Shortly after Bill Gothard turned 11 years old, the European war crimes trials convened in Berlin in October 1945 were moved to Nuremberg where they remained until they ended in October 1946.
     The most disturbing feature of this trial was the long parade of Nazis who justified their roles in the most unspeakable atrocities, including the slaughter of six million Jews, with the excuse, “I was only following orders.”  The shocking result of unquestioning submission to authority left an indelible mark on the 20th century.
     But it did not seem to leave much of a mark on Bill Gothard.  Even as the world recoiled in horror from such blind obedience, Gothard was formulating a system that twisted Bible verses into supporting it.
     Gothard’s system is based on the assumption that human authority structures are a central moral and spiritual principle.  His corrective measures for dealing with abusive authority is a system for “making a proper appeal” that discourages disobedience to corrupt authority with its complexity and burdensome introspective requirements.