The Cult Next Door. Chicago magazine. Illustration Peter Horvath. The building, red bricked, colonnaded, crowned with a white cupola, sits on a grassy knoll in northwest Hinsdale. Unmarked, unremarkable, it barely registers as anything more than a garden variety administrative headquarters of unknown provenance. That isnt to say that the decades old property, situated on 2. Shangri la of a western suburb of multimillion dollar estates and country club splendor, has escaped notice over the years. The sight of teenage girls walking arm in arm in a nearby park, identically dressed in chaste ankle length skirts, red scarves knotted around their necks, and modest Mary Janes, and of teen boys seemingly stamped out on a Wonder Bread assembly linealways in dark suits, white shirts, and tiesdrew the occasional stare. Everyone kind of thought it was very strange. Like, what do they really do there says one longtime Hinsdale resident. They always seemed very secretive. Then, in 2. Some of those same red scarfed girls accused Bill Gothard, the charismatic leader of the Institute in Basic Life Principlesthe ultraconservative Christian organization operating out of that Hinsdale buildingof inappropriately touching them. Hp Compaq Themes. Gothard stepped down after an internal probe. But since then, 1. In many cases, the plaintiffs were underage at the time and had been recruited to work for the organization by Gothard himself. The suit also takes on IBLP, accusing it of initially covering up Gothards actions, which the plaintiffs claim took place over the course of several decades. Whatever the outcome of the case, the shroud of anonymity that once served as a kind of shield for IBLP against unwanted attention has been ripped away. Homeschool-Tips.jpg' alt='Cheap Homeschooling Programs In Alabama' title='Cheap Homeschooling Programs In Alabama' />The organization has even tried to make a fresh start by leaving Hinsdale and moving its headquarters to Texas. These days, as more becomes known about Gothardof what the lawsuit alleges was his almost despotic control over his adherents and of the puritanical, idiosyncratic way of life he prescribed for themshaken Hinsdale residents regard the benign looking if somewhat abstruse manor down the street not as just another religious institution but as an organization with a disquieting appellation the cult in their midst. The IBLPs former headquarters in Hinsdale. In the world beyond IBLPs doors, news in 2. Gothard had resigned caused scarcely more than a rippleother than in the tight circle of those who track fundamentalist Christian groups. That changed last year after an even bigger scandal, one involving TLC reality show star Josh Duggar. That May, it was revealed that the then 2. Duggar, darling of the Christian right as head of the Family Research Councils political action committee, had as a teen molested five girls, including four of his sisters. Of the many unsettling details to emerge, one put IBLP squarely in the spotlight When Duggars parents discovered the teenagers transgressions, they sent him not to a traditional treatment center but to an IBLP facility in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Duggars had been involved with IBLP for nearly a quarter of a century specifically, the family belonged to IBLPs homeschooling arm, the Advanced Training Institute. Suddenly, a keen interest developed in the brick building in Hinsdale. Just what exactly was that place, and what was going on thereI think that the community at large didnt even really realize that it was there, says Don Veinot, president of Midwest Christian Outreach, an evangelical group based in Wonder Lake, Illinois, that investigates cults and spiritually oppressive groups. Unless you have some sort of direct interaction with someone there, youre not going to think very much about it. On IBLPs website, the nonprofit organization describes itself as dedicated to giving individuals, families, churches, schools, communities, governments, and businesses clear instruction and training on how to find success by following Gods principles found in Scripture. The group pushes an authoritarian, patriarchal theology conceived, developed, and thundered from the pulpit by Gothard over the years. The approach has resonated with conservative evangelicals to the tune of millions of followers, most of whom have become involved with the organization through seminars put on by Gothard around the country. On its website, IBLP boasts that 2. Many of its adherents have enlisted their children in the homeschooling program, serviced by more than a dozen ATI centers sprinkled around the nation and abroad, including in Hinsdale. IBLPs supporters over the yearsmany of whom continue to defend itinclude such high profile conservative stalwarts as Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and Rick Perry. See IBLPs Big Name Supporters, below. The lawsuit, however, alleges a less heavenly place for the plaintiffs, who worked at the Hinsdale headquarters. At its peak, in the 1. IBLP had 2. 00 to 3. Gothard, the lawsuit contends, acted as the boss, the landlord, and the controller of all aspects of their lives. He kept his victims blamed, shamed, silent, compliant, the suit alleges, and cut off from the normal world entirely. Gothards attorney wouldnt comment on specific allegations in the lawsuit but did say, This is about an underlying agenda. A lawyer for IBLP declined to be interviewed for this story. The defendants are seeking to have the suit dismissed on technical grounds, primarily that the statute of limitations on the allegations has passed. You never think you are in a cult when you are in a cult, Micah J. Murray, who was a student in the ATI program and later worked for IBLP in the mid 2. We talked about how it was a cult, joking at first. But as I spiraled closer and closer to the center, the realization began to sink in. The jokes became real. A lawsuit claims Bill Gothard, founder of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, surrounded himself with attractive young staffers he often recruited personally. Img165.jpg' alt='Cheap Homeschooling Programs In Alabama' title='Cheap Homeschooling Programs In Alabama' />The typical Oregon kindergartner arrived at school last fall knowing only 19 capital and lowercase letters and just seven letter sounds out of at least 100. Have you ever wondered what exactly your child needs to know before kindergarten Here is a list based upon a Preschool Inventory given to children at the very end of. It was common, the suit says, for people to joke about his harem. Photo Courtesy of Recovering Grace. The seeds of Gothards rise to power were sown not far from where he would build and rule his empire. He was born in Hinsdale, in fact, the son of William Gothard Sr., executive director at Gideons International, the evangelical ministry known for leaving Bibles in hotel rooms. The third of six children, Gothard was, by his teenage years, deeply religious. According to his bio on the IBLP website, he began working with inner city gangs in Chicago and families in crisis to help them make wise choices. The organization that would become IBLP derived from a masters thesis Gothard wrote in 1. Wheaton College. Gothard set up a program called Campus Teams, run out of his La Grange home, for resolving conflicts between teens and their families. In 1. 97. 4, the fledgling organization changed its name to the Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts. In the years that followed, it would expand far beyond teen issues, prompting yet another name change, to the Institute in Basic Life Principles, in 1. 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