As anyone who has followed my occasional frustrated comments on television here knows, I was not a fan of the Duggars show, Nineteen Kids and Counting.
Indeed, for reasons that I have a hard time defining, there was something about the Duggars that made me uncomfortable. A lot of people are going to be saying that now, so that's a little late to be claiming that, but it's true. I couldn't quite define it then, and I can't quite now, but what I think it is, is that to a certain ill informed audience they defined "Christianity", or perhaps "Conservative Christianity". They don't. And I don't think they claimed to, but rather they were sort of presented that way.
In reality, without delving into it too far, theologically they're a member of a minority offshoot of a certain branch of Protestantism, and from their they're actually part of a patriarchal movement within that minority offshoot, which makes them a minority within a minority. That was probably obvious to anyone who studies such matters, which means that it's not obvious to most people. Given that, however, it would be no more fair to even state that the Duggars represented the view of Conservative Protestants than it would be to say the Old Believers represent the views of most Russian Orthodox, or that the members of the SSPX represent the views of most Catholics. Indeed, those statements, although erroneous, would probably be slightly closer to being true, maybe. And because they hold a minority Protestant view, within a minority Protestant view, their views fall very far from the views of many "mainline" Protestants and certainly quite far from the Catholics and the Orthodox. Now, the Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, etc., know that, but because television is so ignorant, it doesn't necessarily know that. Therefore, when we hear things like "the Duggar's conservative Christian views", we're really hearing something that's way, way, far off the mark.
Indeed, again, I doubt the Duggar's themselves would disagree with that, and in fact they would seem to fit into a demographic that would question the Christianity of at least certain other Christian Faiths. I don't know that for sure, but I do note that they engage in missionary work in Central American, which at least raises some questions as that's a field already plowed by prior Christian missionaries, although they're all Catholic. Usually when a group does that, they tend to do it because they don't regard the other Christian group as valid, although here again I'm supposing. I've known some Protestant missionaries (and Catholic ones) who were true missionaries, and they spent their lives in some really wild parts of the world, indeed, in some areas that were downright dangerous for somebody of their occupation, which seems real missionary work to me.
Anyhow, all that's a long winded way of saying that part of what has made me uncomfortable about the Duggar's is the way that they've come to represent something that maybe they don't. I'm a pretty conservative Christian (okay, on some things I'm a pretty liberal Christian . . . and on others I'm a pretty neither liberal or conservative Christian), but I don't feel my daughter has to dress in a peasant dress and I'm a pretty big fan of education.
Indeed, on that latter item, one thing that's bothered me for some time is that the girls in this show, which has massive female following, seem so limited in their options. They seem pretty smart, but they line them up with potential spouses who just don't seem to quite mach their intellect. Maybe they do, but they don't seem to. Indeed, that would seem to be the case for whomever Josh is married to as well, but again I could well be wrong. It all seems sort of odd.
So, anyhow, one thing that's bothered me is the way their identified as something they really aren't.
And by extension, now people who hate them because they re identified that way, are going to be ripping them apart.
Traditional Christians in recent years have come to regard themselves as under the gun. Well, actually, some branches of Christianity have felt that way for a long time. And for good reason, they really are. It's become unsafe in the public sphere to simply hold certain traditional Christian beliefs, or certain beliefs that are consistent with certain Faiths. That's a shame, but its true. It's also become safe to attack certain religious beliefs as the PC view of the media holds those beliefs to be out of sync with the times.
In truth, Christianity is always out of sync with the times, and if a person reads the Acts of the Apostles, that's clear. The Apostles knew they were out of sync with the times, and the Fathers of the Church were pretty darned plain that they knew that as well. So that's not new. What is a bummer, however, is to see some group, here the Duggars, get tarred and feathered by haters because they are seen to represent something they don't, while in turn the rest of us get tarred and feathered because of what the Duggar patriarchy apparently did, which isn't fair to the rest of us by any means. Ignorance at work. It's like being a member of one of those rare Middle Eastern religious minorities who get attacked because nobody knows what they actually believe, but they might believe what some other group believes.
Going from that, however, it's also interesting how chicken television and the media really are. Everything is played so safe. The Duggars were pulled from the air, which they should have been, but a certain other family which recently had a baby baptized in the Armenian Orthodox Church, a very conservative religions, lives a lifestyle that seems out of sync with that (or not, I'm not sure) and has a family member who is changing genders. That's being celebrated on television. Now, in this era, that's in sync with the general liberal view of the media, so the media is not going to take on the very un settled and difficult psychological aspects of that in a way that's controversial. That is, we're not going to hear any press on whether that's wrong in a psychological or metaphysical sense, but maybe we should. But we won't, as that would be too controversial in the context of the times.
This same logic would apply, even more so, to "Sister Wives", a show that pretty much promotes plural marriage and which appears on the same network as Nineteen Kids". Here we have a sort of irony that TLC promotes, though the show, the concept that the Duggars are Christian traditionalist, which they really are not, and that the very non traditional view (in the larger societal sense) of the Kody Brown group, should be tolerated. It's a strangely mixed message, neither of which is very deep in its analysis.
Nor really very interesting, I guess, to the male half of the population. Both shows really cater towards domestic blandness, which is the basis, oddly, and ironically, of their appeal. Peculiarly, noting really is going to look at the domestic lives of the millions of other conservative Christian women that are actually part of the culture. That would just be too normal.
And if we're going to look at really unusual groups, to Americans, maybe we should look at really interesting ones we know aren't part of the larger demographic and obviously are not. Why not, for example, look at Orthodox Jews? There are a lot of them in the US, but TLC isn't following them around. Or Moslems (in fairness, there was a show that looked at them, but for a group that has to be unpleasant to be a member of right now, why not look at their lives). Or, Old Believers. There are Old Believers in Alaska, why not give them a look?
Finally, stories like this become feeding frenzies in a shark like fashion. I can't help but recall how, after the very weird Michael Jackson died, the press turned on him. It seems fame can turn to blistering contempt in an instant.
That's always been the case. The people and press elevate people to fame, and then when things go wrong for them, they rip them apart. Oddly, they create an Idol and then destroy it, and always have. An odd aspect of human nature.
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