Christian love: In an obnoxious Facebook rant, Jessa Duggar, reality TV star and victim of the radical Christian extremist movement known as Quiverfull, tells liberals they will burn in hell. The 22-year-old 19 Kids and Counting star addressed her thousands of followers via Facebook Wednesday in order to share a “hard truth” - hell is for real, and if you don’t do as she says God says, you will fry for an eternity. Jessa writes: I will speak to you a hard truth. I do not write this because I think that it will bring me popularity. It won’t. But it is Truth from the Word of God: the Bible. To not tell people this is to hide the truth from them. To keep silent is to not care for their eternal destiny! I care about you, and this is why I am speaking out!
While I (almost) have to admire someone so completely and utterly committed to their Christian faith that they believe the have the responsibility- nay, the duty- to tell me I’m going to Hell, Jessica Duggar provides a target that’s just WAY too large. I’d respect her faith…if she didn’t feel she possesses the absolute right to pass judgment on my own (or lack of same). The odds of me taking advice from an immature, judgmental, self-righteous 22-year-old about anything are long indeed. She hasn’t been drawing breath long enough to pass judgment on me- about ANYTHING.
The unfortunate part for Ms. Duggar is that she’s a celebrity for doing nothing of any value. Neither her (lack of) experience or (wholly undeserved) celebrity provide her a platform to hold forth on any topic. Emerging from her sheltered home school bubble in East Bumfuck, AR, she KNOWS that Hell is real, and that those like me who don’t believe as she does are in the express lane headed there. Her devotion to a book riddled with translation errors and historical inaccuracies is laughable at best and just plain ignorant at worst. There’s no “truth” to be found in a book that’s been translated and re-translated by an unknown number of people, some of whom implanted their own prejudices and beliefs into the text. The Bible is the true, unadulterated Word of God in the same way Jerry Sandusky looked out for the interests of children.
Yet Ms. Duggar feels she has the right to judge those of us who don’t swallow her fairy tale belief system without question? Wow…now there’s some world-class ignorance there, kids.
Jessa’s imaginary god is a moral monster to be feared, a nightmare of reason that would punish some supposed temporal and finite failing with eternal and infinite punishment.
Yet reading her post, one gets the distinct feeling that Jessa enjoys this irrational drama immensely.
Indeed, the Duggar family has come to be a symbol of the ignorance and hatred associated with conservative Christian extremism.
Jessa’s brother, Josh, claims his Christian love for gays forces him to fight against rights for LGBT people, and he is currently policy director at the Family Research Council, which has been classified as a hate group for making false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science with the intention to denigrate LGBT people.
Particularly odious, Duggar family matriarch Michelle Duggar participated in a series of robocalls in which Duggar urged voters to not support a municipal non-discrimination law that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual and gender orientation.
In the calls, Michelle Duggar described LGBT people as “child predators,” and said that trans women are actually male sex offenders who want access to women’s locker rooms and bathrooms.
In short. the family advocates for ignorance, hatred, and bigotry, all under the banner of Christ.
Jessa Duggar is a victim of her upbringing; she was never allowed to be aware that there’s an alternative to the Christian fairy tales she was raised on. As a homeschooled child, she was exposed only to those parts of the secular world her parents chose to allow access to. Her upbringing was the very definition of indoctrination. As members of the radical ultra-Christian Quiverfull movement, the Duggars raised Jessa and the rest of their children in a hermetically-sealed bubble. That she’d view the world in stark tones of Good and Evil is no surprise; that’s what she was taught. She was also evidently taught that being a Christian makes her a morally superior being, and as such she has the right and the responsibility to bring the truth to those not enlightened enough to share their beliefs.
I can only speak for myself, but I can’t imagine I’m alone when I say that no belief system which promotes ignorance, hatred, and bigotry in the name of Jesus Christ can accurately be called Christianity. The Duggars claim their hatred of the LGBT community and opposition to marriage equality and equal rights is done out of love.
They sure have a funny way of demonstrating their love for their fellow man, don’tchathink?
The truth is that the politics and theology of the Radical Christian Right, which Jessa Duggar calls home, have nothing at all to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ. The man Duggar considers her Lord and Savior never taught hatred, bigotry, and/or ignorance. He taught love, tolerance, and acceptance- something Duggar, the Quiverfull movement, and the Radical Christian Right know less than nothing about.
Beyond all of this, though, it amuses me that a 22-year-old whose claim to fame is being on a reality television series feels entitled to preach to anyone about anything. If Jessa Duggar represents Christian love in any shape, form, or fashion, it just confirms that I’m still very good without God, thank you. I’d rather live in the world of rationality and reason than in the fairy tale bubble Ms. Duggar calls home. I suspect she’s no more destined for her version of Heaven than I am.
