Uncovering The Sick And Twisted Duggar Family's 'Cult-Like' Sect Of Fundamentalist Christianity
May 20 2021, Published 2:54 p.m. ET
Two people familiar with the Duggar family's particular sect of fundamentalist Christianity – the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) – have come forward to shed light on the religious organization's cult-like ways.
This comes after the oldest of the 19 Kids and Counting brood – 33-year-old Josh Duggar – was arrested and charged with receiving and possessing child pornography, decades after he reportedly molested five minors – including four of his sisters and a babysitter – when he was a teenager.
According to the two women interviewed by The New York Post, IBLP has long played a role in enabling sexual abuse by Josh and others.
The Duggar children were all home-schooled using the teachings of a faith-based program called Advanced Training Institute (ATI), which was created by IBLP founder Bill Gothard, who ran the facility that counseled a then-teenage Josh after he admitted to inappropriately touching the aforementioned girls.
According to The Post, "ATI blends traditional school subjects like math and science with Christianity, and indoctrinates students with the fundamentals of IBLP."
"A lot of abuse occurred" because of the group's teachings, said 35-year-old Lara Smith, a former ATI member. "With [abusers like] Josh, the whole environment set him up for success in his disgustingness."
Smith said her Southern Baptist parents started using ATI and attending IBLP seminars when she was 12. Throughout her teenage years, she said she was sent to "serve" in different IBLP training centers located in various states. She claims she was sexually assaulted by a staffer at one of those centers when she was 17.
"We were taught our bodies don't belong to us. They belong to God," she explained. "And so in that realm, anything that happens, God wants it to happen."
During girls' Bible study, Smith said she was told, "'You need to be very careful what you do, what you say, what you wear, how you act, because at any moment, you could trigger a boy,' basically."
"There's absolutely no personal responsibility for the boys," she said.
And Smith said she experienced that firsthand when one time, in the middle of the night, a 21-year-old maintenance worker with a master key climbed into her bed.
"I was asleep, and suddenly he's in my bed making out with me," she recalled, adding that he came into her room multiple nights in a row thereafter.
"We didn't have sex, but we did everything else," said Smith. "I didn't have the capacity to say, 'Hey, I don't like it.'"
When Gothard found out, Smith said she expected to be reprimanded. Instead, "he wanted the dirty