Who hasn’t heard about the Duggar family? Despite all their fans, many people feel they’ve heard more than they cared to know about this fundamentalist quiverful* family from their TV shows.
My mother loved their show and often tried to talk me into watching it. I tried, but an insular family, sewing their own dresses, and claiming to be homeschooled with a headship father and submissive mother was too reminiscent of my childhood.
When it comes to other people’s beliefs and how they live out those beliefs, I’ve always tried to “live and let live,”—unless someone is harming other people.
While I’m not a Duggar fan, I’ve always assumed they were a nice—almost too nice, religious family. They flew under my radar for years—until I read that Jim Bob and Michele Duggar covered up the fact that their firstborn son Josh had molested four of their daughters before any of their TV shows were filmed.
Allow me repeat that significant fact—the parent Duggars chose to go on TV to model their version of the perfect Christian family, knowing they had this evil skeleton in their family closet. Who does this? Either someone stupid, or someone who just wants to make money. I’ll let you decide, but I really doubt it was a “God thing.”
I was further disgusted when Josh was caught cheating on his wife with an Ashley Madison account. I felt sorry for his wife Anna who didn’t seem to realize how much her husband’s insidious habits could harm her marriage. And I felt angry that Josh who was a lousy, cheating husband, was also working hard on political campaigns to stop LGBTQI+ people from marrying at all. His behavior was the height of hypocrisy. And just when I thought Josh’s character couldn’t get any worse, he was convicted of buying child porn.
Very few members of the Duggar family attended Josh’s trial, but one of his victims, his sister Jinger and her husband were there.
I figured it was just a matter of time before one of the Duggar sisters would grow up and walk away from the long dresses and insanity of their childhood. Jinger switched from wearing dresses to jeans awhile back, so when she wrote a memoir, I was curious to find out what she has to say.
It’s not a tell-all about her family
In the forward of the book, Jinger states that she had a wonderful childhood and she is not writing a tell-all about her family.
I honestly never expected dirty laundry from her or any Duggar woman. Long ago, when I tried watching the show, I noticed whenever a disagreement came up, Michelle used a form of gaslighting many Christian mothers use to encourage their daughters to ignore their trauma and be “good” submissive, Christian girls. On more than one occasion, I’ve heard Michelle tell her daughters to “stay sweet.” As if telling people how you feel makes you not a good Christian.
Since Jinger was raised by a mother who covered up the fact that her son molested her and three of her sisters, I saw little hope of her discussing negative issues from growing up Duggar.
Jinger claims she had a wonderful childhood, but many people might question this since there was a molester in the family and her parents did not get her brother professional help. They covered it up. This is not the foundation for a happy family.
But Jinger is not writing about her brother Josh’s sins or her parents’ mistakes—she makes it clear who she’s writing about in the dedication.
Why she wrote this book
“To those who have been hurt by the teachings of Bill Gothard, or any religious teacher who claimed to speak for God, but didn’t.”
In the introduction, Jinger states why she wrote this book. Many of her friends have rejected the Christian faith. She hopes this book will help them to see who Jesus is. She admits it’s hard to examine beliefs and she realizes some of things she was taught were wrong.
Or did she write this book?
She also states that she’s not a writer, nor a theologian, so she had a male friend Cory Williams help her write the book. One might wonder why not a female friend? And why doesn’t she have the confidence to explain what she believes on her own?
Jinger makes it clear that she was not deconstructing her beliefs—but disentangling them. She differentiates between the two by mentioning a couple of famous people who deconstructed and left Christianity altogether as though this is the only result of deconstruction.
In contrast to what Jinger states, I’d like to offer the example of Rachel Held Evans for comparison. Rachel wrote several spiritual memoirs in which she did her own writing and studying. Rachel described her journey with vulnerable stories about herself and she didn’t tear down any one else’s journey. Rachel helped to kick off the deconstructionist movement in which Christians questioned the stereotypes and traditions that they’ve been taught. Once a doubter herself, Rachel made space for people who had doubts. And this is not as unbiblical as Jinger’s would have us think. Jesus never put down the doubters whether it was Nicodemus who snuck around to see him at night, or Thomas who couldn’t believe Jesus had risen from the grave until he saw the scars himself.
So Rachel Held Evans, led a deconstruction movement by studying out her own beliefs and writing spiritual memoirs that changed lives by making space for people not like herself.
And then we have Jinger, who is not doing her own studying, or writing, or sharing much vulnerability. Jinger strikes out at Rachel’s authentic movement of deconstruction by warning her readers that the end of deconstruction is the loss of faith. But this is not always true. Jinger doesn’t leave room for others unlike herself.
The whole idea of deconstruction is to disentangle traditions and lies from truth. Each person has to figure this out for themselves and labeling deconstruction as un-Christian is a very judgmental mindset designed to discourage people from further examining what they believe. I don’t think this idea originated with Jinger, but this more likely coming from those who helped her write this book.
The common thread
As I listened to Jinger’s audio version of the book, my mind kept trying to connect all the dots between her inability to do her own writing and studying while relying on a male friend to write a book in her name. I was beginning to wonder how she can even call it a memoir. According to the intro, this book was written to refute the abusive leadership of Bill Gothard whom her parents followed. It reads more like a theological statement.
Then I turned off audible and did a search, I discovered that Jinger and her husband now attend John MacArthur’s church. John MacAuthur has been publicized for telling women to stay with their abusive husbands. So Jinger’s disentanglement from Gothard to MacAuthur is not a very big step. At the heart of both of these leaders is the false doctrine of male headship.
And this where all the dots came together. This false doctrine of male headship has saturate the entire Duggar family. This is why Josh was given privilege as the eldest son. Why Jim Bob makes most of the decisions despite saying that Michelle and he decide together. This is how Michelle’s brains and maternal instincts were set aside so she could tell her daughters to stay sweet while she covered up her son’s sexual assault. Everything that’s wrong in the Duggar family leads back to these false teachers and male headship.
And poor Jinger is still in the thick of it despite imagining that one leader is better than another. She’s an innocent victim that has been swimming in headship doctrine her entire life. Switching out long dresses for jeans can’t fix this. She needs to do some serious deconstruction herself, but it seems she’s afraid of the very word.
John MacArthur’s Abuse
John MacArthur has been exposed for telling women in abusive marriages that they need to stay married to fulfill God’s will in their lives. This contributes to women like Jinger’s sister-in-law Anna Duggar who innocently married her brother Josh, not realizing that he was a sex-offender. Anna with her seven children, seems to feel obligated to stay committed to her husband even though he’s now in prison and when he gets released, won’t be allowed to be alone with their children.
The fruit of male headship
Why is this male headship doctrine so damaging? Because male headship leaders like Gothard and MacArthur have taught people like Jinger and her parents to discount a woman’s needs and place the support on their husbands no matter how abusive they’ve been.
No matter if he molested his sisters, cover it up to save his reputation.
No matter if he cheats—stick with him.
No matter if he buys child porn—stand by him before you protect your own babies.
Memoir or propaganda?
Now that we’ve found the bigger picture, it seems Jinger’s book is not so much a memoir as a piece of propaganda put out by the MacArthur camp, designed to attract people who might be deconstructing from Gothard, to lead them to stay in the headship fold under MacArthur.
How convenient to use a young wife who can’t even write her own book or explain her own theology, or describe her own spiritual trauma. The MacArthur camp has found in Jinger, a young woman who is pretty and famous to be the new face of male headship acceptance.
The title of Jinger’s book is “Becoming Free Indeed,”but I’m not convinced that she is.
*Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar deny being quiverful, but even the title, “19 and Counting” seems to indicate otherwise.
Little Red Survivor Tips is always free. It’s just my thoughts about surviving at the intersection of family, narcissistic and religious abuse, and current events.
I also wrote a book Chasing Eden, about my strange childhood.
If you’d like to discuss writing memoirs, reading them, or would like a sneak peek at my next book, To Uneat an Elephant, you can subscribe below.
I too have things to say about Bill Gothard and fallout from his "ministry."
It takes the fearful and the devout to terrible places...up close and personal.