Churchhoney

Exactly. Anna may well be on the payroll as the person providing the teasers for future episodes -- to keep those rating ticking slowly up.

223 Walmarts in Guatemala. Only 9 Supercenters, though, so that may account for the feelings of desolation. ; ) http://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/locations/guatemala#/guatemala

They get all the permission they need from the Lord. This approach runs in his family as it runs in the Duggars'. Remember the several discussions we've had on here of similar clueless things his sister has written. They've lived every minute of their lives in tiny tiny little not-even-transparent bubbles and yet they feel competent to comment and pronounce judgment on and plans for everything and everybody. Wonder if any of them will ever learn better. .... Seems unlikely, I guess, since their parents haven't, in their 20-to-30 additional years of life.

Teaching guys to control their wives and children is the entire point of the Gothard cult. It's why it appeals to guys like JIm Bob. And all the rest, I expect, given what I've read over the years from other offspring-survivors of it.... All the fathers who remain in Gothardom have to be control freaks of one sort or another, including the sainted Gil Bates, or else they wouldn't continue in this "faith." And since he's on the board, Bates is highly instrumental in spreading this set of pernicious ideas to other people as well. Truly, that's all the whole Gothard enterprise is about when you look at their materials and programs. "Jesus" has virtually nothing to do with it. Gothard must be the most insecure and power-mad person in the world to have come up with this crap. Your country makes Jesus cry. Ask any Duggar, even Amy. Somebody who courts as many car accidents as Mr. DUI King does really should take more thought for how he'll pay for the medical consequences of his follies. His eternally unemployed spouse with her taste for trendy clothing is gonna have even more reasons to regret her hasty marriage one day, looks like. They'll dun him for a long time, trying to get their money. But if pursuing him through lawsuits and the like for the cash begins to seem too pricey for them they'll eventually just write it off and shift the costs to the rest of their payers (individuals, insurers, government programs) by hiking up their prices.

On Voddie Baucham (from The Seewalds) h, Voddie B is worth knowing about when you're observing fundie homeschooling world. He's another who's extremely influential in some horrifying ways. To wit: https://homeschoolersanonymous.org/2015/01/16/the-child-as-viper-how-voddie-bauchams-theology-of-children-promotes-abuse/ 'Due to his engaging communication style and rhetorical prowess, he has become one of the most sought-after speakers for Christian homeschool conferences. Over the last decade, Baucham has presented at an increasingly large number of such conferences all over the United States,[x] often keynoting alongside other national homeschool leaders such as HSLDA’s Michael Farris.[xi] He has received national visiblity beyond the Christian homeschooling movement due to his association with the Gospel Coalition and his controversial declaration that Michael Brown, a young black teenager shot multiple times by a white policeman, “reaped what he sowed.”[xii] 'The Child as Viper 'there are many aspects of Voddie Baucham’s worldview that deserve attention and introspection, this paper will focus on one specific aspect of his worldview: the image of the child as viper. Baucham frequently employs the image of the child as viper in his speeches and writings. It first appeared in Baucham’s 2007 sermon on “Child Training” at Hardin Baptist Church, and later appeared in writing in his 2011 book Family Shepherds. 'image of the child as viper is intended to invoke the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity in relation to children. It is meant to transform the way we think about children’s so-called “innocence” or “purity” and consequently transform the way we think about raising and disciplining children. Notably, it is meant as a criticism of modern child development experts and gentle parenting advocates who eschew authoritarian methods of parenting and harsh, punitive forms of corporal punishment. The child as viper is the foundation of Baucham’s defense of spanking. 'This image is also invoked in an attempt by Baucham to separate his ideas about child training from the ideas of people who (allegedly) deny total depravity, most notably Michael and Debi Pearl. In Baucham’s worldview, children are inherently broken and comparable to serial killers in their desire to shed blood. Thus the iconography of the child as viper is not simply intended to be humorous or poetic. It is intended to be concrete and applicable: just as one must restrain and control a viper from following its own, potentially murderous, nature, so too must one restrain and control a child from following their own, potentially murderous, nature.' And more: https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2013/06/17/voddie-baucham-prescription-for-spanking-and-the-shy-child/ 'And, they desperately need to be spanked and they need to be spanked often, they do. I meet people all the time ya’ know and they say, oh yeah, “There have only been maybe 4 or 5 times I’ve ever had to spank Junior.” “Really?” ‘That’s unfortunate, because unless you raised Jesus II, there were days when Junior needed to be spanked 5 times before breakfast.” If you only spanked your child 5 times, then that means almost every time they disobeyed you, you let it go. Why do your toddlers throw fits? Because you’ve taught them that’s the way that they can control you. When instead you just need to have an all-day session where you just wear them out and they finally decide “you know what, things get worse when I do that.” 'THE SELFISH SIN OF SHYNESS 'Let me give you an example, a prime example. The so-called shy kid, who doesn’t shake hands at church, okay? Usually what happens is you come up, ya’ know and here I am, I’m the guest and I walk up and I’m saying hi to somebody and they say to their kid “Hey, ya’ know, say Good-morning to Dr. Baucham,” and the kid hides and runs behind the leg and here’s what’s supposed to happen. This is what we have agreed upon, silently in our culture. What’s supposed to happen is that, I’m supposed to look at their child and say, “Hey, that’s okay.” But I can’t do that. Because if I do that, then what has happened is that number one, the child has sinned by not doing what they were told to do, it’s in direct disobedience. Secondly, the parent is in sin for not correcting it, and thirdly, I am in sin because I have just told a child it’s okay to disobey and dishonor their parent in direct violation of scripture. I can’t do that, I won’t do that. I’m gonna stand there until you make ’em do what you said.' I'm sure Oxford is proud.

Taking my response to Sweet Fellowship.

While I'm glad that Bin does seem to have some impulse to reach out and explore the world, this "idea" strikes me as being really no different from the Dullards' "mission" to "Central America." It's still the fucking racist and imperialist assumption that the proper role for white American fundies is to go into some primitive heathen land to bring the colorful natives to the Lord. Bin's chosen land just happens to be stateside because pop music has inspired him to try to latch onto the coolness of a black guy. What thought-free idiots they all are. Unfortunately in Jessa's case it's not clear she could relate to anybody. I guess it's a good thing that "Growing Up Duggar" pretty much makes you an alien anywhere -- shows that it's not the norm. But it may doom the Duggar kids to essential isolation for a lifetime.

Kanye mentions Jesus. Just sayin.

Well, at least there'll be a few people in Spurgy's future who'll hesitate to laugh at his name.

Yeah, seems really mysterious. Maybe the Gothard money pot is running so low that they're devising new programs -- like "Send Your Potential Very Young Renegades To Big Sandy Early For Faux Alert" or something?

I'm not so sure that what he did demonstrates having no brain. Don't think he's a genius, but I've known some quite intelligent people who were very very shy and insecure around the opposite sex, who'd maybe been spurned by people they showed a little interest in -- and who bypassed their brains when somebody came along who was available to them and leaped into ill-advised things without looking, impelled by the fear that they'd never link up with anyone otherwise. I think Derick might be this kind of a person rather than just an idiot.

According to the online schedule, looks like it doesn't start till the 19th ....

I guess once you give way to a personality disorder like Steve Maxwell's -- which I'm convinced is the basis of their "faith" life, not any actual theological convictions -- you can only get more extreme. What satisfies somebody's insecurities and narcissism at first fails to satisfy it down the line and the control has to get more intense. In the past, Terry has certainly written some stuff about managing homeschool issues that's quite sensible. But you couldn't write sensibly about the increasingly paranoid little world that her headship has created. It's too bad that they're all trapped and warped by his issues.

Not really. They pushed modest but they also pretty clearly aimed to look attractive to regular people -- professional and well-off people, even. The better to attract followers that it would pay to fleece, perhaps. There's a photo of rotten Doug and his family here -- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/13/vision-forum-ministries-shut-down_n_4269403.html And here are the Botkins -- https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380928139i/3327126._SX540_.jpg And the Bauchams here -- http://www.educatorsathome.com/voddie-on-brokeness/

Yeah, they're not tv people.

Overcompensation because they secretly know that everything they "do" (and I use the term loosely) is a cross between nada and shit? Or evidence that they really are so dumb and so arrogant that they truly believe that they're God's super-speshul-eshul snowflakes whose doings are better than anybody else's? I can't decide.

Great post. Bears repeating.

Mom Max has done a lot of the homeschooling. It's not just Steve. She writes a lot about homeschooling and a surprising amount of it is pretty intelligent and sensible, actually. They're clearly not dumb. Just insane.

Well, I wonder whether it's just that, earlier in life, he didn't see any alternative to a mainstream path, even though his craziness made the mainstream path distasteful to him ..... And then maybe later he became acquainted with the Gothard machine and resonated with its pathologies because they were so similar to his pathologies? And then he jumped. .... I mean, there really aren't a lot of niches in our society where a sick, fearful control freak like Steve M could feel really comfortable and like a natural fit .... so people like that might see mainstream jobs and education as their only option until they suddenly run into ATI and feel that a light has shined on them. .... I think that's what happened with Boob, too, except that Boob's an idiot and hadn't gone as far down the mainstream education path as Maxwell and Doc Paine and so on did before they found the sicko cult that matched their own sicko-ness.

...of reality?

Yep, that sounds like Boob to me.

It sure raises a lot of questions, doesn't it? Actually, though, I think the questions are more relevant to Derick and Jill than to Jessa and Bin. Vision Forum and ATI are pretty much in sync on the underlying stuff -- patriarchy and so on -- even though they differ somewhat in outward appearances. Derick, meanwhile, went to a plain old Southern Baptist church so he was really outside the patriarchal cult world. But my guess is that JB has such a good eye for weak people who'll cave to his "authority" as well as for people with enough strength to try to oppose him or run their families their own way that he just never lets the stronger guys get anywhere near the girls while he turns a blind eye to potential doctrinal differences with the weaklings cause he knows they'll end up folding like wet kleenex. THat's what insane control freaks can easily do and do do, in my experience, anyway. I'm sure he's got a good eye for people he can bully and people he can't bully.

I think you're absolutely right!

Didn't intend to insult the mold! I was just trying to describe how the families move. All moving as one, crawling along as one being, even though they're many. Taking "slime" as an insult, though -- Yeah, the parents are slime. Not the kids, though. They're victims. And having been one of them, I'd add that it's very very hard to escape the mold. Probably virtually impossible for some people, unfortunately.

Because when a parent is a sick fuck -- I'm looking at you, Steve -- he/she insists on treating everyone in the family as only an extension of him/her self. That means constant contact to whatever degree that's possible. It's the family is slime mold.