Ep 824 ｜ 'Shiny, Happy People'： The Real Problems with Duggar Theology
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 12 minutes
Summary
On today's episode of Relatable, we talk about the dangers of fatherlessness and the impact it can have on our children. We also discuss the newly released documentary, "Shiny Happy People" about the Duggar's and their theology.
Transcript
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Shiny Happy People is a newly released documentary about the Duggars and about their theology.
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I have a lot of thoughts, and so does producer Brie, about this documentary.
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Some of the things that we agree with, some of the things that we thought were absurd,
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but we'll focus a lot of our time on the biblical problems with what is presented as Duggar
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theology and some of the consequences that it has.
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Before we get into that episode, I've got two things to tell you.
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Number one, we've got these really cute shirts that are available online.
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There are June shirts, our No Way It Covenant shirts, and also we've got our Rainbow Belongs
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to God shirts that are available on AllieMerch.com.
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Also, if you love this podcast, if you appreciate this podcast, will you please leave a five-star
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But if you can leave that five-star review on Apple Podcasts, that would mean so much
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This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend, a wonderful Father's Day weekend specifically.
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And I just wanted to take a moment to say, Related Bros, we really appreciate you.
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I know we talk a lot about the Related Gals, Related Bells still have not decided what we
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are going to call the women who watch and listen to Relatable.
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I just wanted to say that we appreciate you, especially those of you who are dads.
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I know we talk about this show being a female-centric show, which it is simply because I'm a female
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And we talk about a lot of things that affect motherhood and women specifically.
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But I know that there are some very supportive and very consistent Related Bros out there who
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And you give me feedback and encouragement, and I appreciate that so much.
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And a special shout out to the Related Bros who are dads.
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I hope that you were shown that appreciation over the weekend.
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There is an underappreciation and has been, there has been an underappreciation for dads
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for a very, very long time in the United States.
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I mean, going back decades, just seeing the fumbling, dumb, weak, compliant, passive dad
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And then, of course, the destructive effects of something like the family diversity theory,
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which Professor Brad Wilcox has explained on our show before, this idea that kids don't
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They just need some kind of love coming from some kind of adults.
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The outcomes will all kind of be comparable if they're raised by two moms or two dads or
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They have the most healthy upbringing, generally, statistically, when they are raised by their
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That's not to say that single moms or single dads don't do a great job.
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That's not to say that different kinds of parents don't absolutely love their kids or
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that kids can never turn out to be awesome, responsible, productive citizens and Christians
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if they were not raised by their own mother and father.
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But the statistics are so overwhelmingly consistent and clear that kids are, they thrive the most
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when they're raised by a present married mother and father.
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And so we should be doing everything that we can to encourage that, to promote that.
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And it's especially true when it comes to present dads.
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There is a consequence to fatherlessness that simply doesn't show up in the same way if you're
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Motherlessness is still, by the way, statistically rare.
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Of course, now with gay couples using surrogates and egg buying and things like that, it's more
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prevalent than it used to be, but it's a historical anomaly.
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And so fatherlessness, we have a lot of data on fatherlessness, and we see that it leads
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to greater chances of teen delinquency, teen pregnancy, depression, anxiety, failing your
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classes, not going to school, not graduating, staying stuck in poverty, all kinds of social
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ills, all kinds of personal failures and personal struggles come from not having present dads at
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And so the fact that our government leaders not only don't focus on that, but pretend like
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that's not one of the most, if not the most pervasive problems in the United States, it's
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I think that a present dad is one of the greatest barriers between families, between individuals
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And so the fewer dads that you have to depend on for protection and provision and for guidance,
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the easier it is for the government to come in and be your daddy.
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And there's also a lot of interesting data on how dads influence their families to go
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If a mom goes to church, I think it's like, I don't know, a 60% chance or something like
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that, that the rest of the family will go to church, that children will go to church.
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But if dad is the one leading the way, going to church, this is by focus on the family.
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There's like a 93% chance that everyone is going to go to church with him every Sunday.
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There's something different about male leadership.
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You guys know how unique and wonderful I think women are, and I believe moms are.
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God has gifted us in very special ways, but there's something unique about dads that moms
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It's so interesting how many people on the right or the left will accept the idea that, or
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They'll say, yeah, you know, we believe in biological sex.
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Increasingly, we're seeing people accept the reality of the gender binary since that's
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been challenged so fiercely over the past years.
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But some of those same people, some of those same people will accept the equally absurd notion
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that men and women are interchangeable when it comes to marriage and parenting.
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Because they're willing to be called transphobic, but they don't want to be called homophobic.
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They're like, oh, no, let's just go back to tradition when we just had a regular rainbow
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flag and not the rainbow flag with the added colors.
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They think you can be LGB without the T or whatever the saying is.
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But the fact is, it's equally absurd and it's equally destructive to say that having two
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dads or having two moms is the same thing as having a mom and a dad.
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A woman can't become a man because men and women are different.
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Not just biologically, but we bring different things to the table.
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We bring different things to our families, to communities.
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Every policy, every effort, every bit of energy that we have should be put toward upholding and
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The wedding of a mom and a dad and the creation of children because that's best for children.
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And the first chapter of Genesis, when he made us male and female, when he created the
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first marriage, when he created the first family, it's almost like he knew what would be best for
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He knew what would be best for nations, for societies.
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And so he created this wonderful institution of marriage and family, this life-giving institution
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of marriage between a man and a woman to keep and make and protect their children.
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So science is always trying to catch up to God.
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And I actually do see some positive indications towards the populace recognizing that.
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Let's continue to push for what is good and right and true and that.
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Thank you again, Related Bros, who are dads, just for showing up, for being present, for working
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hard, for doing so much unseen and unsung work that holds it all together.
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I'm so thankful that he is an excellent and loving and present dad.
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I'm so thankful for my own dad, who continues today to help me grow into the woman that God
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has called me to be in so many different ways, through mentorship, through love, through support.
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I mean, he really is one of my biggest fans and he has helped me navigate the crazy waters
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And it's hard for me to even articulate how vital he is and how vital he has been in the
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formation of me as a person, spiritually, mentally, emotionally.
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I mean, gosh, dads are so incredibly crucial to the healthy formation of the individual,
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Speaking of families and speaking of patriarchs, maybe we're finally going to talk about this
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documentary that was on Amazon Prime, Shiny Happy People, which is about the Duggars and
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We're going to get into the good, the bad and the ugly, what the mainstream criticism
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And then what I think is actual biblical criticism of the kinds of doctrines that were pushed by
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families like the Duggars and pushed by the community that they were a part of.
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Producer Bree is going to be brought in because she also watched this series on Amazon Prime.
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And we're going to talk about it a little bit and get into some analysis of it and what I agree
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about when it comes, what I agree with when it comes to the criticism, what I don't necessarily
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agree with, what I think is hypocritical, what I thought was just plain ridiculous in this documentary.
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Okay, Shiny Happy People, a documentary about the Duggars and about IBLP.
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IBLP is the Institute of Biblical Life Principles.
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Is it biblical life principles or basic life principles?
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And this was an institute that was started by Bill Gothard.
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And it was basically his interpretation of how scripture should apply to our lives in the
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And not just that, but really society at large.
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There's a strong emphasis on male leadership, on female submission, on strict discipline.
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And I think very strange discipline when it comes to ensuring your children's obedience.
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And what we saw throughout this documentary is that this structure was extremely legalistic
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He wasn't using proper biblical exegesis or even always referring to scripture when he was
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laying out these rules for families and rules for life.
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He simply would sometimes say, well, scripture said, or the Bible says, or this is how God
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set it up without actually properly looking into the text, interpreting the text and applying
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the text, which really created a disconnect between the structure of IBLP and scripture, but
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It created a legalistic mechanism for people to look like they are righteous and to look
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like they are doing good without actually understanding the gospel of grace.
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And in any kind of legalistic structure that emphasizes external obedience rather than inward
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regeneration, you are going to set yourself up or set people up for the possibility of abuse
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and of manipulation of the adherence to these kinds of principles in the same way that the
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Pharisees were able to oppress and in some ways abuse the rest of the Jewish people by setting
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up these lofty rules that really only they could reach and then telling people you're never
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going to be good enough and just instilling this kind of fear-based obedience in people.
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So the adherence to any kind of legalistic structure like IBLP are going to be vulnerable
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to this kind of fear-based manipulation and oppression and then even
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abuse because they are so inundated with fear and intimidation and desire to be perfect and
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follow these rules that they're really willing to do anything, especially when it came to women
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at IBLP, they're willing to do anything to just ensure that they are in keeping with these basic
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life principles and in their minds being obedient to God.
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So the documentary basically goes through the Duggars and how they became stars.
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I think 19 Kids and Counting, there were some things before that, some things after that.
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I had like a vague understanding of or like a vague awareness of the Duggars and I wasn't
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like TLC wasn't necessarily something that I watched all the time, except I did used to
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I thought that they must have they must be like Mennonite or they must have some kind
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of like non-Christian religious beliefs because they had the long hair.
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That was certainly not any form of Christianity that I grew up around.
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I was raised in a conservative home, but it looked nothing like the lives of the Duggars.
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And when people would tell me what I would ask, like ask my parents, like, what are they
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And they would say, oh, I think they're just I don't know.
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I always thought it was so strange because their life didn't look like anyone's life that
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But really, that's basically all I knew about them, that they had a bunch of kids, that they
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were living like an extremely conservative Christian lifestyle.
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I didn't realize until I watched this documentary how huge and influential the Duggars were.
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And like how much content they were making, how intrusive this stuff was into their lives.
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And so that that part really fascinated me about how Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, they
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really pursued fame and pursued the spotlight in the name of gaining influence through like
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some kind of godly ministry to share their beliefs to the world.
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I didn't realize just like what an impact they were having or how big of an audience they
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And Brie, did you growing up when you were in high school, you're a little younger than
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And that was just kind of like my thought was that's a different like area of Christianity
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Like it was just it just felt kind of weird that they I don't know.
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The impression I got from my parents was just like, that's an area that we are not in.
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But you grew up in Colorado, California, Idaho, Idaho.
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You might have seen some of these similar things.
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I mean, I went to a conservative Christian school and it's conservative in the sense that
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We believe about conservative things, about like sexuality and gender and all of that.
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I didn't have that much connection to like rural America and certainly not these sections
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And I think some people have a misconception, probably.
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And we'll get into this, like watching the documentary that this is conservative Christianity
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The Duggar lifestyle was so foreign, which is why it was on TLC, by the way, because it
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And what's funny is that I remember watching a couple episodes where Cousin Amy is in the
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And she was, I remember a scene where she's like, yeah, I wear pants.
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But she was kind of painted out as like, well, she's the liberal one.
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And she, you know, she probably even had a more conservative and strict life than like
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I would say my parents were strict, but I mean, I went on dates.
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I probably wore things that looking back, I'm like, I probably shouldn't have been wearing
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I mean, I wasn't rebellious or like drinking or partying or anything like that.
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But even compared to Amy, I mean, the Duggars probably thought our lives would have more
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And I don't want to get into it prematurely that I have about the documentary is trying
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So these are the problems that I listed that I saw from the documentary that the documentary
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Wives submitting to husbands that's treated as, oh my gosh, that is like the bane of all
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Gender roles, modesty, quote unquote, purity culture, children as arrows in a quiver, culture
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And then of course the hypocrisy, sexual harassment and assault.
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So I'm, so this is, these are the documentaries, like I would say list of things that they
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And I agree with a lot of the things that the documentary said.
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So I'm going to get into that, but I do want to distinguish between the documentary's
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perspective of the problem with IBLP and the actual biblical perspective with IBLP and
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And we've talked to Ginger, we've talked to Ginger and Jeremy on this show before.
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And so go back and listen to a couple of those episodes because I won't be able to rehash
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everything that Ginger said about how this caused a lot of fear in her life and the emphasis
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But definitely go back and listen to those because we have, we do kind of have like a
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So let me, let me list, let me go through from a biblical perspective, what I think is
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wrong with the IBLP, what I think is wrong with Duggar theology.
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As I just listed, wives submitting to husbands, purity culture, culture wars, things like that.
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That's what the documentary tells us is wrong with, is wrong with this movement.
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But not all of those things that I listed, just on the surface, are unbiblical.
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I mean, as Christians, just as Christians who read and believe the Bible, we understand that
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We understand that there is an importance to modesty.
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We understand that wives are called to submit to our husbands.
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But we need to look at what the Bible actually says about these things.
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As I will argue, it's actually different than what Bill Gothard argued about them.
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So the problems with the Duggar slash IBLP theology from a biblical perspective, in just
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some ways, there are many, many, but in just some of the ways that the documentary really
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highlighted and then offered like their own analysis of it, not really necessarily always
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So the problem with the Duggar IBLP theology from a biblical perspective is not that wives
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were called to submit to their husbands, because the Bible does say that wives are supposed
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to submit to our husbands as to the Lord, does Ephesians 5.
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It is not that they differentiated in gender roles.
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It's not that they told their adherence to influence the culture or engage in politics.
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Every person, every person, no matter what their worldview is, no matter what their background
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is, brings their worldview to the voting booth or the content that they produce online or
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their job or their school or to their elected position.
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So Christians, of course, are called to do that, too.
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I mean, just as the Israelite exiles in Jeremiah 29 were told to seek the welfare of the city that
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God had placed them in, so Christian exiles here on earth are to seek the welfare of the city in
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One of the ways, not the exclusive way or even always the primary way, but one of the ways
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to do that is to influence culture and to influence politics.
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Of course, we are to fight to uphold the family.
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Of course, we are to fight on behalf of vulnerable children in the womb.
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Of course, we are to fight against the maiming of people's bodies in the name of
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Christians have always done these things in one form or another, and we will continue
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It is how IBLP misconstrued, misinterpreted, misapplied biblical commands to create this
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legalistic, graceless, gospelist framework that oppressed and repressed its adherents rather
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than setting them free and insulated powerful men from accountability, thus,
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making, in particular, women and children extremely vulnerable to predation and manipulation.
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So we're going to go through some of these things, how, yes, the Bible says this, but not
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Okay, so, yes, the Bible does say wives submit to our husbands as to the Lord.
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But it also says husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church.
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This would have been radical at the time of a highly patriarchal society in which Paul
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For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does.
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Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
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So even though, yes, wives are called to submit to their husbands as to the Lord and the husband
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is supposed to love his wife as Christ loved the church, that means lay his life down for
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We also read in Scripture that there is a mutual respect and a mutual submission between
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husband and wife that is supposed to be reflective of or is supposed to be representative of the
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Yes, there is a structure there in marriage of submission and of respect and of love, but
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that does not alleviate men and husbands of their responsibility to honor the dignity and
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honor the imago Dei in their wife and honor their wife's body.
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There is a mutual submission and a mutual respect that we see there, especially when it comes
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And so this is an example, I think, of the IBLP getting part of Scripture and then misapplying
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it in a way that is convenient for them to be able to oppress and repress some of the women
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in IBLP without upholding the responsibility that men have as well in their role in marriage.
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So, yes, men and women, as IBLP notes, are different and have different responsibilities
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Some of the things that we saw, it's not wrong for women to focus on cooking and cleaning
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But the differing responsibilities and roles that women have that are assigned to us by
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God, these do not mean that women are consigned to only homemaking or that women's education
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is unimportant or that their role in the world is always a hidden one.
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I don't think that that is biblically supported at all.
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Throughout Scripture, we see God call upon women to humbly carry out His purpose, not in
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the same way that He calls men, but He does call out women to follow or to carry out His
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Sometimes it is through childbearing, so those more domestic perhaps roles, but sometimes not.
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Rahab, Ruth, Hannah, Esther, Mary, Martha, Lydia.
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God uses women in spectacular God-ordained ways to carry out His purposes.
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That seems to be something that is missing from the doctrines and the theology of IBLP.
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Yes, women are to dress modestly, but modesty, we see throughout Scripture, is a value both
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men and women are to uphold, not just women, as it is fundamentally about humility in our appearance
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and honoring Christ with our bodies, rather than purposely drawing attention to ourselves.
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And yes, Christians are called to reserve sex and sexual acts for marriage, and modesty
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And women are specifically instructed to ensure that we are carrying ourselves and dressing
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But again, humility comes back to a state of the heart that has to be regenerated and renewed
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by Christ, which means it is applicable to all Christians.
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Sexual purity, which means saving all sexual acts for marriage between a man and a woman,
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is the responsibility of both man and woman, not just women.
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Women are not responsible for men's lusts, for their sexual drive, for their predation, for
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where their eyes wander, no matter what women are wearing.
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So yes, we are as women to don ourselves with humility, to make sure that we are honoring
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Christ, drawing attention to Christ in all that we wear and how we appear.
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That doesn't necessarily mean wearing dresses or wearing a potato sack.
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Of course, I think that there are some probably like strict objective parameters that we can
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put around the apparel that Christians should wear.
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But really, it's about the heart behind what we are wearing and whom we are drawing attention
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But women are not responsible, no matter what we are wearing for men's lust or predation.
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And that's something that is lost on the teachers of and the adherents of IBLP.
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You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery.
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But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed
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If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.
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For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into
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So you see the responsibility is placed on the luster.
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The responsibility is placed on the person who is looking.
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The responsibility is placed on the woman who is imagining committing an adulterous act
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He said it's better for this person who notices that his eye is causing him to lust, not to push
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the object of his lust to the side and punish her, but to gouge out his own eye, to take
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Again, that does not mean that women and men shouldn't dress modestly, that we shouldn't
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glorify God with what we're wearing, with how we appear.
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But we are not responsible for men's thoughts or for people's thoughts or for their lust
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If you look at John 8, a story that many of you know, the woman caught in adultery.
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I think that this story is misinterpreted a lot.
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But I don't think I knew the real meaning behind it.
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I hadn't really looked into the text and what Jesus actually meant by what he said and what
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I read, I have this book that I reference all the time and that I go to to ask questions
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And in the segment talking about the death penalty, because this passage is typically used
00:31:33.440
erroneously to say that Jesus abolished the death penalty.
00:31:37.380
They actually went into the context of what this passage means, especially in relation
00:31:43.500
to the Old Testament law that Jesus would have known well and that everyone around him would
00:31:50.740
So in this story, this woman is caught in adultery and there are men standing there ready to stone
00:31:56.920
There are Pharisees asking Jesus, trying to trap Jesus, as they often did, saying, shouldn't
00:32:04.480
Doesn't the law say that she deserves to be stoned because she was caught in adultery?
00:32:11.260
And yet Jesus does something that probably seemed very peculiar.
00:32:17.940
And he says to the people around ready to execute her, you who are without sin, be the
00:32:25.700
One by one, they dropped their stones and they left.
00:32:31.860
And what's typically lost in here is that Jesus is talking about the accuser's sin in
00:32:39.680
You who are without sin, be the one to throw the first stone.
00:32:42.680
He's not saying that if you've ever sinned in your entire life, you are never justified
00:32:53.040
He's doing what he had done over and over again throughout his ministry.
00:32:56.800
He's exposing the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the religious zealots by showing that
00:33:03.200
those most zealous to follow the law were not abiding by it correctly because Jewish law
00:33:09.500
required the presence of two or three witnesses to stone someone caught in adultery.
00:33:13.800
And both parties, the man and the woman were to be executed per Deuteronomy 22, 22.
00:33:19.980
So per usual, the Pharisees and the zealots around them were giving the appearance of taking
00:33:26.220
the law seriously, but they were actually breaking it.
00:33:30.640
Jesus' problem with the Pharisees was not that they were too holy.
00:33:36.020
It's not that they cared too much about God's law.
00:33:38.180
It's that they actually weren't holy or righteous enough.
00:33:41.340
They pretended to be religious law keepers, but they were constantly making up new rules
00:33:45.860
and ignoring the heart of the laws that God had given Moses.
00:33:48.440
They were actually lawless and they were hypocrites, giving off the appearance of goodness and
00:33:53.640
superiority while having only love for themselves and their hearts rather than love for God.
00:34:00.020
And this reminds me a lot of the IBLP and Bill Gothard.
00:34:03.820
The rules about dresses or courtship or disciplining your kids all used as examples of submission
00:34:13.440
to God's ordained hierarchies added to scripture and created a system in which people could
00:34:20.140
appear righteous without having any genuine understanding of the gospel or grace or even
00:34:26.700
who God is or why he tells us to do the things that he does.
00:34:31.160
Ginger, when she came on, she told us that she was always in so much fear because of these
00:34:35.720
principles that if she messed up in some way, if she didn't read her Bible enough, she thought
00:34:40.660
bad thoughts, somehow fell out of line of these rules and regulations that were placed for
00:34:45.300
her, that she would fall outside of her God's, outside of God's and her dad's protection and
00:34:52.020
that something terrible would happen to her as punishment.
00:34:55.740
Because remember, they have these this picture of these umbrellas that, you know, women and
00:35:00.820
children are to be under the umbrella of protection under husbands and then God is the umbrella of
00:35:06.760
protection over that. But what they taught was that if you mess up, if you deny one of these
00:35:13.400
principles that Bill Gothard taught, then there will be a hole in your umbrella and God will allow
00:35:19.020
these terrible things in our metaphor, hail, lightning, whatever, to get through your umbrella and
00:35:24.960
hurt you. And this is what was taught in the IBLP, which is really a form of the false prosperity
00:35:31.560
gospel. Do this and God will reward you. Don't do this and God will punish you. God's favor is
00:35:37.300
dependent upon you, your efforts, your prayers. That's different than simply saying some paths are
00:35:42.220
better than others and abiding by godly principles will bear fruit for your family. That's fine.
00:35:49.420
It's really more of a transactional mentality in which God is waiting to bless you or curse you
00:35:54.960
based on your actions, your thoughts, your prayers, and your life will be happy and healthy and whole
00:36:00.680
and easy if you just follow these rules. That's not biblical. That's not the gospel. Let me read you
00:36:09.040
some passages that show us that. 2 Corinthians 5.21, for our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin
00:36:16.960
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus becoming sin on our behalf, even though he
00:36:29.400
was perfect, offering himself as our perfect sacrifice, allowed us by grace through faith to
00:36:34.240
become the righteousness of God. Ephesians 2.8, for by grace you have been saved through faith and this
00:36:40.820
is not your own doing. He emphasizes over and over again, it is the gift of God, not a result of work
00:36:48.060
so that no one may boast. Romans 3.23 through 25, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
00:36:55.160
and are justified by his grace as a gift. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put
00:37:02.040
forward as propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. We are free from workspace salvation,
00:37:10.620
from trying to earn God's love and affection that has been secured for us in Christ if we are Christians.
00:37:16.900
If it were up to us to either obtain or maintain salvation, none of us would be saved. We would all fail.
00:37:25.160
It is upon Christ's perfect faithfulness that our approval before God rests. Now, none of this,
00:37:32.720
of course, is an excuse for sin. The Bible is very clear about that. Galatians 5.13,
00:37:38.640
for you are called the freedom brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh,
00:37:44.480
but through love serve one another. 1 Peter 2.16, live as people who are free, not using your freedom
00:37:52.220
as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Romans 6.1 through 2. What shall we say then?
00:37:58.700
Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in
00:38:05.720
it? Ephesians 4.22 through 24. Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and
00:38:12.580
is corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self
00:38:18.180
created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. So, in our pursuit
00:38:25.200
of holiness, our spirit-powered pursuit of holiness, we operate from a place of freedom,
00:38:30.400
of love for God, not fear that Christ's work on the cross was insufficient, or that we have to help
00:38:37.660
him advocate our case before God on our behalf. We, through the power of the Holy Spirit,
00:38:45.180
pursue holiness because we love God, because we trust him, because we believe that his ways are
00:38:50.680
better. And when we become Christians, he places in us an increasing intolerance for and hatred of
00:38:57.680
our own sin that fuels our sanctification, our journey toward Christ-likeness. So, the real problems
00:39:04.740
with the IBLP that were exposed through this documentary, the hypocrisy, the emphasis on outward
00:39:11.200
obedience without internal understanding or regeneration, the unbiblical rules and regulations
00:39:15.960
that kept people trapped in legalism and women and children vulnerable to sexual abuse without the
00:39:21.820
possibility of real accountability. The gospel-less and graceless message that was pushed by Bill
00:39:27.380
Gothard, a huge hypocrite himself, he didn't abide by many of these principles. He was allegedly
00:39:33.360
a serial predator. He never had a family himself, and therefore, he really had no personal experience in
00:39:40.760
any of these things that he was pushing on other families. And all of this was carried down,
00:39:45.900
carried out by many of his followers. Also, just in keeping with what I think is like biblical criticism
00:39:52.660
of the Duggar family, based on what we've seen here and in other places, the intrusion and the utter
00:39:59.220
exploitation that was required to film little children their entire lives. You guys know how much I care
00:40:06.660
about child safety, child privacy. That wasn't protected. These kids were not protected. They
00:40:14.100
didn't even have the opportunity, the ability to consent to any of this. Their entire upbringing,
00:40:19.420
their everyday lives were commercialized, were exploited for profit. The lack of privacy and normalcy
00:40:26.680
had to have a negative impact on their upbringing. They had no choice. Jim Bob, the dad, he seemed to
00:40:36.940
have a relentless interest in increasing influence, no matter the cost. I was shocked to see that some of
00:40:45.060
the girls, when they grew up and the cameras continued to follow them around, if you watch the documentary,
00:40:51.500
you'll see that they basically felt like they had no choice but to continue on with TLC, that their dad
00:40:57.480
really made them feel like you have to do this. And he, by the way, he took the money from this stuff.
00:41:04.760
I was shocked to see that some of these girls, after they got married, became women, had also basically
00:41:10.080
been forced or convinced to allow a camera crew into their births. I had no idea that that was
00:41:17.000
something that was happening. I can't even imagine. I cannot, I can't even imagine that. I cannot even
00:41:23.040
imagine the violation of privacy. And I don't think that they had the full authority to, to say that
00:41:29.220
they didn't want that. The apparent insistence by Jim Bob to refuse to tell the truth about his son,
00:41:35.340
Josh, when he was called to testify against him in the child's sexual abuse material case.
00:41:40.740
By the way, as I've said many times before, for some reason, my take on this has been like,
00:41:47.880
I don't know, completely like lied about. But as I said at the time, and I will say again, like
00:41:54.220
Josh Duggar, if he found guilty of possessing this child's sex abuse material, he should have gotten 25
00:42:01.300
years to life in prison. He got 12 years. He should have gotten far more than that. And shame on anyone in
00:42:08.640
his family who refused, who knew the truth and refused to actually say the truth for fear that
00:42:14.740
he was going to get some kind of hefty sentence. Look, he sexually abused via consumption, via
00:42:21.760
exploitation, children that should carry with it a very, very long, severe sentence. 12 years is not
00:42:29.580
enough for the crimes that he is said to have committed. And then also I was like, I think I was
00:42:36.900
very, I don't know if I would say shocked by, but saddened by. And I, again, think that this is just
00:42:44.800
unbiblical and wrong exploitation. Jim Bob's alleged, I'll say that because it's alleged,
00:42:51.540
alleged stenchiness with money that was clearly owed to his children, whose lives he was actively
00:42:58.020
profiting from. There's a lot going on here. There's a lot to be said that I think is,
00:43:04.000
was unbiblical about how the show was run, the fact that the show even existed at all,
00:43:10.100
how the IBLP was run, how people were treated, how abuse was allowed in some cases to keep going
00:43:17.580
in the IBLP. And so there's plenty to criticize about the Duggars. But the criticism, a lot of the
00:43:26.520
criticism, not all, a lot of the criticism that was lodged by this documentary and some of the people
00:43:33.680
in the documentary was completely hypocritical and sometimes downright absurd that I literally
00:43:39.520
laughed out loud at some of the claims that they were trying to make, not just about the Duggars and
00:43:44.600
IBLP, but really Christians, period. All right, I'm going to bring Brie back in for some of this
00:44:04.180
that I just want to talk about some of the ridiculous stuff that I saw in the documentary
00:44:09.700
that again, you could, if like they had kept it biblical and said like, this is the problem,
00:44:14.840
this is how we distinguish the IBLP from the rest of Christianity or even conservative Christianity,
00:44:19.720
that would have given it more credibility. But what they're trying to push and what they're trying
00:44:26.700
to paint here is that this is conservative Christianity. This is what Christians are like
00:44:35.360
who vote Republican. If you vote pro-life, if you try to get involved in these so-called culture wars,
00:44:40.780
if you're against this like confusion about gender, then you are a dangerous cult-like fundamentalist
00:44:52.520
who is just like the Duggars. And they really make no distinction at all. And the reason that I know that
00:45:00.660
is because some of the people that they relied on, oh my gosh, like I've seen their content before,
00:45:06.960
I'm like, this is not a serious person. I can't believe that you're relying on these people.
00:45:11.180
They have called me specifically, some of these people in this documentary being used as experts,
00:45:17.860
they've called me a fundamentalist. Me, like they put me in the same category as the Duggars,
00:45:25.860
even though my upbringing was nothing like the Duggars at all. They would have thought I was a
00:45:30.900
wild and crazy progressive. I mean, I definitely wore pants. Actually, I refused to wear dresses for
00:45:37.260
a period of time in my life. I went to college and I dated people and I wore two-piece swimsuits and
00:45:44.720
I got a job after college and I still have a job now. So, I mean, they would think that I was
00:45:50.480
absolutely out there way past Amy, way past Amy. And yet these people call me a fundamentalist and
00:45:56.540
anyone like me a fundamentalist. Why? Because I also believe in the biblical definition of marriage,
00:46:01.880
because I also believe in a differentiation in gender roles, because I also believe and take
00:46:06.580
seriously what the Bible says. And yes, the Bible is the inerrant word of God and we should follow it.
00:46:12.700
And I do think that that view should infuse how we engage in politics and how we engage in culture.
00:46:18.160
Of course I do. And so that's how, that's one reason why this documentary loses a lot of
00:46:24.960
credibility for me because, okay, I was thinking about this analogy. Like if I told you, and you
00:46:32.640
can tell me, Bree, if this makes sense. If I told you, you know what, this is not my, what I'm about to
00:46:39.360
say is not about country music. It's just about Luke Bryan. I don't, I don't like Luke Bryan, but all the
00:46:46.280
reasons that I listed for not liking Luke Bryan. Like I don't like his country accent. I don't like
00:46:52.140
that he sings about beer. I hate that he mentions Tennessee. I hate that his songs are slow. Like
00:46:58.140
whatever you would probably say, uh, well, it sounds like your issue is with country music in general
00:47:03.680
because it's not just Luke Bryan. Okay. You're right. The whole catfish dinner thing. That was a
00:47:08.280
little cheesy, but it, everything that you're saying applies just as much to Garth Brooks or
00:47:15.600
just as much to George Strait. In fact, if I brought up George Strait as a, as like an example,
00:47:21.080
you'd be like, okay, but that has nothing to do with Luke Bryan. Luke Bryan and George Strait
00:47:25.040
aren't the same, but I lumped them. You would say, well, you just don't like country music.
00:47:30.220
And that's the feeling that I got from this documentary. They're, I mean, they're lumping
00:47:34.860
everyone into this. Every conservative Christian that fights the culture war,
00:47:39.600
every conservative Christian that was excited about Roe v. Wade being overturned,
00:47:43.640
every conservative Christian that believes in Ephesians five as this crazy, dangerous
00:47:48.980
fundamentalist. Did you get that feeling? Yeah. 100%. And to be honest, I was shocked that an image
00:47:55.580
of you was not in there. Yeah. I was waiting for it because they sift through. Uh, I mean,
00:48:03.060
we can go into specifics if you want, but there's a point where they sift through. They're trying to
00:48:06.800
make the point that like these people use social media, they use technology to further their agenda.
00:48:13.000
And then they sift through like a bunch of like Christian influencers who I, the ones I recognize
00:48:18.400
do not identify as fundamentalists. Okay. Like Paul and Morgan. Paul and Morgan. I don't,
00:48:23.620
I've never seen any of their content, but she wears pants, I think. So already she wears pants,
00:48:29.000
but they played like a couple of times of a clip of her saying, you can't be a they, them people.
00:48:34.380
And I'm like, true. Is that fundamentalist? Yeah. Like, and they were actually in the documentary.
00:48:40.980
Yeah, I know they were interviewed and then, and then they show girl defined and a clip of them
00:48:45.280
talking about like drag Queens and they use it as an example of like Christians are talking about
00:48:50.340
these fringe things and they're coming to the forefront because they're talking about them.
00:48:54.540
And, um, and, and that's, you know, yeah, that's what these people are using scary. Yeah. So spooky.
00:49:01.060
The part that made me laugh out loud was, I mean, they did this multiple times, but like when they
00:49:08.040
would be like, and this person was homeschooled and was in the Trump administration. And this person
00:49:14.800
also wore a long skirt and was excited that Roe v. Wade was overturned. And then they talk about these
00:49:22.800
people who, Oh my gosh, they were homeschooled and they were conservative and maybe they like
00:49:27.840
were friends with the Duggars. They became police officers and they joined the military and they
00:49:33.560
joined the CIA and they ran for office to try to make it seem like there was this huge, like in lockstep
00:49:42.720
militia of IBLP adherence that are taking over the world. Like the hyenas in Lion King, like they're
00:49:53.480
just one after another, after another. I'm like, okay, you're talking about maybe a few thousand
00:50:00.720
people, maybe, maybe on a good day and, or a bad day, however you want to say it. Like that was
00:50:08.500
absolutely ridiculous to me. And that it is them who are so scarily like imbuing their values into
00:50:16.340
children and teaching their children to like, to push their value. Now I'm not saying that their
00:50:22.780
values were good, but to imply that it is only this sect or it's conservative Christians that are
00:50:32.580
passing down values to their kids. That, I mean, that's totally hypocritical and ridiculous. Like
00:50:41.220
who runs the show in this world? Is it Bill Gothard and the Duggars? Like who controls big
00:50:49.000
governments, the major, uh, security entities, the security state, the doctrines and ideology of the
00:50:57.580
military, the major corporations, the public education system, academia, like what ideology
00:51:04.360
is controlling those entities in our country? Is it fundamental, Christian fundamentalism,
00:51:11.440
Christian nationalism? They actually, I don't think said Christian nationalism very much. Or is it
00:51:15.560
progressivism? It's progressivism. Like we have the Biden administration, the federal government,
00:51:23.360
most state governments, we have our, uh, medical industrial complex in the United States. We've got
00:51:31.700
our branches of our military, all waving this flag that includes the transgender colors, which is an
00:51:40.420
umbrella for children maiming their bodies in the name of gender affirmation. That's what's going on
00:51:47.320
from the top down. Progressive ideology dominates every single major national and almost every major
00:51:54.600
international or, uh, national and international institution. This idea that men can become women,
00:52:03.040
this idea that bodily autonomy means killing your children, this idea that we can rearrange the family
00:52:08.540
to be two women, two men, three people, like that is all, that's all mainstream.
00:52:14.960
Those are all the biggest, most influential doctrines in our country. Like I would love to see where these
00:52:23.640
scary Christian nationalists are placing their influence and actually winning in a major way. Like
00:52:32.100
are the, is the fundamentalist in the room with us right now? Like they try to make it seem like
00:52:38.640
IBLP is militarizing and taking over the world without actually any evidence of that.
00:52:44.960
Yeah. They say one of the interviewees, I guess, ex IBLP says world domination was the goal.
00:52:52.020
And then they go into talking about the Joshua generation, which Alex Harris, Joshua Harris's
00:52:58.040
brother, the I kiss dating goodbye guy. Yeah. Now he kiss Christianity goodbye. Yeah. Yeah. His brother,
00:53:04.320
um, quotes what the Joshua generation is as a decades long multi-generational plan to raise up
00:53:11.700
an elite strike force of Christian homeschool graduates to infiltrate the highest levels of
00:53:16.960
government. Oh no. So scary. Um, and then they talk about how the most important goal is that we see
00:53:23.480
these people go into the U S Supreme court, um, and bring America back to its rightful position as a
00:53:28.980
Christian nation. This is all scary. Music is playing under this. Yes. And then they cut to footage
00:53:34.060
of Roe v. Wade being overturned. Wait, which member of the IBLP is currently on the Supreme court?
00:53:42.980
They conveniently don't bring that up. Mention that. Um, and, uh, and mind you, this whole section
00:53:50.320
is in, it's sandwiched between them talking about Josh Duggar's sexual issues. Right. On the other side of
00:54:00.000
it is talking about Bill Gothard's sexual misconduct. So this is just kind of like the Roe v. Wade,
00:54:06.200
these evil Christians wanting to overturn abortion is like conveniently sandwiched between
00:54:10.680
two stories of people being awful. Christians being awful. Um, professing Christians. Yeah.
00:54:16.500
Professing Christians being awful. Um, so it just obviously conflating the two. And I think
00:54:22.220
that that was very intentional. Oh, I think it was intentional too. Yeah. And the whole thing about,
00:54:28.180
oh, the dangers of seeing like your children as arrows being launched into the future to fight
00:54:33.540
these culture wars. On the one hand, I understand children are, they're primarily, they're image
00:54:38.220
bearers that we are to steward. We have responsibility for our children to care for and protect them.
00:54:43.180
They're not primarily to be seen as like, uh, vessels for the culture war, whatever it is. Like
00:54:50.240
our goal is to help our children glorify God in everything they think, say, and do through discipleship.
00:54:56.780
But it does, I mean, Psalm 127.4 does say that like arrows in a quiver are the children of one's
00:55:04.560
youth. So yes, everyone understands whether you're a Christian or not, that the most influential thing
00:55:09.660
that you can do is teach children. I mean, that's why progressives have taken over the public education
00:55:16.180
system. That's why there are now a million kids books about being able to switch your gender.
00:55:20.580
That's why there's drag queen story hour. That's why now they're including children in conversations
00:55:27.640
about sexuality and gender confusion and making sure that kids know that black lives matter,
00:55:33.320
creating these little activists and, uh, you know, student groups and at school. I mean,
00:55:38.740
the left has been dominating child influence for a very long time for the goal of global domination
00:55:45.500
explicitly. And they've done that really well. Look guys, you have the world economic forum,
00:55:51.640
some of the richest billionaires in the world, funding your stuff, not the other way around.
00:55:57.500
You have the power, you have the corporations, you have the major governments, you have the
00:56:02.260
billionaires, you have the pharmaceutical companies. Like you've got the money, you've got the authority,
00:56:08.420
you've got the influence, you've got the global domination, not fundamentalists, not Christian
00:56:14.740
conservatives. You've created a boogeyman to justify your naked quest for power by pointing a finger at
00:56:23.180
other people who you claim are doing the same thing that you're doing. I love the, I love the little,
00:56:29.600
like cute, shy thing that progressives do. Like they want power. We would never want power. We would
00:56:39.620
not power. What? We don't, we don't want the government. We don't want, no, we're just, we're just
00:56:45.860
here. We just want equality. We just want love. We just want inclusion. Sit down as I force this vaccine
00:56:53.300
into your arm. Like, I mean, that's, that's funny. That's funny. You guys literally shut down the
00:56:59.200
world during COVID and forced two-year-olds to wear masks. Oh no, we don't, we don't want power. We
00:57:05.260
just want the government to punish you for disagreeing with us. We just want to ruin the
00:57:09.640
life of a Christian baker because he won't make our transgender cake. What? No, we don't want power.
00:57:15.620
We're just minding our own business. By the way, we will burn down your city if we're mad about
00:57:22.120
something. Um, so the hypocrisy of the progressive critics on this, it just, I mean, that was,
00:57:29.200
that was the craziest part to me. It was clear they had no, no idea and no intention of finding
00:57:35.640
someone who you already said this, but who could differentiate, you know, the gospel versus what
00:57:41.340
these people believed. But also, yeah, just the fact that like, you clearly know nothing about
00:57:47.740
Christianity because you would know that, yeah, Christians do want to spread the gospel around
00:57:52.680
the world. Yeah. But the fact that you don't think your ideology, the people who believe in your
00:57:57.580
ideology also want world domination of it. And you're saying homeschooled militia is the
00:58:04.580
threat. Yeah. Really? Those guys are the threat? Okay. Right. No, you make such a good point that
00:58:09.820
they did not even attempt to bring one person on there. No. To distinguish between what the
00:58:15.020
gospel is and what IBLP was and what Christianity should really be or according to the Bible and
00:58:23.880
their version of Christianity. Instead, they had on all these progressives just talking about how,
00:58:28.680
like, how we just all need to deconstruct. But they never even said deconstruct into what?
00:58:33.500
You know? They talk about it for a second. And they use, this is, this part got me also. They
00:58:39.280
use Ginger as an example. Yeah. Right. And they creatively cut up some of her interview footage,
00:58:44.840
not from our show, but other shows where, um, where she's warning people against like Gothard's
00:58:51.660
teachings. Um, but they conveniently leave out the most important part, which is one,
00:58:56.220
she's still a Christian and two, that she doesn't call it deconstruction. She calls it disentanglement.
00:59:01.360
Um, and so they kind of use her as an example of deconstructing this faith when that's not even what
00:59:08.520
she would call it. That's not how she defines it. Yeah. Yeah. I never have found someone who
00:59:14.940
truly deconstructs and deconstructs to a more biblical form of Christianity. Um, I mean,
00:59:21.120
cause that again, I would say is not necessarily deconstructing. It's just sanctification. It's
00:59:26.300
what we all do. Like I can look back to high school and college and I can see some of the things that I
00:59:31.320
believe, some of the things that I read that were not true. Like prosperity gospel totally. I mean,
00:59:36.940
I was kind of like, I was taught some of those things, believed it. Some of the things about
00:59:41.840
like a woman's worth being tied to like how, like if she kissed one or two guys or something in high
00:59:48.840
school, like I believed those things, but as I read the Bible more and as I was sanctified by the
00:59:54.640
Holy spirit, I let those beliefs go. That's not deconstruct. I'm not deconstructing. That is just
01:00:01.140
sanctification. I think that's also what, um, I think that's what Ginger would say. I, and they
01:00:06.540
totally used her, I think in the wrong way. Yeah. And I don't know if they asked her for an
01:00:12.360
interview and she said no, but from the angle that they took with the whole narrative, I have a
01:00:17.880
feeling that they didn't. Yeah. But I don't know. Yeah. I don't know.
01:00:22.780
Okay. So I just wanted to get into Brie. Um, I have a, like, I have a final quote that I kind
01:00:39.880
of want to end on, but you listed a lot of things that you particularly found like disturbing or
01:00:45.920
interesting. And unfortunately we don't have time to get into all of them, but I just want to hear
01:00:50.900
some of those things. Like, what are some of the things as you were watching that like surprised
01:00:55.460
you or you thought were strange or whatever? Yeah. Um, yeah. Well, first I wrote this up at
01:01:02.560
the top. I've, I found it really interesting. I forget who said it, probably some ex member
01:01:06.860
talking about how Michelle Duggar uses that baby voice. Yeah. So you don't think that's genuine.
01:01:12.560
Well, she says in it, she used to be a cheerleader. And so the girl who's being interviewed says,
01:01:19.280
I know she can yell like a normal woman, but she chooses to speak in a baby voice because
01:01:25.640
infantilization is sort of one of the tenets of what they teach women to be. And I just thought that
01:01:32.480
that was really interesting. Um, yeah, that's really bizarre. It's like Hilaria Baldwin who grew
01:01:38.280
up in Boston and has mysteriously, she doesn't say ca anymore. She says caro or whatever it is.
01:01:47.160
She's decided that she is Hispanic. It just happens sometimes, I guess. Yeah. Um, I don't know.
01:01:51.640
Like, I don't, I mean, it'd be interested to know if someone like knew her before. Maybe she's always
01:01:56.160
had like this high pitched voice, but I do like the infantilization of women just in general. And
01:02:03.300
this is not even just IBLP. I think we've seen it some in the so-called patriarchist movement
01:02:07.300
recently. It really grosses me out. It grosses me out. And I do think that that can set the basis
01:02:13.640
for the kind of abuse that Josh perpetrated. I'm not saying that's the only reason for it. I mean,
01:02:18.580
sin is sin, but it's like, I don't know this idea that women are like, that their minds aren't fully
01:02:26.900
formed or that they just don't have the same capacity for maturation and understanding and
01:02:31.620
resistance. Like there was this one story of one of the girls, I was also like cleaning up and like
01:02:37.020
listening to this at the same time. So I didn't see who it was, who was talking about that at one of
01:02:41.340
these like IBLP. I don't know if it was like camps or training sessions or something for young people
01:02:46.560
that one of the leaders, because they were taught like the oldest male president is always the one
01:02:51.280
in charge, like crawled into her bed. Yeah. And she didn't know how to say no, because she had never
01:02:59.980
been taught. She'd been taught like you don't question any authority, especially male authority.
01:03:05.460
And I think it's purposeful not to tell girls how to say no, which really makes me wonder what,
01:03:11.740
how it really went down when Josh was molesting his sisters. Because if they were taught like,
01:03:18.920
this is the, this is a part of authority and we don't know how to say no. Again,
01:03:24.200
that infantilization patron patronization of women is just really just like stomach turning for me.
01:03:30.500
Yeah. If women are dumb little babies who don't know anything, then you can do whatever you want.
01:03:35.440
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's sick. The other thing having to do with those IBLP facilities,
01:03:43.480
they would send kids to them for like homeschool camps or summer camps,
01:03:47.520
and they would just make them work for like 15, 16 hours a day, apparently, allegedly. And one,
01:03:55.820
one former member claims, if you got in trouble, they would lock you in an empty hotel room for hours
01:04:00.140
or days or weeks and give you a Bible until they thought you were repentant enough. And the people
01:04:05.200
who decided were other kids who are like slightly older. And so she said one time a team leader didn't
01:04:12.520
like the shoes she was wearing because they had like a tiny heel. Yeah. And that would, you know,
01:04:16.980
distract men. And so she got locked in a prayer room for four days. Okay. Tell us what your,
01:04:22.880
what your mom told you, because she regretfully, she didn't realize it at the time. A lot of,
01:04:28.240
a lot of Christians in the eighties and nineties, you know, like you just didn't know. I don't think
01:04:31.820
my parents ever attended it, but your mom attended one. Tell us what she said.
01:04:35.540
Yeah. My parents went, I think they were just invited to a Bill Gothard seminar. Um,
01:04:40.300
and they went and she said, the saddest thing, like looking back is that there is some truth
01:04:46.840
mixed in with all of this evil that they are also talking about. Um, but she regrets listening to
01:04:53.280
anything. He said, she says, I remember him talking about how it was wrong to listen to
01:04:57.340
women singing in a microphone because that was representing an intimacy that you shouldn't have
01:05:02.460
with that woman. Um, he also said that he didn't believe in adoption because you could bring a demon
01:05:08.820
possessed child into your house. Okay. That's wild. Although I feel like I have seen that.
01:05:16.020
I, that idea I think is more prevalent than we think really in that part of the world and professing
01:05:25.240
Christianity, not necessarily the demon, but that they could be a bad influence on your,
01:05:32.180
which is really sad. And again, the opposite of the gospel on the, like in the name of protection
01:05:37.700
and safety, it's kind of the same thing that progressives do. This is for your safety. This is
01:05:42.000
for your own good. This is why we have to like put these rules. This is why the government has
01:05:45.980
to force you to do something. It's like, I guess cults do this, but especially IBLP, like for your
01:05:51.360
safety and protection, like we have to basically not abide by scripture. We have to make sure that
01:05:58.180
you do all these things and put these heavy burdens on you. Um, yeah. And Jesus's burden is light
01:06:05.380
and his yoke is easy. And it's not because we don't obey. It's because we understand like the gospel
01:06:10.600
of grace that motivates us to obey. And that's something that both IBLP get wrong in this
01:06:15.300
documentary gets wrong because this documentary never talks about the importance of becoming like
01:06:20.140
Christ or like the freedom that is actually offered through the gospel. Crazy. Okay. So this is what I
01:06:28.520
wanted to close out on because this is what I've seen. It kind of brings it back to the beginning
01:06:32.400
when I talked about like the loss of credibility in some ways that this documentary has, because
01:06:36.820
they conflate like all conservative Christianity with IBLP and some of the dangerous doctrines that
01:06:44.100
were pushed by people like the Duggars and believed by people like the Duggars. Everyone's a fundamentalist
01:06:50.640
who believes in, uh, pushing back against some of the dark parts of our culture. Uh, everyone's a
01:06:56.700
fundamentalist who believes in the definition of marriage. Everyone's a fundamentalist who is against
01:07:00.240
abortion. Everyone is a fundamentalist who is, um, uh, against, or who is, uh, for the gender
01:07:08.100
binary. And it's just a way to make you scared. It's amazing. It's a way to say, well, I don't want
01:07:15.740
to associate with those people over there because those people are extreme. Those people are radical.
01:07:21.000
Those people have scary documentaries made about them. Those people are seen as hateful. Those people
01:07:25.900
cause real harm. So they want you to say, well, I'm going to get as far away from that as possible.
01:07:31.220
And their methods, their implied methods for getting as far away from that as possible is not
01:07:35.660
sticking more closely to scripture, not understanding the gospel better, not spending more time in prayer
01:07:40.560
and being better sanctified by the Holy Spirit. It is by becoming more progressive it, because that's
01:07:46.100
the things that they show that are so scary. Uh, they want you to be pro-choice. They want you to be
01:07:51.040
pro-gay marriage. They want you to be, uh, pro gender switching and the idea of being like, uh,
01:07:57.180
they, them, because those are the things that they show and categorize as bad and scary and Christian
01:08:01.580
nationalists. They want you to stay home. They want you to be the only kind of American that does not
01:08:06.940
bring their worldview to the voting booth and does not try to influence culture or curriculum with what
01:08:11.760
you believe. Progressives can do that totally. And it's totally fine. It's just neutral. It's just
01:08:15.960
about love and inclusion. But as soon as you try to infuse your Christian values in every sphere
01:08:20.720
that you occupy, suddenly that's scary and that's militant and that's taking over the world. And so
01:08:26.620
it really does, it requires a lot of discernment when, um, when watching this and realizing that
01:08:33.420
this is, even though some of the criticisms by the documentary are totally legitimate and like
01:08:38.760
should be reckoned with and taken seriously and all of that, some of them are ridiculous and
01:08:44.840
completely worldly and also equally anti-gospel and harmful. And it reminds me of this quote by C.S.
01:08:50.720
Lewis, um, in the Screwtape Letters that I think about a lot. Uh, today, everyone's a
01:08:56.180
fundamentalist who just takes the Bible seriously. Well, back when C.S. Lewis was writing the Screwtape
01:09:03.140
Letters, uh, everyone was a Puritan who took things seriously. You don't want to be a Puritan
01:09:08.280
because Puritans were too strict. They were too pious. They were too religious. They were too
01:09:12.820
pharisaical. And you don't want to be a Puritan. It's okay to kind of be a Christian, but you don't want
01:09:19.540
to be a Puritan. And Screwtape Letters, if you don't know, they're demon. It's a demon writing to
01:09:24.960
his demon nephew who is on assignment trying to basically corrupt the soul of his patient or the
01:09:31.520
person that he is assigned to. And this, uh, the demon writing, the uncle Screwtape says that it's
01:09:39.520
very, very good to conflate or to say that being a Puritan is bad and to conflate normal Christian
01:09:45.460
virtues with being a bad Puritan because that actually keeps people away from actually following
01:09:52.060
scripture. So here's how he says it. In modern Christian writings, though, I see much about
01:09:57.440
mammon, which is like materialism. I see few of the old warnings about worldly vanities, the choice of
01:10:03.300
friends and the value of time. All of that your patient would probably classify as Puritanism. And may
01:10:09.640
I remark in passing that the value we have given to that word is one of the really solid triumphs of
01:10:16.620
the last hundred years. By it, we rescue annually thousands of humans from temperance, chastity,
01:10:23.900
and sobriety of life. And so that from the satanic demonic perspective is a win when you can call
01:10:34.600
basic Christian tenets, scary fundamentalism, fascism, Christian nationalism, frightening
01:10:41.860
Puritanism. Then you can keep people away from abiding by what the word of God says because they're
01:10:48.560
scared to be categorized as an extremist. Annually, thousands of humans are saved, says this demon,
01:10:56.540
from temperance, chastity, and sobriety of life because they're scared that makes them a Puritan.
01:11:01.580
Look, how do we protect ourselves from the legalistic aspects of people who profess Christianity as well
01:11:10.120
as the degeneracy that we see from the world, which also tries to present a perverted form of
01:11:18.180
morality or Christianity? We stick to God's word. We ask for wisdom and discernment. His ways are
01:11:25.280
perfect and he is so gracious to give us a lot of clarity in scripture. That doesn't mean that we're
01:11:29.420
going to agree on every issue, but all these big things, the Bible is really clear. If we're going
01:11:36.440
to church and we see and we hear a preacher, a pastor say something that doesn't align with God's
01:11:41.760
word, whether it's on the progressive side or whether it's on this actual fundamentalist side,
01:11:47.660
we have access to the word of God. One of the beautiful parts about the Protestant Reformation.
01:11:51.880
We have access to the word of God in our language. We have access to the Holy Spirit if we are Christians
01:11:57.040
to give us wisdom, give us discernment and say, but what does scripture say? What does scripture
01:12:02.800
say? So that's my biggest takeaway, I think, from this documentary. You guys have been asking so much
01:12:08.140
for me to give my thoughts on it. I know it's a longer episode, but there's a lot to talk about.
01:12:12.220
We could have talked about a lot more. Maybe we'll do a follow-up at some point if you guys have more
01:12:15.540
questions. I didn't have time to get to some of the stuff, the SBC stuff that I wanted to talk about.
01:12:20.680
So I'll have to do that, I don't know, on a later date. We got some good guests coming up this week
01:12:26.660
and so maybe on Thursday we'll be able to cover that. All right, we will be back here tomorrow. See you then.