center, and details of staff and volunteers began readying its beautiful interior, which remains well-preserved.

*****

"There are five functions we believe are important for a woman to know how to do in order to find her identity and find fulfillment," Gothard says. "Our problem is that today, most of these five have been taken out of the home. So there is not the fulfillment that there could have been."

The five functions, he explained, are for a woman to teach her children; to offer hospitality to guests; to possess a basic knowledge of medicine and healthcare, with special attention being given to natural childbirth (one of Gothard's stranger quests is to gather a 1,000-voice choir of children born into the world after their parents underwent reversal surgery for vasectomies and tubal ligations); to operate a home business; and finally, to teach others--"going out into the community and helping people."

Gothard's model of the home executive is taken from a literal reading of Proverbs 31--a poetic portrait of the wife of noble character.

"Who can find a virtuous woman?" the passage begins. "For her price is far above rubies."

EXCEL girls are taught a list of virtues gleaned from Proverbs 31 and other scriptures. Gothard has identified 49 virtues, to be exact--beginning with Truthfulness and Obedience, rolling on through Diligence, Dependability, and Decisiveness, and ending with the ever-unpopular traits of Deference ("Limiting my freedom in order not to offend the tastes of those God has called me to serve") and Meekness ("Yielding my personal rights and expectations to God").

Devising strategies for "remaining pure" is a constant focus of EXCEL. It is a given in these circles that a young man or woman will seek to marry as a virgin.

A scandal broke out in the evangelical community in the early 1980s, in fact, when Gothard's younger brother--who handled day-to-day operations--confessed to sleeping with several young female staff members in Gothard's ministry. Though all of the parties involved reportedly were single, Gothard's brother resigned, telling Christianity Today that "I have failed deeply before the Lord."

Bill Gothard, shaken by the episode, stepped down temporarily to contemplate what had happened. After three weeks, the ministry's board restored him to his post.  [For a more in-depth report of the shake-up at the Institute, see this 1981 article published by Christianity Today. ]

Gothard's quest for purity has led to strong counsel against dating. Instead, young people are encouraged to "court," with an eye toward marriage. It is Gothard's antidote for what he calls the "broken-heart syndrome." A young, single person's duty, he says, should be to keep his heart wholly devoted to God.

He takes the courting principle even further: a young man must ask for, and receive, permission from the girl's father to court and eventually marry her. The father "holds the key to his daughter's heart," Gothard says, and will only pass it on to a young man when he has proven he possesses the character to be a strong, responsible Christian husband.

In the meantime, the girls are to cultivate trusting relationships with their fathers--whether they're good, bad, or indifferent guardians of their daughters' virtue.

The girls at EXCEL enthusiastically sign on to this scheme--gushing about their wonderful daddies, or telling melodramatic tales about how they sought their fathers' forgiveness for their adolescent missteps.

*****

... Gothard's standard of purity is a moving target. Whenever a girl empties her life of distractions and impurities, he says, she discovers something else that God has pinpointed in her character requiring the remedy of divine grace.

Staying pure helps the girls maintain a "clear countenance," Gothard says. The EXCEL teens talk about it all the time--how "the eyes are the window to the soul."

"Many of them come from broken homes and have had major problems in their past," Gothard says. "But they have been able to clear their consciences. They have been able to tell their parents about secret failures they have had. So they don't have any guilt.

"It's guilt that causes the eyes to go dark," he adds. "Because they have a clear soul, a clear conscience, they're also able to have a clear countenance."

It is 7:30 a.m., and the seven girls in EXCEL Team One have already been up an hour and a half. They've showered, dressed, and squeezed onto two couches in the sitting room of their Ambassador suite for the daily "Wisdom Search." Each one carries a Bible--some adorned with padded gingham covers, others lined in lace.

The girls' 19-year-old leader, Joy Branch, asks the girls to read Psalm 51--a plea for mercy from God, written by King David after Nathan the prophet had exposed his adultery with Bathsheba.

There is obedient silence, and the rustle of Bible pages. After a few moments, Joy asks the girls to share the wisdom they've gathered from the Psalm.

"We need to go to God with a clean heart," says Stacy Stewart, from Pendleton, South Carolina.

There is more silence, and Branch, an unusually mature teenager from Atlanta, fills in the awkward spaces. She talks about America's steady slide into degradation, and proclaims that, in exasperation, God has "given us up to our own lusts."

She ends the morning's Wisdom Search with a prayer: "Lord, help us have a teachable spirit this day."

Joy Branch can talk. Scriptures roll off her tongue like some kids talk trash, and she's ready with an answer or explanation for the world's most complex problems.

*****

"I'm committed to the Lord--I guess that's the bottom line," Joy says. "The purity we talk about is not something we've attained because we've been home-schooled all our lives or shielded from the world's philosophies. There's no way I can isolate myself and become pure, because we're sinful. The purity comes from the Lord Jesus."

After the morning's scriptural exercise, the girls line up downstairs for breakfast.

Laura Turke, a shy 15-year-old from Battle Ground, Washington, tries to explain what she likes so much about EXCEL. "I think I like how I've grown spiritually more than the sewing and the colors," she says. "We had our colors done. I'm a warm spring--which is very unusual. I look good in yellows. If you put a winter color on me, my skin would look uneven."

A girl named Katy walks up from behind and gives Laura an affectionate hug. Still hanging onto her pal, she expands the color analysis. "If you put a bright purple on her," she says, "she'd look sick."

After eating muffins and high-fiber cereal--Gothard frequently warns against the nutritional evils of white bread--the girls prepare for their morning lecture session in the Ambassador's elegant meeting room.

Lauren Bell, an administrative assistant for the program, leads the girls in "A Wonderful Savior Is Jesus My Lord," a Fanny Crosby hymn dating to 1890:

He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock
That shadows a dry, thirsty land...
The teens' clear sopranos ring high above the upright piano, played by a straight-backed woman with a lace doily on her head.

Bernadine Cantrell, a woman with big hair and a thick Southern accent, initiated the day's topic: "Pursuing the practice of hospitality."

"We have had neighbors who moved into our neighborhood, and seven women were standing at the door with a pound cake," she says.

She then leads the girls in a silly ditty, complete with hand motions. Some girls giggle at the line, "I was as happy as could be with my banjo on my knee." But all participate enthusiastically.

The effect is surreal--a room full of American teens putting their hands over their heads and making like a spreading chestnut tree.

Then, on an overhead projector, Cantrell lists numerous suggestions for "entertaining the VIPs in your life--your family." Among them: "A beautifully set table--pull out that china!" "Explore old memories." "Favorite foods." "Cloth napkins/no guests."

The girls follow along on their outlines. "Is your home obviously a place where believers live?" Cantrell asks.

She talks about how virtuous wives adapt to their husbands, and find any way they can to ensure his success in life. "When the men in this world find out how special we are, oh man--there's gonna be a stampede to get these EXCEL girls," Cantrell chirps.

"There's a lot of upside-down thinking in this world," she adds. "There's people who say men should adapt to us. But that's not what the scriptures say."

At lunch, Laura Turke is scribbling verse after verse on a sheet of theme paper while her buddies roll bean burritos. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world..." she writes in pencil, hunched over her paper, pinching her lips in concentration.

The EXCEL girls must memorize more than 100 verses during their eight weeks in Dallas. The verses come in sets: there's the "tongue tamers," for example--scriptural passages that warn about the tongue's "power of life and death." There are the familiar Beatitudes ("Blessed are the pure in heart...") spoken by Jesus. And, of course, the 21-verse description of the virtuous wife in Proverbs 31. The girls and their leaders, in fact, often refer casually to "the Proverbs 31 woman."

Proverbs 31, however, says nothing about cramming dozens of Biblical adages written in Elizabethan English into your head, and Laura got tongue-tied when it came time to recite her verses to Joy. "I get very nervous, and my mind went completely blank," Laura says meekly.

If she can't recite her verses to her group leader by Saturday, she'll be called before Mr. Gothard himself to disgorge her penitential scriptures.

Despite the pressures, Laura says she's having the time of her life at EXCEL. She learned about courtship, and overcoming anger and bitterness. She sewed a dart for the first time, and made good friends. "My goal is to be the best mother and wife that I can be," she says. "And this kind of goes along that line."

When told that few teenagers today seem to share those goals, Laura looks puzzled. "Most of the people I'm around want to be wives and mothers. I really don't know of anybody, personally, who doesn't want to."

In the hallway, just outside the meeting room as the teens are preparing for their daily walk in Old City Park, one girl presents a discreetly bundled baseball jacket to Dolly Brandon.

"Is this OK?" she asks timidly.
"Let me see..."
Mrs. Brandon picks up the jacket gingerly, as though it were a soiled rag or some dead thing, and quickly looks it over, shielding it from the view of other girls passing by.

Then, bundling it up again, she hands it back to the girl.
"That's OK," she says, "if it's the only jacket you have."
The jacket's questionable status stems from a few stenciled words across its back. The words--whatever they were; the girl and Mrs. Brandon kept them hidden--were judged suitably innocuous.

Joy Branch later explained the little drama in the hallway.
"The T-shirt and jacket thing--I think it's probably to live above reproach. There are some T-shirts that aren't acceptable, but one person may think it is, and one may think it isn't. Also, a man's eyes may be drawn to a certain thing because of the words.

"Especially in this part of town--we don't want to walk out in skin-tight pants. We're representing the Lord in what we do. We want to live totally above reproach."

Branch confesses that she used to have a problem with the institute's rigid dress code, which requires the girls to wear navy skirts and white blouses. She privately mocked the institute's teens, and vowed never to be forced into Mr. Gothard's mold for the perfect teenager.

"These things were presented to me and I looked at them as rules before--things to limit my freedom," Branch says, leaping quickly to her happy conclusion. "Now I see them as road signs for my protection. Mr. Gothard is out for your best--out for God's best. It's not a mold. Everybody is just going along the same path trying to become more like the Lord."

Branch's change of heart led her in 1993 to personally ask Gothard--"though he didn't know me from Adam"--for forgiveness. She confessed to him that she'd harbored bitterness in her heart toward his organization, and felt compelled to "just make it right."

Branch says she wept. Gothard forgave her.
"That just brought so much freedom and joy," she says. "My misconceptions of the program--they were so sad. That mindset produced in me resistance and a hard heart toward something God had called me to."

At EXCEL, each girl receives a list of guidelines that she is expected to follow when she is temporarily transferred from under her parents' authority to the protective umbrella of Mr. Gothard.

Laura Turke happily shared her list one day.
"Our goal for EXCEL is that young ladies should be radiant examples of Christ's character," the guidelines begin. "Our further goal is for them to be godly young ladies, in every situation, manner of speech, dress...in and out of training sessions, in rooms, and in relationships with one another."

The "young ladies" are exhorted to be punctual, keep their feet off the furniture, and refrain from "boisterous behavior." Possession of Walkmans, radios, music cassettes, and "other books or magazines" than the Bible and EXCEL curricula is banned.

Guidelines for dress are more specific. The girls are instructed to pack four navy skirts and four white shirts; the skirts must fall below the knee and fit loosely. The teens must leave their slacks, shorts, and culottes at home. "Hair styles should be neat and feminine," the guidelines add. "If you have a permanent, avoid the 'wet' look."

Necklines are prescribed with an admonition: "Make sure your dress or blouse has a high enough neckline (in front and back) so as not to be defrauding in any way."

If a guideline is disregarded, the girl will be summoned to a meeting with Tom Brandon. For the second infraction, her father is called.

"Any further instances," the guidelines warn, "will be reported directly to Mr. Gothard."

Sarah Iliff, an outgoing, good-humored Kansas native, skips down the carpeted stairs, clutching a small treasure.

She opens her hand, revealing a red plastic heart and interlocking key. Each is attached to a string from which to fashion a pair of pendants.

"Joy gave us this heart," she says. "And later on, she gave us the key so that we can send it to our dads."

Sarah giggles, suddenly realizing how silly the trinket looks in the hands of a 19-year-old woman.

"This," she says, still smiling, "is to symbolize that your dad's holding the key to your heart till you choose to give it to your future husband. It goes along with the concept of a one-man, one-woman relationship, where we save ourselves emotionally and physically for our future husband."

Sarah goes on to tell an instructional tale about her former boyfriend, a guy named Bob who worked at a dude ranch. Sarah fell in love with him, and admits she gave away a small piece of her heart.

"I'm still having a hard time with that," she confesses. "It was only last year. I'm the kind of person who has to learn through circumstances, and I wish it wasn't that way, but I learn hard. I am convinced, from now on, that I'm going to be a one-man woman.

"It [her romance] was not God's will, and He made that pretty clear. But through that, I made a commitment with my dad to be honest with him in all the relationships I was having, letting him be the protector of my heart." Sarah plans to write a letter to her father, to send along with the plastic key to her heart. She's having a hard time finding the words to say.

"When this courtship thing was first presented to me, I was like, 'Are you kidding? I am not gonna allow my dad, who is 40 years old, to tell me who I can like and who I can't like.'"

But through her experience on the dude ranch, Sarah--whose parents met on a blind date in college while drinking green beer on St. Patrick's Day--has realized the need for her father's protection.

*****

Lights-out is 9:30 p.m.
Joy Branch is in no hurry to get to bed.
"EXCEL is almost like heaven to me--it's just the innocence that's here. The purity. The joy," she says. "There's no spirit that it's cool to be cruel.

"Maybe the world thinks it's bizarre. Maybe it's like we're all standing on our heads. We see life from a totally different perspective.

"But I think it's funny," she concludes. "Sometimes I think the world is standing on its head.