Churchhoney

Seems clear that Jer chose The Master's Seminary (out of all the other ones he could have chosen) because he loved loved loved John MacArthur. And he clearly knew exactly what things old John stands for. One of JM's top priorities, forever and today, has been his insistence on what women's place is. And if we want to hear just how much he insists on his view of this, in the 21st century, there are a lot of places where we can read or hear him rant about it. Jer doesn't advertise this -- I would guess because he's also trying like crazy to sell himself as a guy modern audiences will love. But I think JM's views are probably quite instructive about Jer's own probable level of respect for women and what he really meant by saying Jingle was "meek," back in the day, when many people didn't think he meant anything by it at all. There's no way in hell Jer didn't know about and strongly embrace JM's feelings on this, because those views have always been such a huge part of MacArthur's "teachings." Like here, for example. I would call JM's attitude and his way of expressing this kind of vicious toward women, actually. You could say it without the kind of actual anger or disdain or something that he displays -- but he's emotional about it --

Now I think that one's definitely a Jessa invention. .... And if it is, she's heard too damned much Old Testament reading, too, with no salutary doses of anything else, it seems like. And if it is Spurge....his parents are telling him way too many unfunny Old-Testament jokes. Yeesh. Surely Bin and Jessa must be bored out of their minds, too, right?

And he'll learn that life is boring as all heck. .... Which won't exactly inspire him to do anything except say or do stuff that raises some eyebrows and gets Jessa to post it for invisible strangers. He's not being allowed to see or hear about -- let alone personally explore -- any of the world's possibilities except endless rounds of readings from the Old Testament and the opportunity to be the first to find Ivy crawling into the refrigerator. No friends, few books, endless meetings with a bunch of dead-eyed relatives. Poor guy.

It's funny because it's true. 😁 I was suspicious about their reaction to the TLC cancellation. Seemed like they were taking it too calmly. Then it turned out that JB did have multiple other plans. Among the sons-in-law, Jer of the many -- but poorly conceived -- plans is most like his father-in-law when it comes to ambition and hunger for admiration, I'd say.

Maybe one of them spent a couple hours observing a wing walker. You could probably fly low to Branson. 😁

Exactly.

Totally agree with this. I see no reason at all to change the title. It's just as apt now as it ever was to me because I've always seen it as a title that's supposed to encompass the story of that whole young family, especially the children and their fate. Which is unfortunate as all get out.

How about "the convict"? I like the sound of that. Simple. Accurate. Traditional. No triggers. 🙂

Yes. Burnt down by budding young arsonists, Henry and Ivy, as I recall. So -- not just a fire. An arson fire! Which is getting to be the kind of thing you expect Spurge to say (or Jessa to pretend he's said?)......at least a little disturbing either way.....Certain amount of underground aggression in the group.....

I think she's inventing a bigger proportion of them these days. Which is understandable given that she's made it one of her main social-media shticks.....and they're desperate for more social-media income.......... To keep her posting balls in the air, she's gotta supply a steady stream of stuff that seems to attract and please the followers. ....And you can count on nobody, kids included, to provide actual good quotes day after day after day.... On the bright side, maybe all the practice will improve her writing skills and powers of invention. 😁

I doubt your sense of kid humor is impaired at all by not having kids. Jessa's got lots and lots of nostalgia, group identification (in a group that currently tends to feel itself persecuted) and inertia going for her when it comes to her fans sticking with her and showering her with "likes," no matter what, I think. I'm pretty sure she could write. "Spurge said, ';uatn89u08waehrjk pao8ng &*(HH Ipihohgs.' #SayingsofSpurgeon" and most of her fans would respond with a like and "Love!!" "He's SO bright!" etc.

It's a browser mode that doesn't reveal your location to websites you visit. Some online publications won't let you read if you're using one -- or they'll only let you read a limited amount. But at many websites you can use them. The option is generally offered in the list that's available at the upper right of your browser page -- the one that says something like "open new tab" or "open new window." The incognito/private option is usually right under the "new window" one. In Chrome, the new window is called "incognito" In Microsoft Edge, it's "InPrivate" In Firefox, it's "private" In Opera (where it opens when you click the O in the upper left), it's "private" Etc.

Yeah, that. And the fact that what they know is a house where you have one bedroom per sex. Their life is all the guys in the house sleeping in the same room. ..... The thing that's going to make life hardest for all of them is the "that's what they know" factor, I think. What they know is really really stunted and really really warped -- and will make everything else on the planet seem alien and uncomfortable to them when and if they encounter it. That'll dog them all if and when they try to or have to try living outside the bubble. Or even communicating with anybody outside the bubble.... Everybody in the world will feel alien and potentially hostile to them. And vice versa.

Yeah, that makes sense. The hollowness within has been well camouflaged to those who hope that it's solid.....

Once again showing that they don't respect education. Instead, they tend to despise it. After all, it's that thinking stuff and that questing after knowledge stuff that IS the original sin of humans against God. If you're a guy who has the right faith in the right Jesus, you don't need no stinkin' knowledge. So some woman is good enough to "teach" you , since all you need is to memorize the "wisdom" of those men of faith who came before. Neither the female "teachers" nor the "students" need to engage in any thought. And in fact they're basically ordered not to. They just rote-memorize stuff so they can spout it without understanding. So of course even a woman can manage "education" of that sort. Note the videos of Meeechelle "teaching" Josie to spout Psalm 1, KJV, with neither of them understanding a word of it. Ditto Jessa and whichever of her kids we've seen be "taught" to spout it as well. It isn't just that women teach because they're home all day. It's because the last things the leaders of these groups want is for anybody to be actually taught to use their brains to pursue ideas in a logical way or innovate or create. So women, the despised gender made only to follow men's rules, are perfectly fine "teachers" of rote memorization. The way they tell it, God gave people brains only to tempt us. "Following your reason" rather than just doing "faithfully" what the patriarchs have told you to do is a quick way to hell. This is why I say it's a joke that Gothard actually wanted to train up young men as "leaders." In the view of all these people, those young people would only be trained to loudly and pushily carry on the messages that were formulated in detail by the older generation and that the young are simply ordered to memorize.......He isn't in favor of training any "leaders" who might produce critiques of the old ways and come up with innovations. But that's what real leaders do. If you want to see what happens in a religion/cult when many actually start to consciously unpick all this patriarchy stuff and try to work their way through the mess a patriarchy very similar to the Duggarly one has created as it assembled a lot of power and money just in the past 150 years, listen to Mormon Stories podcast or watch their youtube channel. When your overall religion has come down to you over a thousand-or-more years (like almost all the other major religions), it's much easier to accept harmful stuff that's developed, like the patriarchy, without much questioning. There's a reason the word "time-honored" was invented. But because LDS is a religion that was created in the modern era, it's been easier for more believers to notice the craziness of quite a few of their traditions and practices and how much of it just amounts to a power and money grab by a limited number of men and families (despite the fact that most agree that the religion also has good things in it that have benefited people as well).

Verifiably, they do know at least one person from the church who died way too young from the disease, and it's very likely they have some acquaintance with a few more church and seminary casualties too. They also verifiably know immediate-family members of one of the dead. Apparently that knowledge doesn't increase anybody's common sense or concern for the vulnerable in one's family and community, though. I really don't get it.

Am I hallucinating or did the breakdown happen when Josh was around six or seven? When there were seven kids and Josh had started school? If that's true, then Jessa was approximately threeish? at the time of the breakdown. So....six years or so after the breakdown? Or else I'm talking through my hat....which is entirely possible....

I don't think we need to give them the benefit of any doubts on this ..... "Don't have a gazillion children, and then your children can be clean and cared for without running up water bills that send you into bankruptcy. Thoughtless jerks." 😁

I'm sure it ultimately had a lot to do with control and with not spending much time naked or in your underwear while changing, and so onn. I do wonder whether it may have started partly because of the water bill, though.

Yeah, because does JB (or M, for that matter) actually know anything or care at all about "theological issues," despite what they sometimes pretend? No, but they sure do care about their own power and influence.

This culture is a retrograde patriarchy where people can hide behind ideas about "freedom of religion" and religion as being the only effective source of good morals in our society while they exercise their power by committing all sorts of abuses and crimes. That kind of thing is all over, of course, but it's especially advanced in conservative churches because they experience so little pushback against "patriarchs in charge" thinking. ....

Yeah, there are definitely accounts of this form of patriarchy that put all offspring under the ultimate authority of their living patriarch, so when a male offspring becomes an umbrella himself, there's a kind of ultimate authority still over him......The wisdom of age is a big thing with some of them......So that extends in some ways to the people the offspring is umbrella-ing....... But other people's accounts don't include a father-in-law in the umbrella tree -- and I'm sure they definitely do that when they don't like the guy's theology.... There's a lot of jockeying to be regarded as an ultimate authority among these guys, I think....

Yeah, that does seem a little off, doesn't it? .... I do think he needed some responsible-seeming role for the women -- to some degree they had to go along with their husbands for the initial buy-in to his programs.......They're said to hold up the second umbrella of protection -- the umbrella that's right under the father's umbrella. He also grants children no agency or goodness or anything positive, so you wouldn't want to stick the almighty and very important fathers and husbands with the task of supervising them all day.! Of course the "schooling" Gothardism provides is mainly just getting the kids to read and listen to their parents well enough to rote-memorize all the stuff that he, Gothard, wrote down.....and memorizing bible verses with zero attempt to understand them. So in a way his vision of education is pretty minimal definition of education-- and, by extension, it's a bit demeaning toward the people who carry it out, too.......It's not that the mothers are viewed as knowledgeable. Just that they have some power in the family to make the kids sit still and memorize the "wisdom" pronouncements of the man, Gothard. That's the way I'd account for it, anyway. Women are clearly second-class people in his scheme. But they're still above children and young people -- because they're allowed to have power over them.

I think she must just be obsessed with fame. Seems to me she must have a personality that easily becomes a victim of social media and faux-celebrity culture. An addict, ever since Uncle Jim Bob and Aunt Meechelle and the cuzzes became famous for nothing and showed that fame was obtainable. And presumably obtainable for her because of her connection with them. Now she'll say anything -- true, false, nasty, overly nice, whatever -- that gets her a little more time at the edge of their spotlight. IT's like an insidious infectious disease.

Exactly And why must it be kept "in house"? So that this kind of crap can happen, can be not even dealt with -- and yet JB and M get to keep and build their reputations as just the bestest parents, Christians, and people ever!