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"Arise, O Lord, and judge thy cause. A wild boar has invaded thy vineyard."[1]
So Pope Leo X wrote at the beginning of Exsurge Domine, the papal bull that condemned Martin Luther and his teachings on justification by faith alone.
Ironically, the true boar in the vineyard was not Luther, who was calling the Roman Church to repentance, but a corrupt structure where those in power misinterpreted God’s Word for their own aggrandizement. Luther was calling the church back to an understanding of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, through the person and work of Christ alone, based on the Word of God alone, for the glory of God alone.
Today, wolves in sheep’s clothing still have need to be exposed for all to see their error and for the church to be resilient against their false teaching. Our concern is not just for people harmed and exploited by false teachers directly, although that is important. Our concern is for the next generation or two who find these teachings as part of the Christian urban-legend ecosystem, and don’t know where they came from, but nonetheless the teachings are still false and abusive.
The first and only drum we’re going to beat is the truth of God’s Word and the application of the Gospel to everyday life. We will expose outright falsehoods, half-truths, slovenly exposited Scripture, poor citations. And that is just the first document we’ve analyzed. The first ministry or organization’s teaching we will explore is Bill Gothard and the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP). There currently exist several quality websites devoted to exposing and explaining false teaching that originated in IBLP, including Recovering Grace and Home Schoolers Anonymous. We will add to the corpus of knowledge that many others have bravely done before.
This project is not easy. I personally have already faced down a lot of self-doubt and emotional triggers tied to these teachings. I hope this website is helpful to anyone trapped in either this or another spiritually abusive system. I hope this website is helpful to anyone whose loved ones are trapped in spiritually abusive systems. I hope that God is glorified in the rescue of the weak and powerless from the jaws of spiritual wolves. If you are trapped, there is help. You are not alone.
[1] Cited in Bainton, R. H. (2009). In Here I stand: A life of Martin Luther (pp. 137–138). Hendrickson Publishers.
