Churchhoney

Very good point. Pretty much any thrift store in the country will get you that, and yard sales. Of course, the good news here is that Josie isn't defrauding us with her sinful kindergarten-age calves.

Oh, geez. It is some kind of virus or something?

Proof, in my opinion, that they're not "devout," as they're often characterized. They're not adult, they're not "believers," they're not a "good Christian family" following the tenets of a faith that they share with others. All JB and M are (and, by some appearance, a lot of the older kids as well) is big selfish babies who invented a "God" in their own image -- somebody in heaven whose sole concern is providing things that these selfish infants want, hating people that these selfish infants find yucky, looking down on people that these selfish infants want to see as lesser and in need of their "charity" because it makes them feel good, "requiring" things that make these selfish infants feel powerful and good about themselves. Etc.

If they're lucky, some kid will eventually see the lull for what it is -- evidence that, no, the Jim Bob way is probably not the best and only way to run one's life. And, realizing that, no, JB is not going to figure it out, that child will get up off his/her Duggar duff and march off to get an actual job, move out of the house, reveal a long semi-rebuffed flirtation with a non-Duggar-approved adult with whom he/she will elope, and/or reach out to family members or some other apostate-in-waiting local fundie acquaintances for assistance and partnership in joining the real world. The show's end and the hash Jim Bob is making of it provides a window. And as the light filters in, maybe somebody's eyes will finally pop full open. That's my hope, anyway. This is a time when it could happen, I think. Jim Bob's attention is elsewhere and some usually obscured truths about the family's way of life are on display. And if one moves, maybe more will eventually. Yeah, I'm being Pollyanna again. A time of transition and uncertainty like this can provide a window, though, for some people. Maybe some Duggar will be one of them.

Duggars: "God loves other people?!"

is it just me, or is that article absolutely disgusting? Whiny, arrogant, entitled idiots. And .... if the tv show was their God's plan, I guess he isn't planning too well, is he? Or maybe it was your plan, Duggars.

And this shows how much they've learned from their decade-plus on television. Compared to how much they think they know. Just hanging around a tv-production crew to the extent that they have ought to have imparted some sophistication about the process to anyone who was paying attention, seems to me. But these guys seem to come into everything assuming that they're the ones who know the score. The Dunning-Kruger effect again, I suppose.

Well, he couldn't have a son in-law get one up on him.

In most places, yes. Don't know about Arkansas. Reporting can be to something like child protective services, though, not to the police directly.

That might limit her to near-muteness, however. She doesn't seem to know a rose from a daisy, or the names of either, for example. Article summary: "Life had to be breathed into matter by God, just as the Bible says. It couldn't have arisen from nonliving matter the way these scientists are theorizing that it may have. Because it couldn't. It just couldn't. That's why. So stop asking."

I'm betting on "Limit -- One Child Per Family".

Perhaps he's Sierra's long-lost twin brother.

Boy Duggars do.

Kids are like money to him. In fact, I guess, kids are money to him. All that matters is how much or many you have. And one dollar bill is the same as any other. He's one of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

I wonder whether, despite everything, Anna may have been a little calmer and more relaxed during this birth experience than in her others, because the cameras and microphones weren't there. I have never watched any of her previous births, but just thinking about going through labor with a camera crew in the damn room the whole time makes me nauseated. I can't imagine being anything but practically terminally tense if that were happening. I'm probably over-generalizing, but if I were Anna I think I may have found this -- finally -- private birth an easier experience in just about any case.

There is a bit of a long-simmering potential schism in the UCC, however. While the denomination leaders are very very progressive and even attempting to commit the church to progressive action there's no small number of individual members and also individual churches that vehemently disagree with those ideas. So some UCC churches are still fighting for a more conservative way (as they have been since the 60s, when the denomination leaders were already on the progressive side), and in some pastors are trying to thread the needle by publicly promoting some of what comes down from the denomination level but not all of it. So you don't necessarily know what you're going to get when you go into a UCC church. .... If there are signs outside that say "God Is Still Speaking," though, you've almost certainly got a progressive one.

I'm confused. On a practical level, how can a bunch of U.S. missionaries -- most of them temps -- make these presentations and talk substantively about the deep questions and so on that this stuff would seem to entail ... in a Spanish-speaking country. Of course, plenty of folks there know some English, and I gather that Derick studied Spanish in college and Jill has done some studying. But this organization runs multiple conferences? And pretty much all of their activities seem to involve lengthy complicated conversations with people, including children? Como estas? and Donde esta la comida? aren't going to cut it when the conversation is about the state of your soul or why a church with a pope is a bad idea. And presumably they're working in rural village areas, where many fewer people likely speak English? I'm spectacularly bad at spoken-language studies, so perhaps I overestimate the problems here. But how many people from the U.S. would actually have the subtle, comfortable and wide-ranging conversational Spanish skills that I would think are needed to explain to people why independent Baptist theology is preferable to Catholic theology?... Could Derick and/or Jill possibly have Spanish skills that are up to this task? And is this the same mission group that the Duggs-as-a-superfamily have traveled with? Other than Jill, none of them have any Spanish speaking ability at all, do they? Where do nail painting and passing out cheap candy fit into the list of "missions" this group talks about? Have a very hard time getting my mind around a U.S. mission group -- with lots of short-term missioners -- whose work primarily consists (it seems) of talking. Oy. So much for "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." That said, my impression is that this is boilerplate language from the overarching group that manages the fund part of the website and not a description of what the Dills are actually asking, themselves, right? Nevertheless, I don't think I've ever seen such language on a nonprofit website, even in that way.

"Depending on the trip you go on, we will focus on presenting and sharing the gospel of Christ through house visits, village ministry, caring for orphans, public school ministry, and conferences for women, youth, and children." Seems incredible to me, but what I gather from this passage is that every ministry they do really just amounts to jawboning different groups. And I would guess that a lot of the jawboning is not dissimilar from the hellfire and brimstone stuff that Jessa and Ben do on social media. And this shows people what about Christ, exactly? Seems like it mainly would show them that D and J's God is pretty much all talk and no action. And pretty vengeful -- which I guess is a large part of their belief. Where's that "servant's heart" the Duggs are always blathering about? Missing as usual, even from this enterprise, apparently.

Actually, I think they started by converting Protestants. To Protestantism. At least that's the way I read the blog -- it strikes me that if the guy in question had been a Catholic they would have not tried to get him to go back to his old church.

"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." So in their eyes one of the big needs in El Salvador is for already baptized Protestants to start attending church again? Seems like they could have found plenty of work in that line right there in Arkansas. Hardly required pricey attention-seeking international travel.

They're the grandchildren of one of Jim Bob's favorite tax felons, Kent Hovind. Children of Eric Hovind. I kind of like that about Hannie. But it's because I imagine that it's because she's likes to play outdoors, run around and dig in the dirt. Hope that's the source and not just, you know, dirty floors and no baths.

Only inferior dads do this.

Hey, these people work hard at jobs all day, rigorously and creatively homeschool those kids, do it all without help....They certainly don't have time to ... Oh, wait....

Yeah, the expressions aren't that readable. Not a clearly interpretable picture!

I don't know. I'd call that picture very ambiguous. To me, from the expression I read on her face, it looks like she's gently teasing Jackson, maybe about how as a baby he had something in common with this little one, and is about to playfully tap his nose and say how cute he is or something. And it's probably something different than either you or I is seeing, I expect! Awfully hard to interpret, I think.