“As long as they didn’t edit out our faith…” A Reflection on 19 Kids & Counting – Lindsay Ann Cox

Posted by: rbadmin on Jun 19, 2010 | One Comment

Sometimes when studying and writing seem like less than ideal activities for a day, I leave the television muted in the background, just for the movement. The channel and show are generally irrelevant because I’m really just looking for the feeling of company – another presence, however artificial, to guide my thoughts into productivity.A couple of months ago I randomly left the TV on The Learning Channel (TLC) and proceeded to become absorbed in images of a family with a seemingly bizarre number of children; women and girls modestly dressed in skirts and men and boys with polo shirts and trousers. When, out of curiosity, I finally turned on the sound, I learned I was watching the Duggar family, Jim Bob and Michelle, raise their “19 Kids and Counting”.

My interest in the show grew slowly, mostly because I am hesitant to watch anything of the reality genre, but once the mute button had been released, I was kinda hooked.Here is this soft spoken woman and her ridiculously kind husband, dealing with their day-to-day family life, just with nine times the kids of an average American family (a fact I learned on the show, in case you are wondering) and I find myself glued to my couch in amazement.And here is what amazes me: they are conservative Christians, Baptists to be exact, living their beliefs in the world respectfully and, dare I say it, inspiringly.

As a Christian and minister within the faith, my discerned calling (to use good ol’ church lingo) has always been towards the reality of religion in the public sphere and thus the diverse blessings of interfaith and inter-denominational dialogue and the theologies it necessitates. But the ‘reality of religion in the public sphere’, as I have experienced it, tends to be topic-oriented with conservatives of various faiths coming together to respond to issues within their conservative agendas and liberals doing the same with other liberals, also of many faiths. This is the political spectrum of belief, within which all confessing members of a faith will locate themselves, and though I continue to place myself firmly amongst the liberals, I am both uncomfortable with the static nature of such a category and anxious to interact positively with those who share my beliefs in so many ways, but in a different, more ‘hardcore’ way, so to speak. I mean, how often, has my female gender been judged as inadequate for my education and leadership roles? How regularly does my younger-than-average age result in the outright dismissal of me and my ideas? How constantly am I embarrassed to be Christian because of what some fundamentalist or conservative group is shouting about judgment and punishment in the name of our shared saviour, the loving Christ? Often, regularly and constantly, indeed. Then I watched the Duggars…

As I continue to watch the show, and yes, I realize it is only a television show despite the reality it portrays, my respect for this family continues to grow.In each episode of 17 Kids & Counting, through 18 and now 19, I learn more about the details of their way of life, the beliefs which inspire said lifestyle and the development thereof over many years. From birth control to parenting, family finances to housekeeping, every issue appears (from my research, at least) to be the product of a set of experiences, family-based analysis and prayer upon the issue at hand and a resulting family-oriented decision. In their words, quoting scripture, “God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing” (1 Thess. 5:9-11, NRSV).Imagine: thoughtful, faithful decisions creating a harmonious, mutually encouraging family lifestyle and environment?! This is not blindly following rules and dogmas set out by others, nor is it a refusal to work within the system of their chosen beliefs.It is the actual living out of one’s considered beliefs; the Duggars’ dialogical orthodoxy is realized in their intentional conservative orthopraxy as they struggle with God and themselves in faith, the true Yisra-el (Hebrew: to wrestle / struggle with God).

The Duggars are big on the bible, as you would probably imagine, but this is where my critical eye comes into play, because they don’t seem much interested in the Old or First Testament. They read a chapter of Proverbs a day and seem well-versed in the early Hebrew narratives (creation, the flood, etc.) and Psalms, but seem to be spend the majority of their prayer and study life in the New or Second Testament. More specifically, they seem to love the Pauline texts and the Gospel According to John, which as many of you will recognize, are the traditional texts of more conservative Christians.These are the texts that, if you want to read the bible literally, give command and comfort all in the same moment.These are the highly contextual texts of early Christianity, where the authors were being persecuted for their beliefs which resulted in, as in many other moments in history, the first attempt to codify these community-based, early Christian beliefs in direct contradistinction to their persecutors. The immediate need of these communities of new Christians was to be reassured in their beliefs not just despite, but in spite, of the challenging beliefs of others and this minority group dynamic is something relatively common today, as the end of so-called Christendom is upon us. In fact, I am certain that the Duggars feel their chosen lifestyle and beliefs are uncommon in even their own context of northwest Arkansas.

The bible, however, is so much more than the black and white picture presented when it’s read literally; it is thousands of years of oral and written history, millions of peoples’ contextual witness to their experiences of God in their lives, a thousand little stories and faith experiences turned into myth, epic, allegory, metaphor, parable, testimony, polemic, vision and so much, much more. The bible is a rich though motley grey, a polyphonic diversity which refuses the stark and static and pushes its readers to the edges of their capacity for complexity. I mean, just learning biblical Hebrew and Hellenistic Greek are a good start in even beginning to comprehend the nuanced glory of the bible, but then moving from Latin to German, even the linguistic story of the bible is fascinating. From Hebrew oral traditions to the rabbinic Judaism of Jesus’ day, early Christian church missionaries and communities to the Patristic Fathers, the Catholicism of the Roman Empire to the schism with the Orthodox, the development of Islam to the medieval Catholic church, Protestant reform to radical reformers in the ‘New World’ of North America, one Roman Catholic Church to thousands of Protestant denominations around the world, the northern hemisphere to the south, from social justice to political hijacking, the story of Christianity and its millions of witnesses along the way have found inspiration in the bible, while the location of faith in is the heart of each person living in the world according to its principles. The Duggars, like you and I, are normal people, but when we commit ourselves to the power of love, which is higher and more perfect than anything we could ever even imagine (thank you, St. Anselm), we become witnesses to the power of God in our lives. In Christ, in particular, a theology of the cross teaches us that weakness is made perfect in the loving and faithful birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Or, in the words of a favourite Duggar scripture passage: “’[m]y grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me” (2 Cor. 12:9, NRSV).

The Duggars are not perfect, to say the least, but they don’t pretend to be otherwise. They live their faith in the most authentic, however, imperfect, way they know how and while, in my opinion, they tend to simplify things that should remain complicated (e.g., the bible as a literal ‘owners manual’ for life authored by God versus a collection of stories of human witness of God in their lives, children as blessings from God versus sustainable population control, belief in creationism versus the scientific fact of evolution, modesty and self-control versus rampant sexualizing of the media, etc.) they are witnesses to God’s love, attempting to live in the world but not of it. Michelle Duggar, when interviewed about how they became in television, puts it in her own words, saying,

‘[b]ack when Discovery wanted to do a documentary with our family, we were the first ones to say we are not a perfect family. We feel so inadequate. We’re still learning every day. We’re not finished raising our family. And yet, as we prayed about it, we really felt like there have been many people, many families, many others that have shared things with us that have encouraged us along the way. And if we can share anything like that with somebody else that will help them to look at life from a brighter side and realize these children really are a blessing and a gift from God and I’m really thankful for them, then we’d be willing to let the cameras come and film our imperfect family, as long as they didn’t edit out our faith because the faith was the core of our life. The Bible is the owner’s manual for life and in it are contained all the answers to life’s questions’ (Michelle Duggar qtd. in Ross, Oct. 2009; bolding mine).

Like the many men, and unfortunately few women, of the bible, those who lived and wrote the stories of the canon, we can only be living witnesses to our faith in the truest and most authentic form possible and trust in God to do the rest. For those us who consider ourselves religious, the role of religion in the public sphere is the living out of this loving grace – the covenantal hesed, as the case may be for some – in our lives for others… if only we dare to admit, submit and love that which is truly other than ourselves.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

and do not rely on your own insight.

In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make straight your paths.

Do not be wise in your own eyes;

fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.”

Proverbs 3:5-7, NRSV

For more information, please check out the following:

The Duggars Homepage:

http://www.duggarfamily.com/index.html

FAQs to the Duggars:

http://www.duggarfamily.com/faq.html