Gimme That Old Time Religion

[crazycatlady58]

30 minutes ago, Westiepeach said:

Jesus?

They would have you think so.

[Churchhoney]

38 minutes ago, GeeGolly said:

 

Meanwhile, a priest in DC gave a sermon about not cowering in fear of the virus, saying parishioners were “lukewarm in their faith" if they didn't attend church in person. He went to the hospital that night with a fever and tested positive for covid. After handing out communion wafers to parishioners. 

 

Which shows the guy really wasn't paying attention.

Back in March, our first positive test in DC was an episcopal priest and our first death was a Franciscan monk. Both were widely publicized. So DC had a warning from the very first -- back when these two unfortunate guys wouldn't have yet known to protect themselves -- that church services were likely to be serious spreader events. 

Jesus didn't protect them. But I suppose they just had two wrong Jesuses going. It's all proof that you gotta have the right one, the one who loves JillR and Jim Bob best. 

Edited August 3, 2020 by Churchhoney

[GeeGolly]

2 hours ago, Churchhoney said:

Which shows the guy really wasn't paying attention.

Back in March, our first positive test in DC was an episcopal priest and our first death was a Franciscan monk. Both were widely publicized. So DC had a warning from the very first -- back when these two unfortunate guys wouldn't have yet known to protect themselves -- that church services were likely to be serious spreader events. 

Jesus didn't protect them. But I suppose they just had two wrong Jesuses going. It's all proof that you gotta have the right one, the one who loves JillR and Jim Bob best. 

You know, in my heart of hearts I do not wish this virus on anyone. But I have total asshole moments here and there, where I'd wish a scary but mild case on a couple folks. One who shall remain nameless, but also a rule buck and anyone of the Duggars or Duggar adjacents who are bucking the rules.

[Churchhoney]

41 minutes ago, GeeGolly said:

You know, in my heart of hearts I do not wish this virus on anyone. But I have total asshole moments here and there, where I'd wish a scary but mild case on a couple folks. One who shall remain nameless, but also a rule buck and anyone of the Duggars or Duggar adjacents who are bucking the rules.

Me, too. 

[DangerousMinds]

It’s going to hit one of these families eventually.

[Mrs. P.]

12 minutes ago, DangerousMinds said:

It’s going to hit one of these families eventually.

Probably, but I wonder if we'll ever know about it. 

[Churchhoney]

So as I wonder how somebody moves out of these situations -- or doesn't -- I just watched this seven-part series, on youtube about an LDS family (a wife and husband and their -- wonderful -- oldest daughter and son)  who each separately and in their own particular way moved away from the church. They're smart, educated, and devoted to reading and critical thinking, so the Duggs and their pals would never leave in the way they do, but I do think this series is one of the clearest and most complete descriptions of what people find in these very demanding, hierarchical religions and the feelings that you have when you're all in, when you're questioning and when you're out. It's from a series called Mormon Stories. I've watched a bunch of these before, but I've never seen one that gave quite so much space to a single story, and showed it from several points of view within the story, and showed how these folks were affected as individuals and also in their relationships to one another. 

One thing it touches on several times is the bubble by means of which these high-demand, somewhat isolating religions sort of naturally keep out any information or ideas that the group/structure/hierarchy doesn't want to think about or want any of their own to hear. The guy who runs the podcast was excommunicated some years ago, and it was such a high-profile news story that the New York Times live-tweeted events surrounding his excommunication. But this family that lived in a Mormon heartland in Idaho, while the husband was the local bishop at the time, never heard a thing about it. 

Here's a link to the third of the seven episodes, if anybody's interested.......

 

Edited August 6, 2020 by Churchhoney

[awaken]

Very interesting, thank you, @Churchhoney!  It’s a podcast?  I’ll look it up!

[Churchhoney]

12 hours ago, awaken said:

Very interesting, thank you, @Churchhoney!  It’s a podcast?  I’ll look it up!

Yeah, it's a very long-running podcast, and some of them are on youtube as videos. Just look for Mormon Stories. 

ETA: This is a very recent set of episodes. It's the Excommunication of Bishop Sam Pinson. 

EMLTA: Fun fact: if there are any long-time SYTYCD fans here, there are 5 or 6 podcasts featuring Benji Schwimmer's story about being gay in one of these stringent LGBQT+-horrified religions. 

Edited August 6, 2020 by Churchhoney

[awaken]

14 hours ago, Churchhoney said:

Yeah, it's a very long-running podcast, and some of them are on youtube as videos. Just look for Mormon Stories. 

ETA: This is a very recent set of episodes. It's the Excommunication of Bishop Sam Pinson. 

EMLTA: Fun fact: if there are any long-time SYTYCD fans here, there are 5 or 6 podcasts featuring Benji Schwimmer's story about being gay in one of these stringent LGBQT+-horrified religions. 

Thanks for the info!  I definitely want to listen to benji’s story!  I was a fan of his on SYTYCD. 
 

for those interested in the case involving the US missionary who ran a medical clinic in Uganda despite having no training, here’s the latest:  https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/07/31/897773274/u-s-missionary-with-no-medical-training-settles-suit-over-child-deaths-at-her-ce

[fonfereksglen]

The sign outside a local Lutheran Church .... Do not Covid thy neighbor's Life.  Wear a mask!

[Scarlett45]

Bringing this over from the Jessa thread- where she was explaining that her children were sinners because all human beings are born in sin. Of course I’m not Christian so what I think doesn’t mean shit, but the notion that you are a sinner just because you were born, before you could develop any sort of understanding or free will doesn’t sit right with me. What good does it help to teach children that?

[crazycatlady58]

50 minutes ago, Scarlett45 said:

Bringing this over from the Jessa thread- where she was explaining that her children were sinners because all human beings are born in sin. Of course I’m not Christian so what I think doesn’t mean shit, but the notion that you are a sinner just because you were born, before you could develop any sort of understanding or free will doesn’t sit right with me. What good does it help to teach children that?

None and a lot of Christians to not believe that.

[GeeGolly]

55 minutes ago, Scarlett45 said:

Bringing this over from the Jessa thread- where she was explaining that her children were sinners because all human beings are born in sin. Of course I’m not Christian so what I think doesn’t mean shit, but the notion that you are a sinner just because you were born, before you could develop any sort of understanding or free will doesn’t sit right with me. What good does it help to teach children that?

And although I didn't watch to her video, why, if she struggling so much with this, would she do the same to her own children?

[Scarlett45]

6 minutes ago, crazycatlady58 said:

None and a lot of Christians to not believe that.

Thank you for sharing that. 

[Churchhoney]

1 hour ago, GeeGolly said:

And although I didn't watch to her video, why, if she struggling so much with this, would she do the same to her own children?

She's drunk the kool aid that's designed to convince this gang that your testimony and so on are the be-all and end-all of life. The only important thing. 

And her story ends in victory, because of course it does.... I don't think they'd call anything a testimony unless it had a struggle of some kind and then you came out knowing that, yes, Jesus saved me! And I guess after you "know" that then all your troubles getting there are no longer anything except the necessary steps on your pilgrim's journey or whatever. And the reason you tell people about them is so that they can be encouraged to give their lives to Jesus and be just as saved as you are. And since being saved is the only really important thing that happens in your earthly life -- according to them -- you certainly wouldn't deprive your children of taking the same journey and having testimonies of their own.

You're supposed to have a story of struggle and sin that ends with being saved and knowing Jesus is walking with you all the time and you'll be with him in paradise . ... So that's the story she's got....

I do think that she actually experienced a struggle. I think she didn't know what her salvation would be like but she probably assumed that it would be huge and feel huge....She was a kid, after all. So it seems likely to me that she would have wondered where the fireworks were. ...

And then she was a kid in the middle of a whole bunch of siblings who were/are most likely very competitive with each other -- and just as misguided as she was in expecting some kind of fireworks from all this. So she didn't feel what she thought she'd feel and somebody else told her that they did feel it.  ...

And we know Jessa's super-competitive and that being saved in the blood in the blood in the blood is the only thing her family always points to as important (except money, but they're quieter about that). ... Every single birthday or courtship or whatever that comes along, they're constantly harping on how this one and that one is really really committed to Jesus. Judging by their greeting cards it's the only thing they're interested in. So if somebody seemed to be getting ahead of her on the "close to Jesus" front, Jessa would not have been happy. ... So I'm sure she did feel turmoil.....It wasn't important turmoil -- just competitiveness and frustration over something that actually doesn't even exist in the form in which she was looking for it....But it was turmoil nonetheless, so it can go in her story...........

And then she found some way to get around this and feel that she'd triumphed. ...So -- testimony!

I'm sure she can hardly wait till those kids start fretting about this and declaring themselves sinners. I mean, compared to Jinger (I think) and David Waller (definitely) Spurgie's already verging on being behind schedule. Surely the SayingsofSpurgeon will be showing some consciousness that he's enmeshed in mortal sin one day soon.

I mean, they're already reciting Psalm 1, KJV (while not understanding a syllable of it -- but why should that matter?)

Why a culture would proliferate around putting this level of misguided drama in every kids' life I can't figure.....Although I suppose it gives them something to do, since they're not going to school.

 

 

Edited August 24, 2020 by Churchhoney

[Zella]

There's also a weird dynamic I've noticed in a lot of churches in that people who have been raised in Christian homes all their lives and never really experienced a crisis of faith seem to think that makes them boring and like it somehow cheapens their testimony, so they feel compelled to sound more dramatic. A related variation of that is people who seem to exaggerate their misdeeds--I guess because they think it is more compelling than "I kind of partied a little in college." I have some pretty wild relatives and acquaintances, so I was always pretty unimpressed at the myriad number of preachers or other Christians I heard who would be like "I SINNED!" And then you find out they drank a little. And I truly don't mean to sound dismissive of them or their experiences, but they present this as if they were living the Led Zeppelin life when I think being more honest about their experiences would actually be more effective.

I can see Jessa's testimony having elements of this simply because it's expected. Not to say she didn't have her own share of issues with it, but I don't really think she had as serious of a crisis of faith as, say, Joy did, which required some sort of intervention from Joe. 

Edited August 24, 2020 by Zella

[Absolom]

At one point some years ago, it was a thing at the Catholic school where my friend teaches to come up with a talk that was the same as a testimony even though generally that isn't a thing with Catholics.  It was someone who'd been to a Baptist baptism and thought what a great idea and we can use it to relate to the kids for religion.  Right.  So my friend life-long Catholic with zero evangelical type conversion experience asks me what these people are yammering on about and how to come up with something to slide by when as she said she was born Catholic, baptized Catholic, Catholic school, confirmation, and that's just that.  We kind of fudged around to embroider as little as possible to get a statement.  Just crazy.

[DangerousMinds]

Yes, thank goodness Catholics don’t have that “testimony” thing. I had never even heard that word until I was well into adulthood.

[Lisa418722]

I think Joy is really the only one we have heard about to experience a real crisis of faith. I know nothing has been said but I wonder about what she and Austin went through after Annabelle's death.  To me, it seems like Jessa  had to do SOMETHING because of all the positive feedback Jill has been getting about putting Izzy in school and (maybe) seeing a counselor. So Jessa had to put her own video out there for people to talk about.  

I grew up in church and until the end of February was going regularly, not every time the door was open, and not every week, but regularly enough.  It seems like COVID has made me do my own questioning.  Regarding testimony I don't think I really have a testimony. I grew up going to church.  I was baptized when I was 12 (I think) and I'm still not sure I knew what I was doing that day.  I have prayed for things that have never happened, even though I see it happen to other people.  What's my testimony supposed to be: Yeah, I believe in God, but I'm not sure if He even likes me.  

[MunichNark]

As a kind of Catholic, this whole "personal relationship with Jesus" thing weirds me out. He is not my best friend, the guy I hang out with to have a cuppa. It's just so weird. Where does this even come from?

We don't do any of that stuff, thankfully. A lot of people are cultural Catholic, they will have christenings and go to Church on Easter/Christmas, etc, so they aren't deeply into it.

I also don't get the rigidity of it - the Bible was never meant to be taken literally. It contradicts itself so many times, it plain makes no sense a lot of the time, you need to know context (as in ANY book you read). Does Jilly "feed your kids" R routinely sacrifice her firstborn, doesn't eat pork/shellfish, not wear mixed fibre? Does she? Like fuck she does.

I'm pretty sure that some of the Duggars have at least had niggling doubts, but they are so isolated and frankly dumb that it never goes any further. They are so enmeshed that any doubt would be hard to bear.

I don't have a testimony at all, it's never been required of me, in fact. I can't relate to the idea of a Father anyhow, which is probably why I struggle with that concept. Tried for years to "find God" but have yet to do so. I've now moved quite far from Catholicism really I notice, yet do still kind of believe in a God. I'd like to actually, I think faith is a great thing if lived properly. It just doesn't seem to happen for me so why force it, eh? Plus, I find that I'm just DONE with the idea of "suffer on earth forever because heaven is great", I'm just not into that anymore. I don't want to suffer every fucking day, I've already had my fill of that. I rather fancy the idea of a loving Father who is kind, gentle and yes, able to lead when needed. Not into the hell and damnation crew much.

 

[GeeGolly]

27 minutes ago, MunichNark said:

As a kind of Catholic, this whole "personal relationship with Jesus" thing weirds me out. He is not my best friend, the guy I hang out with to have a cuppa. It's just so weird. Where does this even come from?

We don't do any of that stuff, thankfully. A lot of people are cultural Catholic, they will have christenings and go to Church on Easter/Christmas, etc, so they aren't deeply into it.

I also don't get the rigidity of it - the Bible was never meant to be taken literally. It contradicts itself so many times, it plain makes no sense a lot of the time, you need to know context (as in ANY book you read). Does Jilly "feed your kids" R routinely sacrifice her firstborn, doesn't eat pork/shellfish, not wear mixed fibre? Does she? Like fuck she does.

I'm pretty sure that some of the Duggars have at least had niggling doubts, but they are so isolated and frankly dumb that it never goes any further. They are so enmeshed that any doubt would be hard to bear.

I don't have a testimony at all, it's never been required of me, in fact. I can't relate to the idea of a Father anyhow, which is probably why I struggle with that concept. Tried for years to "find God" but have yet to do so. I've now moved quite far from Catholicism really I notice, yet do still kind of believe in a God. I'd like to actually, I think faith is a great thing if lived properly. It just doesn't seem to happen for me so why force it, eh? Plus, I find that I'm just DONE with the idea of "suffer on earth forever because heaven is great", I'm just not into that anymore. I don't want to suffer every fucking day, I've already had my fill of that. I rather fancy the idea of a loving Father who is kind, gentle and yes, able to lead when needed. Not into the hell and damnation crew much.

 

Along the same lines, I've off and on envied folks who have deep faith, however with me there always seems to be a 'but'. But they say this, or but they ask this of you, or but how could that be possible, etc. And then at times my 'buts' lead me to judging others' faith, which is hardly a good thing. For the most part I respect all religions and have a harder time respecting religious folks who think their religion is superior.

Funny thing is, my husband and kids are all on different pages as far as religion. Not too far apart though. My kids tell me all the time that somehow I'm a Jew born into a non-Jewish family and just don't know it. lol

[MunichNark]

Yeah, I kind of envy people with actual real deep faith. I'm just not like that. Also, in recent years the idea of constant sacrifice and suffering doesn't appeal to me much anymore. I do fully understand that life is not meant to be sunshine, rainbow and unicorn dust all of the time, but surely we are allowed SOME happiness? Catholicism is big into sacrifices and I find the older I get (and the more I deep-dive into myself) that I'm just not that much into it anymore. I'd like some peace, sometime. I've never felt anything much when praying. Yet the "once a Catholic, always a Catholic" is deeply engrained into me and I'm ok wit that.

If God exists up there, I just hope He'll be merciful and not the deeply unpleasant Being He's made out to be by some people.

[Pixie Chicken]

11 hours ago, Zella said:

There's also a weird dynamic I've noticed in a lot of churches in that people who have been raised in Christian homes all their lives and never really experienced a crisis of faith seem to think that makes them boring and like it somehow cheapens their testimony, so they feel compelled to sound more dramatic. A related variation of that is people who seem to exaggerate their misdeeds--I guess because they think it is more compelling than "I kind of partied a little in college." 

This, exactly. This is very much a trend, and it's often used as a tool for evangelism. 

Longtime lurker here... I haven't posted in years but I read. 🙂

I'm a Christian, and while I sort of understand the origin of some of their beliefs, I mostly think, "yeah.... that's not how any of that works." They twist things until they're unrecognizable. 

The weird legalism just isn't a thing in most Christian churches. It goes against everything taught in the New Testament. 

Same with their Calvinist stuff. That's so backwards!  Most churches who follow Calvin's teachings refer to themselves as "Reformed," as in the Protestant Reformation. They don't generally use the term Calvinist; that's almost derogatory. (The implication being that those people worship Calvin and not Jesus.) That's a tell.

MacArthur is a prime example. He doesn't adhere to some of the main teachings of Calvin. He's really like a Baptist gone rogue, picking and choosing various tenets from different denominations. 

[DXD526]

When I was a kid I had a friend who was into this stuff, way back in the early 80s. She took me to see some born-again singer one time, and he started off his talk by saying he sometimes hears people complain that they don't have dramatic stories about being 'saved' and wish they did. He said that living your whole life for God was the best story a person could have and there's nothing boring about it and they should be proud. Then he, of course, went on to tell his 'being saved' story, which was a dramatic, somewhat salacious tale that involved sex & drugs & rock & roll, and basically negated everything he had just said! 

[GeeGolly]

Where did the term crisis of faith come from? Those three words have a message in and of themselves.

[Zella]

1 minute ago, GeeGolly said:

Where did the term crisis of faith come from? Those three words have a message in and of themselves.

That's a good question. I honestly don't know. I tried googling the etymology of it but didn't turn up anything. If anyone knows, I'd be interested in the answer too. 

[Ohiopirate02]

32 minutes ago, GeeGolly said:

Where did the term crisis of faith come from? Those three words have a message in and of themselves.

I can see how a Protestant could take a Catholic thing like "Dark Night of the Soul" or "The Long Loneliness" and re-interpret it as Crisis of Faith.  They are not exactly the same though.  The direct Catholic terminology is "Spiritual Dryness" which sounds more like a medical condition that can be alleviated with some lube.  I swear, mystical Catholics are the horniest branch of Christians.  

[Zella]

1 minute ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I can see how a Protestant could take a Catholic thing like "Dark Night of the Soul" or "The Long Loneliness" and re-interpret it as Crisis of Faith.  They are not exactly the same though.  The direct Catholic terminology is "Spiritual Dryness" which sounds more like a medical condition that can be alleviated with some lube.  I swear, mystical Catholics are the horniest branch of Christians.  

LOL That phrase gave me flashbacks to Ben Stein asking people if they had dry, itchy eyes in those 90s Clear Eyes commercials. LOL

[Churchhoney]

1 hour ago, GeeGolly said:

Where did the term crisis of faith come from? Those three words have a message in and of themselves.

As far as I know, it refers to what happened to the literal biblical Christian faith that people could easily hold for the first 1800 years or so post-Christ when, In the 19th century, Darwin's theory came along and provided pretty strong evidence that the Book of Genesis was not literal fact. 

Solid evidence of evolution came along and threw the faith people had accepted into crisis because it was hard to know what to replace the former literalism with.  And some, of course, absolutely refused to acknowledge that it could or should be replaced. So, lots of conflict. 

I believe the term was first -- and kind of widely -- used in the 19th century and ongoing by various academic commentators on these big upheavals in the culture and then by historians writing about them. 

Evidence backing evolution did produce a crisis for THE Christian faith that had rolled merrily along up until then. I think we've lost the sense of how extremely serious this clash of geology/biology with a literal Bible interpretation felt to people in the 19th century and how many aspects of culture were threatened when doubts about Biblical literalism were suddenly bolstered by apparent facts. It's been a long time now since most Christians took the Bible really literally. And we forget cultural upheavals pretty easily, I think. 

Beyond that, though, the business of saying that individuals have their own personal crises of faith is people adopting that phrase and using it for something its originators never intended. So who the heck knows what it means when anybody says it now? 

Unless your faith is still the literal one of -- the whole Bible is literally true -- and you find it crumbling or under attack because you've run into some information that appears to throw the literality into question, then you're using "crisis of faith" in your own way. And it could have a million meanings if a million people said it, really, I think. 

The fact that people like to call these individual reckonings "crises" I guess shows that some people feel them very intensely and take them very seriously and that other people like things that sound dramatic. 

Edited August 24, 2020 by Churchhoney

[GeeGolly]

Because the term crisis of faith appears to be used by so many it feels to me like its part of the culture. An expectation of being a true Christian is having a crisis of faith. Almost as if using generic words like doubt, questioning, uncertainty, etc, gives them options, but crisis of faith, leads them right back into the fold.

[Absolom]

I think it's one of those copy cat phrases.  When people write their testimony, they aren't all good writers so leaning on the previous testimonies that they've heard, it's really easy to grasp onto a few buzz words.  As more people hear a phrase that sounds good and use it, a new testimony fad is born.

[crazy8s]

28 minutes ago, GeeGolly said:

Because the term crisis of faith appears to be used by so many it feels to me like its part of the culture. An expectation of being a true Christian is having a crisis of faith. Almost as if using generic words like doubt, questioning, uncertainty, etc, gives them options, but crisis of faith, leads them right back into the fold.

yes - and then they have a testimony/faith story to share and inspire others to stay in the fold as well during whatever doubting or crisis comes into their lives.

church i worked for had a vast inventory of these stories recorded. Pastor knew each story and which to hand a person during any "crisis of faith".

If the person with the story was still around they would have you "connect" with the person in crisis. and oh they were sneaky about it. Greeter at the front door on Sunday, watching for the certain person to start a seemingly random conversation which led to the mention of their struggle in a way that was subtle, but enough to connect. A person with a story like yours suddenly sat next to you at AA, invited you join the church baseball team, join a ministry team etc

to add - these plans were discussed openly in weekly staff meetings. plans were made every single week for this

Edited August 24, 2020 by crazy8s

[Churchhoney]

Just now, GeeGolly said:

Because the term crisis of faith appears to be used by so many it feels to me like its part of the culture. An expectation of being a true Christian is having a crisis of faith. Almost as if using generic words like doubt, questioning, uncertainty, etc, gives them options, but crisis of faith, leads them right back into the fold.

Yeah, I agree. That's absolutely true in the conservative evangelical world, I think.

I don't hear the same thing much from Catholics or mainline Protestants. But then they talk about religion a lot less, so it's conservative-evangelical talk that dominates what our culture hears about Christianity, period, really. A Catholic or a mainline Protestant, as far as I know, is quite likely to use words like doubt, questioning, uncertainty .... 

In a way I think what' s going on is  pretty much the same thing as was going on in the 19th century. 

The most conservative evangelicals are the only people left who take the bible pretty literally (and, in many cases, believe that they take it absolutely literally, even though there are so many things they actually do ignore). And their church world is so all-encompassing to many of them., something that's also a lot less true of the less conservative forms of Christianity.

And because of the literalism that they still have, their Bible belief is constantly running into stuff like evolution-teaching in the schools that they think flies in God's face....and I would think they also find it a bigger leap to fully accept the Bible, simply because they have to take it literally -- they can't see it as symbolic. ..... All of that probably does cause you more mental turmoil, I would think. Because of the literalism -- and a literalism that's now survived more than a hundred years as the rest of the Christian world has moved aside from it -- it's a very intense thing when they contemplate turning aside from it. 

Non-conservative Protestants and Catholics have long been accustomed to looking at a lot of things in the bible as figurative, metaphorical, or historically-accurate-but-now-not-literally-relevant and so on. Those groups are used to interpreting the bible and hearing it interpreted by their clergy and theologians as a book that's literally true in places but in other places spiritually or symbolically true -- that much of it has moral and theological fables or metaphors. Seems to me that's why you really don't hear much from this kind of Christian about crises of faith. Something can be only a "doubt" in that atmosphere...

But if the whole thing is literal to you and most of society doesn't seem to join you in that belief, then it becomes a crisis. And, as you say, a crisis is scary and is likely to make you run back to safety. Plus, of course, facing a crisis rather than a doubt almost certainly feels much more exciting and grand and significant -- and thus more like a godly thing than just a question in your mind! 

 

 

[GeeGolly]

6 minutes ago, Churchhoney said:

Yeah, I agree. That's absolutely true in the conservative evangelical world, I think.

I don't hear the same thing much from Catholics or mainline Protestants. But then they talk about religion a lot less, so it's conservative-evangelical talk that dominates what our culture hears about Christianity, period, really. A Catholic or a mainline Protestant, as far as I know, is quite likely to use words like doubt, questioning, uncertainty .... 

In a way I think what' s going on is  pretty much the same thing as was going on in the 19th century. 

The most conservative evangelicals are the only people left who take the bible pretty literally (and, in many cases, believe that they take it absolutely literally, even though there are so many things they actually do ignore). And their church world is so all-encompassing to many of them., something that's also a lot less true of the less conservative forms of Christianity.

And because of the literalism that they still have, their Bible belief is constantly running into stuff like evolution-teaching in the schools that they think flies in God's face....and I would think they also find it a bigger leap to fully accept the Bible, simply because they have to take it literally -- they can't see it as symbolic. ..... All of that probably does cause you more mental turmoil, I would think. Because of the literalism -- and a literalism that's now survived more than a hundred years as the rest of the Christian world has moved aside from it -- it's a very intense thing when they contemplate turning aside from it. 

Non-conservative Protestants and Catholics have long been accustomed to looking at a lot of things in the bible as figurative, metaphorical, or historically-accurate-but-now-not-literally-relevant and so on. Those groups are used to interpreting the bible and hearing it interpreted by their clergy and theologians as a book that's literally true in places but in other places spiritually or symbolically true -- that much of it has moral and theological fables or metaphors. Seems to me that's why you really don't hear much from this kind of Christian about crises of faith. Something can be only a "doubt" in that atmosphere...

But if the whole thing is literal to you and most of society doesn't seem to join you in that belief, then it becomes a crisis. And, as you say, a crisis is scary and is likely to make you run back to safety. Plus, of course, facing a crisis rather than a doubt almost certainly feels much more exciting and grand and significant -- and thus more like a godly thing than just a question in your mind! 

 

 

I wasn't so much as saying the word crisis makes it scary and compels you to turn back. I was more saying that having a predetermined phrase normalizes it, so any doubts one might have will lead you into finding your way back, rather than allowing the uncertainty to lead yourself out.

[Churchhoney]

14 minutes ago, GeeGolly said:

I wasn't so much as saying the word crisis makes it scary and compels you to turn back. I was more saying that having a predetermined phrase normalizes it, so any doubts one might have will lead you into finding your way back, rather than allowing the uncertainty to lead yourself out.

Makes sense! 

(I do think that it also reflects the fact that because of the nature of their religion, doubting anything seems like a much bigger deal to them, though. You're much more likely in a conservative evangelical church to feel that you have everything to lose by entertaining a single question than you are in most other Christian churches that exist today. ...)

Edited August 24, 2020 by Churchhoney

[rue721]

I’ve mostly heard the term “crisis of faith” in the context of Catholicism, actually. Usually when a religious (nun, priest, etc) grapples with serious doubts about fundamentals like the existence of God. There are a lot of good (secular) movies, books, and plays that deal with it, actually. Even the TV show The Young Pope has that as a theme.

It’s meant to describe a state of real turmoil where, after dedicating your life to your faith in God, you lose that faith. Maybe you ultimately regain it or maybe not.

I don’t think that any of the Duggars is likely to have a genuine crisis of faith because none of them have dedicated their lives to their faith in that way (although maybe Jana and Josiah have, arguably). Also, the crisis is about whether what you believed to be true matches what is actually true. Jessa wasn’t talking about a crisis of faith when she was worried she wasn’t good enough to get into heaven, lol. She would maybe have been having a crisis of faith if she could no longer believe in heaven. Even then, I would say she was just having spiritual questions. And would any of them ever admit to doubts about fundamental things like whether there is a God, whether Jesus was the messiah, etc? I haven’t heard anything like that from them and would be shocked if I did.

That said, I’m not Catholic and am not an expert on any of this! I’m in the process of maybe/sorta converting, so I have thought a lot about spirituality and faith and am interested in stories of genuine crises of faith as part of that.

[Churchhoney]

34 minutes ago, rue721 said:

I’ve mostly heard the term “crisis of faith” in the context of Catholicism, actually. Usually when a religious (nun, priest, etc) grapples with serious doubts about fundamentals like the existence of God. There are a lot of good (secular) movies, books, and plays that deal with it, actually. Even the TV show The Young Pope has that as a theme.

It’s meant to describe a state of real turmoil where, after dedicating your life to your faith in God, you lose that faith. Maybe you ultimately regain it or maybe not.

I don’t think that any of the Duggars is likely to have a genuine crisis of faith because none of them have dedicated their lives to their faith in that way (although maybe Jana and Josiah have, arguably). Also, the crisis is about whether what you believed to be true matches what is actually true. Jessa wasn’t talking about a crisis of faith when she was worried she wasn’t good enough to get into heaven, lol. She would maybe have been having a crisis of faith if she could no longer believe in heaven. Even then, I would say she was just having spiritual questions. And would any of them ever admit to doubts about fundamental things like whether there is a God, whether Jesus was the messiah, etc? I haven’t heard anything like that from them and would be shocked if I did.

That said, I’m not Catholic and am not an expert on any of this! I’m in the process of maybe/sorta converting, so I have thought a lot about spirituality and faith and am interested in stories of genuine crises of faith as part of that.

I think the term is used as grab-bag term today, for any discomfort or unhappiness or drama you feel or pretend to feel or want to feel regarding your religion. Kind of the way "disinterested" is now used to mean "uninterested" just as often as it's used to mean, you know, "disinterested." 😁   

 As you say, when you're very deeply committed to your religion and you then think you may see evidence that shows that what you set your faith on may not be entirely true, that's a crisis of faith.  That truly presents you with a crisis. Something that it's ultimately necessary to resolve, one way or another. It's not a discomfort you may be able to find some relatively easy way to get past or to accommodate.    

But we don't usually manage to hold onto valuable definitions like that if a word or a term can be slopped over onto other things. And this one is appealing to many people because of the drama in the word "crisis," I expect. 

Edited August 24, 2020 by Churchhoney

[Temperance]

2 hours ago, rue721 said:

I’ve mostly heard the term “crisis of faith” in the context of Catholicism, actually. Usually when a religious (nun, priest, etc) grapples with serious doubts about fundamentals like the existence of God. There are a lot of good (secular) movies, books, and plays that deal with it, actually. Even the TV show The Young Pope has that as a theme.

It’s meant to describe a state of real turmoil where, after dedicating your life to your faith in God, you lose that faith. Maybe you ultimately regain it or maybe not.

I don’t think that any of the Duggars is likely to have a genuine crisis of faith because none of them have dedicated their lives to their faith in that way (although maybe Jana and Josiah have, arguably). Also, the crisis is about whether what you believed to be true matches what is actually true. Jessa wasn’t talking about a crisis of faith when she was worried she wasn’t good enough to get into heaven, lol. She would maybe have been having a crisis of faith if she could no longer believe in heaven. Even then, I would say she was just having spiritual questions. And would any of them ever admit to doubts about fundamental things like whether there is a God, whether Jesus was the messiah, etc? I haven’t heard anything like that from them and would be shocked if I did.

That said, I’m not Catholic and am not an expert on any of this! I’m in the process of maybe/sorta converting, so I have thought a lot about spirituality and faith and am interested in stories of genuine crises of faith as part of that.

"Crisis of faith" is not an exclusively Catholic term that I'm aware. I was raised Catholic. If Jessa's questioning of herself as a person stemmed from a lack of belief, then that would be a crisis of faith. In other words if Jessa thought she was a bad person, because she didn't believe what she was taught to believe then that's a crisis of faith.  

Joe, Jinger, Jill, etc. have all shown some signs being religious and sincere in their faith. Joe and Jinger in particular.  It's too much a part of their lives for them to not believe some of it without out right denying how they were raised. 

[GeeGolly]

If we use the Catholic religion as an example, it teaches that LGBTQ is wrong, but not all Catholics are homophobes. Is that a crisis of faith?

[ginger90]

Why You Should Embrace Your Faith Crisis
 

https://www.jonathanmerritt.com/article/2019/4/24/cx3xosgku4kj8al0opj5xoavx4iuzb

[Jeeves]

9 hours ago, Nysha said:

It makes me sad that they have never experienced even this tiny bit of rebellion. They could have gone to your alma mater, stretch their wings for the first time in their lives, and still land within the behavior boundaries of most Christians. Plus, they would have been able to do something besides work for JB and procreate. Which is why JB never gave his kids that option.

This is from the Joe and Kendra topic. My comments are more general, about what I think is an important part of JB's theology and thinking.

I think that JB is a Christian Dominionist, and probably still has a 200 year plan although he keeps it on the downlow while raking in the TLC cash as he plays a regular person on his TV show and his family plays along. He was so tight with Doug Phillips, that Vision Forum named Michelle Mother of the Year, before Phillips was exposed as a sexual predator and Vision Forum came tumbling down. Phillips and Geoff Botkin pushed that plan in a seminar and I think books. IMO Botkin is a sleazy lying fundie brainwashing cultist, but hey, I'm sure his kids love him. His niece Katie, whose dad is Geoff B's brother and has parted from Geoff's theology (a nice word for what I think is batshit crazy scary thinking), posted this on her blog in 2014 which I think sums up what is generally in JB's well-coiffed head:

"If you’ve never heard of either “quiverfull” or the “dominion mandate,” allow me to briefly explain: quiverfull is the ideology that families should have as many children “as God gives them,” using no contraception of any kind. This is usually coupled with homeschooling the children (and often stopping formal education at age 18 or younger, particularly for females) and “training them up in the way they should go.” The longterm goal of quiverfull families is to essentially win the “culture wars” by having exponentially-increasing descendants who adhere to a specific set of beliefs. In essence, “take dominion” of the world for Christ and reconstruct it, with the goal to revive some form of Old Testament law, though the details are a bit murky and somewhat debated. My uncle, Geoff Botkin, went a step further and began selling the idea of a “200 year plan,” in concert with Doug Phillips, wherein every Christian patriarch should have a 200-year, multigenerational vision for his family, complete with a spreadsheet. So far, none of my uncle’s adult children have left home, and they contribute to his ministry, so it seems like it’s working pretty well for him."

I think Jill once said something about the Duggars having their own "tribe" while on camera with JB, and she quickly shut up. I think she let something slip that they've all had hammered into them, is not for public disclosure.

If you look at the way all but two of the kidults have stuck around the TTH, or the near vicinity, and the Duggar males are not employed outside the scope of Duggar Enterprises? If you think about how JB and Meech are greedily counting their grandchildren? This is JB building his tribe. I'm sure he tolerates Austin's not working under his umbrella; Austin's dad shares JB's beliefs and his marriage to Joy is probably a dynastic one in JB's calculations. 

No wonder he's banned Jill from the TTH without his permission. Her husband may have eagerly joined the family (IMO under the influence of a phase of religious fervor while unaware of the truth of the family dynamics, and bursting with hormonal urges to get laid that he could righteously fulfill by marrying a pure Christian woman who would join him in the missionary field. Hah.). But he wasn't raised in a cult and eventually noped out. JB must get ragey when he thinks of how Derick didn't turn out to be a subservient Duggarling-by-marriage.  He was already ragey when Jinger landed Jeremy, who obviously wasn't going to live under JB's headship no matter how compatible their theologies may have been.

I think the problem with the control-freak 200 year plan, and the general idea that you can breed your way into power, is that you can try your hardest but can't guarantee that your descendants will fall into line with your beliefs and plans. I will say that JB and Meech have done an excellent  job of rearing a bunch of incurious followers who are unlikely to kick over the traces and find their own way in life. It's working better with their sons than their daughters. So far their daughters-in-law have all been from like-minded fundie and even Gothardite families. The SILs are a mixed bag, although Ben has so far settled into Duggarland, physically on JB's doorstep almost, and as noted Austin's from the same belief system. 

JB has a plan, and his passive, emotionally and intellectually stunted offspring are serving that plan. I think it's an evil and crazy plan, but so far JB's laughing all the way to the bank and the polling place, so maybe he will prevail and his tribe will prove to be obedient robots for Jesus unto the fourth generation, and take over the world, or at least Arkansas.

[Ohiopirate02]

1 hour ago, GeeGolly said:

If we use the Catholic religion as an example, it teaches that LGBTQ is wrong, but not all Catholics are homophobes. Is that a crisis of faith?

The official position of the RCC states that gay people exist and can be Catholics just as long as they stay celibate.  The sin is sex outside of church approved marriage.  Which to be fair is also a sin for straights.  If you live with your partner before getting married or are legally divorced and dating another person, then a priest is within his right to deny Communion.  Technically, homophobia is a sin in the Church just like racism.  Some priests and bishops will tell you otherwise, but they are wrong.  There are gay priests and lesbian nuns serving the Church as we speak.  Some are open about it because being gay is not sinful.

 

Source--https://www.amazon.com/Building-Bridge-James-Martin-ebook/dp/B079RBFYQW/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1598359732&sr=8-1

[Churchhoney]

52 minutes ago, Jeeves said:

This is from the Joe and Kendra topic. My comments are more general, about what I think is an important part of JB's theology and thinking.

I think that JB is a Christian Dominionist, and probably still has a 200 year plan although he keeps it on the downlow while raking in the TLC cash as he plays a regular person on his TV show and his family plays along. He was so tight with Doug Phillips, that Vision Forum named Michelle Mother of the Year, before Phillips was exposed as a sexual predator and Vision Forum came tumbling down. Phillips and Geoff Botkin pushed that plan in a seminar and I think books. IMO Botkin is a sleazy lying fundie brainwashing cultist, but hey, I'm sure his kids love him. His niece Katie, whose dad is Geoff B's brother and has parted from Geoff's theology (a nice word for what I think is batshit crazy scary thinking), posted this on her blog in 2014 which I think sums up what is generally in JB's well-coiffed head:

"If you’ve never heard of either “quiverfull” or the “dominion mandate,” allow me to briefly explain: quiverfull is the ideology that families should have as many children “as God gives them,” using no contraception of any kind. This is usually coupled with homeschooling the children (and often stopping formal education at age 18 or younger, particularly for females) and “training them up in the way they should go.” The longterm goal of quiverfull families is to essentially win the “culture wars” by having exponentially-increasing descendants who adhere to a specific set of beliefs. In essence, “take dominion” of the world for Christ and reconstruct it, with the goal to revive some form of Old Testament law, though the details are a bit murky and somewhat debated. My uncle, Geoff Botkin, went a step further and began selling the idea of a “200 year plan,” in concert with Doug Phillips, wherein every Christian patriarch should have a 200-year, multigenerational vision for his family, complete with a spreadsheet. So far, none of my uncle’s adult children have left home, and they contribute to his ministry, so it seems like it’s working pretty well for him."

I think Jill once said something about the Duggars having their own "tribe" while on camera with JB, and she quickly shut up. I think she let something slip that they've all had hammered into them, is not for public disclosure.

If you look at the way all but two of the kidults have stuck around the TTH, or the near vicinity, and the Duggar males are not employed outside the scope of Duggar Enterprises? If you think about how JB and Meech are greedily counting their grandchildren? This is JB building his tribe. I'm sure he tolerates Austin's not working under his umbrella; Austin's dad shares JB's beliefs and his marriage to Joy is probably a dynastic one in JB's calculations. 

No wonder he's banned Jill from the TTH without his permission. Her husband may have eagerly joined the family (IMO under the influence of a phase of religious fervor while unaware of the truth of the family dynamics, and bursting with hormonal urges to get laid that he could righteously fulfill by marrying a pure Christian woman who would join him in the missionary field. Hah.). But he wasn't raised in a cult and eventually noped out. JB must get ragey when he thinks of how Derick didn't turn out to be a subservient Duggarling-by-marriage.  He was already ragey when Jinger landed Jeremy, who obviously wasn't going to live under JB's headship no matter how compatible their theologies may have been.

I think the problem with the control-freak 200 year plan, and the general idea that you can breed your way into power, is that you can try your hardest but can't guarantee that your descendants will fall into line with your beliefs and plans. I will say that JB and Meech have done an excellent  job of rearing a bunch of incurious followers who are unlikely to kick over the traces and find their own way in life. It's working better with their sons than their daughters. So far their daughters-in-law have all been from like-minded fundie and even Gothardite families. The SILs are a mixed bag, although Ben has so far settled into Duggarland, physically on JB's doorstep almost, and as noted Austin's from the same belief system. 

JB has a plan, and his passive, emotionally and intellectually stunted offspring are serving that plan. I think it's an evil and crazy plan, but so far JB's laughing all the way to the bank and the polling place, so maybe he will prevail and his tribe will prove to be obedient robots for Jesus unto the fourth generation, and take over the world, or at least Arkansas.

Yeah, I agree. In his fantasies -- which he tries to organize his reality to fulfill -- he's a Christian Dominionist and a Christian Nationalist. He's got all those models of other guys to draw the details from. And they all love to share but they've all always kept it on the down low.

The source of it, I've always thought, is these people's fierce desire and need to build up their own egos. They feel a little weak, maybe, but they also feel that the world hasn't give them their due -- and their due is huge..... So they've concocted this worldview that has them ruling the future completely (the Dominionism) and ruling the government and the nation completely (the Nationalism).

And they live it out as best they can, which, unfortunately, means that many other people -- their offspring and their offspring's offspring and anybody they get to have influence over or rule or be the boss of -- are also conscripted in this grandiose but ultimately super-trivial PLAN -- to put these guys -- in this case, Jim Bob -- at the very center of their own nation and of the world and universe eventually forever and ever and ever. Amen.

It'd be laughable to think of these dopes conjuring up the biggest fantasy you could ever construct and somehow imagining they're making it come true, if there wasn't so much damage they could and do accomplish while they're playing this selfish game. Damage to their own families, in particular, but farther-reaching damage, too, if they manage to get in charge of anything....and some of them do.

JB, luckily, loves ignorance and laziness too much to ever have managed to get in charge of much. But that hasn't stopped him from churning out a ton of descendants and warping them. Plus, of course, he got on television and may have contributed to pulling some other people toward this stupid worldview indirectly. I do think of that every time I remember that there have been and are an alarming number of people out there who somehow admire JB and M. Like us, they can look stuff up and find out this story -- but instead of going Aaaarrrghhh! some may see it as the plan they've been waiting for and decide to do the same thing.

 

 

Edited August 25, 2020 by Churchhoney

[Nysha]

One of the main problems I can see with combining the 200 year plan with Gothardism is the mandate that males must work for themselves. JB has the will to succeed but he's driven that out of his boys because his ego demands that he be king and his offspring stay serfs. Josh was supposed to be the prince who inherited the kingdom and his fall from grace scared JB into making his family's bubble even smaller. 

If the Duggar grandchildren are raised with the same mindset that their only purpose in life is to maintain the Duggar brand and breed for Jesus, they're doomed. Jill and Joy's children will be taught that work is essential and I think Jinger's children will be educated enough to be independent, but most of the other children are going to get a third-rate home school education. And if it continues they'll all end up huddled around the TTH poor, paranoid, and filled with rage and hopelessness. Good luck making it to year 200.

[Churchhoney]

3 hours ago, GeeGolly said:

If we use the Catholic religion as an example, it teaches that LGBTQ is wrong, but not all Catholics are homophobes. Is that a crisis of faith?

If the principles and facts of a faith you've long embraced as true now appear to you to contradict a fact that you also believe,  by testing and observation, to be true, then the clash of those things does produce a crisis of faith (including in the original sense of the phrase, Darwin and the geologists v. the biblical literalism of Christianity).   You strongly believe two apparently contradictory things to be true (one as a matter of your faith and the other from reason and observation).   Two utterly contradictory things can't be true, so you can't continue to hold both as true. That's a real crisis for someone who both takes their faith very seriously and has come to the conclusion that the new thing is true after a serious process of reflection. .....

There are ways around some things like this.

For example, one might decide that the religious tenet at issue here (like a moral judgment against homosexual behavior) is not really a fundamental tenet of your faith. That it's really just a conclusion drawn from the faith's basic principles by believers and leaders in your religion. So if you decide that, you may end up deciding that you can and do continue to remain strong in your faith while believing in this thing that might be said to contradict it. (Others won't necessarily agree with you,  of course.)

Some other kinds of things you may accept as paradoxes -- and just agree that two things that actually are contradictory but that, nevertheless, both are true.  And that while this doesn't work according to the rules of the everyday world, in the larger world encompassed by your faith some absolutely paradoxical pairs of things are true and that you are taking those things on faith.    Christianity, like most religions, I think, has some of this baked into its foundations -- because the whole point of faith is that some things your God calls on you to believe are not things that you would believe otherwise. And to have faith means that you do believe those things, regardless. .... The Trinity is one of those foundational paradoxes. The Christian God is three distinct and separate personages but is also one distinct and indivisible being. Three can't be one. But in this case three is one. ....This idea caused a ton of turmoil -- and crises of faith, I'd say -- among early Christians. It was behind the breaking off of some branches of Christianity. And so on. ....

(And it's not only religion that has these paradoxes. Modern physics, of course, caused scientists to go absolutely nutty when experiments demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that light is both a wave and a particle -- at the same time. That's as much a paradox as anything religion has ever served up. And how you accept such a thing caused a crisis in science, too...)

Now Jessa's thing had none of the hallmarks of an actual crisis. (I don't think she called it that, did she? That was our word, I think...) Anyway, her experience was that of a kid who had the completely misguided idea that being saved was supposed to give you a strong feeling that you were on great terms with Jesus and always would be. According to her kid vision, you were supposed to feel different and utterly sure of yourself after being saved. Etc. ....

And none of this is actually the way anybody has ever said it works -- her feelings weren't supposed to have anything to do with it. But she was a kid in a crowd of dumb-asses and she didn't realize that. So she got into turmoil over the lack of what she thought was supposed to be there.....

Then along came a sibling who claimed to feel all the feelings that Jessa thought she was supposed to have but didn't. So now she felt even worse and a heaping helping of sibling rivalry came into the equation.....So, she was in turmoil. But in no way was she needing to reconcile two things that both appeared to be true. No crisis. Just upset by a kid who wasn't seeing the drama she thought she would and was fighting over being top dog in her too-large family. No principle of faith was being challenged by an objective fact. She just wanted something that wasn't going to happen (and didn't realize that) and then she started envying smug siblings and got furious.

 

Edited August 25, 2020 by Churchhoney

[rue721]

Personally, I would say that coming to disagree with some piece of religious dogma is very different from having the bedrock of your *faith* shaken. I think a crisis means more than just that you’ve lost faith in the worth of following some specific religious practice/teaching/dogma, I think it means that your fundamental belief system as a whole has been shaken or even destroyed. 
 

But I guess it also depends on how much that that specific piece of dogma defines your personal faith. If you are a gay, religious Catholic, and denied yourself the joy of romantic or sexual love for decades because you were trying to be faithful to the church’s teachings, and then came to believe that the church was wrong, then maybe you actually would have a crisis of faith. The whole edifice might come crashing down for you. You might leave the church entirely, you could become an atheist, etc. And I think that’s a legitimate crisis, I can imagine the inner turmoil that would cause.
 

But I think it’s really only a crisis if it shakes the foundations of your faith in God — in God’s existence, in the basics of what God is demanding of you, etc. If you just disagree on some dogma, then you just disagree on some dogma and it might cause some cognitive dissonance but it doesn’t seem really that relevant to me. YMMV.

How this could relate to the Duggars is that their religion is SO demanding in terms of gender and sexuality that I can see one of the kids being unable to be a good “man” or “woman” as their religion defines that and also being themselves, and that dilemma putting them in an emotional bind where the only way they can survive is to either give up their selfhood or give up their faith. It’s possible we even saw that happen with Joy or even Josiah, and we might see it with others in the future, I don’t know.

[Jeeves]

@Churchhoney, I agree with your take on JB. He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer and I doubt he'll really create an empire unto the umpteenth generation. I also think he enjoys the fantasy that he will, and probably still talks to his fundie buddies about that stuff. 

I'm also sure that JB, Meech, and all their kids except maybe Jinger and Jill, look down on anybody who doesn't belong to their family or move in their theological circles (including IBLP). IMO they believe they are better than us, and they hold us in contempt. No matter how well they manage to "keep sweet" when interacting with us heathens. 

[Churchhoney]

1 hour ago, rue721 said:

Personally, I would say that coming to disagree with some piece of religious dogma is very different from having the bedrock of your *faith* shaken. I think a crisis means more than just that you’ve lost faith in the worth of following some specific religious practice/teaching/dogma, I think it means that your fundamental belief system as a whole has been shaken or even destroyed. 
 

But I guess it also depends on how much that that specific piece of dogma defines your personal faith. If you are a gay, religious Catholic, and denied yourself the joy of romantic or sexual love for decades because you were trying to be faithful to the church’s teachings, and then came to believe that the church was wrong, then maybe you actually would have a crisis of faith. The whole edifice might come crashing down for you. You might leave the church entirely, you could become an atheist, etc. And I think that’s a legitimate crisis, I can imagine the inner turmoil that would cause.
 

But I think it’s really only a crisis if it shakes the foundations of your faith in God — in God’s existence, in the basics of what God is demanding of you, etc. If you just disagree on some dogma, then you just disagree on some dogma and it might cause some cognitive dissonance but it doesn’t seem really that relevant to me. YMMV.

How this could relate to the Duggars is that their religion is SO demanding in terms of gender and sexuality that I can see one of the kids being unable to be a good “man” or “woman” as their religion defines that and also being themselves, and that dilemma putting them in an emotional bind where the only way they can survive is to either give up their selfhood or give up their faith. It’s possible we even saw that happen with Joy or even Josiah, and we might see it with others in the future, I don’t know.

Yeah, I agree with you.

I was trying to make the point that it had to be a very very key aspect of the faith of someone who has a very deep deep faith that forms a true foundation of their lives  -- and that that has to run into a fact that appears to utterly contradict that key aspect of your faith  --- or else it isn't a crisis.  What you say here is exactly what I was trying to say by explaining that, as far as I can see, an idea about whether homosexual behavior is damnable, for example, isn't nearly big or foundational enough to the Christian faith to put you in crisis.

Wasn't able to come up with an example of what such a key faith element would be that communicates well to others -- although, for me, the event that brought the phrase "crisis of faith" into the English language in a major way is one: The belief that every word of the bible is literal on-the-ground truth vs. Darwin's theories and geological theories and physical evidence of the same that demonstrate that key chunks of the Bible must be symbolically rather than literally true.

It's harder to come up with a specific fact that runs headlong into foundational Christian principles today, for me anyway. The ones that happen are probably more personal and more abstract, in a way, I guess, than that society-wide crisis of faith in the 19th century was, when almost everybody who counted themselves believers were biblical literalists and all those many people were confronting the emergence of this same science that called into question the literal truth of every word in the Bible.

A lot of Christians -- likely most -- in those days,  of course, had absolute faith in the idea that God gave humans every word of the Bible because every word of the Bible is the literal truth, which humans should know and accept. So to accept that not all of the bible is literal fact is to say that you've lost your faith in the God who you've believed did do that. Either that God wasn't telling the truth, or that God doesn't exist. .....

Unlike what I think you've said, though, I don't think that a crisis necessarily involves losing faith in there being a God, period.  I think it's enough to really lose faith in some very foundational feature of the particular God you've believed in -- In the case of evolution v. Bible, that would be losing faith in the God that you've believed gave a literally, factually true book to humans to guide their way.

I agree with you that the sexuality example may work with the Duggarlings. It certainly does work if they take the foundation of their faith and religion to be "every word my parents and Gothard ever told me about how God is is literally true" and I think that's what's been ingrained in them.

But I also think that the biblical literalism --which the Duggs and Gothardites still assert that they strongly believe in -- is still a major candidate and maybe still the major candidate for causing them faith crises. If they were ever to take modern science seriously, I think any of them who truly embraces the faith they say they embrace would be forced to reckon with whether they truly believe in that God or not. To me, that's a crisis of faith, even though it's perfectly possible to move on from that to develop a strong faith in a different God who did not give humans a factually literal bible.

And of course it's only a crisis if you really care about the  literalism. They certainly say they do. That's why the Alert web page says way up high that they absolutely reject the notion of evolution. But it's not clear how much that really means to any of the Duggarlings. If they don't really care about it, they can't get into any faith crises about it....

Also quite possible that very few Duggars actually care enough about any religious thing to actually have a faith crisis. If it's all parroting and performing, as it almost certainly is for at least some of them, they can't have any faith crises, even if they say they do, in my opinion.

 

Edited August 25, 2020 by Churchhoney

[Temperance]

The 200 year plan was Doug Phillips, not Bill Gothard.  Doug Phillips had his own cult called Vision Forum. There was some interaction between the groups like when Phillips gave Michelle Duggar a "mother of the year" award, but they were separate groups. It's hard to say how much of Phillips' teachings the Duggars believe.

The Seewalds (Ben's parents) belonged to Vision Forum. The fall of Vision Forum happened right after Ben and Jessa married in 2014 before Joshgates happened. Doug Phillips was accused of sexual harrassment by his children's nanny. The fall of Vision Forum may have something to do with why some of Ben's siblings aren't as fundie as he is.