WEBVTT 00:00:03.303 --> 00:00:09.257 Welcome to the Uncut Podcast. I'm Pastor Luke. 00:00:09.257 --> 00:00:18.994 I'm Pastor Cameron. And this is the Uncut Podcast. We have uncut, honest conversations about faith, life, and ministry. 00:00:19.417 --> 00:00:25.057 Today we're going to be talking about sort of a, what we hope to maybe be a relevant 00:00:25.057 --> 00:00:29.097 topic. seen or heard about this documentary. 00:00:29.117 --> 00:00:30.931 What, what, where is it on? 00:00:31.217 --> 00:00:38.897 It's on prime. It's on Amazon prime. So it's a Amazon original or whatever unique to that streaming platform. 00:00:39.217 --> 00:00:41.737 Shiny, happy people, right? 00:00:42.537 --> 00:00:51.817 Documentary documenting the, I don't know if it's the rise and fall of the Duggars as much as it's just the fall of the Duggars and 00:00:51.817 --> 00:00:55.471 sort of some of the part of it. Yeah. I mean, part of it, I haven't seen it. 00:00:55.985 --> 00:01:06.417 Cameron has watched all of it. I'm familiar with a Fair amount of the material that's probably in there, but not some of the details perhaps right I would say that, 00:01:07.327 --> 00:01:10.057 the documentary is as much about, 00:01:11.423 --> 00:01:16.297 the IBLP the Institute for basic life principles and the. 00:01:17.815 --> 00:01:24.054 What is described as a parachurch ministry of of a man named Bill Gothard, 00:01:24.297 --> 00:01:30.537 and those who essentially follow those life principles, and there's certain features to their lives 00:01:30.537 --> 00:01:34.928 and families and faith that are pretty distinguishable. 00:01:36.137 --> 00:01:45.257 But the poster child, so to speak, or the poster family for the IDLP 00:01:45.257 --> 00:01:52.051 was the Duggars, is the Duggars, maybe, I don't know. 00:01:54.157 --> 00:02:04.247 Whether or not you like ever watched the 19 kids and counting or was that on TLC TLC. Yeah. And 00:02:04.247 --> 00:02:13.767 then all of the fallout from what happened with their oldest son, Josh. And like this documentary 00:02:13.767 --> 00:02:22.567 kind of comes out of all that stream of things. Yeah. So probably like upfront, it's worth saying 00:02:22.567 --> 00:02:29.047 one, if you're like, hold up, I don't want any spoilers for this documentary that, 00:02:29.743 --> 00:02:36.167 you know, you don't, you want to watch it without any sort of like spoilers or whatever, like, um. 00:02:37.746 --> 00:02:41.687 Warning, spoilers, spoilers. Um, although there's nothing really, 00:02:42.567 --> 00:02:47.685 yeah, I don't know as much as a documentary of recent events can be spoiled for you. Um, 00:02:47.811 --> 00:02:51.767 you know, I mean, I guess like if you're super, super, like you, 00:02:51.767 --> 00:02:56.210 you were not involved or you didn't know any of that stuff while it was happening, 00:02:56.570 --> 00:02:59.727 it might be all brand new news to you and you might want to sit down and just 00:02:59.727 --> 00:03:02.807 watch the documentary, but, or you might not, or you might not, 00:03:02.807 --> 00:03:05.158 like we're not necessarily endorsing or recommending. 00:03:05.287 --> 00:03:07.007 Oh, I'm going to talk about that. Yeah. 00:03:08.165 --> 00:03:11.523 And then the other bit is that the documentary does deal with like, 00:03:11.927 --> 00:03:18.647 like topics of abuse, um, sex and other things of sensitive topics and things like that. 00:03:19.027 --> 00:03:22.107 So we don't have like planned out exactly what we're going to say we're going 00:03:22.107 --> 00:03:26.683 to talk about, but it's fair to say since the documentary deals with some of that, that, 00:03:27.151 --> 00:03:31.040 that will possibly at least probably come up in some of our conversation. 00:03:32.427 --> 00:03:36.787 So if you're listening with kids or you're not prepared at the moment to listen 00:03:36.787 --> 00:03:40.107 to a conversation that might result revolve around some of those topics, 00:03:40.107 --> 00:03:46.082 Like maybe come back to this or skip this episode if you feel like that's not a good space for you. So. 00:03:46.956 --> 00:03:50.701 Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I would. 00:03:51.772 --> 00:03:58.767 Would start out by saying that I have really mixed feelings towards. 00:04:00.054 --> 00:04:16.062 Documentaries like this in general yeah so I haven't watched it I watched about 15 minutes of it and go ahead and finish your thoughts I have a I have a larger thing about documentaries that I just want to say right in the framing tool. 00:04:16.742 --> 00:04:19.832 Yeah I don't necessarily. 00:04:21.308 --> 00:04:27.457 Like watching things like this or think that they're particularly helpful, 00:04:28.522 --> 00:04:43.142 in actually either clarifying or working through some of the issues and situations that they present. 00:04:43.142 --> 00:04:46.242 It's the same with like the Hillsong documentary. That's how. 00:04:46.242 --> 00:04:48.900 Which I did watch that one. I did not watch that one. Yeah. 00:04:49.282 --> 00:04:54.851 And I don't know if it was intentional or non-intentional that I didn't watch it, I don't know. 00:04:54.922 --> 00:05:03.862 But there's a sense in me where I feel like because some of these documentaries run pretty parallel, 00:05:04.682 --> 00:05:13.242 to a lot of the life that I live, faith and the church, scripture and family and all of that, 00:05:14.522 --> 00:05:21.813 that I want to watch them to get a sense of what the conversation is around it. 00:05:21.966 --> 00:05:25.548 Certainly not that I'm like, you know. 00:05:26.802 --> 00:05:31.202 I think that part of the problem, I don't know if it's a problem, 00:05:31.202 --> 00:05:41.753 part of the thing with documentaries that I don't particularly like is that they, on the front end. 00:05:43.634 --> 00:05:52.444 Uh, communicate implicitly an unbiased perspective on the issues at hand. 00:05:53.044 --> 00:06:02.364 Like these are just the facts you decide, you decide at the end how to paint the picture. 00:06:03.178 --> 00:06:12.284 But the reality is, is like documentaries are really creative storytelling that has 00:06:12.284 --> 00:06:25.017 an aim and has a bias and wants to lead the viewer to the place of the conclusion. 00:06:25.164 --> 00:06:32.624 Now I'm not saying, that's not to say that like, oh, there's too much bias in this particular 00:06:32.624 --> 00:06:34.839 documentary and I don't believe it. 00:06:35.624 --> 00:06:39.584 I don't, like I said, I'm not, I'm not an apologist for the IVLP. 00:06:39.584 --> 00:06:46.434 I'm not an apologist for the Duggars. Like, it's like, it's some of the stuff is disgusting. 00:06:46.920 --> 00:06:56.264 And, but I also want to be aware when I watch things like this, which is why I both like, 00:06:56.264 --> 00:07:01.664 I'm interested because it runs parallel with my life, but I, I, I dislike watching it because 00:07:01.664 --> 00:07:07.264 it's very clearly slanted in a direction. 00:07:07.264 --> 00:07:15.944 Skipping over, like skipping across the surface of deeply, deeply nuanced issues. 00:07:15.944 --> 00:07:26.584 And then, so if you're not really entrenched in the issues, it's impossible to have 00:07:26.584 --> 00:07:30.320 a unbiased conclusion. 00:07:30.504 --> 00:07:38.484 You just kind of take hook, line, and sinker, whatever the documentary producers want you to see or believe. 00:07:38.665 --> 00:07:41.546 So. You put... Um... 00:07:43.337 --> 00:07:59.787 The rise and fall of Mars Hill podcast in a similar category of like documentary, obviously different mediums, audio interviews, but do you feel like this falls in line with that with kind of the similar thing? 00:08:00.135 --> 00:08:01.467 I absolutely do. Yeah. 00:08:01.585 --> 00:08:06.267 Except that podcast. I mean, we could talk a long time about that podcast. 00:08:06.267 --> 00:08:15.067 And I have a lot of strong feelings about it, mainly because I think that I was hopeful in episode number one 00:08:15.067 --> 00:08:19.931 that this was going to be a deeply helpful thing for the church. 00:08:20.427 --> 00:08:28.259 And the reality is that it kind of felt to me at the end that this was just a giant witch hunt. 00:08:28.673 --> 00:08:34.307 Yeah, at the end, the first couple episodes, I was very hopeful that they were going 00:08:34.307 --> 00:08:41.587 to dive into some nuanced, difficult explanations, because the opening mission of it is to. 00:08:42.627 --> 00:08:47.107 Again, we're not trying to make this whole episodes about this podcast, but the idea was to, 00:08:47.907 --> 00:08:54.627 make it, you know, why do churches or why do our churches keep being plagued with leadership 00:08:54.627 --> 00:09:02.387 issues like this one that is typified in the Mars Hill? Right. Where that answer. 00:09:02.387 --> 00:09:06.067 What is it about church culture that creates this type of upswell? 00:09:06.067 --> 00:09:12.147 Right. And that question at the end is left largely unexplored, in my opinion, and. 00:09:15.027 --> 00:09:20.931 Ends up being more of a detailing the dirty laundry of a particular church. 00:09:21.027 --> 00:09:24.460 Yeah. And a particular person. Yeah. Really? I mean, it's, 00:09:25.774 --> 00:09:31.292 It does translate out to the church and the elders and those who protected him and everything like that and again, 00:09:31.986 --> 00:09:35.964 I'm not a Marcel apologist and I'm not a mark. I'm not a mark Driscoll apologist, right? 00:09:37.104 --> 00:09:46.650 Advocating no, not at all But again frustrated that there was nuance that was just correct left very very interesting questions that were left very unanswered or unexamined, 00:09:47.944 --> 00:09:50.564 So I I personally have felt, 00:09:52.232 --> 00:09:58.704 Since particularly since like, you know, people can kind of argue it was like, uh, cause when we say 00:09:58.704 --> 00:10:05.024 documentary, right, we think of, you probably think of a documentary that you saw like in, 00:10:05.150 --> 00:10:09.504 I don't know, high school, David Attenborough, David Attenborough, like World War II. 00:10:13.184 --> 00:10:18.770 Nature documentary. Right. And documentaries at one point had this philosophy behind them, 00:10:18.824 --> 00:10:29.304 right, the idea of trying to be as much as possible a unbiased observer, right, try and 00:10:29.304 --> 00:10:36.199 tell the story as it presents itself and not try to add interpretive lenses to it, right. 00:10:36.384 --> 00:10:40.344 And that was at one point the philosophy behind most people who made documentaries. 00:10:40.344 --> 00:10:45.344 Now you can argue as to how well they ever actually accomplished that because the moment 00:10:45.344 --> 00:10:52.304 you turn on a video camera, someone is going to act differently when they know they're recorded, 00:10:52.304 --> 00:10:57.944 like all those different things, like whether or not documentaries ever achieved an unbiased 00:10:57.944 --> 00:11:03.144 presentation of the facts is up for debate, but that was at least the goal at one point. 00:11:03.323 --> 00:11:10.144 And I think many of us still have that concept when we turn on a documentary of like, oh, okay, 00:11:10.578 --> 00:11:15.984 I'm expecting them to be as unbiased and truthful and present everything kind of fairly and squarely, 00:11:16.646 --> 00:11:21.201 Like and what I'm gonna get is the closest approximation to the truth as possible, 00:11:22.002 --> 00:11:25.585 That's the kind of mindset that we have when we hear the word documentary in turn on a film. I. 00:11:27.264 --> 00:11:36.464 Believe and maybe this is how maybe this started well before This but for me, this was when I became well aware of it was when Netflix 00:11:36.523 --> 00:11:41.984 One of the first things Netflix started making when, you know, Netflix started as just making 00:11:41.984 --> 00:11:43.761 showing other people's movies. 00:11:43.944 --> 00:11:48.304 The first thing they started doing before they started producing their full on Hollywood 00:11:48.304 --> 00:11:52.944 blockbuster films for their own streaming service was making documentaries. 00:11:52.944 --> 00:11:57.424 Like the first first movies that they made in house and produced on their live stream 00:11:57.424 --> 00:11:59.944 service was documentaries. 00:11:59.944 --> 00:12:04.504 And I remember watching those early Netflix documentaries and saying, I think this is 00:12:04.504 --> 00:12:09.384 closer to propaganda or a thought-opinion piece than it is a documentary. 00:12:10.615 --> 00:12:25.369 And so I think with the advent and success of some of those documentaries and what we currently see, not all documentaries, but many documentaries have a particular goal, slant, opinion or viewpoint that is, 00:12:26.098 --> 00:12:31.344 kind of unapologetically advocated, edited for, like scripted for. 00:12:31.344 --> 00:12:36.289 Um, and so when we sit down, when I sit down to watch a documentary, any time anymore, 00:12:36.424 --> 00:12:42.704 if it's a documentary made within the last 10 to 15 years, I pretty much just assume 00:12:42.704 --> 00:12:49.684 that this is an opinion piece, uh, that's being edited together to make it as compelling as possible. Right. 00:12:50.378 --> 00:12:57.384 It's an expose. Yeah. And so, and, and with that, like if you, if you know how to like, if you know how to look 00:12:57.384 --> 00:13:02.909 for when interview clips are kind of edited together. You can see how things are kind of like, 00:13:03.350 --> 00:13:07.704 they change the pacing of a thing or they maybe leave out the framing of a question. 00:13:07.869 --> 00:13:14.135 You can begin to watch and find the seams in documentaries and see, oh, maybe this was maybe. 00:13:15.314 --> 00:13:22.184 Not altered as so as to be untruthful, but maybe altered to be in such a way as misleading. 00:13:22.184 --> 00:13:30.584 Right? One of the things that for the Mars Hill podcast that kind of bugged me at times was the 00:13:30.584 --> 00:13:40.184 inclusion of ominous music underneath what was not necessarily ominous information, right? 00:13:40.184 --> 00:13:46.984 So, you know, and that was when he decided to do it. It's got some dramatic music or something, 00:13:46.984 --> 00:13:52.584 And that is telling you how to feel and what to think about what's being said. 00:13:53.501 --> 00:14:00.184 And so the inclusion of dramatic music like that, like all that is informing and affecting the way 00:14:00.184 --> 00:14:03.464 that you are believing and receiving that information. 00:14:04.115 --> 00:14:06.339 Yep. You want to see an interesting... 00:14:08.391 --> 00:14:14.641 Example of this, you can go onto YouTube and you can say like, um, movie trailers, uh, edited to 00:14:14.641 --> 00:14:19.121 look like horror film or something like that. Type in something like that. And what you can find is 00:14:19.121 --> 00:14:24.001 like Disney movies that have been recut with different music and different transitions in 00:14:24.001 --> 00:14:29.042 the trailer to make it look like it's a horror, scary movie, scary movie. And you'll be like, 00:14:29.240 --> 00:14:32.881 holy cow, I didn't realize frozen was absolutely terrifying. Right. 00:14:32.881 --> 00:14:40.481 And so, and all that is, is just changing the editing style, adding different music, 00:14:40.481 --> 00:14:47.641 cutting different parts of dialogue to make it sound ominous or scary, right? And all of a sudden 00:14:47.641 --> 00:14:52.921 you're like, I'm scared to watch that movie now, right? Cause it looks like that. So that can be 00:14:52.921 --> 00:14:56.881 done in a documentary piece. So all that, I want, I wanted to just throw that out there cause that's 00:14:56.881 --> 00:15:01.881 It's just like my own personal media literacy thing 00:15:01.961 --> 00:15:08.976 that I just, I think we're largely unaware of that shift in media in the last several years that's happened. 00:15:09.161 --> 00:15:17.421 Yeah, well, and it also, we also have the dynamic of kind of like natural human tendency. 00:15:17.646 --> 00:15:21.679 To want to rubberneck at train crashes, car crashes. 00:15:21.841 --> 00:15:22.543 Yes. 00:15:22.741 --> 00:15:34.441 To it is we we have a penchant for wanting to view or watch or get in the middle of voyeuristically 00:15:34.441 --> 00:15:42.481 seeing the calamity of something else. I don't, I'm sure that there are some really like... 00:15:43.842 --> 00:15:51.052 Articulated theological opinions on why we like to do that as humans. 00:15:51.052 --> 00:15:57.452 Is it just more complicated schadenfreude? If I can say that German word correctly. 00:15:57.452 --> 00:16:07.532 Yeah, I don't know. It's certainly that there's this sense of maybe we like to see 00:16:07.532 --> 00:16:14.412 disaster in others because we recognize, even at a subconscious level, our own like, the sinful 00:16:14.412 --> 00:16:20.892 disaster of our own souls. And it makes us feel comforted even for a brief moment to see it. 00:16:22.084 --> 00:16:27.452 Reflected somewhere else rather than dealing with it in our own lives. I don't know, like, 00:16:27.452 --> 00:16:29.172 that's kind of just made up on the spot there. 00:16:29.172 --> 00:16:44.132 But because, you know, there I part of the part of the reason that I wanted to watch this one shiny happy people is because 00:16:44.132 --> 00:16:51.566 there was a season of life where I was like, I think I even and one of my earliest blogs. 00:16:52.710 --> 00:16:56.932 Wait, you have a plug? I did. I do. It's still in existence. 00:16:56.932 --> 00:17:02.063 Are you going to delete it after this? You could probably go out and find it. 00:17:02.261 --> 00:17:15.467 I think I wrote a blog post titled In Defense of the Duggars, which now is quite embarrassing. 00:17:17.052 --> 00:17:15.467 Sure. 00:17:17.132 --> 00:17:24.132 But it's also not. Right. because I was operating off of what was presented to me. 00:17:27.692 --> 00:17:34.813 And in the earliest reality shows, It was presented as, here's this. 00:17:36.659 --> 00:17:46.429 Conservative. I would say marginally evangelical theology. I wouldn't really put them in the 00:17:46.429 --> 00:17:50.749 evangelical camp, so to speak. No, they belonged a little bit more in the fundamentalist camp. 00:17:52.989 --> 00:18:05.389 But had an obvious worldview of wanting to live their lives and raise their families 00:18:05.389 --> 00:18:10.389 the way that they felt or interpreted God desired them to. 00:18:11.789 --> 00:18:18.843 And they didn't really care too much about what the world thought about that. 00:18:20.489 --> 00:18:28.969 And as a general principle, that's what I wanna do too. I wanna raise my family in a way 00:18:28.969 --> 00:18:31.618 that I believe God would want me to, 00:18:32.617 --> 00:18:36.709 with principles that maybe the world doesn't understand, 00:18:37.433 --> 00:18:42.429 with decisions that maybe the world can never get behind. 00:18:44.649 --> 00:18:55.221 And not really care about what those on the outside, proverbial outside, think about how my family looks, 00:18:55.509 --> 00:19:00.949 or what my family does, or whatever, because I'm doing it in a sense of faithfulness 00:19:00.949 --> 00:19:02.069 and obedience to God. 00:19:02.069 --> 00:19:07.527 And so there was this time period where I was like, yeah, everyone thinks the Duggars are super weird. 00:19:07.709 --> 00:19:09.184 And it's super awkward. 00:19:09.409 --> 00:19:19.729 And it's like, how could you ever wear skirts or not kiss until you're married or anything like that. 00:19:19.729 --> 00:19:26.216 And I'm like, yeah, there's things in their life that I'm like not personally on board with. 00:19:26.891 --> 00:19:33.409 But I get why they're doing what they're doing, And I, while I don't. 00:19:34.741 --> 00:19:39.951 Wouldn't adopt that particular practice myself. I. 00:19:42.375 --> 00:19:46.271 Thought I had an understanding of why they were making the decisions that you're making 00:19:46.271 --> 00:19:54.591 well like it like if that was continued like if none of the Exposé or any of the stuff that like we now know, 00:19:55.537 --> 00:20:00.471 Had happened has happened whatever if we still if that was the narrative that we were aware of 00:20:00.471 --> 00:20:03.711 I'd probably be in agreement with what you just said, right? 00:20:04.350 --> 00:20:12.671 It's only now that there's a fuller understanding of the of the complete narrative and all the things behind the scenes and all of that 00:20:12.671 --> 00:20:16.571 That like that that stance begins to feel a little bit, 00:20:19.711 --> 00:20:27.991 Like embarrassing or hollow maybe because we're like well now we're aware of like that's clear that just like with the documentary had a bias 00:20:27.991 --> 00:20:33.231 towards a particular slant. The reality show was not reality. It had a bias 00:20:33.231 --> 00:20:37.791 towards a particular slant. And I bought it hook, line, and sinker. 00:20:37.937 --> 00:20:49.325 So, yeah, I mean like there was a time where I had a sense of like, Like, okay, I... 00:20:50.631 --> 00:20:56.464 Like, I'm not going to join the chorus of people who think that these people are crazy. Right. 00:20:57.319 --> 00:21:05.084 Just because I get it. Not for me, but I get it. Yeah. Well, I think as we're beginning to approach this, and I think something, 00:21:05.084 --> 00:21:13.564 maybe another thing to talk about is that, like, the law, like, we live in a society, 00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:19.084 something that everybody says in every podcast, we live in a society, but we live in a culture 00:21:19.084 --> 00:21:27.804 society that has lost the ability for nuance and gray. Everything is either black or white, 00:21:28.008 --> 00:21:32.764 either or. You're either for me or you're against me. The Duggars are either the greatest thing in 00:21:32.764 --> 00:21:38.364 the world since they're proclaiming Christ or displaying a Christian lifestyle on cable 00:21:38.364 --> 00:21:44.564 television on their reality TV show, or they're the worst thing in the world because of this, 00:21:44.564 --> 00:21:44.924 this, this, this. 00:21:44.924 --> 00:21:54.364 They don't let their daughters wear pants. Right. Right. Like we live in it, like you, you either, like you either have to buy one type of 00:21:54.364 --> 00:22:00.284 narrative wholesale, or you have to buy the other opposing narrative at wholesale. And I think part 00:22:00.284 --> 00:22:06.604 of our, part of the reason we're even having this conversation is because of a frustration over how. 00:22:08.752 --> 00:22:16.124 The conversation has been had where there's been no nuance. There's been no, like, there's no, 00:22:16.124 --> 00:22:19.484 it doesn't seem like there are very many people who are willing to say, 00:22:20.204 --> 00:22:27.404 look, this isn't an either or. This is not as black and white as perhaps we would like it to be. 00:22:27.964 --> 00:22:34.679 It's not a Superman comic where Superman is the good guy and Lex Luthor is the big bad 00:22:34.913 --> 00:22:42.684 corporate guy. And Superman's right, Lex Luthor's wrong. It's not that simple. It's not a children's 00:22:42.684 --> 00:22:51.216 story. It's not a comic book. This is like people, complex. It's like not black and white. 00:22:51.404 --> 00:23:00.364 Right. Right. So, I mean, anyway, the documentary itself. 00:23:03.441 --> 00:23:08.524 Kind of travels in two different, kind of tells two different stories that are really connected 00:23:08.524 --> 00:23:16.044 to one another. It tells the story of the Institute for Basic Life Principles, the IBLP, 00:23:16.044 --> 00:23:25.812 which was a parachurch ministry of Bill Gothard, and it, 00:23:27.162 --> 00:23:34.327 Parallel to that is the poster family for the IBLP the Duggars that everyone knows because not many people, 00:23:35.246 --> 00:23:42.047 Know but the extra layer of IBLP. Yeah, not many people know Bill Gothard and IBLP. They just know the Duggars, right? 00:23:42.934 --> 00:23:50.647 Yeah, so but the two Nary can the two be separated. Yeah, and so the Institute for basic life principles. 00:23:52.656 --> 00:23:58.127 You know championed by Bill Gothard and his family. I think it was his father that actually started it, 00:23:58.868 --> 00:24:04.927 if I remember correctly. Their essential message, if you watch the documentary, 00:24:04.927 --> 00:24:13.967 their essential message is that is one of authority. That God has a predetermined, 00:24:14.721 --> 00:24:23.007 authority in creation, and that goes from God. And you'll see it several times in the documentary. 00:24:23.007 --> 00:24:27.687 It's in their published literature, and they take pictures of it and put it on. It's in umbrellas. 00:24:27.687 --> 00:24:31.087 I had someone teach this to me once when I was in high school. 00:24:31.249 --> 00:24:36.092 Yes. So you have the big umbrella that covers over everything is God and his authority. And, 00:24:36.930 --> 00:24:45.047 then the smaller umbrella that you have is the man or the husband. Not man as in humanity, 00:24:45.047 --> 00:24:47.167 but man as in male. Father of the household. 00:24:47.167 --> 00:24:53.845 Father of the household. Yeah. Which leaves no room for singleness. Mm-hmm. Which Paul said was. 00:24:55.096 --> 00:24:59.007 Was a good thing. Was a pretty good thing, right? Yes. We can do episode on that. We can get into 00:24:59.007 --> 00:25:07.207 that. So and then underneath the male or the husband was the woman or the wife. And underneath 00:25:07.207 --> 00:25:20.887 the woman or the wife was the children. And it was linear, so there was no going around anything. 00:25:21.761 --> 00:25:35.687 Yeah. You know, there was no – and so – And it creates a very strong equation between God's authority and what God says and then what 00:25:35.687 --> 00:25:36.948 your parents say. 00:25:38.127 --> 00:25:42.207 Or the person above you. Or the person above you. Wherever you sit in the hierarchy. 00:25:42.207 --> 00:25:46.634 If the father has entrusted you to the teacher of the school or – right? 00:25:46.887 --> 00:25:55.407 Yeah. Essentially, what it does is it empowers every authority figure in your life with the authority of God. 00:25:55.690 --> 00:25:57.047 Correct. mates. 00:25:58.382 --> 00:26:04.632 A lot of room for abuse. Tremendous room for abuse, which is, I mean, long story short, 00:26:04.632 --> 00:26:11.352 exactly what happened. Yep. Exactly what happened in the IBLP, exactly what happened in the Duggars, 00:26:12.416 --> 00:26:18.925 home. Yep. And what extended out into their oldest son's life, you know? 00:26:19.272 --> 00:26:32.952 Know. So there's the sense of like, okay, because here's the thing, you know, like, do I believe, from a biblical 00:26:32.952 --> 00:26:38.685 perspective, that God has thoughts on authority? Yes, 00:26:39.392 --> 00:26:48.453 absolutely. Can I do whatever I want, whenever I want? Am I a a man of my own decisions, even opinions? 00:26:48.592 --> 00:26:56.632 Well, maybe yes, but I sit under the authority of Christ as my head, okay? 00:26:58.672 --> 00:27:06.538 Do I believe that God has entrusted children to me? Yes, I do. 00:27:06.652 --> 00:27:08.114 Am I responsible for them? 00:27:08.632 --> 00:27:11.805 Yes. Do I have authority in their lives? 00:27:12.772 --> 00:27:17.179 Yes, I do, I believe that. 00:27:20.232 --> 00:27:32.285 So therein lies the first nuance where the narrative in the documentary is, can you believe? 00:27:33.464 --> 00:27:42.114 That the IBLP and the Duggars would promote the idea that you are not independent all into 00:27:42.114 --> 00:27:52.274 yourself and that there is authority over you. The nerve of people to be that narcissistic 00:27:52.274 --> 00:27:57.274 and even there's the equation of authority with abuse. 00:28:00.754 --> 00:28:06.592 They go hand in hand, right? And it's not that simple. 00:28:07.074 --> 00:28:12.074 Can authority be used in an abusive way, 00:28:14.955 --> 00:28:19.754 to do abusive things? Absolutely, right? 00:28:19.754 --> 00:28:28.514 And even Jesus talks about how the Gentiles use authority to lord over people, right? 00:28:28.514 --> 00:28:35.394 But how his authority is an authority that leads him to serve others, right? 00:28:35.394 --> 00:28:40.654 And so both of those authority structures doing different things. 00:28:42.794 --> 00:28:53.734 And so it becomes like this story, the documentary becomes the story about how those who have bought the idea 00:28:53.734 --> 00:28:55.974 of authority from the IBLP, 00:28:57.354 --> 00:29:06.097 have used it only to make women subservient to men and to make children subservient to their parents. 00:29:06.194 --> 00:29:14.073 And it essentially endows, like you said, the men of the world with unquestionable authority, 00:29:14.938 --> 00:29:22.761 Authority because to question them means that you're questioning God. You're being rebellious. You're sinning. Yes. 00:29:25.101 --> 00:29:37.871 Very dangerous. Yeah, very very very dangerous. Yes. Yeah Because you see you see Christ like Christ says things about even like government authority, right given to Caesar 00:29:37.871 --> 00:29:39.871 What is Caesars, right? 00:29:39.911 --> 00:29:45.751 Paul talks significantly about how we are to like understand God as 00:29:45.751 --> 00:29:50.793 Sovereign over even the sovereign nations of the world right and how we were to like, 00:29:51.640 --> 00:29:58.391 interact with governments and all of those things. Those passages exist, but the Bible 00:29:58.688 --> 00:30:06.831 also holds this thing where it says, abandon your family if they cause you to not follow Christ. 00:30:10.551 --> 00:30:16.791 Christians were known as being martyrs and political dissidents because they refused to 00:30:16.791 --> 00:30:22.631 bow to Caesar and consider him a god because there was only one God and he was the Lord Jesus Christ. 00:30:23.271 --> 00:30:29.511 So we see in the practice of the church, the history of the church, the teachings of the Bible, 00:30:30.151 --> 00:30:36.951 this understanding that like, yeah, respect authority as long, but then also like, but, 00:30:37.614 --> 00:30:54.591 Christ first, like Christ first. Like there is something that supersedes the immediate earthly authority at all points. And we've got to hold both of those. 00:30:54.591 --> 00:31:06.471 Yeah, and the authority of Christ is itself nuanced, not in its ultimacy, but in the way in which it's. 00:31:05.873 --> 00:31:11.282 Mediated to the world. There's an authority that Jesus came with 00:31:11.282 --> 00:31:13.322 when he comes, like Mark chapter 10. 00:31:13.322 --> 00:31:18.922 I have come not to be served, but to be a servant and give my life as a ransom for many. 00:31:18.922 --> 00:31:24.021 That's the, he came in that authority, right? He will also come. 00:31:25.122 --> 00:31:31.079 Revelation speaks very clearly about the authority in which Jesus will return. 00:31:31.282 --> 00:31:31.682 Yes. 00:31:32.122 --> 00:31:39.582 Which is a much different authority that as a servant to all, he's coming as the rider 00:31:39.582 --> 00:31:44.330 on the white horse, right, with a sword, 00:31:44.922 --> 00:31:48.202 and ready to do business. 00:31:48.588 --> 00:31:55.162 And it's a passage that gives me goose bumps every time I read it, right? 00:31:55.162 --> 00:32:05.162 And so authority is a very deeply held principle very deeply held principle within scripture. 00:32:05.936 --> 00:32:09.322 Right, and we ought to, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. 00:32:09.322 --> 00:32:16.351 We ought to know how to submit to the authority of the Lord and to the natural authority of others in our lives, 00:32:16.612 --> 00:32:26.164 but again, not to a wholesale place in which we allow them to abuse us or that they become God or they become, 00:32:26.497 --> 00:32:32.362 there is one mediator between God and man, and that's Christ, no one else. 00:32:32.362 --> 00:32:34.446 I think the question sometimes comes. 00:32:36.562 --> 00:32:43.042 And maybe we talked about this before, we might have, or it might have just been 00:32:43.042 --> 00:32:48.111 in a private conversation, I don't know, but talking about like, well, why? 00:32:49.723 --> 00:32:55.893 Like we have this really individualistic, I am the captain of my own ship. I am the master of my own 00:32:55.893 --> 00:33:06.293 soul. You know? I learned unto myself. Right. And why would I want to follow a God that demands, 00:33:07.331 --> 00:33:16.213 that I like am submit to him? Right. What is happening when we ask that question? Well, 00:33:16.766 --> 00:33:21.114 Well, here's my take on it, is that we take the ways. 00:33:23.693 --> 00:33:31.403 In which the world, men and women in our lives who are sinful, have used authority, 00:33:31.673 --> 00:33:40.432 sometimes authority in the name of God, to lord over us and to victimize us, 00:33:41.133 --> 00:33:44.844 and to create trauma in our lives, right? 00:33:45.053 --> 00:33:54.143 And so we have this experience with authority that creates significant pain in us. 00:33:55.013 --> 00:33:57.996 And then we encounter a God who says, 00:34:00.813 --> 00:34:02.659 essentially like you. 00:34:06.893 --> 00:34:11.813 No uncertain time, uncertain terms, like I am the authority in your life. 00:34:11.813 --> 00:34:15.973 I am your God. you are not, you are not a god unto yourself. 00:34:15.973 --> 00:34:20.438 What does the clay have to say to the potter? Exactly, right? 00:34:20.533 --> 00:34:24.778 And we immediately say, well, It's the same kind of authority. 00:34:26.047 --> 00:34:43.177 That the authority of God in my life creates the same victimization to me than the ill-used authority of men and women in our lives. And it is categorically different, 00:34:44.057 --> 00:34:51.657 in the same way that justice and revenge is different. Why does the Lord say, 00:34:51.657 --> 00:34:56.547 do not repay evil for evil, I will avenge. 00:34:57.857 --> 00:34:58.997 I will bring revenge. 00:34:58.997 --> 00:35:01.948 Well, why can God get revenge and I can't? 00:35:02.757 --> 00:35:10.657 Because he's God. Because he's God, right? And because he's perfect in every way, right? 00:35:10.657 --> 00:35:19.520 And we use both revenge and authority only, authority only, not only, but we use it, 00:35:20.777 --> 00:35:28.697 we can't escape our sinful use because we are sinful people of those things, right? 00:35:28.697 --> 00:35:35.177 God approaches it and uses it with a perfectly holy approach, right? 00:35:35.177 --> 00:35:45.132 And so every authority that he exerts, he is the only one that is worthy to exert the authority 00:35:45.217 --> 00:35:48.058 because he is the creator and sustainer of all things. 00:35:48.137 --> 00:35:52.857 We use the opportunity to try and become gods unto ourselves again. 00:35:52.857 --> 00:35:59.517 We're, again, we're recommitting the sin of the garden. Admin Eve. 00:36:01.705 --> 00:36:10.555 Sit with God in the garden in perfect communion with him. They, like, for a long time, the tree of good and evil, 00:36:11.395 --> 00:36:14.398 the tree of knowledge of good and evil was a confusing concept for me, 00:36:14.488 --> 00:36:17.000 and maybe is for you, for anyone who's listening. 00:36:17.054 --> 00:36:20.943 But like, why would God withhold the knowledge of good and evil? 00:36:21.415 --> 00:36:27.595 Well, he was acting as the arbiter of good and evil. He was the one who set the standard of what was right, 00:36:27.875 --> 00:36:29.324 what was good, what was shameful, what was not. 00:36:29.875 --> 00:36:32.493 And Adam and Eve are sitting underneath that. 00:36:33.235 --> 00:36:36.675 And their decision to say, no, we want that knowledge for ourselves. 00:36:36.675 --> 00:36:41.335 We want to be the moral judges for ourselves to make the decisions of what is good, 00:36:41.335 --> 00:36:42.593 what is right, what is evil. 00:36:44.088 --> 00:36:49.993 Was a decision to step out from underneath of that and to say, well, no, we can be gods unto ourselves. 00:36:50.455 --> 00:36:55.955 We have now become like God and arbiters of what is right, what is wrong, 00:36:55.955 --> 00:36:57.942 what is wise, what is unwise. 00:36:58.077 --> 00:37:07.435 The thing is that they were bad arbiters of it. They called something ugly beautiful. They called 00:37:07.435 --> 00:37:12.715 what was beautiful ugly, right? God obviously had different opinions about their nakedness. 00:37:13.835 --> 00:37:21.515 Than they decided to have once they'd eaten the tree. And so, when we take authority and we misuse 00:37:21.515 --> 00:37:30.715 it when we have authority or opportunity or anything like that, and we do not use that 00:37:30.715 --> 00:37:37.795 opportunity to be like Christ to someone, we have then decided, you know what? My own decision and 00:37:37.795 --> 00:37:44.862 arbitration of good and right and evil. We are once again eating from that tree 00:37:45.235 --> 00:37:50.515 of knowledge and saying, I know what's right, mine is right, rather than saying, 00:37:50.515 --> 00:37:59.315 No, how can I be Christ to a person? How can I be grace, love, and embody what Christ has been to me, 00:37:59.437 --> 00:38:06.675 to others? If you do that, you're going to end up much better place than if you're trying to be, 00:38:06.855 --> 00:38:09.582 what do I think is right and what is the right thing to do? 00:38:10.140 --> 00:38:20.995 Right, yeah, yeah, there's a I I don't know that there's a more hard-hearted... 00:38:23.085 --> 00:38:31.881 And I guess in my own mind, illogical position to hold than to hold the position of if. 00:38:33.735 --> 00:38:42.856 God does not bend to my idea of what authority in my own life is, then he's not worth following. 00:38:43.125 --> 00:38:50.296 Mm-hmm. Well, we want a God of our own making. We want a God of our own making. So it's like, well, if that's the way that God thinks, 00:38:50.296 --> 00:39:03.056 that I'm not gonna follow him. That's a really bad plan. Because if you have enough sense to know 00:39:03.056 --> 00:39:10.416 that there is a God and have a belief that he has created all things and that he is the basis for 00:39:10.416 --> 00:39:19.656 all existence, whether you align with that sense of ethics or morality or authority or 00:39:19.656 --> 00:39:28.073 submission or whatever it is, is inconsequential to the reality that there is a God that has 00:39:28.336 --> 00:39:35.576 created all things, that without Him you do not live or move or have being at all. 00:39:35.576 --> 00:39:46.256 So to say, I know that there is a God who is supreme, but I'm choosing to say, no, you're not doing it right, 00:39:46.256 --> 00:39:48.715 so I'm not going to follow you, 00:39:48.856 --> 00:39:57.856 is even outside of a Christian perspective, just a logically fool-hearted, hard-hearted thing to do. 00:39:57.856 --> 00:39:59.815 Hearted thing to do. 00:40:04.296 --> 00:40:11.456 I don't think that God is very moved by the bluff of, bluff of, well, if that's how you are, 00:40:11.456 --> 00:40:12.508 I'm not following you then. 00:40:14.435 --> 00:40:22.033 I don't think God's like, well, okay, I'll change then. Well, cause it makes you God. Right. 00:40:22.855 --> 00:40:27.735 You know, so it's a. Okay, so back to the documentary. Back to the documentary. 00:40:27.735 --> 00:40:32.575 So there's that one, which I think is a very big, big theme, right? 00:40:32.575 --> 00:40:36.255 Well, it is the major theme, I think, yeah. Of just like that. 00:40:37.695 --> 00:40:42.585 I think it's a, I think it's a IBLP thing is like that first time obedience 00:40:42.775 --> 00:40:47.775 that like a lot of just authority, structure. 00:40:49.775 --> 00:40:55.495 Obedience inside of the household, very high moral standard. 00:40:55.495 --> 00:41:02.495 There's some really disturbing examples, not caricatures, but like actual videos 00:41:02.495 --> 00:41:07.055 of IBLP proponents, pastors, preachers, 00:41:07.055 --> 00:41:12.055 like showing how to spank a child on stage at a church. 00:41:12.055 --> 00:41:34.055 And like, you know, and like demanding obedience the first time and if not, you know, like it becomes a matter of sin, matter of well both a matter of sin, but now like, okay, there's physical correction that must come along side of every instance of disobedience. 00:41:34.055 --> 00:41:38.735 Obedience, otherwise the child will rebel up into adulthood 00:41:38.735 --> 00:41:39.452 and become. 00:41:39.575 --> 00:41:46.078 Become apostate. Apostate, yeah. Not follow Christ anymore. Right, and the. 00:41:48.495 --> 00:41:55.615 Well you know, one of the more significant themes or threads within that whole movement is, 00:41:55.615 --> 00:42:00.615 I mean, like it is the, it typifies a super. 00:42:02.813 --> 00:42:05.383 Super one side one side of the spectrum. 00:42:07.823 --> 00:42:17.543 Example of purity culture Right. Yeah, I so I haven't again. I haven't watched the documentary, but I'm familiar if I BLP because of people 00:42:17.543 --> 00:42:22.183 I've interacted with in my life who have been severely affected by I BLP 00:42:22.223 --> 00:42:28.903 So like I have some secondhand experience or knowledge of it. Yeah, that's where my that's where some of my 00:42:28.903 --> 00:42:30.828 my responses and reactions are coming from. 00:42:30.983 --> 00:42:36.683 Well, and so if you watch, if you'd ever watched like any of the Duggar documentaries before this one, 00:42:36.683 --> 00:42:38.840 or not documentaries, reality shows, 00:42:38.983 --> 00:42:46.042 you saw kind of the outworking of that purity culture, right, there's no kissing before, you're married, 00:42:46.303 --> 00:42:51.383 you know, no time, zero time spent alone, you had to go, like you had chaperones 00:42:51.383 --> 00:42:54.873 on every date you went on or every interaction, 00:42:55.183 --> 00:43:00.423 and it wasn't a dating culture, It was a courtship culture where essentially 00:43:00.423 --> 00:43:04.703 the father approved the daughter's suitor. 00:43:04.703 --> 00:43:10.823 Yeah, and until they're married, they're under the father's authority no matter how old they are, 00:43:10.823 --> 00:43:17.334 which leads to young women who are in their early 20s and yet to be wed or engaged, 00:43:17.388 --> 00:43:21.263 who can't go do anything because their dad doesn't let them. 00:43:22.663 --> 00:43:28.992 I know of families that that happens. Yeah, and so, you know, that, 00:43:29.143 --> 00:43:32.872 and then so certainly, like, just imagine, 00:43:33.663 --> 00:43:41.973 even the type of, like, culture that that creates around conversations of sexuality, 00:43:42.223 --> 00:43:46.411 of relationships, of, you know, 00:43:47.303 --> 00:43:49.454 all that's associated there. 00:43:51.023 --> 00:44:04.003 And then it's like, I don't, I don't know that one necessarily necessitates the other, but the instances of 00:44:03.642 --> 00:44:12.554 sexual abuse and victimization of people in that type of culture seem proportionately very high. 00:44:12.761 --> 00:44:18.371 Well, there's a correlation there. I know studies have proven that. 00:44:18.594 --> 00:44:23.122 And what I think it is, is it's not so much... 00:44:26.381 --> 00:44:33.097 How do I want to say this? This is kind of tricky to say because of what purity culture means. 00:44:33.583 --> 00:44:39.331 But it's not necessarily purity culture, it's the shame and guilt of purity culture, 00:44:40.074 --> 00:44:48.291 and like the taboo-ness, and the guilt, the shame, the lack of education, lack of informed 00:44:48.291 --> 00:44:57.011 decisions, trust, clarity, honesty, accountability, all of those things that is fostered by kind of a 00:44:57.011 --> 00:45:03.331 a very simplistic one-note conversation that purity culture has, fosters all of those other 00:45:03.331 --> 00:45:11.971 things. And those other things I think are what create the instances of abuse, of sexual 00:45:11.971 --> 00:45:16.371 misconduct and all of that. That's how I would frame that. It might be kind of weird to say 00:45:16.371 --> 00:45:20.593 that I don't think it's purity culture, but what I'm saying is that purity culture is like what, 00:45:21.808 --> 00:45:25.691 it produces. It's a tributary of it. It's a tributary of it. Yeah, for sure. So I'm kind 00:45:25.691 --> 00:45:32.491 splitting a bit of a hair there, but I think it's more specific to say not just purity culture, 00:45:32.491 --> 00:45:39.771 it's the guilt, the shame, all of those things that come with purity culture that really funnel 00:45:39.771 --> 00:45:43.851 into that circumstance, at least from my vantage point. 00:45:43.851 --> 00:45:49.771 Sure. Sure. Yeah. And so, you know, the documentary ends up, you know, cataloging, 00:45:51.885 --> 00:45:53.691 Some of the. 00:45:56.161 --> 00:45:57.971 More public examples of. 00:46:00.651 --> 00:46:07.531 Certain look for sexual Victimization that happened. Yeah with the IV LP leader Bill Gothard himself 00:46:07.531 --> 00:46:15.331 Yeah, which I know some of right and then on a more granular granular view what was happening within the, 00:46:16.051 --> 00:46:18.171 specific family of the Duggars, which is I, 00:46:20.611 --> 00:46:25.841 Think I felt you know, so I have the personality where I am like a, 00:46:27.171 --> 00:46:33.691 Justice driven person and I I feel like the need for justice when people are victimized 00:46:33.691 --> 00:46:38.691 like very strongly, it's visceral to me. 00:46:39.031 --> 00:46:44.031 And so I felt both like extraordinarily saddened, 00:46:47.631 --> 00:46:58.745 by what I heard and by what they went through. And the victims of that, like just, oh my gosh, heartbroken. Yup. 00:47:02.607 --> 00:47:06.361 Angry, super, super, super angry. 00:47:09.300 --> 00:47:18.172 And just a whole slew of emotions, all wrapped up in the, also, 00:47:18.352 --> 00:47:21.124 the reality of the knowledge that, 00:47:21.781 --> 00:47:24.437 there are a thousand and one things that I don't know, 00:47:26.660 --> 00:47:32.197 about how it was handled and how it was not handled, who knew and who didn't know, 00:47:32.320 --> 00:47:40.695 what they said and what they didn't say, what maybe they did because they thought it was the right thing, 00:47:41.420 --> 00:47:42.441 but it actually, 00:47:43.640 --> 00:47:47.528 versus doing it because they had a sense of like, 00:47:48.960 --> 00:47:50.346 well, I, you know, like, 00:47:52.200 --> 00:48:00.572 that they, you know, a lot of, very rarely do people do something that they know is the wrong thing. 00:48:01.833 --> 00:48:09.160 Yeah, they make excuses for why it's the right thing to do what they did No one wants to be the villain in the story, right? And so it was like what? 00:48:10.070 --> 00:48:19.640 So just trying to wrap my head around Thinking what was the rationalization in your mind for why that was the right decision? 00:48:19.855 --> 00:48:20.143 Yeah, 00:48:21.331 --> 00:48:29.520 you know like telling your daughters that being sexually victimized. 00:48:31.909 --> 00:48:39.705 Was something that was not a big deal and that they didn't really need to worry about going forward. 00:48:31.909 --> 00:48:30.520 Thanks for watching. 00:48:39.939 --> 00:48:47.249 And then on the other side, like what was the conversation with their eldest son, Josh, 00:48:49.619 --> 00:48:57.539 who's now, I mean, I think most people know that Josh was convicted of possession 00:48:57.819 --> 00:49:03.939 and I don't know if it was just possession or if it was also like, not production, 00:49:03.939 --> 00:49:07.351 or but like the sharing of child pornography, I don't know. 00:49:07.579 --> 00:49:13.019 But anyway, was found to be in possession of child pornography is now serving a 12-year sentence, 00:49:13.019 --> 00:49:20.859 which is, if you're asking me, not long enough, but who am I at, you know, like justice is the Lord's. 00:49:20.859 --> 00:49:24.653 And I think one of the big questions that the documentary, 00:49:35.179 --> 00:49:42.271 I think, wanted to lead us to, or not a question, but a conclusion that they wanted to lead us to was, 00:49:42.379 --> 00:49:49.059 you see, the IBLP created someone who traffics in child pornography, 00:49:51.099 --> 00:49:57.881 which is, I think, really unfair to those who were in the IBLP 00:49:58.299 --> 00:50:02.400 and think at the same time, this is disgusting behavior. 00:50:04.335 --> 00:50:11.865 Um, so there's not, there wasn't a nuance there. It was only association right towards the guilty. 00:50:12.068 --> 00:50:12.365 Yeah. 00:50:12.745 --> 00:50:19.505 Well, yeah. And I, so I've watched maybe 10, 15 minutes of the documentary for, like it 00:50:19.505 --> 00:50:23.545 was on when I came home one night and I was like, I, the episode was ending. 00:50:23.545 --> 00:50:25.065 I was like, I can't watch more of this. 00:50:25.225 --> 00:50:26.665 Yeah. Cause I was just getting angry. 00:50:27.785 --> 00:50:31.665 I just was like, I need to wind down for the day and I can't, I can't stand to 00:50:31.665 --> 00:50:42.705 watch it. And again, we're back to this desire to make things black and white, to make them 00:50:42.705 --> 00:50:52.145 un-nuanced, either or, villain, white hat, black hat, good guy, bad guy, right? And it's just, 00:50:53.110 --> 00:51:01.345 like that whole situation from beginning to end was just absolutely mishandled. No one's disagreeing, 00:51:01.345 --> 00:51:07.265 I think, or arguing that point. But I think the broad brushstrokes that we want to paint, 00:51:07.990 --> 00:51:15.985 everybody with as evil is just not fair. I don't think that's right. 00:51:17.505 --> 00:51:24.945 Talk a little bit more about that. Well, so again, I haven't watched the whole documentary. I know the general brushstrokes 00:51:24.945 --> 00:51:28.385 of the story of Josh, the oldest son of the Duggars. 00:51:28.385 --> 00:51:38.505 But like, I think that there's, when it comes to most, particularly the news coverage that 00:51:38.505 --> 00:51:47.537 I've always heard and seen, and everything kind of talking about that, kind of uses language and paints him as... 00:51:48.456 --> 00:51:56.706 Only a, like, you know, villain, like as, as someone who's done something absolutely 00:51:56.706 --> 00:52:04.946 reprehensibly evil. Now, again, what I'm not saying is that what he did was fine, excusable, 00:52:04.946 --> 00:52:11.346 like inconsequential. Like, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that his possession and sharing of 00:52:11.346 --> 00:52:17.106 pornography, like, is like totally reasonable or understandable and should just be excused, 00:52:17.218 --> 00:52:22.386 Right? Again, I'm entering into the gray here. I'm doing something that not very many people I. 00:52:22.700 --> 00:52:27.266 Don't think do. And I'm kind of nervous doing because it's a thing that nobody does. And 00:52:27.399 --> 00:52:33.906 when people try and do it, they get lamb blasted. But at the same time, we also need to look at the 00:52:33.906 --> 00:52:43.266 story of him and realize that when he began to, I think, sexually assault or his siblings, 00:52:43.266 --> 00:52:52.626 he was at the age of 12, I believe, which is like either very, very early puberty. And if we're 00:52:52.626 --> 00:52:59.026 talking, he grew up in this hyper purity culture where it's fair to assume he either got little to 00:52:59.026 --> 00:53:07.826 no sexual education, um, and his behavior was not handled appropriately. It wasn't taken 00:53:07.826 --> 00:53:12.186 to like the correct professionals, right? 00:53:12.186 --> 00:53:14.688 Because they're talking about like, I... 00:53:14.946 --> 00:53:17.906 They sent him away for like a summer. They sent him away for a summer. 00:53:17.906 --> 00:53:23.601 To work at a camp. They tried scare tactics, trying to threaten sending him to prison. 00:53:23.727 --> 00:53:25.716 But I was like, but he's a minor. 00:53:26.286 --> 00:53:35.276 Right. And what he's doing, because of like his understand, like it's so debatable about his understanding of sexuality, 00:53:35.358 --> 00:53:39.666 what is right and wrong in sexuality, All of that is so ambiguous. 00:53:39.666 --> 00:53:44.252 Well, and with like his understanding of authority, I am a male. 00:53:44.686 --> 00:53:49.428 Right. I have authority. Exactly. I can do like, yeah, exactly. 00:53:49.526 --> 00:53:52.111 And so all of that, I'm like... 00:53:53.461 --> 00:54:01.551 Is he as a child, because that's what he was, as culpable as a full-grown adult who knows, 00:54:02.499 --> 00:54:11.231 who has an understanding of sexuality right and wrong? And when you begin to view him as. 00:54:13.951 --> 00:54:18.793 I'm a big advocate of this, and this is something that a lot of people really, 00:54:18.974 --> 00:54:23.231 really struggle with, particularly when it comes to issues of abuse is when this 00:54:23.231 --> 00:54:31.037 language loves to come out. There's no such thing as a monster. I mean, that's my, like, 00:54:32.271 --> 00:54:38.911 it's a pretty hard conviction. There's people do monstrous things, but I don't want to go so far 00:54:38.911 --> 00:54:46.831 as to say that someone is inhuman or that someone at, because the Bible doesn't tell us that someone 00:54:46.831 --> 00:54:54.191 at some point becomes no longer a image bearer of God. We're all created in the image of God. 00:54:54.307 --> 00:55:00.511 We're all bestowed with some level of dignity and humanity. That's the basis for. 00:55:01.833 --> 00:55:09.231 Christian morality. And so, people do monstrous things. They do absolutely horrendous things. 00:55:09.231 --> 00:55:17.471 They absolutely align themselves with evil, with Satan, do terrible things and are deserving of 00:55:17.471 --> 00:55:25.751 justice. But they do not cease to be human. They do not cease to lose the inherent dignity. And 00:55:25.751 --> 00:55:32.151 when we begin to take people down a peg and say that they are monsters, that they are somehow 00:55:32.151 --> 00:55:39.511 subhuman because of what they have done, we are undermining a whole lot of theology, morality, 00:55:39.511 --> 00:55:47.311 and so that's a really hard line to hold. Particularly emotionally, because we want 00:55:47.311 --> 00:55:52.588 to just say that someone's a monster and I think 00:55:52.048 --> 00:56:15.866 My my thought is that like we need to guard ourselves and not just view him the oldest son of the duggars josh as a monster but we need to seek some level of understanding as well not to again excuse excuse not to release of like culpability cuz i i'm also not of the persuasion that. 00:56:16.129 --> 00:56:28.129 Well, if we just understand someone's story and all the factors and the reasonableness of their decisions that like, oh, well, then like, okay, we can excuse them of that. No, I believe that we still have choices that we make, right? 00:56:28.903 --> 00:56:36.266 Right? Even though there's all of these circumstances, and I think he's probably a victim of his own type of abuse and neglect. 00:56:38.419 --> 00:56:43.386 And that his family put him through that has led him down a particular path and, 00:56:45.446 --> 00:56:50.842 resulted in certain things being in his heart. He still also has agency. 00:56:51.580 --> 00:56:55.460 Yes. Right. Like, like he still made choices. He still made choices. 00:56:55.505 --> 00:57:02.546 That's a thing is like when we get as much as like I'm an advocate for mental 00:57:02.546 --> 00:57:06.986 health and psychology and all of those things being incorporated into faith and 00:57:07.190 --> 00:57:12.786 all of that, one of the unhelpful side effects of some of that language and 00:57:12.786 --> 00:57:17.826 some of the things is that we've, well, by empathizing and understanding we can 00:57:17.826 --> 00:57:26.026 come to a place where we see that they're no longer morally culpable. Like they're just a consequence of the things that happen to them or their effects or 00:57:26.026 --> 00:57:34.226 the orders. Like no agency still exists. Yep. Right. 100%. So if I can just trying 00:57:34.226 --> 00:57:37.915 to venture that out into the gray a little bit and say like... Yeah, 00:57:38.466 --> 00:57:40.093 essentially, 00:57:41.182 --> 00:57:59.340 The earliest example that we have of Josh walking down this pathway of like, this is not okay. Not okay behavior where those responsible for him or in here's your language authority over him extraordinarily mishandled in his upbringing, right? 00:58:00.690 --> 00:58:04.352 It's education, it's context, it's all of these things. 00:58:06.052 --> 00:58:11.052 That there is, that it is a part of the story. 00:58:12.312 --> 00:58:18.352 It's a part of the story. We're not gonna say that it's causing anything 00:58:18.352 --> 00:58:19.752 or not causing something else, 00:58:19.752 --> 00:58:23.832 only to say that what he did was horrendous. 00:58:26.792 --> 00:58:41.672 The story is very complex. The culture that he lived in was not favorable to a strong therapeutic response at the age 00:58:41.672 --> 00:58:45.792 of 12, which is what he needed. 00:58:46.017 --> 00:58:52.039 And whether or not the lack of proper response produced what happened later in his life, 00:58:53.714 --> 00:58:58.632 I don't know that anyone can say, I think causation versus correlation. 00:58:58.632 --> 00:59:02.872 Who knows? Contributing factor. Right. But he still has agency. 00:59:02.872 --> 00:59:07.352 He still has agency. And as an adult who's married and has children. 00:59:08.820 --> 00:59:07.496 Yeah. 00:59:09.352 --> 00:59:14.952 I'm not willing to dehumanize him enough either to remove agency and choice from him. 00:59:14.952 --> 00:59:22.314 Yeah. Right, because you could dehumanize him two ways. Right, by making him just a unsympathetic monster 00:59:22.472 --> 00:59:25.482 or also by just making him into like a, 00:59:25.712 --> 00:59:30.772 you know, totally understandable, inevitable consequence of the things that happened to him with no agency. 00:59:30.772 --> 00:59:33.693 Right. those results in something that's less than human. 00:59:35.241 --> 01:00:03.787 And I think it's, and I, and the reason I, I, I even venture to say all of that at all is because of like, just an awareness that inside of, like, inside of very hyper conservative Christian families where sex is not well taught, or taught about at all, or educated, that, like, 01:00:04.201 --> 01:00:11.051 like things like that, or adjacent to that, or misunderstandings, shame, all the stuff that kind 01:00:11.051 --> 01:00:18.171 of happens when you have children coming of age, beginning to understand sexuality with zero 01:00:18.171 --> 01:00:24.971 helpful direction. Sometimes things happen and things like that happen often at a higher 01:00:24.971 --> 01:00:31.931 correlation inside of conservative Christian families than outside. And so it's worth saying 01:00:31.931 --> 01:00:39.400 that. I think it's worth venturing out and saying like this is not necessarily, I, 01:00:40.660 --> 01:00:44.091 don't know, like I don't know who's gonna hear this podcast and what everybody's 01:00:44.091 --> 01:00:48.931 history and experience with all of that is and so I think it is worth venturing 01:00:48.931 --> 01:00:55.433 out into that and saying like and holding, I don't know, holding a little bit of space for the... 01:00:57.576 --> 01:01:06.146 The difficulty of all of that and the nuance of that. Yeah. The difficulty of walking a hard line all the time. 01:01:06.254 --> 01:01:11.986 Yes. And so, that's what I think. And I think that's worth doing because I think people might. 01:01:13.069 --> 01:01:18.546 I don't know. I know lots of people who've grown up in circumstances like that with sexuality was 01:01:18.546 --> 01:01:24.898 taught in a puritanical way. And there's lots of things that happen inside of that that bear 01:01:25.106 --> 01:01:31.146 long-term consequences on people's lives if you're one of those people so sorry, 01:01:31.847 --> 01:01:40.666 yeah genuinely and compassionately so sorry for your experience and what you 01:01:40.666 --> 01:01:46.386 what you endured and what you may have gone through or may not have gone 01:01:46.386 --> 01:01:54.226 through because of it mm-hmm yeah I think that's probably a good part point to stop today. 01:01:54.226 --> 01:01:58.226 Yeah. It's not the most uplifting or conclusive place to leave, but that's probably where 01:01:58.226 --> 01:02:05.226 we should end the conversation for now. 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