My Thoughts on ‘Shiny Happy People’
I realize some have dismissed the documentary as
illegitimate because it was done by secular people and did not give disclaimers
that not all homeschoolers or Christians subscribe to these beliefs. But I believe to dismiss it on these grounds
is a mistake. While there was a subtle attempt, especially near the end, to
paint with a broad brush and include a bunch of different Christian
“influencers” in a montage that may make some think all are the same, the
documentary was definitely heavily slanted towards exposing the Duggars and
Bill Gothard/IBLP. When I think about
the fact that this information was even out there, I have to go back to this:
If it were not for Jim Bob Duggar’s efforts to get his family and his IBLP
values on television (even while he was in the middle of dealing with the fact
that Josh had molested some of his sisters) no one would even be talking about
any of this. It is Jim Bob Duggar that
strove to paint all homeschoolers as the same as his family and use television
as a means of pushing the IBLP values he espouses. So that damage was already done.
Sadly, nothing in this documentary surprised me at all. Having been around some families that
subscribed to some or all of Gothard’s teachings and then researched it, all of it was what I
expected to hear. Even the one young
lady saying of Josh Duggar’s transgressions, “That’s just what brothers do,”
didn’t surprise me. This kind of abuse
and its associated victim blaming seems to be very common in IBLP. Common enough that they created “counseling”materials to deal with it. It seems to
me that the more you focus on not committing a particular sin, the more likely
it is to be something that happens.
The “umbrella of protection” thing keeps coming up, both in
Jinger Duggar Vuolo’s book and in this documentary. I continue to believe that this is one of the
most harmful of Gothard’s teachings, though on its surface, it looks like it
might be biblical. Paired with “first
time obedience,” you have a recipe for major issues, especially with your more
compliant and conscientious children. If you are told, repeatedly, that if you
don’t obey your authority figure (your father) the first time, and cheerfully,
God will allow Satan to attack you, what kind of paralyzing fear and anxiety
will that produce in you, especially if you care about doing what is
right? Also, teaching someone to obey authority
without question leads to a very damaging inability to make decisions or be
discerning later in life. I wanted to
raise children who think things through and not children that would be blindly
led astray by something that sounded good because they have no ability to
reason. Is that messier than first time
obedience? Absolutely. But the longer I live and the more parents
with prodigals I talk to, the more I hear parents say they wish they could do
it over again and not only let their children be their own people instead of
trying to shove them into a box where everyone acts the same, but spend more
time pursuing their hearts than just requiring them to obey. (I need to do a
separate review, but I highly recommend Heartfelt Discipline by Clay
Clarkson for a better, more balanced view on discipline than spanking for
everything.)
The idea that Jim Bob Duggar didn’t want to pay his adult
children for being on television was something else that stood out to me. You
can say his children (especially Jill) signed the paperwork, but having been
trained to just do what they were told, why would they do anything else? Especially when the papers were presented
when they would have been too busy preparing for a wedding to actually digest
what they were being given. And pushing
daughters who were molested by their brother to participate in a public
interview to save the family “brand” is not something a loving father should do
to his daughters. It seems Jim Bob’s
bottom line and finances were more important to him than protecting his
daughters from further trauma.
I have seen some people fiercely defending the Duggars and
Gothard, acting as if this is just Christians being persecuted for living moral
lives and teaching the Bible. I
profoundly disagree with this sentiment.
The church needs to own up to the fact that the damage done to the
gospel was done by Jim Bob Duggar and Bill Gothard, twisting the scriptures to abuse
women and children, and exploiting the name of Christ for their own
enrichment. Until we as the church can
take an honest look at the way people are regularly abused in the name of God,
we are never going to show the world who Christ really is: A loving Savior who willingly gave his life
for us while we were yet sinners. Not someone
who came to place us under another set of rules designed to elevate men and
keep women hidden away doing the bidding of their husbands and fathers. After all, we are all made in His image, with
unique talents and abilities. And the
best way we can all live is to put others’ needs above our own. All the time.
This is how we show Christ’s love to the world.
It is telling that some of the weirdest things have been
scrubbed from the IBLP website. Things
like Bill Gothard’s teachings on “rhemas” have been removed completely. Also absent are his teachings on the evils of
rock music (though you can still buy a pamphlet about it) and Cabbage Patch Kids. These beliefs are documented as being taught
by Gothard and have no basis in Scripture.
You have to wonder how so many people were convinced to stay away from
syncopation and a particular popular doll, convinced that allowing these things
in their homes would invite Satan himself into their midst.
In short, while you must use discernment in watching this
documentary and take the source into consideration, there is no doubt that a
lot of damage has been done by Gothard and IBLP, and that the Duggar family
helped bring this belief system to a lot of people by their television show. I
know a lot of people in various stages of purging these toxic beliefs from
their worldviews. Some of them are still
Christians, some of them are not. Most
of the ones I know that are parents now have walked away from the legalistic
set of rules and harsh discipline. Many of
those of my acquaintance who were raised under IBLP rules and the strict purity
culture rules (that are still believers) are choosing to raise their children
in a “spirit of the law” rather than a “letter of the law” manner, pursuing
hearts instead of external obedience. In talking with some of them, disentangling
truth from the errors has been difficult, but they want something better for
their children, and I applaud them for looking for a better way. This includes a lot of young people who were
damaged either by even a very brief time in IBLP and those who were raised
adjacent to it, not even fully part of it, but with the values and rules
existing in the larger homeschool community they socialized in during their
younger years.
May God forgive us in the homeschool community for looking
the other way when women and children are abused by authoritarian husbands and
fathers who want them to keep their concerns behind closed doors, smile like
everything is fine, and project a false sense that everything is wonderful and
amazing. We do nothing but damage to the gospel when the truth comes out,
because it always does. My heart breaks
for those who have been so damaged by growing up under this system that they
walk away from God completely. May those
who haven’t walked away find peace in the truth of the Bible and the God of
grace who loves them more than their earthly parents do.
*RecoveringGrace.org is a great place to start if you have been damaged by Gothard's teachings. And here are two other articles about how to approach this documentary as homeschool loving Christians: A Homeschooling Mom Responds to 'Shiny Happy People' and Amazon's 'Shiny Happy People Has Lessons to Teach, If We're Willing to Listen. Note: the second article was written by Joshua Harris's brother, Alex.
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