Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 777 ｜ On Duggar Theology, Josh’s Arrest, & Media Lies ｜ Guests： Jinger Duggar Vuolo & Jeremy Vuolo

00:00:00.000 Ginger Duggar Volo and her husband, Jeremy Volo, are joining us today in studio. This is

00:00:05.820 a continuation of the first interview I had with Ginger a couple months ago about her new book,

00:00:11.700 Becoming Free Indeed. This is about her story, her upbringing, the theology of the Duggars,

00:00:19.040 and learning what the real liberating gospel is. So we'll be getting more deeply into what it was

00:00:25.780 growing up as a Duggar, what that theology really looks like, what the gospel truly is. But we'll

00:00:31.180 also be talking about some tough subjects, like how her brother Josh's conviction for consuming

00:00:38.920 child sex abuse material affected her, what her relationship is like with her family today.

00:00:44.740 You're going to be so edified by Ginger and both Ginger and Jeremy's love for Christ and love for

00:00:51.960 the gospel. Also stick around for the very end of this episode where we will finally be announcing

00:00:56.740 our giveaway winners. And also just one last thing, please bear with me as I am suffering from a bout

00:01:02.940 of allergies. Thankfully, I am not the one mostly talking in today's episode. It's going to be an

00:01:08.660 amazing episode. You're going to love it. It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:01:12.880 Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use promo code ALI at checkout. That's GoodRanchers.com. Code ALI.

00:01:21.960 Jeremy, Ginger, thanks so much for joining me on the couch. My second guest ever in my new studio.

00:01:32.860 Y'all are matching. Thanks for having us. Yeah, we planned this. We just decided to match your new

00:01:37.700 set. I love it. I love it. Thanks. Okay. Tell me what the response has been to your book. I mean,

00:01:43.460 I've seen you so many places since I first talked to you in January. It seems like it's just

00:01:48.020 like making waves. It's been insane, really. I think we've had so many amazing responses,

00:01:55.640 good and bad. So, I mean, you always have that when you put something out. But I feel like

00:02:01.460 in this season, it's been more encouraging than anything because so many people have been able

00:02:06.960 to relate to my journey that I've been coming out of Bill Gothard's teaching and this bad theology.

00:02:12.500 And a lot of them have been in something similar, even if it wasn't Bill Gothard's teaching and have

00:02:17.980 been helped by the book. So it's been really, really well worth it. Yeah. Tell me about some of the

00:02:23.120 negative reactions. Like what's been some criticism? Yeah, I think it's interesting. Anytime you put

00:02:30.160 something out there and you're in a public place, you know that there is going to be pushback and

00:02:36.220 there's going to be some people who hate it. And so I've experienced a little bit of that.

00:02:42.780 But like I said, more of it has been positive, which I was surprised how much positive feedback

00:02:50.340 I've gotten. Negative from people who like Bill Gothard and think that his teachings are good or

00:02:56.800 where is it coming from? You know, I think some people really hoped that this book would be

00:03:03.140 something other than it was. They thought maybe Ginger will start to walk away from Christianity 0.90

00:03:10.080 and they hoped for that. Then we also had, you know, a couple of people who are still in these

00:03:16.500 teachings of Bill Gothard's wanted me to not say anything. And so I know that that is always going

00:03:25.200 to be there because a lot of them would view him as like a prophet sent from God to tell us this truth.

00:03:30.620 And so I can see how they would view that speaking out against him. So a couple different places

00:03:37.300 you've had pushback. Was there ever a time, and again, people can go back and listen to our first

00:03:43.300 conversation where you talk about you guys meeting and you kind of understanding, oh, wow, what Bill

00:03:49.400 Gothard taught is not actually the gospel. This is not what it looks like to glorify God. Was there ever

00:03:56.180 a time though during that period where you did question your faith altogether? Did you ever say,

00:04:03.260 is any of this real if what I grew up with isn't real? You know, it's interesting. I looked at that

00:04:10.280 season where I was coming out of those teachings. God used Jeremy in such a helpful way, like just to,

00:04:19.400 he had to go through 60 plus hours of those teachings, which I think we talked about before.

00:04:23.520 But in that season, because I was going to the word of God, I was a believer at that time. I was

00:04:30.920 saved at the age of 14. So my heart, all I wanted to know was what does God's word actually say? And

00:04:37.620 once I realized that these teachings that Bill Gothard said were Bible, they weren't Bible,

00:04:43.940 that for me was a shift because then I started going back to those, um, the seminars and it's

00:04:51.480 like examining it according to the word of God and saw, okay, this does not line up. And then that

00:04:57.700 process and that journey actually was, it was hard because yeah, you have that, that pause of like,

00:05:04.680 ah, well then what is true? I need to know because I love Jesus. So I did not, I did not go to it

00:05:12.760 looking like, okay, how can I just tear my faith apart? Like the deconstruction movement. But for me,

00:05:18.920 I was coming at this looking and saying, okay, how, how can I see who God truly is? So going to God's

00:05:26.020 word, that was what gave me comfort and joy in that season, even though it was really difficult.

00:05:31.960 Um, so I wasn't like trying to throw everything off. I was just looking for answers in God's word.

00:05:38.060 Yeah. And one of the most fascinating parts I thought of our conversation was you explaining

00:05:43.600 how you met Jeremy and what that kind of dating process was like and how you had to kind of as

00:05:51.300 part of what your dad wanted, you had to sit through these 60 hours of Bill Gothard's teaching.

00:05:57.640 So before I hear your perspective on that, tell me a little bit about your faith background. You

00:06:03.080 didn't grow up the same way that Ginger did. No, not at all. Uh, I grew up in a reform Baptist

00:06:08.400 home. My dad was a pastor. And so, uh, definitely grew up in the church, um, hearing the word of God

00:06:14.160 every week. And so Calvinist. Yeah. Yeah. I happen to be, I do happen to be a Calvinist.

00:06:20.700 Oh my goodness. That was, that was interesting because that was, um, as much as I was having to

00:06:28.280 kind of learn about Ginger's faith and worldview, I think her and her family had to learn about mine

00:06:34.180 too. So it was like this interesting, we're like informing each other. Um, and the Calvinism, uh,

00:06:40.300 question was, was a fascinating one. Uh, a lot of those conversations, uh, about Calvinism revolved

00:06:46.160 around what Calvinism actually isn't and trying to help people understand that it's just, you know,

00:06:51.820 so there, there were some bad impressions from, yeah, there, there was, there was, you know,

00:06:56.880 the, the C word, the Calvinism word was, was scary because, uh, you know, people had certain

00:07:01.980 misconceptions of what that meant. You believed. Um, but my background was just in a, in a, uh,

00:07:08.020 reformed Baptist home. Dad's, you know, the godliest man. I know my hero, my mom, an amazing woman

00:07:13.400 who was a professional violinist chose to stay home and raise me and my brother and sister.

00:07:18.080 Um, really sweet, wonderful upbringing, uh, but definitely in, in the faith. Um, I had those

00:07:24.260 years where I had to kind of discover my faith for myself. So the last couple of years of high

00:07:30.380 school, first couple of years of college, um, things got a bit, a bit crazy at times, but,

00:07:35.580 um, the Lord was just kind of allowing me to walk through some things so that I knew why I

00:07:40.480 believed what I believed. Um, so by the time I met Ginger, I was pretty established. I was

00:07:45.880 pastoring a church, uh, in Texas. Um, and so, yeah, definitely from a different background.

00:07:51.560 So walking into actually where we met, uh, in Texas, uh, was an IBLP, um, family camp, family

00:08:00.800 conference. That is the Institute in Basic Life Principles. So it's the, it's a Bill Gothard

00:08:06.960 Bill Gothards. Right. Conference for families to come to. And so I kind of walked into that

00:08:11.160 unaware of, of what that was. Um, but then I met this pretty girl. So. Yeah. And y'all met through

00:08:17.020 a mutual friend and had you watched her on TLC? Like, were you aware of what the Duggars were? 0.67

00:08:22.740 Kind of funny actually. Yeah. I was aware. Um, I had seen some of the show. Um, my pastor actually

00:08:30.240 in Texas, his family would watch it a lot. Yeah. And I remember actually seeing like Ben and Jessa

00:08:35.580 on the cover of a people magazine and taking pictures and sending it to that pastor's kids

00:08:40.240 like, Oh, look who I saw on the magazine. Yeah. And that's before I ever met anyone. So

00:08:44.540 I was aware. Um, I'd actually kind of make fun of the show a lot. I just thought it was

00:08:50.060 like silly reality, you know? Uh, but that changed when I, when he joined the show, yeah, that

00:08:58.200 was ironic. I mean, man, never saw that coming, but yeah. Um, yeah. So, so we met and, uh,

00:09:04.580 it took a little while for us to, I mean, we started having a mutual, um, interest in

00:09:09.600 each other, but that was at the start of 2015. I met Ginger.

00:09:12.640 So you were aware then that there would be theological differences just from what you

00:09:17.760 saw on the show or not really?

00:09:19.400 So I didn't watch the show that in depth. I just, I just kind of saw a conservative

00:09:23.160 Christian family.

00:09:24.100 Yeah. I think that's what most people probably saw.

00:09:26.980 Yeah. Yeah.

00:09:28.220 I, I didn't really start to realize there was theological differences until, um, meeting

00:09:33.920 actually more of like her family, but then friends around the family. And we talked about

00:09:40.120 Calvinism some and I went, Oh, interesting. Okay. So the, you know, might have a different

00:09:44.260 view on that. I did not know about Bill Gothard until, until I started listening to his actual

00:09:51.320 seminars. And even at the start, it was kind of like a, it was like a slow introduction.

00:09:56.260 I thought, okay, this guy's got some interesting things to say, but then we really started to

00:10:00.660 get into, uh, the seminars and then we started, uh, our relationship and we're continuing to

00:10:06.700 listen to those and then started listening together. And that's when a lot of the deeper

00:10:12.260 theological things started coming out.

00:10:14.560 And how quickly after meeting did you realize, well, there are probably going to be some differences

00:10:20.300 here that he needs to know about. Like even before your dad said that he needed to sit

00:10:25.520 through these Gothard teachings for me, I knew that anyone coming into our family would

00:10:31.440 probably, if they weren't from outside of Phil Gothard's teachings, like they never grew

00:10:35.860 up listening to the seminars, they would need to know what we believed, what I believed, because

00:10:41.280 I thought these, these convictions I was holding were based in the Bible. So those outward

00:10:48.160 standards of like, you know, only wearing skirts, um, and courtship being the only way to honor God

00:10:56.880 and, uh, avoiding music with drums, all of those things that I thought were so big finances,

00:11:03.080 never going into debt for even a home, anything, those were my core values. And so I thought whoever

00:11:09.700 comes on the scene, if they're outside of these teachings, they will have to, at some point,

00:11:15.280 I'm going to tell, you know, Jeremy, when he came on the scene, I was like, he's so different.

00:11:19.740 It's kind of scary to think about, you know, courting him at that time, I guess you'd say.

00:11:25.500 But, um, it's interesting because I remember telling my mom, I said, I feel like I, I, I went

00:11:31.800 on this mission trip and came back and told her, I said, I feel safe with him. And this was before

00:11:35.960 we were talking. I just had interest in him. And I said, because it's not because of any outward

00:11:41.700 stuff. I said, it's just his heart. Like I could just see, I can see that he loves Jesus. He loves

00:11:47.760 the word of God. He knows the word of God. And that stood out to me. And I said, because of his

00:11:54.520 relationship with Jesus, that's what makes me know that I would be safe with him if we were in a

00:11:59.720 relationship. So, um, it was interesting because I never would have said that years before it would

00:12:05.840 have been something that had made me afraid. Like I would have been very scared and I never

00:12:11.620 would have pursued a relationship with somebody outside of IVLP because I thought that those

00:12:16.580 principles were the way to success. And if you didn't have all of these teachings, you were not

00:12:21.520 going to be okay. Yeah. And that's something that we talked about last time that you feared that so

00:12:26.200 much that if you broke one of those principles or rules, it wasn't just, oh, maybe things wouldn't

00:12:31.260 work out, but that you would, I mean, something bad could imminently happen to you. Right.

00:12:37.360 I thought maybe I could be killed in a car accident. If I went to broomball to play a sport

00:12:43.620 with my siblings when I thought, okay, I'm supposed to stay home and read my Bible for two hours,

00:12:47.340 or maybe I'm supposed to not go somewhere, not do something. Or like it leaves, it leaves you

00:12:55.000 in a place where you're very superstitious. You just think that God is out to get you. And it's

00:13:01.240 such a crippling thing because I just really did not know. I was like, I read the word of God. Okay.

00:13:09.400 The word of God has these answers, but because Bill Gothard would teach these teachings on top of it,

00:13:14.600 I felt like, man, there is just, there is no way I can ever know what God expects of me fully.

00:13:20.120 Yeah. So that was, it was really sad. It's so interesting that you always kind of felt

00:13:25.980 in danger. And then this rule breaker that you met, Jeremy actually made you feel safe. And that's

00:13:33.900 interesting because you thought that these rules were keeping you safe. And then this person who

00:13:38.860 wasn't keeping all of those so-called rules actually made you feel safe, which I think there's something

00:13:45.540 to be said about the Holy Spirit's working in that. Yeah. Yeah. It was a, it was a neat thing to see

00:13:51.560 because I got to see firsthand like his heart and in that setting, like you can, you can see people

00:13:58.980 who walk with Jesus, but I still would like almost judge them because I would think, oh, you just don't

00:14:03.580 know the principles. You don't know these. So you're not as really, you're not as holy as we are, or you

00:14:10.480 are going to bring, you know, there's going to be disaster in your life and then you're going to turn

00:14:15.100 into the principles. So I would always look at people like that and it just wasn't the case with

00:14:20.760 Jeremy. Yeah. And this is when y'all were still kind of friends. This is 2014. 15. 15. Yeah, 15.

00:14:27.540 Okay. And then once y'all actually started dating or what your family called courting, this was about

00:14:32.140 2015, right? And then when Ginger's dad said, well, okay, you got to sit through the 60 hours,

00:14:42.180 these 60 hours of Bill Gothard's teachings. Tell me about that. What was that like? You said at first,

00:14:47.700 it was like, okay, he's got some interesting things, but. Yeah. He, so he just asked me to

00:14:52.680 listen to, um, I think he asked me to listen to the basic seminar, which is kind of the introduction

00:14:57.700 to Bill Gothard's theology. I may have started listening to the advanced seminar accidentally.

00:15:04.540 And so the advanced seminar, when I listened to the first three or four sessions,

00:15:08.240 he, he's, he's an interesting teacher. He's got, um, he's, he's very easy to listen to.

00:15:14.320 Yeah. And so he pulls in with stories, he pulls in with problems like facing, uh, the society. So

00:15:21.440 he was talking about humanism and how humanism doesn't satisfy the human problem and the human

00:15:25.780 heart. And he was showing how we need to go to God's word to satisfy, you know, um, our longings and,

00:15:33.140 um, to solve all these problems in society. So he had some interesting things to say initially,

00:15:37.080 and that was honestly, my initial reaction was like, okay, he's got some interesting philosophical

00:15:42.740 ideas, but I knew pretty quickly that this guy wasn't teaching the Bible. He was using the Bible

00:15:49.780 to kind of accomplish his goal. Like, I want to talk about identity. So here's a verse about identity.

00:15:56.820 And then he would talk, but he wouldn't, you know, I grew up in churches where, um, they would go

00:16:03.260 verse by verse explaining the Bible. So for me, a Bible teacher is, you just open your,

00:16:08.220 open the word and tell me what it says. So I remember telling Ginger in one of our first

00:16:13.400 conversations, she asked me about like the seminars, like, what do you think about him?

00:16:19.140 And I just said, yeah, so, uh, he's got some interesting things to say. He's not a Bible 0.99

00:16:24.220 teacher, but he's got some like interesting philosophy. And I was even then starting to realize

00:16:30.920 that some of the stuff he was saying would be problematic. I just didn't know to what extent.

00:16:34.980 Yeah. Um, but I think that caught her off guard. I, you know, definitely did.

00:16:40.020 So when he said he's not a Bible teacher where you're like, what are you talking about?

00:16:43.520 What are you talking about? This guy is the best Bible teacher in the whole world. You're

00:16:46.920 just learning of him. Don't worry. Yeah. Um, so it's interesting cause that was just a couple

00:16:52.740 of seminars in and it kind of starts out. Okay. Like he gives a, a decent like gospel message,

00:16:59.520 you know, if you're not listening to close, like, yeah, you have to like really be on guard. So

00:17:04.120 he gives a couple of things where like kind of nice, but then the further in you get, it starts

00:17:10.000 to get really crazy to the point where he tells a woman before you come to Jesus, you need to do my 0.97

00:17:15.560 three steps because you can't bring Jesus into this mess. And that's where it was like, we pause that

00:17:21.980 and we were like, wait, what did he say? And I was so shocked because I was like, how did I not hear

00:17:26.940 this stuff before? How did I not hear what level of, um, like teaching he was giving us that was

00:17:33.320 just totally outside of scripture, totally stuff that I would have rejected growing up. I just didn't

00:17:39.920 see it. I remember at one point listening, his, he had a very fascinating and honestly, like a really,

00:17:45.140 um, successful approach. He would start, you know, he's speaking to people who, who want to follow

00:17:50.500 Jesus. Most of them are, you know, earnest. So he would give a problem. Then he would present

00:17:55.360 like one or two scriptures and say, here, we're going to discover how these solve that problem.

00:18:00.080 And then he would lecture for 45, 50, 60, sometimes 70 minutes and totally leave those scriptures

00:18:06.280 behind. So he's not teaching them. And then at the end, and, and Ginger talks a lot about this in

00:18:11.140 her book too. She would, he would have the people vow to keep those scriptures.

00:18:15.500 And a lot of it was based on stories. So he was such a good storyteller. He had, he would,

00:18:22.140 he would come up with all of these, um, like stories that would grip you and you think, okay,

00:18:28.600 this person's business was destroyed because they didn't realize somebody was selling alcohol

00:18:32.800 at their business. And therefore the guy gets cancer and his family falls apart. And it's all

00:18:39.720 because this business had a liquor license and the guy didn't know. So you just have like

00:18:44.720 all of these teachings that are constantly, um, getting you, like it gets your, it plays

00:18:51.560 with your emotions. So you feel like, oh no, that could happen to me.

00:18:54.860 Well, that's like the superstition, like connecting one event to a consequence that is actually

00:18:59.840 unrelated.

00:19:00.840 It is totally unrelated, but he would always find, he said like correlation and causation,

00:19:06.200 these, these things play hand in hand. So he'd say you have to watch out, you know, at every

00:19:09.980 turn. And it's interesting because then at the end of the stories, that is when he would

00:19:15.160 have you make the vow to God to keep whatever teaching he had just made.

00:19:19.200 And what did those vows entail? Was it just you speaking out loud?

00:19:22.240 So he would say, now we're going to have everyone who wants to make this vow. You make

00:19:27.260 this vow before God and I want you to raise your hand. And he said, oh, that's so good.

00:19:32.840 All over the stadium. We see, we see hands all over the stadium. And it was kind of like,

00:19:37.860 I remember going to the seminars that he would, he would have on video actually every year from 12.

00:19:45.320 Once you turn 12, you're allowed to go. So we would drive two hours every day to Tulsa for a

00:19:50.140 week. Um, and we would go to these seminars and I remember like sitting there and he would,

00:19:55.900 whenever that would come up, I would be like, okay, I want to make this vow to some of them were

00:20:00.020 like, just like, if you would have said, Hey, how about you just purpose to read your Bible for

00:20:04.700 five minutes every day? Well, there's nothing wrong with that. I feel like as Christians,

00:20:08.600 we should be reading our Bibles, but he would make you, he would have you make a vow to God.

00:20:13.820 And then he would say, make a vow to pray for five minutes. And then he'd say,

00:20:17.240 you need to keep this vow. Otherwise disaster is going to come to you. Like after you just made this

00:20:22.900 vow. So he has like stadiums full of people and they're freaking out. And so it's not out of love for God

00:20:29.060 that you'd want to do these things. He was very comfortable placing burdens on you that you

00:20:34.900 couldn't carry and that you couldn't keep. Yeah. Which is exactly why Jesus came to relieve us of

00:20:40.980 those burdens that we couldn't carry. So you weren't even getting the gospel and it's not even just like

00:20:46.400 the fear of messing up that's motivating you. It's also kind of like this self-righteousness that

00:20:51.860 if I do keep the vow, it's because I'm awesome. It's not because God kept me. It's because,

00:20:57.720 wow, I'm so good at this. That's exactly it, Allie. It's interesting because there would be

00:21:03.740 so many families that got into this and they would feel like, okay, we're doing really good. And on the

00:21:10.220 outside, their families looked perfect. And they were the poster kids for ATI. If it was just a couple

00:21:16.900 people, students, or if it was an entire family, they would become like at the conferences, they would

00:21:23.800 be up on the stage, they would be presenting everything. And we were like, wow, look at them.

00:21:27.940 If only we could keep the principles like they do. And so it does become performance-based.

00:21:33.380 Yeah. And then tell me a little bit, as you're going through these courses,

00:21:36.920 I know you said there were some things that you're like, oh, that's a little weird.

00:21:39.860 But tell me about the red flags that you kind of felt like, okay, I got to talk to Ginger about this

00:21:44.680 to make sure we're on the same page.

00:21:46.180 Yeah. I think it was his picking and choosing how to use the Bible. So he would go back to the 0.89

00:21:51.920 blood laws and the old covenant and start applying those to marriages, starting to tell-

00:21:57.760 A single dude.

00:21:58.560 Yeah.

00:21:59.120 Never married, never had kids telling you everything that you can do.

00:22:03.020 So that was symptomatic of a big problem.

00:22:05.000 Okay. And you're just so people know what we're talking about. Like you're talking about like the

00:22:08.580 cleansing laws in the old Testament. You can't have sex during menstruation.

00:22:12.580 Abstain from- 0.91

00:22:13.040 So you're watching this and you're like, okay.

00:22:14.960 Or after giving birth, you have to wait 40 days or you have to wait 30 days here. And I'm going,

00:22:19.680 hold on, man, you're reading this all wrong.

00:22:21.980 Yes.

00:22:22.400 You don't understand what even the old covenant was pointing to.

00:22:26.540 Yeah.

00:22:27.180 So I could give you a lot of examples. I think the biggest thing I realized,

00:22:31.320 and this is what we started talking about early in our relationship, was he doesn't understand

00:22:35.580 the new birth. Mr. Gothard did not understand regeneration. And even somebody asked me who was a leader

00:22:42.440 in that group, a leader, turned to me at one point in conversation and said, Jeremy, you keep saying

00:22:47.500 this word regeneration. What is that?

00:22:50.160 Wow.

00:22:51.080 And I realized Mr. Gothard doesn't understand what conversion is. So he understands what keep these

00:22:58.300 rules and your life will be better, which is Phariseeism. It's legalism. 0.67

00:23:04.080 And so that was the biggest red flag. And then that would come up all over the place. So

00:23:07.760 what was so cool though, is as I was talking about this or Ginger and I were going through it,

00:23:14.160 I wouldn't share all of my concerns with her. I would be watching this and then we'd watch it

00:23:19.700 together. And she's the one who's going, wait a second, that, what did he just say? That's a

00:23:24.580 problem. And that gave me comfort seeing Ginger, like Ginger got it. She understood. She,

00:23:29.540 she knew that Christianity is a relationship with a living God. It's not a set of rules you throw on

00:23:37.200 and then you're perfect. And I, she says she felt safe with me. I felt safe with her, even though

00:23:44.440 as I was realizing how problematic this theology was, I saw a young woman who loved God, loved other

00:23:50.960 people, wanted to live for him and follow him. And that gave me a safety to know, Hey, we can work

00:23:57.720 through this stuff as our relationship goes on, but I know who this woman is in her heart. Um, I

00:24:03.520 didn't have this fear that she was just doing this outward performance, um, because that's

00:24:07.800 terrifying. Cause you don't, if someone's just performing outwardly, you don't know who really

00:24:11.780 they are and, and what's actually going to come out. And so I felt, I felt safe with her.

00:24:27.720 I think why Bill Gothard or anyone who does the same thing that he did, why they're so enticing,

00:24:36.160 it's not just because they're dynamic, they're good storytellers and all of that, of course,

00:24:40.240 but also because there is, there is some truth to it. Like you apply these principles to your life,

00:24:45.800 your life probably will be better than if you're a drug addict and promiscuous. If you wait to have

00:24:50.960 sex until you get married, it's going to be better than being promiscuous before marriage.

00:24:55.400 If you, you know, don't get drunk, if you do all of these godly principles,

00:24:59.680 your life probably will avoid a lot of the disasters that it would fall into if you engage

00:25:05.140 in this kind of behavior. But it sounds like it was one, the legalism that if you vow to do these

00:25:10.620 things, then you will be righteous. It's not Jesus's righteousness that becomes yours. You still have

00:25:15.480 to earn it. And then also connecting those things to these superstitious, uncorrelated

00:25:20.080 punishments. It's like, did he not understand regeneration and renewal? Or did he just think,

00:25:27.600 well, that's not really helpful to what I want, which is to kind of maintain power or prominence

00:25:34.960 or whatever. Because if you keep people kind of subdued with fear, then you can continue to get

00:25:41.120 them to come to your conferences and buy your curriculum and things like that. So I don't know.

00:25:46.000 Yeah, I think it definitely was for kids in that system. They would be controlled by the fear and

00:25:51.880 kept there by the fear. And so like you said, yeah, your life could be better on the outside for a

00:25:57.260 while, but what's on the inside will come out. And so I think that's where he didn't realize that was

00:26:04.880 going to happen. I mean, he probably did. But the families getting into it did not think about that.

00:26:09.940 They thought, okay, the outward's okay with our kids. They're going to be fine. And all the while,

00:26:15.240 their hearts weren't changed. So yeah, the regeneration wasn't there. But I think Bill

00:26:18.340 Gothard, he was doing these things probably for his own gain.

00:26:22.260 Yeah. And I think the deceiver is also deceived. So I think there was a degree where, where Gothard

00:26:29.720 in his deception of others was deceived himself. Yeah. So where do you draw that line? I don't know.

00:26:36.560 Right. But it's, it's a scary mix of self-deception and then intentional deception of others to

00:26:42.060 manipulate and control. Yeah. So as y'all advanced in your relationship,

00:26:46.320 you got engaged and I'm sure some people saw the changes in you, which was really just

00:26:52.880 even better understanding the gospel. Maybe as, wow, Ginger's really changed. She's really abandoned

00:27:00.600 how we grew up and then y'all moved to a big city. And so, and your life started to look a little bit

00:27:05.960 different. Like, was there any of that from the people that you loved or even just your community of,

00:27:11.280 this is betrayal or this is rebellion?

00:27:14.540 I'm sure that, um, I know some did think that maybe, you know, marrying Jeremy would mean me

00:27:22.280 leaving the gospel, leaving what I knew was true. Um, and then others, it was just, um, I think some of

00:27:30.980 those standards that I had held to, um, for so many years, like only wearing skirts. When I started

00:27:37.760 wearing pants, there were people who were very saddened and grieved by that. And it's understandable

00:27:43.700 because in that setting, when everything, your righteousness is a modesty standard, like, yeah,

00:27:52.620 you're going to freak out if Ginger starts wearing pants because that's so immodest and where's her 1.00

00:27:57.900 heart before God. So I can see how people in that setting would think that. Um, and then, yeah,

00:28:05.160 like moving to Los Angeles where we are now, it's interesting because people would say the same of

00:28:11.900 that. Like you're in such an evil city. There's so much sin there. How could you live there? But I think

00:28:17.860 there's a missing element of like realizing, okay, well, you can look beyond those things and see,

00:28:24.720 okay, are we still walking with God? Do our hearts desire to live holy lives before God,

00:28:29.800 to love the Lord. And, um, I, I can say that it's sad how many would just look on the outside

00:28:37.560 and totally miss the heart of where we are and where we're walking with the Lord. So yeah, we had,

00:28:45.180 we had a lot of interesting reactions. Yeah. And that goes back to something that you

00:28:50.180 said, uh, a little bit ago is that applying the principles or the rules of Bill Gothard couldn't

00:28:56.380 make you look good from the outside and allow other people and not even just other people,

00:29:02.260 but oneself to ignore what's going on on the inside. And your brother, Josh, I mean, he was

00:29:09.280 raised with all the same principles, the principles of purity, the principles of modesty, fidelity, all of

00:29:15.120 those things. And yet we know kind of what's happened or what's come out over the past few

00:29:20.520 months. So just like, tell us a little bit about that. What has that been like for you? Is that an

00:29:25.460 example of the legalism not really going into the heart or what is that? Yeah. You know, it's really

00:29:31.220 hard to like talk about that for one, but I see like with my brother, there has been the same,

00:29:39.760 it is the same heart of going to these standards, putting up all of these outward things to make

00:29:46.600 your heart look good before others. And I think that is really why I wrote this book was in that

00:29:54.160 time when my brother, um, was about to be arrested. I was looking at all of this and I was thinking,

00:30:03.100 man, the glory of God is just, it's going to be dragged through the dirt because people think this

00:30:08.820 is what is, you know, he's claimed to be a Christian and he had up all these outward things that made

00:30:14.420 him look good. But when everything falls apart and no one's saying anything, we have to speak up for

00:30:20.620 the glory of God. And so that's where I thought we want to make a distinction between like putting

00:30:26.680 on rules and what true, the heart of true Christianity is that we're not going to come to

00:30:31.280 God, um, with anything. Like we're not, we're not bringing our religion into this, like in, in the

00:30:37.660 outward standards of what Bill Gothard would say, put on all these standards. You're going to have

00:30:41.460 an amazing family. You're going to turn out well, this is Christianity. But the true heart of the 0.91

00:30:47.280 gospel is when we see that we are sinners in need of a savior, we repent of our sins and believe in

00:30:54.420 Christ that we will be saved. And that regeneration though is a transformation that happens when, um,

00:31:00.260 it comes from the inside out. It's something that God does. It's a work of God. And I think that was

00:31:05.120 missing in this theology. And so you thought, okay, if I just pray a prayer, I'm going to be fine.

00:31:10.800 And you saw so many of these families in the system where situations like my brothers were

00:31:19.460 happening over and over. And I knew many families who were like that. And it just, it's so sad because

00:31:26.500 you're promised this guarantee of success. You think everything's going to be okay, but in the end,

00:31:32.160 it is not going to be okay. Because if you're relying on your own works or feeling good about

00:31:38.300 yourself because you're going to church or any of those things, it will never stop your flesh. It

00:31:44.240 will never be able to keep you from sin. Only God can do that. Yeah. I can't imagine how difficult

00:31:51.540 that must've been to see your brother, a family member, um, be convicted of something that egregious.

00:32:00.000 And then on top of that, you've got people saying, not just this is the problem with this kind of

00:32:06.000 theology, or this is the problem with legalism or so-called purity culture, but this is the problem

00:32:11.420 with Christianity. Yeah. Christianity pushes this kind of thing. That's why he consumed this kind of

00:32:17.940 material. That's why he was accused of doing those things in the past. It's all because of

00:32:22.560 Christianity. And that's when you saw that, the conflation between what you agree was bad

00:32:28.220 legalistic theology and the conflation of the bad behavior of Josh with the gospel,

00:32:34.780 with Christianity, with scripture. That's when you were like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I need to draw some

00:32:38.680 lines of distinction here. Right. And I think one of those things was like within Bill Gothard's

00:32:44.580 setting, there's so much of that talk about purity, about keeping yourself pure and almost viewing,

00:32:50.920 like even talking about sex with your kids or like all of that at appropriate ages and like

00:32:57.780 about how your bodies are changing, that is totally pushed out. So there's not even a healthy view of

00:33:03.300 like, okay, marriage is a gift from God that's to be enjoyed within, um, within marriage or to be able

00:33:09.040 to enjoy this. But there's such a focus on pushing out all of that as almost like evil, even attraction.

00:33:17.120 There were so many focuses on like, okay, now we have to make these single service commitments.

00:33:23.300 Bill Gothard was big into that. He would push these single service commitments to God. Um,

00:33:28.140 and you would have 20 year olds making these commitments for 10 years. You'd have young kids

00:33:34.200 who were making it older people making it for 10 years. And it was like, what are we doing here?

00:33:38.540 Commitments to, he would, he would have them make a commitment to not get married for 10 years,

00:33:44.200 not get married for five years. So you can focus on the Lord without distraction. If you're young

00:33:48.620 and you're like 15, okay. Like if it's five years, 10 years, whatever, like that's okay. When you're,

00:33:55.500 when you are 30 and you're making single service commitments, there's a problem there. He wanted

00:33:59.220 them to abstain from, um, from thinking about another person they're attracted to. So that almost

00:34:06.400 was looked at as sin. Like if you have attraction, I would feel guilty if I was attracted to a young man

00:34:11.520 who was godly, who had good character, I would feel so guilty. And I would never talk to my sisters

00:34:16.880 about it because I was like, that's almost sinful. So it's it, you go to this purity culture and think

00:34:23.460 this is how I'm going to glorify God. And the problem with that is when nothing's talked about,

00:34:30.180 there's going to be curiosity there. Kids will get around anything that you put up for them. So

00:34:35.440 having natural discussions is healthy at appropriate times with your kids. And I think

00:34:40.920 that was totally missing from Bill Gothard's teaching and that whole setting. And so it's so

00:34:47.280 sad to see how many families, like their kids would just figure everything out for themselves.

00:34:52.420 Yeah. And I think he saw the more, the more, well, the approach was to suppress and we just suppress,

00:34:59.200 we push away. And it actually increased the desire and the longing, which is why I stepped into that

00:35:09.800 community and was caught off guard as well by the amount of times I was hearing cases of kind of gross

00:35:17.820 sexual perversion in that community saying, why is this happening? And the scriptures have answers.

00:35:25.280 I mean, Colossians 2 says, it looks good to say, do not taste, do not touch, do not handle,

00:35:30.580 but that has no power in stopping the flesh. The only answer is looking to Christ,

00:35:36.660 which is why even too, when, when these things came out in the news and everything was happening

00:35:43.380 sort of with her brother, Ginger and I made a statement very intentionally quoting Jesus to show

00:35:50.740 Jesus is the one most opposed to this behavior. He's the one who cares the most for children. He's the

00:35:57.840 one who cares the most for people. And he has given us a beautiful design for humanity. And that's a

00:36:04.200 distortion of it. Because to have that conflated with Christianity itself is sad. Because Christ is the

00:36:12.700 one who, who is the answer to those problems, not the cause.

00:36:18.000 And the answer for Josh or for anyone in rebellion is not either to, well, don't be a Christian anymore. 0.95

00:36:26.400 You just need to free yourself from these standards. Or, well, you just need to follow those rules

00:36:31.080 better. The answer is like the very thing that you pointed out that Bill Gothard and his teachings,

00:36:37.880 and a lot of people who profess to be Christians don't understand, which is regeneration. That's the only

00:36:42.540 hope for anyone. Yeah. Jesus transforms our heart to love him and to love others. And so if you look

00:36:51.240 at the fruit of the spirit, which is the result of regeneration, the first three mentioned in

00:36:57.300 scripture, love, joy, peace, and the list goes on, gentleness, patience, kindness, the fruit of

00:37:03.940 conversion is the solution to the human problem. But not putting on a bandaid on cancer,

00:37:11.220 nor embracing your cancer and saying, let me just love the cancer. If you've got a sin problem as

00:37:17.040 a person, you need Christ to transform you. And he was missing that. And so Ginger and I have talked

00:37:24.100 a lot about the pain from the families in that culture, in that system, who do run into deep

00:37:32.920 problems. There's pain because they keep going back to the same solution, but that's actually promoting

00:37:40.760 the problem. And so they need to go, they need to abandon Bill Gothard's proposed solution and they

00:37:47.800 need to go to the heart of the issue, which is a genuine relationship with Christ. And it's tough to

00:37:55.040 see those families walk through that and continue to go back to the same.

00:37:59.580 Because the thing is, it's the promise guarantees for success for your family. And so when they look

00:38:05.020 at that, they're like, well, what principle did I violate? So then they're just freaking out, really.

00:38:11.200 They're not trusting God at all. It's just like, okay, me, me, me, what did I do? Where did I mess up?

00:38:17.200 And so it's just really sad.

00:38:18.820 Yeah. I think there's probably also, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but a lack of

00:38:24.560 vulnerability and honesty about one's struggles or desires or whatever it is that does kind of

00:38:31.080 push people further into darkness and hiding. So rather than someone being comfortable with saying,

00:38:36.780 well, I'm being tempted to sin in this way and I don't want to, you would hide it maybe because

00:38:42.600 you don't even want to admit that you're tempted in any way. And that just kind of,

00:38:48.080 it pushes people.

00:38:49.860 The shame of that.

00:38:50.540 Yeah. It pushes people more into, more actually into embracing that temptation sometimes than

00:38:55.720 running away from it.

00:38:57.180 Yeah, for sure. I think that vulnerability and openness that my parents sought to talk to us

00:39:02.700 kids about our hearts, but I think you see even within that setting, the performance-based

00:39:08.860 thing. You want everything to look good on the outside. And so you're just trying to work to

00:39:14.440 keep that up until it all comes out. And I think there was that, there was a time, I remember that

00:39:20.420 seeing a difference, there was a time where a friend of Jair's had called him up and he was like,

00:39:27.000 Hey, can you, a pastor, can you, can you pray for me? I'm just having bad attitudes, you know,

00:39:32.500 with my grandkids or whatever. And there was, there was this, like, it just, it shocked me.

00:39:38.860 Because something like that, hearing it from a pastor, the humility of that and being vulnerable

00:39:45.240 with a friend, it's just so sweet to see that within the body of Christ, that's what we're

00:39:51.200 there for is, you know, we're able to confess our sins and, and pray for one another and help each

00:39:58.280 other in that community too, that we're blessed with within, within the body of Christ. It's a gift.

00:40:04.040 It's not something that we should feel like, okay, we're not going to throw our sin out to

00:40:08.600 like every person, you know, that we come across, but it's like, it is a sweet thing to see that we

00:40:14.400 don't have to keep up this front of like, we're all perfect. We're always going to be happy and

00:40:18.420 cheery and smile. Um, but we can be real and honest. Yeah. And just so, cause I know that this

00:40:25.480 is such a sensitive subject, like talking about not just Josh, but like child sex abuse in general,

00:40:30.660 like, yes, we're talking about the gospel and regeneration and forgiveness. But as you guys

00:40:35.380 said in your statement, like there is a place and a need for earthly justice. And like, we also as

00:40:42.860 Christians absolutely support that and understand that place. And also our hearts go out to all of

00:40:49.460 the people who are affected by this. Cause this is not like a victimless crime. So we don't need to

00:40:56.540 get into the details of that. We've talked about it. There's plenty out there, but just want to

00:41:00.640 make sure that that is totally, that's totally clear. And obviously this is not the first time

00:41:06.700 that the media has talked about your family. Um, there was also a recent, um, I don't know,

00:41:15.520 cyclone of news and negative coverage about your family. When it comes to Jessa, Jessa suffered

00:41:21.160 miscarriage. We talked about that on this podcast and somehow the media decided to construe that into

00:41:27.080 she actually had an abortion, which is just wild and absolutely just scientifically inaccurate. But

00:41:33.960 I also know hurtful for her. I mean, what is it like? What was that like? What's it like to see that

00:41:38.740 kind of untrue stuff about people that you love in the media? Yeah. It's interesting. I feel like

00:41:44.160 most of the time those things just run off my back because being in the public eye, since I was a kid,

00:41:50.660 you have to let things roll off your back and just not worry about it. But whenever I heard that about

00:41:56.760 Jess and I saw the articles, um, I, I have had very few times where my blood, I feel like my blood is

00:42:04.180 boiling. And that was one of those moments. And I was just like, how could they say that? And, and

00:42:09.920 trying to speak about her pain in such a way that is just hurtful and wrong. Um, and so my heart was

00:42:18.820 just like hurting for her because I know here she is walking through one of the most difficult things

00:42:26.800 and she chooses a couple months later to share that with everyone, um, the world and then to see

00:42:34.060 something so painful attacked and just, it was just so sad. So I know that being in the public eye,

00:42:42.340 you will, you will always have critics and you'll always have people say whatever about you. Um,

00:42:49.020 but that was one that I was just like, this is so wrong. It's so just beyond the pale. It was so hard

00:42:57.040 for me to believe that people would actually go out of their way to write something like that

00:43:00.800 in the midst of her pain. So obviously you love your family very much. You love your parents,

00:43:06.460 you love all of your siblings, but like, what has it been like since this book came out

00:43:12.220 and you've kind of talked about the dangers of some of those teachings? I mean, has that been

00:43:17.560 difficult navigating the, like navigating those conversations? Yeah. We sought to have conversations

00:43:24.900 with my family, um, about the book before we said anything publicly. And so I think some of them were

00:43:32.540 definitely, um, like, um, like it's still in those teachings and I knew that, and I knew it would be

00:43:39.340 difficult. Um, but at the same time, a lot of my siblings have been supportive and appreciative of

00:43:47.400 this book. And so I've been really grateful for those responses. Um, because I know regardless of what

00:43:55.620 anyone may think about it, I need to speak truth because I feel like it is so necessary when it comes down

00:44:02.460 to how you view God in the Bible, that's what matters the most. And so I have to speak it no

00:44:08.600 matter what the outcome. Yeah. Do you feel like it's provided you with some opportunities to have

00:44:14.960 those kinds of gospel centered conversations? Yeah. It's been really sweet to see how many

00:44:20.620 conversations I've been able to have around the book. And, um, like the book has opened up that door

00:44:25.840 for conversation. And, um, I know so many can really identify with different points of what I've

00:44:33.980 walked through. And so it's been, it's been encouraging. Yeah. Um, I'm sure it's been

00:44:39.580 different being a mom now and having a different location where you're raising your kids, totally

00:44:45.680 different from where you grew up in Arkansas and obviously different theology, different church. I mean,

00:44:51.000 how has that been for y'all? I mean, everyone kind of has that to some degree. You have some

00:44:55.700 differences from how you were raised versus how you raise your kids, but just in kind of learning

00:45:01.700 how to apply what you now understand about the gospel and motherhood, what does that look like?

00:45:06.920 It's kind of, it's kind of interesting. Like in those, those early years, I really had it all mapped

00:45:11.800 out how my kids were going to be, what I was going to do at the age of 14. I would look at other

00:45:16.180 families and be like, your kids over there rebelling. I know what's wrong with them. They don't know

00:45:19.960 these principles. So once I set all that aside, I did freak out a little bit because I was literally

00:45:25.880 like, babe, what are we going to do? I have no clue now because I am just having to, as I should

00:45:32.560 go to the word of God, pray through stuff together and try to make the best decision for our kids.

00:45:39.420 Because it's like, now I'm not saying that homeschool is our only option where I thought

00:45:44.540 I'm going to say here, I'm like, okay, we have so many great schooling options around us,

00:45:48.740 which I'm very grateful for. Or like even just how we're going to do life at home. And I want to

00:45:58.620 point them to Jesus. I don't want to point them to these standards. What are we going to do when

00:46:02.880 they get older? All of those things. It's a beautiful thing because it makes us rely on the

00:46:09.240 Lord all the more instead of feel like, okay, we're going to trust this man that he has the answers.

00:46:14.520 We're going to go to God's word.

00:46:24.400 Do you ever still have moments where you feel like you kind of struggle between, hang on,

00:46:34.760 is this is what I'm doing right now? Is this obedience being motivated out of a love for God?

00:46:41.160 Or am I kind of reverting as we all do at different points in our faith to maybe

00:46:45.040 your pre-understanding of what it really means to be regenerated more of that kind of superstitious

00:46:51.720 feeling?

00:46:53.040 Yeah, definitely. Every day reminding myself of the gospel, reminding myself of the truth of God's word.

00:46:58.940 I think because these teachings were so foundational for me, it has been something that I have to remind

00:47:05.980 myself of the work of Christ that is done on my behalf as a believer and not turning to like if I

00:47:13.260 had a bad attitude towards one of my kids or my husband, realizing, okay, there's forgiveness in

00:47:19.420 Christ. I need to ask forgiveness and then move on and let the grace of God cover that. Because within

00:47:26.800 the system of the Bill Gothard, it's so easy just to become so introspective and to become fearful.

00:47:32.720 Like, oh no, since I messed up, what's going to happen to me? Those feelings still come back and

00:47:37.760 I have to speak, I have to think truth, speak truth in my heart through God's word, realizing who I am

00:47:43.840 in Christ and asking for forgiveness and moving on. And that's definitely still something that every day

00:47:51.860 I have to work through. But I think to some extent we all have that, but maybe a little bit more

00:47:59.460 coming from a setting that was focused on the outward.

00:48:02.940 Yeah. And the freedom that you're talking about in your book and the title of your book is not,

00:48:07.460 like you mentioned, deconstruction a couple of times as we've been talking. It's not the freedom

00:48:11.640 to do whatever you want to. It's not the freedom to follow your own heart as the world defines freedom.

00:48:17.660 You're not talking about freedom from obedience, but actually freedom to obey. So it's not the

00:48:23.420 obedience itself necessarily that changes, but the place where it comes, which really actually

00:48:29.040 kind of revolutionizes everything, right?

00:48:31.420 Yeah. That is the thing. It's not like you're throwing off all restraints to feel like you're

00:48:35.820 free, but true freedom is found in knowing Christ and loving him and obeying him, obedience through his

00:48:42.620 word. And it's such a beautiful thing. It is freeing to be living your life according to the Bible,

00:48:50.420 not according to a man's tradition or anything, but just knowing God and loving him.

00:48:54.680 That is where freedom is found.

00:48:56.680 Yeah. Actually, I read an Instagram post the other day that made me sad. It was someone who

00:49:01.340 is basically saying that they can live in a certain kind of sin and also follow Christ. And she actually

00:49:05.920 used the words, I'm so glad I discovered that I don't have to deny myself to follow Jesus. I'm like,

00:49:12.840 wow, you don't even realize. And so we've been talking about the dangers of legalism,

00:49:18.160 which is, I mean, gosh, Satan can use that. We saw that with the Pharisees. And then some people,

00:49:23.340 you know, you swing to the other direction and you actually end up without even realizing it,

00:49:27.840 like denying obedience to Christ altogether because you think to be a Christian means to have,

00:49:34.000 like you said, no restraints.

00:49:36.040 Right. Do whatever you want, follow the culture, do whatever the culture is doing.

00:49:40.140 And that is not the answer. So that's where it's all that we do as Christians,

00:49:45.460 it will be found in the word of God. So denying ourself, it says, deny yourself,

00:49:50.260 take up your cross and follow God. So that's where you see that that is the beauty of Christianity

00:49:57.400 though. It's not like, oh no, now I'm going to live this terrible life because I have to deny myself.

00:50:03.480 It's a beautiful thing to submit our lives to the word of God, to submit ourselves to a church

00:50:09.940 and to the beauty of being in a place where you have accountability. And there are so many of those

00:50:17.360 things that people would say are bad, but they're actually good. They're good gifts from God.

00:50:21.660 Yeah. Is there anything you would add to that, Jeremy?

00:50:24.480 No, I would just say, you know, the Lord made us and he made us with a beautiful design

00:50:29.280 and it's our sin that has rejected that design. So to submit to our maker is to submit to the,

00:50:36.460 his original plan for, for flourishing and for our enjoyment and satisfaction, which is why as

00:50:41.680 Christians, it's not a lack of freedom in relationship to God. It's finding true freedom

00:50:46.880 for the first time because we're reconnected with why we are here, why we were made and we have a

00:50:52.920 purpose. Yeah, definitely. What would just be your final encouragement, maybe for someone who

00:51:00.540 is in the midst of a kind of upbringing or just a kind of theology like that you were raised in? And

00:51:06.120 honestly, I'm sure there's a lot of fear in that because there is some comfort in saying, okay,

00:51:11.180 this is my, these are my rules. Like this is my security blanket because if I just follow this,

00:51:17.340 then I'm going to be okay. I don't know what it looks like to let those go.

00:51:21.740 So what if I do end up rebelling or whatever it is? Like, what does it look like to not have that

00:51:26.740 safety and security anymore? So what would be your final message to someone like that?

00:51:31.540 Yeah. I would say, I think that it's interesting. I remember that initial wrestling with that thought

00:51:39.740 because it's so easy when Bill Gothard had prescribed for me, everything was black and white.

00:51:45.920 It was, there was no gray area in the Christian life. And so he had it all prescribed for me. And I 0.60

00:51:50.780 thought that's, that seems easier. But when you realize like where your heart actually is in that

00:52:00.180 time is turmoil, there's no peace in that because you are working, you're trying to work to keep up

00:52:06.920 all these outward standards for yourself, thinking this is my safety. This is my peace. It's not found

00:52:12.780 in the word of God. It's not found in a relationship with him. And so you can only be on that treadmill so

00:52:20.880 long and you're going to be beat down again and again. And the promise guarantee for success within

00:52:27.440 Bill Gothard's principles or anybody else who's trying to teach you outside of the Bible is not

00:52:32.440 going to last. But when you can find true peace in, in coming to the word of God, examining those

00:52:38.920 things and realizing like, sometimes you're going to lose friendships. You're going to lose your

00:52:43.300 community. You're going to lose, um, what you thought your future was going to look like,

00:52:47.800 but trusting in God who is all knowing all good and realizing like, if I don't have anyone else right

00:52:55.140 now, but I have God, that's enough. That was, that was a place that I felt like I had to come to even

00:53:00.260 to be able to speak out against this because the community can be a hard, the hardest thing to get

00:53:05.280 past. Cause you feel like I'm losing everything now that safety, but it's a beautiful thing to

00:53:11.780 be able to come to the word of God and like, even be led by the spirit of God. And each person's life

00:53:16.620 can look so different in that time where it's like my, you know, my friend may send their kids to a

00:53:22.220 Christian school. I'm a homeschool. We can have these differences and we can trust that God is good

00:53:26.560 and he's going to work in their life in the right, in his timing. And we don't have to like

00:53:31.320 micromanage everything. There's peace in that. And there's a beauty in just trusting in Jesus and

00:53:36.600 not in a person. Yeah. And Psalm 23 tells us that the Lord is our shepherd. We shall not want. So

00:53:42.920 it's actually not the rules that are keeping us safe. It's the Lord that keeps us safe. And it's

00:53:48.500 not because we earned that safety or we had anything to do with it, but he gives it to us as a gift.

00:53:54.260 And there is so much freedom and peace in that. And that's where the obedience comes from.

00:53:58.660 You obey because you love so much and you're so thankful, not because, oh my gosh, I'm going to

00:54:04.680 be, I'm going to be punished. It's okay. No, it's fine. It's totally fine. I mean,

00:54:10.420 this is a huge part of your heart and your life and it goes somewhere really deep.

00:54:16.420 So yeah. Jeremy, is there anything else that you would tell someone who has had a similar background?

00:54:22.820 No, I've just, I've been really encouraged by Ginger's strength through this journey and her

00:54:30.040 commitment to not lose Jesus in the midst of the distortion of Christ and his words. There's a lot

00:54:38.420 of people who want to take the word of God and use it for their own gain. And that's confusing and

00:54:44.080 that's hurtful. Um, but to recognize really how Ginger, uh, concludes in her book that, that, uh,

00:54:51.380 Christ is a gracious savior. He's a kind friend and that he's worth holding onto, um, and, and going

00:54:59.840 directly to him, uh, despite the pain you've walked through, despite how people have maybe, um, used and

00:55:06.460 abused his words that Jesus Christ is true and he is good.

00:55:09.500 Yeah. And he's worth it. He's worth all the, whether it's misunderstandings or whether it's,

00:55:17.240 you know, strained in relationships or whatever it is, he's worth that. So thank you for sharing

00:55:23.200 your story because whether someone is on the side of, well, I'm just going to let all of this go,

00:55:28.620 or I've got to cling to these rules. There's a lot to benefit from your vulnerability. And I'm sure

00:55:36.720 that was really hard. I'm sure it's okay. No, it's fine. I mean, I'm sure it has been hard

00:55:42.100 to share a lot of this. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Thank you both so much for taking the time

00:55:49.860 to share. And I really do. I encourage people to go out and get her book. Most of you probably

00:55:53.840 already have. You probably did after, um, our original conversation. And again, go back and

00:55:58.620 listen to that. If you haven't, that'll kind of give you an understanding even more of where she's

00:56:02.960 coming from, but we'll put up the book and we'll put the link in the description of this episode and

00:56:07.680 you can check it out. It's an amazing book, just an incredible story, but also so many lessons about

00:56:12.740 the gospel and who God really is. Um, thank you guys so much for taking the time. Yeah. Thanks,

00:56:18.620 All right. Hope you loved that conversation as much as I did. Definitely go out and get Ginger's book.

00:56:26.640 All right. Let's announce the winners of the giveaway. Thank you guys so much for entering

00:56:33.280 for everyone, the thousands of people who participated. I really appreciate it. Um,

00:56:38.500 all of the, all of the companies do all the sponsors that gave us the items to put in these

00:56:43.460 giveaway baskets. Just incredible. You should be following them anyway. Check out their stuff. I've

00:56:48.120 got promo codes for all of those companies. So make sure that you go, you get some good stuff,

00:56:53.560 you use promo code. It depends. It's sometimes it's Allie. Sometimes it's Allie B. Use my promo

00:56:59.620 code that you can find in the description of these episodes and go check them out. They're great

00:57:04.460 companies to sponsor, but the people who won the free stuff for entering Jessica Jacques. I think

00:57:10.640 that's how you pronounce your last name, Jessica, Julia Gerboni, and then Emily Casey. We have already

00:57:17.400 messaged them. We've got their addresses. So we are sending the stuff their way for everyone

00:57:23.160 else. Again, thank you for entering, but also remember we've got lots and lots of new merch.

00:57:27.900 Guys, Related Bros, Mother's Day is coming up and you know what your baby mama wants? She wants 1.00

00:57:36.620 a relatable gear. Bree's laughing at my use of baby mama. Your lawfully wanted wife, she wants, 0.99

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00:57:58.640 my promo code at checkout. You'll get 10% off. So go get your relatable gear. Alliemerch.com. 0.87

00:58:05.000 We'll put the link in the description of this episode. Check it out. And even if you're not looking

00:58:09.940 for a Mother's Day gift, just go on there anyway and get yourself some gear. Mine came in today. I'm

00:58:14.960 so excited. I'm going to wear it tomorrow on the show. All right. Thanks so much for watching and

00:58:20.160 listening. We will be back here tomorrow.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 27, 2023

Ep 777 ｜ On Duggar Theology, Josh’s Arrest, & Media Lies ｜ Guests： Jinger Duggar Vuolo & Jeremy Vuolo

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