Joy and Austin: Back in Arkansas?

[JDuggs]

Unpopular opinion alert. It's a no-brainer that Joy and Austin toured Israel with a Christian organization. It's the easiest way for two inexperienced young people to hit all of the Christian highlights from a Christian perspective. I bet a lot of Christians utilize organized tours of Israel. Not a big deal. So this group provides humanitarian aid to Holocaust survivors. If the Holocaust survivors were not interested in meeting with the Christians from this group, I would assume that they could decline. Maybe it has more to do with the Christians becoming more educated about Israel's role in the survivors' lives after the Holocaust. Maybe they pray together without evangelizing. I couldn't really discern what they were actually doing besides providing food from the website. From the discussion I've read so far on this topic, I can totally see why the Duggars feel like they are persecuted for their beliefs. Until Joy and Austin start telling us about their views and opinions about converting Jews, like we've heard from Jeremy and Derick about converting Catholics, I'm withholding judgment.

[samurai_sarah]

25 minutes ago, MadeItOut said:

It's probably just my ignorance sticking out like a sore thumb I now realise - I was marvelling that a state that exists only because of a religion

(snip)

You are far from ignorant! The history of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican is complicated, to say the least. It explains the existence of the Vatican state, but here's the really, really short version:

In the Middle Ages, the RCC used to be a considerable political power in Europe. They owned land, had armies, and acted like any other medieval state. Plus, they had religious influence. Cue the Reformation. Suddenly, not everyone believed in what the RCC were selling. Over the course of centuries, the lands shrank, and the RCC basically focussed on religious matters again. Vatican city is a leftover from the olden days, when the RCC had an actual state in Italy.

This is a very, very abbreviated version of what happened! But I hope this helps.

[justoneoftwo]

2 hours ago, Jinder Roles said:

It's not illegal but generally not taken well. It is illegal for anyone under age 18 to convert unless one of their parents is a part of another religion. 

There are Orthodox groups that have programs to counteract evangelistic efforts. However, the Israeli government itself has in the past has allowed some American missionary trips, conferences etc.

Thank you so much for the detailed information.  I knew the evangelicals were pro-Israel, but was misinformed about the conversion laws.  I must say this makes the renting of land for a BYU in Israel an even odder choice .

What type of programs do they have to counteract the efforts?  And does anyone know how successful the efforts are?  I would imagine not that many Jews convert anywhere, and Israel strikes me as the least likely place to find converts.  

[wikinggirl]

When I was 16 I went on a school trip with "hvite busser" (the white buses, named after the buses that rescued home scandinavian POW from concentration camps at the end of WW2) to Auschwitz/Birkenau and Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück. It was a tough trip, a lot of things to process. We also had a guide with us who had been in one of the concentration camps. 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

54 minutes ago, MadeItOut said:

I was marvelling that a state that exists only because of a religion (in my brain, I was thinking kinda oversized commune) could possibly have crime - and then I caught myself and realised about how many countries are there because of religion ...& how many serious crimes derive from religious communities...

Interesting resoning, I think we are prone to think that way because we are conditioned to associate religion with good morals.

Vatican City's roots aren't just in Christian moral codes shared through a community though, there's much more to its story. It is what remains of the State of the Church that was a lot bigger than Vatican hill, it was bigger than Rome and included all the centre of Italy and at times some of the North. It existed for a millennium, well before Italy was founded. Popes held not just the spiritual and moral power that nowadays we associate with religion but also a very concrete temporal power that they exercised also through the sovereignty over the State of the Church. The Pope was a true king with all the prerogatives of an absolute sovereign plus some since he had also the spiritual power.

ETA and everything @samurai_sarah said.

[MadeItOut]

I love all the history talk in here. It's awesome how everyone pools resources.

[Carm_88]

16 minutes ago, JDuggs said:

 From the discussion I've read so far on this topic, I can totally see why the Duggars feel like they are persecuted for their beliefs. Until Joy and Austin start telling us about their views and opinions about converting Jews, like we've heard from Jeremy and Derick about converting Catholics, I'm withholding judgment.

They aren't persecuted for their shitty beliefs. People believe that here because they believe that they are the only religion on earth. Jessa has compared the Holocaust to abortion, Jill and Derick are converting Catholics in South America, The whole Duggar family packs up every year to harass Catholics, Ben/Jessa named their children for anti-Catholic preachers. Do you really think that any of them would sit down with a Catholic and see that they too believe in Jesus? They literally believe that their way is the only way. So I don't believe for one second that they are going to Israel to learn about the Holocaust. 

 

[Jana814]

My parents dermatologist is a daughter of survivors (both parents). Their stories were different because of her parents age difference. (father was about 12 years older then her mother.). Her mother and her siblings were hidden in a house and never went to a camp. While her father was in one because he was over 18.  

[justoneoftwo]

9 minutes ago, Carm_88 said:

They aren't persecuted for their shitty beliefs. People believe that here because they believe that they are the only religion on earth. Jessa has compared the Holocaust to abortion, Jill and Derick are converting Catholics in South America, The whole Duggar family packs up every year to harass Catholics, Ben/Jessa named their children for anti-Catholic preachers. Do you really think that any of them would sit down with a Catholic and see that they too believe in Jesus? They literally believe that their way is the only way. So I don't believe for one second that they are going to Israel to learn about the Holocaust. 

 

I would add that they may feel persecuted because people dislike their actions or views but I have to say I don't know that it fits within any definition of persecution I have.  Many people disagree with my views, but that doesn't make me persecuted.  (Sorry, it drives me crazy when people act like disagreement or judgement is persecution, its not).

[Jinder Roles]

@JDuggs The itinerary is intentionally vague but I don't trust them to not do some type of evangelizing while there. Though it does seem like the activities focus on seeing historical sites with a touch of come-to-Jesus to make them feel good about themselves.      

They feel persecuted because they're used to being the dominant group in religion, culture and politics. Now they have to co-exist with other people and afford them the same rights the have. Unfortunately they've been taught that their way is the only way. Plus, the Bible goes on about persecution (it was legitimate concern for the early Church) and they don't understand the concept of context. 

@justoneoftwo I don't know much about those programs or how effective they are, just the history between the evangelical bloc and the Israeli government.       

[xlurker]

While I read, and watch documentaries on the Halocaust, I could not visit a concentration camp. my father's family emigrated from Russian in the very early 1900's, just after the pogroms.  They were Jewish.  The mother did not make it to the US, whether she died during the riots, or on the trip is very unclear.  The fact that I very likely had close relatives die in concentration camps, people I never knew to exist, causes me pain.  The knowledge, that had I been alive, and magically in eastern Europe during that time, I too would have been walking thru those chambers.  Too much for me to handle.  I have this gift of empathy, and I understand what other posters have stated about nightmares. 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

1 hour ago, samurai_sarah said:

 In the Middle Ages, the RCC used to be a considerable political power in Europe. They owned land, had armies, and acted like any other medieval state. Plus, they had religious influence. Cue the Reformation. Suddenly, not everyone believed in what the RCC were selling. Over the course of centuries, the lands shrank, and the RCC basically focussed on religious matters again.

Sorry history nerd here, feel free to skip

Spoiler

I was thinking about that "suddenly", personally I think that, albeit shrinking due to Protestantism, the Pope's political power was still very real up until Illuminism and French Revolution. The dethronisation and decapitation of a monarch whose absolute power was granted by god through the pope's blessing shook the power balance to the core. Suddenly the Pope's blessing counted for nothing even in those countries where Catholics were still a solid majority. Congress of Vienna sanctioned this since the Pope had basically no hand for the first time in a huge redrawing of European political powers. So when the Savoy dynasty dared to absorb the Papal States they did it with the implicit approval of the rest of European states that ignored for the first time ever the screams of protest coming from the papacy. They didn't have an interest in keeping it alive anymore. It took some decades to the popes to adjoust though and resign themselves to sign the treaty with the devil Mussolini in 1929 with which they obtained sovereignty over Vatican City.

Moral of the story: in Western culture religion wasn't anymore a justification for a form of government nor for a state's existence (except in Italy where it was a justification for fascism first and for the Democrazia Cristiana later). Imho that was the end of the story started by Emperor Costantino when he chose Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire to try to keep the Empire glued together with a new justification for its existence.

What do you think?

 

[onekidanddone]

6 hours ago, Penny said:

There is also a Paris Texas

And a Rome Georgia

On 7/1/2017 at 4:45 PM, marmalade said:

Austin bought a meth lab house (from the looks of it.. a total mess) on the outskirts of Fayetteville in early May.

My ADD mind read this and jumped to one of the best lines in Breaking Bad.  Jessie and Walt are using an old RV to cook meth and Jessie goes to the airport once to get Walt. Walter yells at him "You don't bring a meth lab to an airport"!

[Beermeet]

43 minutes ago, xlurker said:

  Too much for me to handle.  I have this gift of empathy, and I understand what other posters have stated about nightmares. 

I know exactly what you mean.  I was at an air show with my father years ago, they had a little museum.  I was looking around and all the sudden the next showcase I look at has Nazi stuff.  The helmets, uniforms, dishes, dining ware, etc. 

I froze.  I had never seen such.  Then, I had the oddest ( for me) reaction to it.  I got really angry.  It was Viseral.  Tears were flowing but I didn't notice until my father came up to me, looked at what I was looking at and steered me away.  It's like I was stuck.  

I'm sorry, but, anyone who goes to a Holocaust anything and comes out of that experience only to use that time in history for their own religious agenda can eat a bag of shit.

[sawasdee]

My BFF and I were in Munich overnight, en route moving her to Slovenia.  We agreed to make a short visit to Dachau, to show respect, before continuing onto Austria.

We arrived at about 9.30, and found a tour in English about to begin. We left at 5.00.

We sat outside in the car, unmoving and silent, for nearly half an hour. It was one of the most profoundly moving experiences of my life.

I felt similarly in Phnom Penh, and at the Killing Fields - and at the Jewish Museum in Prague , in what was the Jewish ghetto.

What does worry me, and my BFF and I talked about it at length, is that some people - and I have seen it - do not seem to connect with the suffering memorialised, but rather 'tick off' another experience. I particularly felt this in Cambodia. I truly do not understand how some are unmoved, but the idea of a kind of 'Holocaust tourism' appals me. And some are incapable of either understanding or empathy.

But on balance, more ARE moved, and these places must be kept to remind us of just what mankind is capable of doing to itself.

[Nikedagain?]

38 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

My ADD mind read this and jumped to one of the best lines in Breaking Bad.  Jessie and Walt are using an old RV to cook meth and Jessie goes to the airport once to get Walt. Walter yells at him "You don't bring a meth lab to an airport"!

 

<3

(My very ADD mind follows you there and laments. I will likely have a Breaking Bad size hole in my heart forever. )

[xlurker]

Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. It is uncomfortable to remember these types of things, but we must never forget them also.  My personal experience is my family never spoke of these things, yet they were never hidden also.  It was/is, a fact.  Both of my grandfathers served in WWII.  I am proud of them.  Iam proud of my Jewish roots. I cannot forget or sugar coat the atrocities, and no living human should either.  History, especially the horrible, heart wretching, hideous points of it, must be taught, remembered and never ever glossed over.  I feel so strongly about this...I truly have a hard time articulating what I am trying to say

[BadMammaJana]

14 hours ago, Kangaroo said:

The genocide museum in Phnom Penh sits in a school that was converted into a prison. (snip)

The other main site visited by many is known as the Killing Fields.

My friend's family is from Cambodia, and both of her parents managed to escape the Khmer Rouge. Her mom's family was basically all wiped out, except for a cousin, and I think her dad has a couple of surviving cousins too. They made it to a refugee camp in Thailand and that's where my friend and her siblings were born. They took a family trip to Cambodia a few years ago and my friend and her siblings went to visit those sites too. Their parents stayed behind, understandably.

[Beermeet]

What I was going to share is that my friend went to Senegal two weeks ago.  He is a food historian focusing on southern cuisine and slavery.  How African based it mostly is.  He is a decendant of slaves and had genetic testing done.  Thanks to all the participants in this project, he now knows where his people come from.  Not only African states but more specific towns and tribes.

so, he went to Senegal ( he's going to Nigeria as well soon) and discovered that he has the looks of certain peoples.  Unlike here in the U.S. where he is identified as *black *.  He also cooked traditional food, met cousins and the hardest but most important, he laid eyes on Senegal's " Door of no Return."   Where his beautiful people were taken, never to see Africa again.  Until he did.

He went back to Colonial Williamsburg, VA (where he often works lectiring and cooking), re-visited the slave trade markers with a whole new and more painful perspective of what happened and what all those people were taken from.

I feel very lucky to have seen his pictures and hear his thoughts throughout the whole trip.  Very powerful.  We must never forget what humans are capable of, I agree

[VelociRapture]

Just a friendly reminder of just how shitty the Duggars are concerning things like genocide, slavery, and appropriation of Jewish culture because end times:

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

 

[SapphireSlytherin]

Coming back to the Dachau discussion. I still have the guidebook I purchased there in 1992. I've only looked at it once in all that time, and it was to check the veracity of something I read online. The photos and stories are beyond horrific.

And. While I was inside the camp, walking the long center path to the back where the three chapels are, I looked to my right and saw the rows of electrical wire alongside the walls. The walls with lookout towers. At that moment, my blood ran cold and I knew - that if someone shut the gates and electrified the wires - I'd be there for good.

AND. Dachau isn't isolated. It's in a town. There's NO WAY people didn't know what was going on inside those walls. 

[HarryPotterFan]

18 minutes ago, SapphireSlytherin said:

At that moment, my blood ran cold and I knew - that if someone shut the gates and electrified the wires - I'd be there for good.

That sounds terrifying. I remember reading somewhere how easy it would be to get gas chambers up and running again. 

Thank you for that reminder, @VelociRapture. The idea that the Duggars are persecuted because they're called out on their shit/we think they're assholes...

They refuse to learn anything.

 

 

[llg1234]

I'm pretty sure Switzerland was the TLC portion of Joy & Austin's honeymoon and the Israel trip was just them without the cameras. I'll be very surprised if any part of it gets shown on TV. Hasn't TLC more or less been avoiding anything 'too fundie' as a way to try and get away from further controversy? Sorta like what UP does with the Bates.

[LacyMay]

12 hours ago, MadeItOut said:

It's also so bizarre.  If you're going after anyone connected with wartime atrocities, at least tracking down prison guards and people who profited off the horrors at least could be seen to have some purpose, if I squint at it, whereas I literally can't see what going after survivors achieves.  (though now I'm imagining Burris getting evangelised...

It's probably because I fell headfirst down the Burris rabithole this week but I found that reference really funny. 

I've known a few people who have done Israel/Holy Lands tours and found them amazing but somehow I think doing it as a missioncation might not provide the same experience. 

 

Blatant evangelizing to  Holocaust survivor seems to be crossing a line even for a young fundie couple. I sincerely hope that it's relationship building, hearing about their experience etc and not proselytizing. 

[lumpentheologie]

7 hours ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

Sorry history nerd here, feel free to skip

  Hide contents

I was thinking about that "suddenly", personally I think that, albeit shrinking due to Protestantism, the Pope's political power was still very real up until Illuminism and French Revolution. The dethronisation and decapitation of a monarch whose absolute power was granted by god through the pope's blessing shook the power balance to the core. Suddenly the Pope's blessing counted for nothing even in those countries where Catholics were still a solid majority. Congress of Vienna sanctioned this since the Pope had basically no hand for the first time in a huge redrawing of European political powers. So when the Savoy dynasty dared to absorb the Papal States they did it with the implicit approval of the rest of European states that ignored for the first time ever the screams of protest coming from the papacy. They didn't have an interest in keeping it alive anymore. It took some decades to the popes to adjoust though and resign themselves to sign the treaty with the devil Mussolini in 1929 with which they obtained sovereignty over Vatican City.

Moral of the story: in Western culture religion wasn't anymore a justification for a form of government nor for a state's existence (except in Italy where it was a justification for fascism first and for the Democrazia Cristiana later). Imho that was the end of the story started by Emperor Costantino when he chose Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire to try to keep the Empire glued together with a new justification for its existence.

What do you think?

 

About the "suddenly" -- many people didn't buy what the (Catholic) Church was selling even before the Reformation. The Church was just really good at burning/killing them as heretics, usually with the cooperation of other power-hungry secular rulers. The Albigensians and the Hussites were two important dissenting groups before the Reformation, and they were brutally destroyed. One of the things that made the Reformation different was that Luther managed to get political protection that kept him safe from the Church. 

But yes, I agree that it wasn't till much later that the papacy really lost its political power. The doctrine of papal infallibility was promulgated in the 19th century largely in response to the Church's loss of temporal power. With the French Revolution/Napoleon the cause of religion is taken up by other heads of state, outside of the control of the Catholic Church.  The "Holy Alliance" meant to fight democracy after the defeat of Napoleon was an alliance between Russia (Orthodox), Austria (Catholic) and Prussia (Protestant).  This is when the fight shifts to protecting "religion" from irreligion instead of fighting for "true religion" against heresy/infidels.

While religion as a justification for a state's existence declined substantially in most of Europe during the 19th century, it certainly continued on in the US and Russia. Not as straightforwardly as with the Papal States, obviously, but in the US we had Manifest Destiny and the "city on a hill" idea, which are still pretty powerful in the culture and inform the Dominionism (wanting America to be a theocracy) of lots of fundies. 

Russia had also considered itself the Holy Land since the fall of Constantinople in the 15th century -- Moscow was called the Third Rome (Constantinople being the second). This has been to some extent picked up again under Putin, and the Orthodox Church there is very involved in creating an ideology of empire. 

(Glad other people are interested in history! I would put this under a spoiler, but I don't know how -- if someone would let me know I would appreciate it!)