Churchhoney

It's Joy. And this time they weren't even praying. Kind of you to do this.

Well, I wouldn't deny that they've made some money from this kind of thing. But there's no way that Jessa's speaking engagements or the girls' book could have actually made a living for any of them for more than a few months, at most. I think most who are skeptical of what Anna could do are skeptical that she could support herself doing it, let alone supporting herself and four kids. She could make a bit, certainly, but it wouldn't be nearly enough to call it a living.

Their parents pushed them to the brink of destruction, quite early on. And now reality tv has finished the job. And they don't even know it. They probably think they're the luckiest of the Gothardites -- because Money! Fans! Travel! Big House! Love Offerings! But in fact they're the least lucky of them, since on top of Gothard's learn-how-to-delude-yourself program, they're now in the postgraduate section of reality tv's learn-how-to-delude-yourself-even-more program. There's little hope in life for anyone who's been that heavily indoctrinated to be false at all times and in all things and to adhere to tons of false principles, both those of Bill Gothard and those of TLC-and-the-Duggar-teevee-stardom regime, in my opinion. And if anybody among the older ones was ever going to decline to continue to participate, this was the time, with the show temporarily shut down and the family in disarray. But here they all are. Fake-smiling and perfecting the arts of never ever ever under any circumstances saying or even thinking what you really feel about anything and of never ever ever making a choice that's all your own. At this point, every single one of the older kids is a total lost cause, I expect. And I don't even think that's a shame any more. Obviously not one of them has the guts or the brains to do anything else. So the hell with them.

It's fake happy, though. I think that's all that counts. Wait! Maybe fake happy is even better! This is how sick and deluded they are.

Good grief, that promo is everywhere. .... And depicting the damn Duggar kids as courageous and inspirational? I'm the first to acknowledge that life dealt the Duggar kids a terrible hand when it awarded them parents. But given how they're acting now, I'd judge that courage is a trait that may be in even shorter supply among them than intelligence. I can't imagine that anybody at TLC actually believes there's anything courageous about them. It's all further delusions for the delusional. Reality tv indeed.

Particularly ironic coming from a person who not only puts her own needs first -- always -- but who seems likely to be unaware that anybody else on the planet besides herself, including David, actually has any needs.

if only if only if only if only they would both do this But I really think that Anna is too committed to the Gothard/Keller/Duggar (asinine) way to do it. And Josh is confused enough and lazy enough and fearful enough so that he'll pretend that he's still committed so he can live off Jim Bob's teat, since he can't think of any other way to support a family of six and counting. So he won't do it either. Tragic. Especially because it's impossible for me to see the kids not getting more and more screwed up by this horrible milieu the longer they live in it.

Makes you think Anna's not going to get much out of the new show. If her husband's out of the scamatorium, how can they construct a story line for her and film her without including him? They can't just film her lonely self flitting about in a black suv, ruminating on her fate, when everybody knows Josh is around somewhere.

When were they silent? Cause I missed that part. Also, this makes it 100 percent clear to me that nobody will have even the slightest urge to leave or even question anything so long as there's a gravy train. Anyone who is not deeply ashamed of and embarrassed by these stories, these photo shoots, THIS PICTURE, after all the crap they've said about themselves and about this situation and their status or not as a "tv family," is so addicted to spending life as a tabloid star that they're completely hopeless. Idiots.

Yeah, that's a good point. My confusion is how far from their brand of Christianity you have to be to count as a conversion. They're in heavily Catholic countries -- countries that have been Catholic for centuries -- and there are various Protestant churches there, too. Plus, I've heard the lordship language applied to switching somebody from a "false" church to a "true" one, as well, not just for "strengthening the faith" in somebody who was already in the "right" church. For example, in the past I had fundie relatives try to switch me over from the United Church of Christ -- a way wrong church (I attended it pretty much as a still searching atheist but they didn't know that) -- to their belief systems. And I know they used the "lordship" language, and they definitely believed they would have been converting me. (of course, they aren't highly schooled missionaries like Derick and Jill, but still...ha) Anyway, what do you think would count as conversions in an already Christian country? I was thinking that the son in this story was a rededication thing who went back to a Baptist church but that his mother was maybe a Catholic (or a Seventh Day Adventist, or some other Christian sect that's proselytized heavily in CA), so that her move to their brand of church would count as a conversion. But does it? And is the "lordship" language actually a sign that, no, she wasn't a Catholic or LDS or whatever, but had already been converted to Baptist and was just lacking in fervor? How far do you have to be from their brand of Christianity to count as a conversion? Can you convert a Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian? I seem to remember that John Shrader called it conversion when he moved some guys over from a "wrong" church that they'd converted to earlier to his "right" church, but he didn't say which "wrong" church it was, except that it definitely considered itself Christian. Anyway, I'm getting even more confused about what would constitute conversion for them in countries that already have tons of people who consider themselves Christians. Central America, as far as I know, is pretty light on pagans, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and so on. Are there rules for this written down somewhere? And I assume that different groups would have to have different rules. Both Baptists and Methodists are missionary churches, for example, so would a Baptist missionary think he/she had got a conversion by convincing a Methodist to jump ship?

I don't think we're thinking of the same one. There's no War Room in the one I was remembering. It's the one from their blog, last July, when they first went. This -- the mother-son conversion: "It is encouraging to already see some of the ways God is changing the hearts of the people here. Just 7 days ago, I had the joy of witnessing one elderly woman give lordship of her life to Christ. This transpired just one day after her Christian son was restored to fellowship in his local church. We were at the man’s house ministering to him with encouragement from God’s Word when the opportunity was presented to share the hope of the Gospel with his mother. It’s our prayer, and we ask you to please pray with us, that many more would repent of their ways and turn to God’s way for their life." http://dillardfamily.com/blog?page=3

On the other hand, maybe he was hoping for that and is too dumb to realize that there's a less painful way to accomplish it. .... He doesn't look too bright to me.

Translation: Until we -- and by "we," I mean Marjorie and my dad, Jim Bob -- were sure that there was actually a renewed Duggar show that would use our courtship as a lead story line. Continuing it when the show was canceled and nobody knew whether it would return would have been pointless. So stay tuned for the season finale of the spring 2016 season of The Duggars: Counting On when Marjorie and I will be back to tease our renewed courtship as the key story line for the winter 2016 season!

Nope, I'm afraid the courting venue remains the great big communal barn...er...gym...er...living room. Can't go a-courtin without a heapin helpin of the kinfolk on hand, remember. That way damnation lies.

Didn't they convert somebody the first time they went, a soon as they got there? I remember some story about a woman and her son, and they converted the son from being a lapsed churchgoer of some variety to a current churchgoer? And maybe the mother, too? I seem to remember there were visits to both of them, bible reading, praise the lord, etc. I'm pretty sure they quickly recounted that conversion story -- such as it was -- but I don't remember another one since. Kinda strange. Maybe the guy and his mother told them to shut up about their spiritual journeys on the Internet or something so they got leery? Or maybe people stopped inviting them into the house. heh

Allergies, maybe? They can do that to a kid.

Maybe the furnace broke down.

The only book that would make a decent amount of money would be a tell-all, and even that would never last. Plus, Anna couldn't and wouldn't write a tell-all. There are really only two kinds of books any of these guys could do, I think. Any of them could do tell-alls, or here's-how-it-all-went-wrongs, and make some cash. But none of them will do that, Anna included. And the other kind that can bring in some cash is the wish fulfillment-fantasy book for the leghumpers about "how we live such a wonderful life and you can do it too" The Duggs' other books were portraying the Gothard lifestyle without mentioning who and what was behind it, and so they got leghumper sales because of the happy lovely total fantasy they portrayed. And I know the girls "wrote" their book entirely under the auspices of the Gothard machine. JB and M's books were all about that lifestyle -- and about life with young children -- and the whole Gothard thing is shot to hell now and the young children are growing up. So the fantasies to sell in books just aren't there any more. And Anna could never come up with a book that portrayed a happy fantasy in the first place, since both her marriage and Gothardism are now on the rocks. The book route isn't going to get Anna or the rest of the Duggars anywhere from now on, as far as I can see, unless somebody is willing to write the negative book. And as to that -- well, we'll see. I doubt it would be Anna. Because for one thing, to write it, any of them would have to find and work with a competent ghostwriter. And I can see the Duggars -- and maybe other Gothardites -- exercising mighty efforts to keep Anna away from any such person, even if she had the savvy and guts herself to try to find one.

So this completely rebooted and now hip and happening must-see "reality tv" consists of: one young couple with two mostly stay-at-home parents complaining about the difficulties of caring for one baby in an Arkansas suburb one young couple with two mostly stay-at-home parents struggling to care for one baby in a Central American-suburb two producer-driven "big events," to wit, terminally uncool Dim Bin becoming a "Christian rapper" and the Duggar family building a "treehouse" for no discernible reason however-many Duggar upper teens and 20-something sitting around as talking heads who discuss only whether and who and when one of them will be "courting" and coyly give few if any answers -- Are you courting? Am I courting? Who's courting? Who's the next to be courting? WTF is courting? -- yeah, that's reality all right bronzer-poisoned Anna flitting through periodically as a sort of Greek chorus, moaning the actual theme material of the whole sad bunch of them -- "I don't know what's happened! I live my life 15 minutes at a time!" Meanwhile, missing in action are the actual cores of existence for the whole damn gang -- JB, who "employs" most of them as lawnmowers, chauffeurs and some other vague jobs that apparently shall always remain indeterminate, and at whose house even "independent" married Jessa seems to spend an alarming amount of her time, and the mob of younger Duggars, whose care and feeding constitutes the employment of all the rest of the stars of the show. Could it be any lamer?

I think one big problem with any of the Duggars doing counseling is that they're totally indoctrinated to say that, if they do something good, it's not them it's Jesus doing it, and, if they do something bad, it's the devil throwing temptation at them to ruin them. What the heck do you do in therapy with people whose kneejerk reaction is always to decline agency and ascribe everything in their lives to the action of outside forces, I wonder?

Oh, I hope not, but you're probably exactly right. They don't have anybody who can actually express a faintly complex thought accurately. Of course, why would the school teacher of four and counting need such a skill? They've had all the life force just squeezed out of them over many years. That's what happens to people who aren't allowed to be themselves but are forced to squeeze their whole lives into a box of someone else's devising, I think. Poor things. And by now they probably figure they don't have anything different to look forward to either.

Riveting.

What bothers me most about this kind of thing getting tossed to Bin is that it can only prolong his delusions about what his adult life is really going to be like. And the longer he's allowed to dwell in his stupid fantasies the farther behind he's going to be when reality actually hits and demands that he face up to life as an uneducated, non-resumed, unskilled, slow, stupid, unprepossessing father of heaven knows how many (and husband to a bitchy stay-at-home mother) who's never had a real job and has no idea how to get or to do one. These new "stars" of Duggar tv are so boring that there's no way they'll sustain a teevee show for more than a few years, at most. And they're so delusional they almost certainly won't be spending the time they are on teevee saving money, learning to live on little, getting educations and preparing for the l-o-o-o--n-g future of possibly plentiful parenthood ahead. And they aren't going to get a lifetime of speaking engagements or a teevee pastorship for millennials out of it afterward, as I suspect little Binny figures, given the way things are going so far. They're variously too boring, too dumb, too colorless, too negative and too uncharismatic for that. At some point, reality will come knocking, prepared to stay around for many decades, and it won't be pretty.

JB's more up to date. He relies on tv and internet advertising.

Are Josh's interactions with his children necessarily terrible because he's a cheating husband (and did whatever he did with his sisters). I don't think so. I remember back before the various sex revelations came out. I didn't participate in this board then but I did read here and other boards sometimes. And here and elsewhere lots of people noted that when Josh's interactions with his kids were shown, he seemed to be a pretty decent father. He seemed to enjoy being with the kids, treated them like individuals, didn't seem to be a sexist pig when it came to talking about and interacting with MacWhateverZie, and so on. It's not at all unheard of for people to be lousy, selfish partners but pretty good parents, in my experience. I've never really watched the show enough to have much data about how he interacted with the kids, but I got the strong feeling that most people thought he didn't do a bad job of it. That he was capable of engaging with them and looking as if he enjoyed it, for example. Some of us -- lots of us (all of us?) -- can be very selfish in some situations and toward some people and not particularly selfish at all in other situations and toward other people. Maybe Josh is like that. It's also not unheard of to be very fond of your two or three or four kids and nearly go into coronary arrest at the thought of having six or eight or 10 kids. That might even be a fairly normal and average reaction. I think there are things we can pretty clearly judge Josh on and other things where it's not very obvious. And I doubt that Josh is any less complicated than the rest of us -- probably more so, given the crazy house and crazy worldview that he grew up in. Whether he's truly selfish when it comes to his kids or whether they were mainly collateral damage of his Ashley Madison stuff being found out is one of those non-obvious, kind of complicated things, I would bet, just from what I noticed people saying over the years.