Republican Congressional candidate Daniel Webster Tied To “Biblical Stoning” Movement
So how close is Republican Congressional candidate Daniel Webster, running against Democratic Representative Alan Grayson for Florida’s 8th Congressional District, to evangelist Bill Gothard? That question is now politically salient because of Gothard’s participation in a radical Christian political movement called Christian Reconstructionism that seeks to impose stoning as a form of capital punishment for crimes including murder, adultery, “heresy,” and “witchcraft.” (for more on Christian Reconstructionism, see story appendix)Webster claims he is not as cruel and fundamentalist as the Taliban, yet he adheres to a philosophy - which he wants to impose on the American people - which is very close to Muslim Sharia Law.
The answer to that question would be, very close. The first section of this story documents Daniel Webster’s relationship with Bill Gothard, so close that the religious leader could reasonably be described as a mentor or spiritual guru to the Republican congressional candidate. The second section describes Bill Gothard’s affinity for Christian Reconstructionist ideas.
Daniel Webster and Bill Gothard
As a February 16, 1997 story in the St. Petersburg Times described,
“Last summer, Daniel Webster journeyed to South Korea on a religious mission, meeting with the country’s president and other political and spiritual leaders. He was joined by Bill Gothard, the head of a $30-million Christian evangelical group. Four months after the trip, Webster ascended to one of the most powerful positions in Florida: speaker of the state House of Representatives. He brings with him 14 years of experience with Gothard’s Institute in Basic Life Principles, where Webster has not only attended seminars, but also taught classes and even made an instructional video that raised money for the institute.”
The St. Petersburg Times story underscored Daniel Webster’s devotion to Gothard and laid out Bill Gothard’s teaching on female submission :
“[Gothard's] group preaches a literal interpretation of the Bible, including the belief that women should submit to their husbands’ authority. With programs for lawmakers, judges, doctors, juvenile delinquents and home- schooling courses, the institute’s reach is wide. It says that 2.5 million people around the world have participated in its programs.
Webster is an enthusiastic supporter. His six children learn at home, taught by his wife, Sandy, using the institute’s curriculum. The family, which also is active in its Orlando Baptist church, has participated in numerous institute seminars over the years.
[...]
A central tenet of the institute’s teaching is a command structure that makes the husband the head of the household. The man’s wife and his children are to submit to his authority, though the man has the responsibility to treat his loved ones with respect and devotion.
It would not be natural for a woman to work outside the home and the man to raise the children, one institute director said.
“That puts a wife in a role that she’s not equipped for inwardly or outwardly and puts the man in the same position,” the Rev. Tom Brandon said.
“A man is the lover and leader. (The wife’s) role is to trust God to supply her needs through the leadership of her husband and to serve with him and fulfill his needs.”
Teaching such philosophy, Gothard’s institute has expanded dramatically during the past decade, opening training centers across the country and around the world.”
The St. Petersburg Times story concluded by quoting Daniel Webster on Bill Gothard – “I enjoy the advice he’s given. I think it’s been a major part of my life. I’m not ashamed of that. What he has said I believe to be the truth.” An August 5, 1996 article in the Gainesville Sun that also underlined the close nature of Webster’s relationship with Gothard, quoted Daniel Webster concerning his 1996 trip with Bill Gothard to Korea, ‘I respect (Gothard) as much as anybody. As Webster told the Gainesville Sun, “I wouldn’t have gone [with Gothard to Korea] but he wanted me there.”
At Link: diagram from workbook used in Bill Gothard’s “Basic Youth Conflicts” course, with student notes, circa 1974
A March 9, 1997 1997 story in the Sarasota Herald Tribune by Alan Judd also covered the Daniel Webster / Bill Gothard relationship and provided additional details both on Webster’s extremely close ties ties to Bill Gothard and his Institute For Basic Life Principles and on subject matter taught in Gothard’s courses. As the story noted, “News articles and editorials have questioned why Webster gave high-level legislative staff jobs to four people who have worked with the [Gothard IBLP] institute.” Like the 1997 St. Petersburg Times story, Alan Judd’s account also noted that Gothard’s influence on Webster had been profound, extending into child rearing methods Webster and his wife have used to homeschool their children:
“Webster’s spokeswoman, Kathy Mears, one of the four former [IBLP] institute associates working for the Legislature, said: “We’re getting a little weary of questions on it. He’s the speaker of the House and he’s had an involvement in a Christian organization. His family home-schools and this Christian ministry had influence on rearing his family.” “
The 1997 Sarasota Times Herald-Tribune story also provided details gleaned from a Gothard promotional video produced in 1984, about the time Daniel Webster became a follower of Gothard’s teaching which, as Alan Judd described, included the following recommendations:
“Moral impurity” – in the form of “evil” rock music, television programming, alcohol or even newspaper horoscopes – must be avoided, lest future generations suffer “psychic disturbances.”
Public education, which teaches children “how to commit suicide,” is the enemy of spirituality, so children should be educated at home, isolated from their peers.
And fathers must lead their families, while women must be “submissive” and “obedient” to their husbands.
Judd’s description of Gothard’s 1984 video provided clues into Bill Gothards’ strange views on mental health and addiction – in a claim remarkably similar to the discredited early 20th Century genetic theory of Lamarkism, which claimed that behaviors could become genetically encoded and passed down through family lines, Gothard claimed that heavy drinking of alcohol could cause a hereditary inclination to alcoholism that could be passed down to the fifth generation.
Bill Gothard, according to Judd, quoted an unnamed “Jewish psychiatrist” that the condition of schizophrenia merely amounted to “varying degrees of irresponsibility” and declared that the study of psychiatry had “polluted” the minds of psychiatrists so that “they had to wash them out with scripture.” Gothard can be seen making the claim in the video below.
Alan Judd’s story concluded with a quote from Ronald Enroth, a sociologist of religion at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif., who had written a book about “abusive” churches:
“It almost defies reason that thinking people can swallow this stuff. It indicates to me there are a lot of folks out there who want this kind of authoritarian leadership.”
Gothard and Christian Reconstructionism
Bill Gothard, in turn, was a close ally of R.J. Rushdoony, considered the father of Christian Reconstructionism and founder of the movement’s flagship institution, the Chalcedon Institute.
As Vice President of the Chalcedon Institute Martin Selbrede stated in the Institute’s March/April 2010 issue of Faith For All Of Life, the only reason Bill Gothard didn’t agree to use Chalcedon founder R.J. Rushdoony’s monumental Institutes of Biblical Law tome in Gothard’s sprawling evangelical empire is that the two couldn’t agree on divorce. Rushdoony’s Institutes was a template for instituting Biblical law in government (for more on Reconstructionism, see story appendix.)
As Selbrede wrote,
“[T]he divide between Gothard and Rushdoony on divorce was a deep and abiding one. Gothard proposed using Rushdoony’s Institutes of Biblical Law as a resource for his massive ministry; the sheer volume of the resulting sales would have made Rushdoony both rich and famous. Gothard’s condition for moving forward on this was letter-simple: Rushdoony merely needed to remove the section on divorce from his book, and the highly profitable deal would be sealed.
Rushdoony refused the offer.”
So, while Gothard was categorically opposed to divorce, Rushdoony, a virulently racist Holocaust denier who espoused Geocentrism, was a little more liberal on divorce. In other words, the two men were otherwise in substantial agreement – except for the sticking point of divorce, they both agreed that Rushdoony’s vision for Biblical law should be imposed upon America.
That vision included instituting stoning as a form of capital punishment for rape, kidnapping, murder, heresy, blasphemy, witchcraft, astrology, adultery, “sodomy or homosexuality,” incest, striking a parent, extreme juvenile delinquency, and “unchastity before marriage.”
A 1999 report from a writer identifying herself as a former columnist for the Chalcedon Institute’s Chalcedon Report emphasizes the close ideological affinity between Bill Gothard and R.J. Rushdoony and even states that Gothard has provided his employees with copies of R.J. Rushdoony’s Institutes of Biblical Law (note: Theonomy is the implementation of Biblical law in government):
“Not all Theonomists agree with Rushdoony, nor will all Theonomists agree with Gothard. Both are pretty much in the same camp, however, with the difference being Gothard is much more practical and usable. Gothard encourages his students to apply even the OT laws on diet and sexual abstinence after childbirth. I understand he put a copy of Rushdoony’s Institutes of Biblical Law in the hands of everyone on his staff.
[ ]...According to Gary North, women who have abortions should be publicly executed, “along with those who advised them to abort their children.” Rushdoony concludes: “God’s government prevails, and His alternatives are clear-cut: either men and nations obey His laws, or God invokes the death penalty against them.” Reconstructionists insist that “the death penalty is the maximum, not necessarily the mandatory penalty.” However, such judgments may depend less on Biblical Principles than on which faction gains power in the theocratic republic. The potential for bloodthirsty episodes on the order of the Salem witchcraft trials or the Spanish Inquisition is inadvertently revealed by Reconstructionist theologian Rev. Ray Sutton, who claims that the Reconstructed Biblical theocracies would be “happy” places, to which people would flock because “capital punishment is one of the best evangelistic tools of a society.”
The Biblically approved methods of execution include burning (at the stake for example), stoning, hanging, and “the sword.” Gary North, the self-described economist of Reconstructionism, prefers stoning because, among other things, stones are cheap, plentiful, and convenient. Punishments for non-capital crimes generally involve whipping, restitution in the form of indentured servitude, or slavery. Prisons would likely be only temporary holding tanks, prior to imposition of the actual sentence.
