Churchhoney

Yeah, I imagine they heard rumors, but I doubt they were informed the way Gil and David -- mentioned above, along with the other actual "official" Gothard leader types -- certainly were .... There would be levels of information, and the troops -- which included the Duggars -- woudl have heard rumors only, I'm sure. .... Well -- rumors and denials. (of course, once you've heard the denials, you do know, in a way .... so I don't think I'd let any adults Gothardites off the hook....) Nevertheless, this is one thing I'm probably not going to blame Jim Bob for as much as I blame Gil Bates and his cohorts, I expect. That's okay, though, since Jim Bob has made enough trouble on his own.

Not only do they hang out with him, they've heard about all this stuff for decades. But they've just said that the girl after girl after girl after woman after woman after woman who's reported similar things was lying. To hurt wonderful Bill G. Because Satan, or something. It's nauseating. And, yeah, he most likely won't suffer for it a bit. This is a civil case. He won't have much reason to give a shit, I expect.

I think JIm Bob and Michelle are both seriously disordered, true malignant narcissists, although my guess is that Jim Bob is the worse of the two, at bottom..... And I guess since they've raised their family to be robots and isolated them from any other influences as much as possible, a lot of the kids have just picked up the narcissistic approach to things, even though I doubt that most of them have personality issues the way their parents do. That just wouldn't be likely in such a crowd. Michelle and Jim Bob are sick, in my opinion, and so everything they embrace -- such as their religion -- gets twisted when they interpret and use it, regardless of how twisted or not twisted the thing was to begin with. Narcissist parents seriously mess up any kids that they have. And in this case it's worse since they made the horrifying choice to have and mess up 19 of them.

Jim Bob's method couldn't earn the trust and respect of regular people with the average amount of ethics (or more) and couldn't earn the trust and respect of a gigantic evil hypocrite with no ethics at all. Plus, it did approximately zero (maybe less) to improve the actual situation. Talk about a fail on every level.

I'm afraid this one might be kind of redundant.

This is a good point. Except that I doubt it's the reason why the Duggars don't have a garden! lol Because that would require, you know, logic. And a concern for food sanitation. ha Just remembered, too, that somebody's recently paid them to graze cows on their land (maybe temporarily), right? So -- good thinking, Arkansas small farmer. Guess landfill milk is okay!

In Michelle's case, though, it'd probably more like just getting hit in the head.

The Jesuits got squelched a bit in Latin America, pulled out of some places, because they did a bit too much of it, according to the greater Church. .... Gotta love the Jesuits (in some ways, anyway)

Truly, though, I think that the only people who do do this are either cynical egomaniacs who don't actually believe it but are conducting some cult-building and grifting activities of their own .... OR -- the category I think the Duggars generally fall into -- they are kind of fearful and insecure people who absolutely MUST be part of a group that seems cohesive. People who are terrified of being outside the herd and can't actually believe ANYTHING on their own outside of a group think, for fear of being wrong or thinking something that others might disapprove of. People like that, I believe, are the only ones who have a long-term strong attraction to these massively sure-of-themselves cults and religions. And part of the reason they would do "mission work" like this is that they're sincerely -- though sheeplike -- committed to the beliefs and another part of the reason, I would bet, is that getting others to say they believe the same thing helps to shore them up in their own beliefs. And they feel they NEED those beliefs, because they scared and maybe kinda empty on their own. Derick and Ben seem to me very much to be these kind of insecure, parroty, sheep types. And of course the Duggars and Anna were all rigorously trained to be that. Jim Bob, I expect, has a big chunk of the insecure fearfulness and a maybe somewhat smaller but still pretty substantial chunk of the "I wanta lead my own cult for my own greater glory" type.

I would think that what was possible was their speeding the thing up for the exposure, so that it was kind of phony but not entirely. It bothered the heck out of me that they clearly were announcing it as a TEASER for the next season. To have a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old do THAT is just nauseating to me. Urging teenagers to live their lives according to what will make the best tv commercials and reality-show fodder. Horrifying. Ruin 'em for life, in my opinion. Anyway, my best guess is that the kids liked each other, thought they would make a good pair, were pretty sure they'd want to court at some point, and Marjorie really really did want exposure. So since the Duggs needed something and SOMEBODY new to tease the next season with (beyond Jill and Jessa) and since Marjorie clearly has ambitions, they decided, What the heck? Let's have a courtship right now! ...... So ... not quite as cynical as what you suggest, but nevertheless an awful thing to encourage anybody to do, let alone teenagers, since it's simply falsifying some of the most important things in your life, including your most complex and deepest feelings. (but of course the Duggars are so screwed up by their longtime life as media creatures rather than people, plus Gothard and extreme personality disorders, that the dangers and inappropriateness of this wouldn't even cross their minds) Anyway, once the show was off, there was nothing in it for anybody any more, since Marjorie wanted the exposure and media experience more than she wanted a courtship right now, and Josiah may not have wanted a courtship now either -- maybe he wants to DATE or something; he's a heretic, apparently, we know, given all his ALERT trips -- and there was nothing in it any more for the Duggs, so they all mutually agreed to can it, at least for the time being, or it just collapsed as a teen romance caught in a maelstrom like the recent Duggar mess well might, but not in any way that put the kids or the families deeply at odds. (Plus, these are the only tv people Marjorie knows, so I doubt she'd want to cut ties completely, no matter what -- she clearly does have ambitions in that direction.)

Perfectly explained! Thank you.

Well ... looks to me like they were just joking around. Entertaining themselves and maybe hoping to entertain on social media with silly pictures? Since they haven't started any wars or anything they probably have less need than cartoon GB did to justify his lack of seriousness, right? : )

Ah, a Duggar to the core. And a worthy follower to the Duggar master, Gothard, too. Josh is putting a somewhat different sexy-time spin on it. But his evade-all-responsibility and blame-everybody-else-all-the-time approach marks him as having fallen quite close to the tree, in my opinion.

I'll take "CYA 4 $$$s," Alex. For a thousand.

I'm waiting for him to say that he merely climbed into her bunk and touched her over her clothes. And that she slept right through it. And then cry.

One comment reads, in part: "I miss your show and being able to see the children grow and develop their own interests." I thought it was going to end with "because I've been watching you now for over a decade and I haven't seen this happen yet." It didn't, though.

Try to imagine what went on in the minds of the apparently many people at "headquarters" who knew about this stuff, heard about this stuff, in some cases even saw some of this stuff, for years and years and years, but didn't quit, run screaming to the police, punch the bastard in the head, demand that he stop, tell the girls' parents, burn down his damn house, tell an investigative reporter, or anything.....Just knew about these nauseating things -- that went on for decades -- and, apparently, just went on pursuing their programs, collecting their money, recruiting more people, shutting up those girls. Then, of course, there are lots of institutions in which similar things have gone on, with sex abuse, torture, every rotten thing you can imagine. Humans really are just sheep, in general, I suppose. Sheep who are mean, selfish, and utterly thoughtless. Apologies to the sheep, but I don't know what else it is except a mindless heartless herd. Really makes it hard to have any hope for humanity when you think about this crap.

Don't really know where to put this. But here's Libby Anne's summary of the Gothard/IBLP lawsuit facts. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2016/01/a-summary-of-allegations-against-bill-gothard-and-iblp.html

"And lo, they created God in their own image." That's a key passage from the book of Men-esis.

Good point. Cynical as this seems, I also think that a big reason for his running free for so long is that he hurt vulnerable teenage girls and, even with his evil philosophies, hurt mostly children and teens, not adults. In fact, Gothard has essentially given extra power to all the adults -- especially the men, of course -- in his group. They like that. Driscoll, by contrast, ran afoul of adults in his little institution (and outside it), and adults come after you if they're the ones who get hurt. And so he fell much quicker. If you hurt kids, though, a lot of adults will pretend it didn't happen and stand by your side. See Phillips, Doug. He was finally brought down by Lourdes' lawsuit, but his fellow Vision Forum "leaders" were damned reluctant to leave his side. After all, he'd only behaved very destructively with a vulnerable teenage girl, not usurped anything from another adult man. And I'm so glad he rues meeting the Duggars!

I think some of the girls didn't tell their parents for a very long time because they were freaked out and embarrassed and unsure who had really done something wrong, in this cult that always blames the woman and often blames the victim in most situations. Many of the girls he chose were from troubled families whose parents' reactions were so unpredictable that they feared to tell them or feared worse from their parents, who may have been molesters or abusers themselves. And some parents who were told found various reasons to excuse it because Gothard is their little tin god. That pretty much makes the whole crowd despicable, really, I think.

No. He lures young girls into his office, car, etc., often late in a long day. Tells them he'd like to relax and is going to take off his shoes and that they should, too. Then he maneuvers over to them, corners them, and puts his feet on theirs, forcing a footsie game even if they're shoving their feet under heavy furniture in an attempt to get away from him. He's not being Pope Francis humbling himself to raise up others by washing the feet of drug addicts, prisoners, people of many faiths, such as Muslims, in this time of Muslim hatred. Like Christ. There are many accounts of what Gothard does. It's forced footsie with the most vulnerable teenagers he can find. Of course, he describes it as "affirmative taps" on the feet of those he is counseling, in an effort to increase their confidence.

Because she and Bin are just so so godly, they were sent a sign of the Lord's special favor: the first self-changing baby.

I'm very sorry about your son. ... Have you thought about Quakers/Friends? That's about as much of a comforting faith as I can think of.