Courtesy of Jinger Duggar/Instagram
Jinger Duggar Says Shiny Happy People’s Depiction of Bill Gothard Was ‘Truthful’: ‘Very Damaging’
Jinger Duggar said that Amazon Prime’s docuseries Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets gave an accurate depiction of Bill Gothard.
The Counting On alum, 29, and her husband, Jeremy Vuolo, discussed the docuseries and its depiction of the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) in a video posted to their YouTube channel on Monday, December 11.
After Jinger said that “everything in that documentary” was “truthful,” she stated that the “teachings of Bill Gothard were awful and they were so deceptive because they were mixed in.”
“There would be elements of truth from scripture and it would just take a twist, where it was very damaging,” she continued. “There are so many teachers that claim to speak for God but don’t.”
Jeremy, 36, said that “one of the things the docuseries did really well” was “expose Gothard,” as well as “the program and the cult and the way he operated.”
“There was so much isolation within IBLP that a lot of other bad things would trickle down from that,” Jinger explained about the religion her parents Jim Bob Duggar and Michelle Duggar raised her and her siblings to follow.
The former reality star also opened up about why she chose not to participate in the docuseries. She explained that there was “little to no editing power” and admitted she was concerned it wouldn’t be a “Christian documentary.”
Jinger concluded the topic by stating that the docuseries did a lot of things right, though said it was “lacking” because it led people to feel hopeless when it comes to Christianity.
While Jinger chose not to participate in the docuseries, her sister Jill Duggar, brother-in-law Derick Dillard and cousin Amy Duggar all discussed their experiences with the religious organization in the project.
Meanwhile, the mother of two opened up about her journey of leaving the IBLP in her 2023 book, Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear.
She explained that her sister Jessa Seewald’s husband, Ben Seewald, encouraged her to learn about faith on her own terms. “I noticed his church read the Bible in its entirety and preached scripture that way,” Jinger wrote in the memoir. “I feel like now I’m in a much better place. I see God as amazing.”
While she condemned Gothard’s teachings in the book, the former reality star continued to open up about the IBLP while appearing on a March episode of the “Cultish” podcast. She claimed that the organization created an unhealthy “fear of God” in her, which she equated to “more of a terror.”
“I was probably one of the most sensitive people in my family, so I was a rule follower,” she said at the time. “If that was an inch on a skirt, I would be like ‘Oh, no. I can’t sit down with this skirt on.’ Because it would barely show like a quarter of my knee. I was a legalist to the extreme because that’s what Bill Gothard said would protect you.”
Jinger added that she had a “very happy childhood,” though said she was “wrestling” internally with “so much fear and a wrong view of God.”
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