Churchhoney

What do they rely on them for? S.O.S. doesn't seem to do anything but order the local people around in the name of imparting their fabulous S.O.S. wisdom, at "conferences," in the sermons they apparently keep giving, and in those ridiculous classrooms we've seen in which the kids, in every single photo, are clearly bored out of their gourds with whichever stiff awkward-looking white person is standing in front of them jawing something that's almost certainly boring, impenetrable and irrelevant to the nth degree. And as far as I've seen none of the visitors does anything but interpretive dance and fingernail painting, with a side of fast-food eating and beachgoing. The idiot daytrippers don't seem to go there to do work of any kind. And they certainly don't go there to learn anything. Looks to me as if the sum total of their "volunteer support" is bringing down cheap crap like dum dums to hand out, treating the locals like zoo animals, and writing xenophobic condescending diary entries about them. ...Oh ... and "preaching" the wisdom they've picked up in the U.S. suburbs through "dance" or some such. I don't see any evidence that this is anything other than a preaching-only "mission." The give some lip service to doing more tangible things, but I truly think that it's only to get people who want missions to offer tangible help to shut up.

And, worse, to me, they declare that these local people in a country that's been Catholic for hundreds of years are incapable either of caring for the folks in their own communities or of speaking intelligently about the New Testament -- unless they get the help of the arrogant, idiot mostly 20-something crew of S.O.S. That's condescending to an evil and disgusting degree, in my opinion. And I'm sure the possibility that that's so never crosses any of their arrogant little piss-ant minds.

Not to mention that having a million kids is a huge point of pride with him. Something he can loudly announce to a streetful of random strangers in Edinburgh or the like. Spawning babies that he can't point to as proof of his prowess -- or as evidence that he's helping to staff God's army -- would have no appeal for him. .... This story sounds like total bullshit to me, no matter who the protagonist would be, though. I have a hard time seeing any man who's actually wild to have babies being content to leave those babies unacknowledged. If they're unacknowledged, to whom will the guy be proving anything? In the olden days, yeah, kings and other richie riches spawned lots of unacknowledged kids besides their acknowledged ones, but I suspect that was just because there wasn't any reliable birth control. Wanting to have regular sex with random teenagers you don't talk to otherwise is an understandable male motive. Wanting to have other people raising babies of yours that you can't acknowledge doesn't seem to be, to me anyway. Just a fail of a tale, in my opinion. Can't see motivations for any of the characters, actually. Who are these teen-girl's-parents who are gonna pay to raise Jim Bob's unacknowledged ego-kids? And it's pretty clear he doesn't have the cash to make a lot of payments to them, once he gets done paying the bills for the 30-plus people he's already supporting.

They are doing exactly what S.O.S missionaries do, though, I think. So they may not look like missionaries to us. But I have a feeling that's mainly because the whole enterprise they're part of doesn't look like missionaries to most of us either. ..... Once again, the environment they're living in reinforces all their own dumb ideas. This group of people really is in an echo chamber, I think. And that really makes it unlikely that any of them will ever really change their ideas. Everybody they see has the same idiot ideas that they do. Depressing.

Could be, but I think the group they're with has pretty much the same slant on everything as the Dugg/Dills. For one thing, the guy in charge is heavily Gothard related. And aside from some very vaguely described water project in Africa, what they mostly seem to do is host bunches of "dancing" U.S. fundie vacationers and "provide" various vague "conferences" and other meeting-type stuff for the locals. (the stuff we see in pics with the bored bored local kids and sometimes local adults, for example) Pretty much exactly what we've seen Jill, Derick (and the visiting Duggs) "doing." Here's an example of the condescending, clueless, unhelpful very Duggarish crap they say: "Improving Education: "Not only are the local people enslaved to their sin, [Aargh] they are also entrapped in poverty and unable to further their education and escape. Seeing this problem, S.O.S. partners with local educators, providing school supplies [like U.S-bought, Duggar-delivered book bags] and improving the local facilities, as well as providing scholarships for students to be able to further their education ["scholarship" for two boys with a bilingual mother to study English, anyone?]. If you are interested in partnering with a local student or school, please contact us. "Training Up Pastors: Local pastors throughout the countries we serve in are often ill equipped and untrained to care for the flocks under their care. S.O.S. hosts annual pastors conferences to train up the indigenous leaders at local churches so that they are able to properly teach the word of God and care for their people. [Aargh] "Christmas in Central America: "Every December, we bring down thousands of Christmas gifts [i.e., cheap U.S-bought, Chinese-made crap dragged down at great expense to make the frolicking U.S. winter beach vacationers including the entire Dugg clan and the bigoted journaling Seewalds, for example, feel all righteous for doing NOTHING] to minister to families of children in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras who are unable to afford any Christmas gifts. Not only is this an excellent opportunity to show love to the communities we serve in, it is also a powerful opportunity to share the Christmas story [with Catholics] and share the gospel." http://www.soshope.org/about/current-projects/ Just sayin.

Sounds more like it would ward off heart attacks.

The whole Josh thing as described in these posts just typifies Duggar culture to me -- fearful of everything, including all your own impulses; lazy; and all about the cosmetic. Leads to shallow lives with plenty wrongdoing both petty and serious that nobody takes responsibility for -- and then a helping of self-righteousness ladled on top.

Could be under consideration for the next revision. Stranger things have made it into the DSM. : )

Of course, I suppose the premise of TLC and the Duggar 'rents is that (presumably) there's a big tv audience that craves having them not work it out privately but on the TeeVee screen for all to savor. Dunno if that's true or not. But given what seemed to be endless on-air rehashing of this stuff (I gather -- don't watch so maybe I'm off base here) somebody thinks that it's ratings gold. Or a great godly example. Or something.

And looking just at the feet, she appears to be the Wicked Witch of the West/East. ... Not far off the mark either, in my view....

Being unable or unwilling to look any facts in the face does not make for good mental health. Wish some Duggar some day would pick up on this key principle.

Honestly, I would bet that none of them even consciously thinks of this as anything that calls for apology at this point. I expect that the whole family is so brainwashed by JB's and M's loud and long-term lies, denial and distortions of the mess that they think of the Ashley Madison thing as his key and only real crime. The other is something that they've all been trained to completely ignore (not that it isn't festering in most of their brains, down below the conscious level, of course).

That should be written in Latin on the Duggar crest. Comes of believing that the meaning of life derives from a having a mission as a godly role model to all the nations and a lifelong habit of appearing on reality tv.

If you break out in boils, they send a box of potsherds over to your house.

Maybe the Duggars are such a keystone element for God's imminent goal of establishing his kingdom on Earth that Satan just tries super super hard to bring them down. Satan brought his A-game and, alas, no individual is strong enough to fully combat Satan's A-game on his or her own. You have to enlist the mighty power of Reformers Unanimous to get that job done.

You do realize that everyone here has given up any possible claim to journalistic objectivity and even-handedness when it comes to the Duggars and their cohorts, right? ! ; )

Well, when you think of all the times she saw kids sleeping the night on the stairs, getting their heads stuck in banisters while adults sat obliviously in the TTH lobby not caring, running on kitchen counters, being molested and having the only parental response be to ban hide-and-seek games, falling into orchestra pits only to be used as photo ops, getting lost while going to airport bathrooms on their own (at, what, age 5 or even younger), I'm thinking Jill comes by her very skewed view of child care and child dangers pretty naturally. And remember that she learned it from a multiple Mother-of-the-Year award winner and two of God's totally chosen role models for the planet! She and they must be correct!

How about we call him a piece of JizmBobDougPhillipsGothard?

You're only showing that you have excellent taste in comedy. At least that's what I keep telling myself.

On the Internet, there are whole websites named after Jinger! ...Oh, wait ......

I'm afraid I would have a hard time containing my ... annoyance ... hilarity ... something ... sitting through these sermons by uneducated 20-year-olds. The vast majority have to be either freelance kinda meaning-free ramblings by someone who doesn't yet know anything or, essentially, sermons by mynah birds. (or a combo thereof: see Seewald, Ben)

I just thought it was a consequence of their lives being totally made for tv. And the fact that this show consumes a little less of the calendar than the old show. Since I've never actually watched their shows, I don't remember the timeline on this. But were there significant photos of and information about the new couples published when the show wasn't airing or imminently airing? Seems to me those relationships may not have been actually revealed in any detail until they went on the air either? Or not. As I say, don't remember. Since their current show's probably on somewhat shakier ground, though, maybe they're more seriously hoarding information now to reveal only on tv? Because ... ratings?

True. Though I also think that Grandpa looks better because he doesn't have the dead eyes and the lackadaisical, drawn look of a young person whose life has been eternally sat on by Jizm Bob's fat ass. Grandpa has the life and enthusiasm of a young adult who calls his soul his own.

Also a handy cover for all five of your chins.

In particular, I've never gotten the impression that Gothard's group was dripping with uneducated idiots. It seems that his cult and some of the other patriarchy- and quivering type cults actually attract a high number of intelligent and educated people. So the Duggs may well be particularly unattractive to those we'd think of as being natural fits for the family.