On the Duggar Documentary

Stop falling for it

So Amazon has a docu-series out about the Duggars, the Baptist, homeschooling family of 19 Kids and Counting fame. It also touches on the religious movement they were part of, Bill Gothard’s Institute in Basic Life Principles and Advance Training Institute.

I was aware of this movement well before the docu-series, and even before the Duggars got famous. My family were not involved with IBLP, but as 90s homeschoolers we certainly knew people who were, and we were familiar with Gothard.

It’s excesses and abuses are now well-known thanks to the lawsuits against Gothard and the ideas revealed via the Duggars near-constant onscreen life.

So, the minute I heard a docu-series had been released, I suspected one of the world’s favorite anti-Christian plays was being run.

It’s almost like a reverse Motte and Bailey, finding a way to tie obviously objectionable ideas to more debatable ones in an attempt to make them inextricably tied to each other.

Essentially, “Here’s a bunch of crazy things these people did and believed, like [insert actual crazy thing], and [insert fairly normal Christian thing], and [insert other crazy thing], and [insert other normal Christian belief].

It’s the same tactic they used for “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” podcast - “Man, can you believe how abusive and power-hungry Mark Driscoll was? Obviously this is what happens when you don’t allow women to preach.”

Thanks to Buzzfeed for saving me the time by revealing that’s exactly what happened with the Duggar series.

Look at that list. “They tried to cover up their son’s sexual abuse and hope marriage would put the problem behind them” [actual crazy idea] followed by “and these weirdos believe husbands are the heads of their homes” [fairly normal Christian idea], followed by “and they took extreme stances on media like ‘Eeyore glorifies depression’” [somewhat crazy idea] followed by “and these people educate their kids with an eye towards influencing society with Christian principles” [what every Christian parent should be doing].

In other words, “look out for homeschoolers, big families, and/or people who are big into their Christianity. They’re just a hop-skip-and a jump away from Duggar-dom!”

I’m not surprised the world falls for this stuff. But Christians, we should not.

So here’s my advice:

Stop getting sucked in by lurid stories.

Yes, there are some crazy people all over the spectrum in Christendom. And the existence of reality TV tells us millions of people love to gawk at freak shows.

But don’t let anybody convince you that this is somehow representative of every homeschool family or churches that confess Biblical male headship.

Stop asking for the world’s feedback.

We don’t need them to tell us that protecting your son from the consequences of his sexual predation is wrong, or that spanking your children with a stick until they stop crying is abuse. They reject moral absolutes anyway—who are they to call anything wrong?

We’re the ones who have an objective standard, and we can trust ourselves enough to apply it to situations like this.

So the next time the world finds a Christian freak show to trot out in front of everybody to take swings at clear Biblical teaching under the guise of confronting extremism, don’t bite.