Photo Courtesy of 'Are They All Yours?!'
Meet the Andersons — the Fundie Family Who Make the Duggars’ Beliefs Look Mild!
It’s hard to imagine a world in which the Duggars’ extreme beliefs would be considered mild — yet, that’s how we felt when we were first introducsed to the Anderson Family, another large family of fundamentalists! The family matriarch, Zsuzsanna, runs a blog called “Are They All Yours,” in which she details her unusual home life as wife to her pastor husband, Steven, and mom to 10 kids under the age of 16 — Solomon, 16, Issaac, 15, John, 13, Miriam, 10, Rebecca, 9, Anna, 7, Stephen, 5, Boaz, 3, Chloe, 1, and newborn Peter.
For more than a decade, Zsuzsanna and Steven have documented their life online — at times, sharing their advice on just about everything, from making your marriage work to why birth control is problematic (yes, really…), and even Josh Duggar’s scandal. Curious to hear more about the controversial fam? Keep reading for some of their crazier ideas!
They really think birth control has a “destructive” effect on marriage.
On Steven’s blog, the Anderson family matriarch wrote about why she felt that birth control was doing so much damage to marital bliss. “Birth control destroys marriages on many levels. There are detrimental physical effects such as decreased desire and altering women’s perception of what they want in a man (until they get off the artificial hormones and discover they can’t stand the guy any longer),” she wrote. “There are spiritual effects such as reinforcing selfishness and showing a lack of faith in God’s provision, both of which are critical components of a failed marriage. There are the unspoken insults to the other spouse and children — ‘I don’t want your kids, I don’t want any more of you.’ There is even the very practical aspect that when there are no children in the home, it is far easier and more likely for one spouse to commit adultery. I am not saying it is right, I am just saying statistics show us these are all factors contributing to the downfall of marriage.”
Zsuzsanna is submissive to her husband, because God appointed authority to him.
In a blog entry about this particular topic — marital submission — she compared her husband’s authority to that of a parent over a child, which is bizarre on so many levels. She also compared her husband to the Supreme Court — ensuring her readers that her role is, like, a regular court — so she totally gets a say as long as it isn’t something “major.”
“The husband being the head of the home does not mean that he makes every decision. The Bible makes it clear that while a husband’s duty is to provide for the family and protect it (i.e. mostly dealing with the world outside the family), the wife’s duties are mostly within the family (i.e. raising the children, and keeping the home),” she wrote. “My husband knows and appreciates my competence in this area, and trusts me to make the best decisions to keep us moving forward in the course we have set for our family based upon the Bible and his preferences. So yes, in my home, I am the queen, and as such, very independent. There is no need for my husband to monitor, veto, or override my every decision. I do not call him throughout the day to run this or that by him.”
She continued, “If we come to a conflict, an area where we do not see eye-to-eye on, my opinion is carefully taken into consideration, as any wise and loving husband would do. Ultimately, however, the burden of responsibility of decision making for these ‘big’ areas is with the husband. These would typically be important decisions; some examples are where to live, how many children to have, how to educate them, where to go to church, etc.”
She has a list of “fun” things to do that isn’t watch TV.
And by “fun” we mean… Not as fun as binge watching your favorite trashy series. Some of our favorites include “pull weeds,” “get caught up on laundry,” “balance your checkbook,”and “clean.” Why watch a new Real Housewives when you can “listen to a sermon on CD,” right?!
Zsuzsanna doesn’t think women should vote.
In 2010, she wrote, “As a citizen of the US, I have a right to vote. However, I do not exercise this right, because I believe that based on the Bible, it is wrong for women to vote.”
“Voting is not in my area of responsibility, because as a woman, I am commanded to follow God and my husband,” she concluded the same blog post. “There should be one vote per household, and it should be the husband who casts it. Men are responsible for running the affairs outside the home, women are responsible for those inside the home.” We guess it’s safe she say she wasn’t #WithHer in the 2016 election…
Yes, they had some thoughts on Josh Duggar’s scandal, too…
Needless to say, she had a lot to say about the scandal and the Duggars in general, who, by Zsuzsanna’s own words, “have always been running in circles known to attract freaks and weirdos.”
She also said that she thinks pedophils are “reprobates,” who can never change… But there’s a catch — she doesn’t think Josh Duggar — who admitted to molesting four of his underage sisters — is a child molester because he was underage when it happened.
“I am not convinced beyond any doubt that Josh Duggar himself had reached that point of being a reprobate pedophile when he did what he did,” she explained. “One report stated the incident took place the month he turned 14 years old. I consider anyone that is pre-puberty to be a child…. Even for a child, of course, such behavior is vile, perverted, and sinful, and they should and often do know better. But they are not always acting on their own lusts and desires, but in foolishness they are acting out what they themselves have been exposed to.”
Needless to say, this hardly even scratches the surface of some of the Andersons’ more out-there views! After spending some time on their various blogs… We sincerely miss the Duggars!
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