Recovering Grace issued its own statement today, saying that despite “several positive aspects” found in Gothard’s statement, it nonetheless leaves the group “troubled.” The group said it “concluded that Gothard’s statement, as it stands, is incomplete.” The group singled out Gothard’s assertion that he did not touch a girl “immorally or with sexual intent.”
More than a month after stepping down as president of the ministry he founded, Bill Gothard released astatement that attempts to respond to allegations of sexual impropriety that ultimately led to his resignation from the Institute for Basic Life Principles (IBLP).
“God has brought me to a place of greater brokenness than at any other time in my life,” Gothard wrote in the statement released April 17. “It is a grief to realize how my pride and insensitivity have affected so many people. I have asked the Lord to reveal the underlying causes and He is doing this.”
But the statement denied some of the more serious charges leveled against Gothard by the group Recovering Grace, which earlier this year released statements from 34 women detailing incidents dating back to the 1970s. The statements accuse Gothard of sexual harassment and—in one case—sexual abuse that included fondling but not rape.
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