Churchhoney

Me, too. Satan exactly. EA and some others, including Jim Bob, in fact, creep me out so much just on video that I can't get my head around people's ability to be near them in real life and not be sickened, honestly.

It would certainly do more for his image than being photographed eating ice cream in a public place, while talking about how wonderful his marriage is. If you can go to ice-cream parlors or whatever and get the resulting photos published in the celebrity media, you aren't exactly on total safety-related lockdown.

Ern'st ENNNNNGley is another one who's had scandals recently -- but he had to reach his 90s for this stuff to come out, and nobody seems to have noticed outside of Northeast Ohio. He always kind of looks to me like he could be another Gothard brother. http://www.ohio.com/news/local/ernest-angley-s-grace-cathedral-rocked-by-accusations-involving-abortions-and-vasectomies-1.531094

After all this time, maybe her knees are just blurry.

Yeah, first she'd have to admit that she's Dugg-addicted. That would be the toughest step, I imagine.

Duggar bedtime goes hand in hand with plain old Duggar time, apparently. .... And I guess all those kids are at the house that their various parents are working on? Not sure what I think of that as a way for a bunch of little kids to spend their evenings. And if it's Josh's house, where the heck is he when his sibs and in-laws are fixing it up? I doubt that he's being a comfort to Anna.

Methinks Shaggy feels that he wasn't cut out for corporate and is enjoying his freedom to be ... shaggy.

I know it's dicey. But I moved away from an isolating situation as well (although I did go to school and held some jobs, I had had virtually no social contact with other humans outside of the classroom or direct work situations and I was all but mute even in those places -- I had been trained to be terrified of speaking to other people, including on the telephone, and I had no idea at all about how average people actually lived their day-to-day lives). But while I experienced a lot of culture shock, I still found the pull of the real, wide world to be ultimately irresistible, and within a few years I'd become quite a different person. I had fairly severe social phobias, and do to this day, but I still found myself doing things that I never would have imagined doing, and I knew that I would never ever go back. Change is possible, even when you've been assiduously brainwashed and had the spunk drummed out of you in numerous ways. I truly think she's getting a serious chance at change here, and because of my own experience, I'd never say never to the possibility of anybody finding a new life. Which is not to say that Jill will have a rebirth, of course.

Well, we know it isn't because of sports. Maybe the shape of a real bra is too defrauding to look at, even by women? Had the Seewalds already bought nursery furniture? I don't remember hearing of it. Seems to me they're more likely to be shopping for that, if they didn't already have it. I still can't see Jessa wanting to be responsible for that huge-ass house. Especially when she's got a new baby to take care of.

Call me crazy, but I'm holding out hope that Jill will surprise us and do well. For the first time in her life, she'll be (I hope) out of JB's and M's reach and without constant Duggar brainwashing. She'll be with someone who, in the past at least, has been very enthusiastic about living a different kind of life. This is a chance for some latent openness, curiosity, stamina, imagination and enthusiasm to come out in Jill, and I don't see any definitive proof that she utterly lacks those things. "We never know how high we are/Till we are called to rise," as Emily D said. "And then, if we are true to plan,/Our statures touch the skies." C'mon, Jilly Muffin, run true to plan. I'm thinking JB and M would hate skeptical, questioning, quirky all-observant Emily. Makes me hope that somebody in that household has a drawer full of unshared poems right now. Don't suppose the Duggar kids can even find a secret drawer and a minute to scribble freely in the TTH, though, more's the pity.

Well, let's see. Beauty pageant contestant and a woman who must be covered from chin to feet at all times. Maybe this was a panel on unhealthy body image?

I think nachos made with a goodly helping of black beans -- from two or three industrial-sized cans -- and a nice load of tomatoes and peppers could be a solid step up from a lot of what I hear the Duggars eat. Nutritious, tasty and still easy enough to be done in hurry by people with jobs, schools to go to and so on. Which brings up the usual questions: Why are they so uncreative about everything, including dinner? And what the heck do they all do with their time?

The tradition of breaking children's wills is a really really old and extremely widespread one. It was a major explicit aim of childraising when I was growing up. And it's such an old tradition that I would be surprised if many of history's greatest geniuses and leaders weren't raised in homes where will- and spirit-breaking were at the top of the childrearing agenda. But while I expect that most if not all people subjected to this are pretty damaged in some ways, drive, curiosity, creativity and so on can clearly survive it.

I know that if I want to learn about healthy body image, healthy eating, and how to ally clinical principles with faith the first place I go is to a random Duggar and her husband the tax accountant. Huh?

And painting flamingos. Don't forget painting flamingos. Yes, I agree. I'm sure the tv has been a negative factor. That's one big reason why I want to see it end -- I think pretty much all sparks are covered until it does. They might stay trapped without the show, too, but with it they're really crushed.

I think most people believe and have been taught what you're describing here. It's not that the other ideas are at all common -- and they also don't seem to be closely allied with any particular denominations or major theologians. Rushdoony was a Calvinist, but his postmillennialism isn't at all a mainstream Calvinist belief either. His ideas have had some very prominent proponents, though -- just a lot fewer of them than the number of people who have evangelical or fundamental Protestant beliefs of the regular kind. As I understand it, the "post-millennialists" don't necessarily believe that the end times are coming any minute. But they do believe that Christ is slated to have a thousand-year reign on Earth just before the last judgment, and that that reign will not begin until the Christian faithful themselves transform the planet into a place where Christian ideas hold sway in all areas, including governments.

Unfortunately for Derick, I'll bet he's thought of Jim Bob as a kind of "prayer parent." Wake up, Derick.

Finding yourself cleaning a toilet in hopes it'll garner you fame should be a wakeup call alerting you to the fact that fame is unlikely to be your destiny.

I was actually raised like this (although I did go to public school .... absolutely no socializing with the other children outside of school, however, and in the early grades when there was a nearly hour-long lunch period, I went home during it). Nevertheless, curiosity and spark are very hard to kill in a lot of people. They certainly were for me. Even before I went to first grade I was curious about everything and had all kinds of weird little crafts and experiments and such that I did and imaginary worlds that I lived in, essentially making something out of nothing and even though my doing it was heavily discouraged. And I got hold of any printed material I could, even though in my household the phrase "dirty books" meant virtually all books that weren't directly school- or church-related. So the Duggars truly are extraordinary in having so many kids who all seem to either lack or very effectively hide any trace of interests. Don't know how they did it, but whatever their methods, they ought be prohibited, damn it.

He must have. Or maybe he's just hypnotized them.

I think that's absolutely true. But what really bugs me is that there are plenty of home-based things that they could do, even given their lifestyle and limited prospects, that I don't see them doing. If I were a young woman preparing to be a stay-at-home mom who schooled her own children, I would have lots of curiosity about things like making a home garden to have vegetables and fruits and beautiful flowers in my house; creative cooking of things that would be both tasty and healthy for kids; pet care so that my kids could experience life with the animals in God's creation; and all kinds of art and craft projects that we could both enjoy doing together as a family and use to enhance our house and give as presents and donations. I'd be busy researching -- and trying to create -- homeschool materials to find the best ones before I got too busy with babies to have the time for it. I'd be seeking out all kinds of information on kids' learning, good low-cost toys and games to keep the kids entertained and active. I'd be looking into church-based volunteer activities in my community. Heck, I find all those things very interesting and I'm not a big stay-at-homer (although I was raised as one) and am no longer in the little-kid-raising age. I suppose that their fearfulness might account for their seeming lack of interest in those things as well, but it really seems as if it has to be more than that. It seems like a terminal lack of curiosity and spark, even when it comes to things that would likely be a great fit for their beliefs and lifestyle. I suppose that part of the problem may be the very very dull and chaotic schooling that they've all received and their parents' apparent lack of interest in anything but their own egos. Whatever it is, they truly seem to have killed all spark of any kind in most of those kids.

So I decided to brave the multiple Father's Day videos. Didn't make it far. Reminded me of a hostage situation. Jerk has convinced them that other fathers don't ever see their kids or even feed them, apparently. Then I noticed this: Whoever puts this stuff up there misspelled Jana's name. Sweet merciful crap. http://www.duggarfamily.com/index.cfm?p=happy-fathers-day

I don't know what the Duggars believe, but a lot of American Protestant theology (in particular, though the ideas have appeared in other times and places as well) has dealt with this whole "When will Christ return and then what?" question. A lot of stuff flows from the idea of a thousand-year reign of Christ on Earth before the last judgment -- a millennium, but there are different schools of thought about how it happens. One school of thought is postmillennialism, which teaches that there will be a millennium but that it can only come after believers on Earth have created hospitable conditions for it. One impetus for homeschooling among some of its high-profile champions -- such as the Calvinist theologian Rousas Rushdoony, for example -- has been that children of believers have to be pulled away from all influences of the current worldly government and trained in the home to take over the nations of the world as a necessary precondition of the millennium. Some people call this Christian Reconstructionism. I'm sure there are some influences of the Duggars that embrace this idea or something like it, but I have no idea whether they consciously hold it or what. There's a lot of stuff written about all of this, although many of the homeschooling people seem to be keeping it more under their hats these days. Here's just one tiny example: https://understandingbooksbible.wordpress.com/2013/10/10/premillennialism-postmillennialism-and-amillennialism-part-1/

Nobody knows. I think the general view is that Nepal is probably not the destination, given that it would probably be easier to get a missionary gig in many other places currently, after the earthquakes.

Ha. Now, see, this just shows how well things work out for Jim Bob. He must be doing something right!