The Bay County Sheriff’s Office in Panama City, Florida, said in a statement that Joseph’s alleged abuse occurred during a 2020 family vacation when the alleged victim was 9. According to authorities, Joseph admitted to the actions prior to his arrest after being confronted by the girl’s father.
Days later, Joseph’s wife, Kendra, was arrested, and she and her husband each received eight charges related to child endangerment and false imprisonment. Those charges were unrelated to the ones Joseph faces in Florida.
RELATED: Kendra Duggar’s Parents, Paul and Christina Caldwell, Break Silence on Joseph Duggar’s Arrest
Some people might think that “we don’t need to get theological right now,” Jeremy said, but the truth is that “how you view God directly impacts how you view yourself.”
“Which impacts how you view sin,” he continued, “which impacts how you view evil, which impacts how you view sexuality, which impacts how you view loving one another…all of life is impacted by your ideas. Ideas have consequences.”
“And Bill Gothard had dangerous teaching about who God is,” said Jeremy, noting that Jinger is still “unraveling” that teaching.
“He had dangerous teaching about what a man is, what a woman is for, how to approach life and godliness, and how to pursue holiness, what is salvation,” Jeremy said. “Dangerous ideas, and they have consequences.”
In Matthew 11:19, Jesus says, “Wisdom is justified by her deeds,” meaning, said Jeremy, that the fruit of a teaching is evidence of its merit, and what Gothard taught, “I would argue is not Christianity at all.”
“There are some Christians in it,” Jinger said. “There are a lot of Christians, probably, in it. But it does not make that Christianity.”
She explained that Gothard led a movement in the 1960s and 1970s that many families found compelling, teaching that if people followed “seven basic life principles,” then life would “be a success, and if you don’t, then it’s going to be one disaster after another.”
Gothard stepped down from IBLP in 2014 amid allegations of sexual harassment from more than 30 women, but the organization still holds family conferences in Big Sandy, Texas, where Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have been regular speakers. Jinger attended those conferences while she was committed to Gothard’s teachings.
“And a lot of families were well-meaning when they entered that setting,” she said.
“They thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to protect my family by putting up these very concrete rules for my kids,” said Jinger, “‘to keep them safe, to keep them in, to have friends that are going to be identical to us, that will shield our kids from the outside world almost, and let them be a light to the nations.’”
