Churchhoney

Indeed. I remember that. I'm hoping that Gothardites (and similars) don't add up to 37 or 38 percent of the U.S. population, though! Last I heard, the total number of evangelical Protestants was in the 25 to 26 percent range as a proportion of the population and the total number of Catholics (of all stripes) was in the 20 to 21 percent range; Muslims are less than 1 percent and other Asian religious groups such as Hindus, who may be conservative, are an even smaller percentage. If you put all those folks together, it only adds up to about 48 percent of the population, tops, even counting the liberal Catholics and liberal Muslims and all evangelicals (who we know aren't all the same in belief and certainly don't all embrace Gothardish ideas). Maybe I'm having trouble with my math here (wouldn't be surprising!). But it looks to me as if, for the percentages in this survey to be right, it means that nearly 80 percent of the nation's total evangelical Protestant, Catholic and Muslim populations must believe that even in cases of abuse and abandonment divorce is sin. (I think it's pretty unlikely that many people in other groups, such as mainstream Protestants, Jews and nones, are swelling these numbers much, so I'm figuring most of those people would be in these three groups.) All that being the case, I'm having a really hard time understanding these numbers. They suggest that large majorities of American evangelicals and Catholics must be answering "yes" to the question whether divorce is still a sin in cases of abuse and abandonment. And, I say again, seriously? Big majorities of ALL evangelicals and Catholics? I must be making math errors here, but I hope somebody can point them out to me, because I'm baffled!

Yeah, you're probably right. It's got three syllables.

A couple of clergy friends of mine argue that clergy can be more likely to veer from official doctrine in their thinking than laypeople simply because they spend so much time thinking about that doctrine and taking it and its effects on people super seriously. Obviously, that's a certain kind of pastor, though. And they may never tell anybody about what they think. They may behave a little differently, though.

Thanks. That's what I thought, but then it struck me as odd that there are about the same number of them as there are of the people who think that you're sinning if you divorce somebody who knocked you silly or disappeared into the sunset...... And it sure leaves a small group in the middle ground -- with about 75 percent of all people apparently either taking the hardest possible line (half of them -- the 37 percent or so who don't condone divorce for abuse or abandonment) and the most liberal possible line (the other half -- the 37 percent or so who condone it no matter what). (since there obviously couldn't be any overlap between those two groups -- unless people hopelessly misunderstood the questions) Just seems nutty that only about a quarter of people take a more nuanced view than either of those. .... Strange numbers all around, to me anyway.

Ditto for the 38 percent who are said to think divorce is a sin in cases of abandonment. Seriously? So the abandoned person is supposed to remain married to somebody they'll never see again and who is probably shacking up with or bigamously married to somebody in another state? That makes no sense either. Who the heck thinks that? I wonder whether the public sample was really skewed somehow. Or people didn't understand the question because of all the "is a sin" "is not a sin" confusingness? I also don't understand the "none of these" entry -- or the numbers for it. Or maybe I'm just overestimating the country's liberalness ...

I would bet that's because the pastors know a lot more people, know a lot more people's situations, have given a lot more thought to those situations and have seen much more of people's emotions over those situations than most lay people. Understanding tends to make people more understanding, I think.

Funding patterns for Family Research Council Action seem to be making some lefties wonder whether Koch brother dark money may have been the bucks and impetus behind Josh's hiring. Having one of the biggest political money powers out there supporting your hiring as a key tool for winning the 2016 election would certainly go to the head of an already arrogant little SOB like Duggar if he had any hint of it. At any rate, his hiring seems to have brought cash into FRC Action. I guess everybody figures that television celebrity can be an election game changer. http://www.prwatch.org/node/12914 "In June 2013, Duggar was hired to work as the Executive Director of "Family Research Council Action."....According to newly reviewed tax filings, it turns out that Family Research Council Action first received funding from a little known entity called "EVANGCHR4 Trust" between June 2013 and May 2014. That entity--which plainly refers to transferring money to evangelical Christian groups--is legally tied to a mysterious limited liability corporation called "ORRA LLC," which received more than $5 million from the Kochs' Freedom Partners operation, which was secretly launched in 2012 to replace a predecessor entity." http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/koch-brother-claims-he-is-a-libertarian-but-he-wants-to-control-a-lot-of-our-choices 'There was quite a bit of pomp when the Family Research Council, a Washington, D.C.-based so-called traditional values lobbying outfit, announced that Josh Duggar would become Executive Director of Family Research Council Action, a 501©(4) political and lobbying arm of the FRC. During his brief tenure with the FRC, the organization boasted about Duggar’s relationships with several prominent GOP politicians, listed him as a featured speaker at its annual pro-life conference called ProLifeCon, and touted its “Values Bus Tour,” which Josh, his parents, sisters, and brothers participated in. That was before revelations surfaced that Duggar’s parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar – stars of the now-cancelled reality television show, “19 Kids and Counting” – covered up their son’s sexual molestation of five young girls, including four of his younger sisters, while he was a teenager.... 'In 2012, the Koch Brother’s Freedom Partners threw more than $200 million into the election....While there are many unknowns about the Kochs’ political funding patterns, several things are clear: “Freedom Partners is their baby and it is run by their operatives to advance their vision for America, one election at a time,” and “Freedom Partners provided "general support" to ORRA/EVANGCHR4, which in turn provided "general support" to Family Research Council Action, although Freedom Partners told the IRS its grantees--like ORRA and David Koch's "Americans for Prosperity"--are barred from using the money for "electioneering purposes."'

Well, it's certainly an interesting thought. I tend to think not, but you never can tell with Jim Bob, of course. Scheming is his middle name. Not that he's necessarily very effective at it. Right there with you on spending way too much energy on these horrible people. Yeah, see, I thought that was Ben's day job, too. ... Of course, I'm not there at his mailbox when the paycheck doesn't come.

I thought the same thing about that post. It seems as if Jill may be making some tiny little moves away from the Duggar mind-warp. After all, her brother is now just a member of her "extended family." Yeah. Extend that distance some more, Jill. Sometimes a little distance and hanging out with somebody like Derick who hasn't lived his whole life in the horrifying Duggar bubble can make a real difference. And it is too bad that Joy's going back to a place where she's mainly viewed as a household appliance. I don't know how those kids can stand it, really.

I don't think she's ever seen a model of people having a relationship just between fellow human beings, come to think of it. Maybe some of the siblings have that kind with each other, but I suspect that, if they do, they keep it on the qt. I'm remembering the time that Michelle said that Jim Bob is her buddy. When you first hear that, you think of buddy as pal or friend or "closest person to me in this group," but then you think of the Duggar interpretation -- and it turns out that it's actually "somebody you've got a series of responsibilities for." Jill and the rest of them have been taught to view everyone as a responsibility and/or an overseer and/or a person filling some God-assigned role such as headship or stay-at-home-daughter or whatever. You have to look at people as individuals to have a real relationship, and it's going to be a long road for some Duggars to re-envision the world in that way, I expect. They just haven't seen it happen. Takes me back to my reaction to the idea that Joy has a "best friend." When kids grow up without seeing real relationships between individuals play out, there's a big danger that they'll spend many years or maybe whole lives being a lot like badly socialized dogs. When you haven't seen any genuine individual relationships, you don't know what they are, you don't know you aren't having them, and you don't know how to conduct them, initiate them or act within them. I expect Jill's got this problem in spades.

Yeah, you probably do! There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio..... ; - )

Oh, yeah, it's terrible for women who are pushed into it by a "headship," whether it's a sexual dom thing or a "theological" or just meanness thing on the husband's part. Of course, I guess most everything women are pushed into by a headship is terrible -- imagine the women who really don't want 10 children. This patriarchy and complementarian stuff is awful. On the other hand, I know some it's-not-BDSM (except I know it is) couples in which the husbands don't seem to have the dom desire at all but the wives keep pushing for the lifestyle because they have the sub desire (I'm convinced) although they steadfastly assert it's for some sort of theological reason. The husbands don't like that and resist it, but the wives keep pushing it and pushing it (which to me proves it's sexual desire they aren't acknowledging). That's not a great situation either, but at least the men don't get hit, I guess. It does make some quite unhappy, however. Having this theology that assigns "roles" to the sexes is one more thing in the conservative-Christian world that muffles honesty, communication and self-knowledge and leads to a lot of crap that could otherwise be avoided.

I think that is true of many people, especially the couples in which women actively promote having the lifestyle (and there seem to be a lot of those, actually). But I also think that most who fall into that category don't know or don't let themselves realize that that's what they're doing. They can't let themselves acknowledge that there's anything sexual about it because, of course, anything sexual is bad. And if you had to acknowledge that you not only had sexual desires but that you acted out sexual desires that many would consider kinky -- that would be just too much, especially for a lot of conservative Christian women.

And in a country with extremely low voter turnout, often just a few people being inspired to go to the polls can turn an election, especially for a local issue.

Shhhh! The whole point is to keep us from asking that kind of question! Look! Over there! It's an umbrella of protection! Oh, if you and your husband love the Jesus we tell you about, he will never ever even think about being unfaithful! Don't you want to join our group now? I swear it's all about distracting women from taking a good look at what the score really is so these self-indulgent, loser men can go on being kings of their sad little hills. Worse, the women keep falling for it.

Jessa thinks that quoting pretentious, pseudo-complex blithering abstraction makes her sound smart. Wrong again, Jessa.

I suppose that's it. But I still think it's just odd.

This is the plane's flight history, though, not JD's. There's no reason they can't be renting a plane out to other private pilots who don't own their own planes or whose planes are in the shop or whatever. Plenty of people do rent out their planes to other private pilots. I can't see Jim Bob passing up a buck if he had any takers.

I imagine they'll run like hell outside the Gothardite circle to find someone to marry.

Either that, or he's not appearing anywhere outside the RU compound. Seems to me it could go either way. He and they might want to avoid having media -- or people on the street -- coming up to him with questions, accusations, etc. So it seems possible that he could just be confined to barracks, for everybody's protection and convenience, doesn't it? I wonder whether other people don't occasionally rent the plane to fly themselves. Plenty of private pilots don't own their own planes or don't have them available all the time. Wouldn't Jim Bob want to make whatever money he could from his vehicles instead of having them sit idle unless the family's using them? ... I think some of the flights that get everybody curious may be red herrings.

I don't think it's common at all. I can't think of a law named after a person -- except ones that are called by the names of their actual legislative sponsors, although that isn't usually the law's official name --that wasn't named by some other people. It's kind of like a president or governor naming a bunch of public buildings after him/herself. Nobody would do that. It seems off to me. I think you'd feel stupid doing it. .... Unless you were pretty egocentric ... Could there be another reason? I dunno. Before the Josh incidents were revealed. And at which time they did not mention to her that they had ever had any problems with bad touch in their family. More Duggar honesty and straightforwardness.

Well, I hope that's true, But Carlin Bates never lived near Joy and then moved. They've never lived closer than hundreds of miles ever. And it looks to me as if, when they've met, it's only been at big family gatherings or big Gothard events, usually with whole families present -- not as individual kids bonding at a camp or some place where kids can be individuals and have some autonomy. I'm suspicious because my own background acquainted me with how some narcissistic control-freak families operate when it comes to isolating their children. I grew up in one of these highly controlling, isolating families. And I was permitted to have no actual friends, to go nowhere where I would make actual friends, and to have no significant communications, long distance or otherwise. Isolation is key for an awful lot of controlling people. At the same time, my family, throughout my life and to this day, talks about friends and "best friends" that I supposedly had as a child and a teenager. Their hope, clearly, has been to make me and everyone else think that some vague acquaintances I had through school, church and family were my "friends," since they knew I realized that kids had friends and they knew that it was important to try to look normal to the rest of the world. They weren't going to risk having any outside influences developing or having the captives exchange any information with the outside world, but they wanted it to look as if they did. Maybe the Duggars aren't this way, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if they are. And if they are, it's another thing they do that cripples their kids in ways that those kids won't understand for a long time but will feel the effects of pretty badly.

Hope so. Although I don't think the term "celebrity worship" was invented for nothing. Seems to me people tend to follow the lead of celebrities, a lot of time, and that's a big part of worship.

Yeah, that sounds bad all right. One of the most depressing things I've read in a while. Unfortunately, it also sounds plausible. What kind of hell must she be living in right now? And how is that translating to those four innocent little kids, those little sponges soaking up whatever emotions are around them? What an environment.

How sad is it that a 17-year-old girl's "best friend" lives hundreds of miles away?