Controversial church leader with Hinsdale ties featured in Amazon docuseries ‘Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets’

For a seven-year span ending in 2015, cable TV viewers from across the country tuned in to TLC to watch the travails of the Duggar family — an Arkansas clan steeped in ultraconservative religious beliefs, perhaps best known for the sheer number of offspring it produced.

The show that gradually morphed from “17 Kids and Counting” to “19 Kids and Counting,” ended under a cloud of scandal after allegations surfaced that Josh Duggar, the family’s eldest son, had molested four of his sisters and a babysitter.

Central to the family’s religious beliefs were the teachings of Bill Gothard, a minister who for decades led the Institute in Basic Life Principles out of a multimillion-dollar estate in northwest Hinsdale on Ogden Avenue, east of Route 83.

By his own estimation, millions of people attended his biblical-based seminars dedicated to his conservative family values. Gothard also founded the Advanced Training Institute, a controversial home schooling curriculum program based on Gothard’s beliefs.

Now, the Hinsdale organization is back in the national spotlight after Amazon Prime recently released a new documentary called, “Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets.” The four-part documentary series delves deep into the Duggars’ lives as well as Gothard, a longtime La Grange resident and a graduate of Lyons Township High School and Wheaton College.

The Duggars’ reality TV show was canceled after the allegations against Josh Duggar surfaced that he sexually abused his younger sisters and a babysitter and he apologized. As a teen, Josh Duggar went to a Little Rock, Ark., facility operated by the IBLP following those incidents.

The new documentary explores Gothard’s teachings and his connection to the Duggars. In a 2015 interview with the Tribune, Gothard defended the Duggars.

“They did the right things. They did maybe even more than was expected,” Gothard said in 2015. “They certainly cannot be faulted in what they tried to do to correct the problem. The problem was corrected. … The fact that he became an outstanding young man would indicate that kind of success.”

In April 2021, Josh Duggar was arrested for possession of child pornography. Last year, he was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison.

The documentary features testimonials from several Duggar family members and former followers of the ultraconservative Christian IBLP.

In 2016, Chicago Magazine published the article “The Cult Next Door,” which detailed the organization’s decades long ties to the village of Hinsdale.

Gothard, who founded the institute in 1961, stepped down as head of the organization in 2014 after he was accused of sexual harassment against multiple female employees.

In October 2015, five women sued the institute and its board of directors. In 2016, an amended suit with five more accusers filed dropped the individual directors as defendants but added Gothard.

Later that year, 16 women and two men filed an additional complaint alleging they were victims of sexual abuse, harassment or other inappropriate conduct while they were either participants, interns or employees of the institute several years ago.

The case against Gothard and the IBLP ultimately was withdrawn because the statute of limitations had expired.

After Gothard resigned, the institute relocated its headquarters to Big Sandy, Texas, in 2015. Cook County property records show Gothard still owns a home in La Grange.

The organization is still attempting to sell its Hinsdale property.