For a number of reasons (including an on-going 3-week sickness) I don’t even have the energy to write about this heart-wrenching situation right now. But if you’re like me, you’re pondering this in a bigger light, wondering how to process it, and what it means for your life, personally, when someone claiming Christ falls so hard.
But thankfully, Jess has already said everything perfectly, so I’m going to encourage you to read her article, Josh Duggar & the Problem We All Have.
“But you know what else that news drives me to do? Oh, sister… fellow mom… friend… Sister/Brother in Christ… it makes me look in my own heart and see the foul wickedness right here.”
Read the rest here.
Note: The confession in the Blaze article Jess links to is broken. You can find it here.
Secondly, in fairness, though Jess mentions Josh not calling his sin what it is, he did say in his confession he is grieved for the pain his sin has caused.
18 comments
I liked what Matt Moore had to say, too. I barely even read headlines about celebrity or reality show people, so I only know what y’all tell me. Really, so much of the New Testament writing is about the sort of thing Duggar has done, wolves among sheep, what the local church must do about it, and how we must keep ourselves from it, that I’m not sure what else there could be too say. Certainly I get sick of people asking me about these things. I have seven kids and follow Jesus, so some guy in television whose family sorta resembles mine is now my problem? Don’t they live in Arkansas? They should ask Hillary to comment on it. She’s from there, and knows something about philandering husbands, too, so she’s actually a lot closer to this situation than I am. 😀
I’m sorry. I totally went off-topic on you. I just had that on my mind and sorta had to put it somewhere. 🙂
Lol–I’m glad you put it here. Good words and I know exactly what you mean.
Oh Kelly~so sorry you’ve been sick that long!!! Are you in the getting- better-but-still-so-exhausted stage? Want to hear you are improving. I will pray! I will hop over and read what Jess wrote.
Thank you, Claudia. I’ve had some sort of staph sinus infection, for which I am taking antibiotics, and was hoping to feel better than I do by now, but, it’s a tired, draggy, congested kind of thing. Hopefully health is around the corner!
Hey Kelly,
Just fyi- his initial statement didn’t sound the way the current one does. I’ve updated the article to reflect the newer statement that does use the word “sin.”
Thanks for sharing.
Jess
Gotcha. It’s interesting that his statement changed??
Here is what my husband had to say about the whole sordid affair:
http://lorialexander.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-josh-duggar-affair-continuing-in-sin.html
Lori,
His post is EXCELLENT. So many great and thorough points. And I agree with him too about the Matt Walsh comment too. Thanks for sharing!
It’s very amazing to me that as of yesterday, the only name released to the public from this whole Ashley Madison scandal was Josh Duggar, someone who’s parents actually stood for something in the Christian community. Amazing, huh?
I loved the article you shared.
I pray you get better very soon, it’s tough being sick for 3 days let alone 3 weeks.
God Bless,
Amanda
I had always been a huge Duggar fan. In fact, I sent in a web-cam question for them that was actually used on one of their shows, so this whole thing has truly been disappointing for me. I feel for Anna and their children, but I can’t stop thinking- how could they have agreed to do a tv show, knowing their son’s past? I understand about repentance, but those who do not know Jesus do not. Did they honestly think that the victims who were not in the family would never say anything after seeing him achieve fame for his moral character? Unbelievers are foaming at the mouth over this ordeal because now they have a solid reason to point out the hypocrisy of Christians. I understand that we need to have public spokesmen for our faith- Kirk Cameron comes to mind. He’s brought so many mainstream people into the faith. I just want to implore anyone who seeks to go public with their faith and speak out on the moral issues our country is going through- please, please do not put yourself under the scrutiny of the media unless you are of exemplary character and have no skeletons in your closet. We will not win people to the faith unless we can be genuine.
My husband and I asked the same exact question….why would you go through with the show with those kind of skeletons in the closet? .
People should know that the media WILL FIND IT OUT!
And if you have a past, expose it yourself, don’t wait for someone to be able to stumble across it and use it against all Christians.
Well said.
Shelly,
I’m still thinking about your point, but my gut instinct is to disagree a bit about the fault of the Duggars for going on t.v. For several reasons. First, I don’t think “skeletons in your closet” eliminates someone from being used publicly by God. I don’t recall that David was required to broadcast his sins before Israel (though obviously most knew about them), but it doesn’t seem that he was required to disclose them wherever he went in order to stay in the public light.
I’m sure there are many public figures who have sins that the public doesn’t know about, and I’m not sure they are required to disclose them, necessarily.
Especially in the Duggar’s case, with the (rightful) desire to protect the dignity of the girls, it wouldn’t have been prudent to make the incident public. I think they did all they believed to be right, and the hindsight opinion of “they should have known it would come ouw” doesn’t really stand for me.
The records Josh had were confidential and the Duggars trusted that. They felt like they had handled everything properly, both spiritually and socially, and they believed that it was dead and buried. I think the Lord still used them on tv in a powerful way.
Aside from this recent issue, which is altogether something different, they were Christians, who had dealt with sin, attempting to walk faithfully, using the opportunities they felt God had put before them, and I don’t think there’s any reason to fault them for being on tv. To be a genuine Christian means nothing more than we depend on a Savior because we KNOW the depth of our sin. I don’t think being a genuine Christian requires us to openly disclose all our sins that have been dealt with in the past.
I don’t think they should have publicly disclosed it. My point was that, as Christians, we are all too often aware of those who do not believe trying to find ANY WAY to discredit us. Anything at all. When you become public figures, it opens us up to scrutiny, as it does to anyone else. Unfortunately, the amount of scrutiny seems to double when it is people of faith. So, with that in mind, I feel it would have been in their best interest to say no to the show to avoid something such as this from happening.
Heartbreaking! Thank you for responding. Jess’s article was very helpful. Also, I have to say that I am reading some other posts she has concerning teaching our children about sex. Sex has always been something that I know should be an open conversation with our children, but because of my past…it is so uncomfortable! Thankfully, through reading some of the articles posted on her website, I am learning to put this into action. My oldest child at home is 9. When we were raising my now 19 year old son, we depended too much on keeping the bad out, and not near enough on preparing them to face the evil within. Thank you so much for bringing this material to my attention! What happened with Josh is humbling and sobbering to those who have depended more on methods rather than the Spirit!!!
Just to clarify, I was referring to my own tendency, if not on guard, to rely on methods (sheltering, homeschooling, etc)
This is a heartbreaking story. For something so personal to become so public is devastating for a family. All of this information will be out there for his children to see someday. My family also has the tendency to get in the rut of following methods. Thinking that the methods will somehow keep the bad out. It becomes so weary for everyone. How much easier it is to surrender it all to Christ and turn to the Bible for your method!
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