Alyssa & John 2: Getting By on Their Looks and Fashion Sense

[Destiny]

I've said it before, and I will say it again. I grew up the sort of fundie that allowed piercings, makeup, short hair, pants, and all the rest of the so-called list of why they aren't fundie anymore. I was fundie as hell. I was homeschooled because the public schools were too "worldly". I was taught to hate the gays, and I wrote letters in support of the Constitutional amendment to make gay marriage illegal. I marched in a few Marches for Life. To my eternal shame, I even helped picket abortion clinics a couple of times. I judged an acquaintance who got pregnant out of wedlock, and participated in her shunning. I passed out tracts. I went on missioncations. I said catholics aren't real christians because they worship Mary. I can think of zero actual convictions that I did not share with the fundies we follow, minus things like clothing and head covering.

I did all these things with piercings and short hair, while wearing jeans. No makeup, but that was laziness, not conviction. My church had no issue with alcohol. 

... Tell me how I wasn't fundie. Fundies don't come in only one package. It's about the beliefs and actions, not the trappings.

ETA: My shame at who I was knows no bounds. I still think about that poor acquaintance in particular and am appalled at how terrible I was. 

[TatiFish9]

@Destiny what do you identify as the practices that made your church fundie as opposed to conservative Christian?

 

[Destiny]

6 minutes ago, TatiFish9 said:

@Destiny what do you identify as the practices that made your church fundie as opposed to conservative Christian?

 

Did you read the list?

[formergothardite]

Just now, TatiFish9 said:

@Destiny what do you identify as the practices that made your church fundie as opposed to conservative Christian?

 

What makes the fundamentally harmful and destructive church teachings she listed not fundie? Is it because a lot of people share these truly dangerous and awful beliefs? Do you not believe they are fundamentally awful beliefs? The church Destiny grew up in used religion to hurt people. How isn't that fundie?

[Destiny]

3 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

What makes the fundamentally harmful and destructive church teachings she listed not fundie? Is it because a lot of people share these truly dangerous and awful beliefs? Do you not believe they are fundamentally awful beliefs? The church Destiny grew up in used religion to hurt people. How isn't that fundie?

In which you said what I was thinking with better words. ❤️ 

[JordynDarby5]

3 hours ago, formergothardite said:

There is no denying that the Bates and Duggar families have changed from their frumper days. It isn't that they haven't changed, it is that they haven't changed to not being fundie. Even among IBLP fundies there is diversity. Alyssa changing from being her parents version of IBLP to being the Webster version isn't a sign she isn't fundie, just a sign that she switched up what kind of fundie she is. 

Definitely, on both parts. Both families have changed from their frumpier days and some of the Bates children are shown to be changing. Alyssa and Whitney. Carlin's planning on having dancing at her wedding.  I agree also that none of that means they have changed their views. But I always still side eye the changes. Its great to see changing or at least being allowed make their own decisions on some things. But we also can't forget the PR aspect. Both families work very hard at it to keep their show on the air and money to rolling in although the Bates are better at it. The Duggars started out in frumpers but look how quickly that ended when they got their show. How quickly blogs were scrubbed. The Patriot room which was taking down. How much of that was PR and to protect the image they want to keep their shows? Alyssa dresses really nice but campaigned for her father-in-law. Jeremy dresses really nice but every once in awhile says something that shows his awful believes.  Erin loves to redecorate everyone's house, her house, showing cute pictures of her kids. She never said she stopped following her father's beliefs. Only Gothard which is true since he was removed by the board including her father and Chad's and posted in responses to the bill introduced in NY. Kelly trying to reclassify Gothard's birthday cake as a groom's cake. Claiming to be at Nigara Falls when at a IBLP thing. Ben sprouted off crap early into is marriage and that suddenly all went away and now all they post are cute pictures or videos of their kids. Has his beliefs completely changed or is he just not saying anything to not ruin the gravy train? That's really my question and why I side eye both families in all these changes. How much have they really changed? How much do they still hide? 

[Palimpsest]

49 minutes ago, TatiFish9 said:

@Destiny what do you identify as the practices that made your church fundie as opposed to conservative Christian?

Does it really matter?  You do you with your strange definitions.  And the vast majority of FJ will tell you that you are wrong.  Because you are coming over as very weird.  If not trolling.

Because if the practices that @Destiny describes are part and party of "conservative Christianity" than they are most definitely worthy of the pejorative but very vague term "Fundie."  Extreme beliefs.  Beliefs that are unacceptable to decent and thinking human beings.  And most women.

What we discuss here has already been defined in the Guidelines as a "dangerous religious movement."  If you want to include "Conservative Christianity" in there, then be my guest.

Quote

 

What you call gossip, we call keeping our eyes on a dangerous religious movement. We believe that criticism, snark and laughter is the best way to call attention to some serious problems such as child abuse, rape, oppression of women, loss of rights, and the groups who perpetrate these things. We are shining a light, because it burns away the darkness.

Keep your flame lit, and you will never feel darkness. ~J. Parker

 

Plural.  "Groups."  On FJ we discuss all those things.  In self identified "Fundamentalist Christians," in so-called "Evangelical Christians," in so-called "Conservative Christians" and in many other religions too.

Let's talk about how dangerously "Fundie" any or all of these groups may be.  Not about the strict definition of Fundamentalist Christianity.,

Bottom line, @TatiFish9,  You do not get to control the dialogue.  Enough.

[nelliebelle1197]

A fundie is literally nothing more than a religious person who takes his/her scripture literally. Many conservative Christians border on fundie. Anyone who believes in the inerrancy of the Christian Bible is a fundamentalist, full stop. And evangelical can be fundie, conservative, mainstream or progressive. "Evangelical" simply means that one believes in evangelizing.  You can argue this stuff all you want but you just cannot make stuff up and get away with it.

Ask Ruth or Burris.

[formergothardite]

2 hours ago, TatiFish9 said:

This is an interesting take considering the foremost response to significant changes highlighted is that those changes do not matter because theses families still have harmful and oppressive views.  

Yes, I'm not sure how that is relevant to the reality that there are some fundies who avoid politics. A person who tries to get the gay out of their child is fundie even if they don't vote. It just makes it a tiny bit worse when they vote to push their religion on the rest of us. 

2 hours ago, TatiFish9 said:

But are these awful core beliefs limited to fundie Christians or are many of them found within varying Christian groups, non-Christians and non-religious conservatives? Traditionally, practicing Christian denominations tend to be anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, have a strict idea about family values etc.

Does it really matter if those core beliefs are popular? Does having lots of people believe fundamentally awful things make them less fundamentally awful? 

2 hours ago, TatiFish9 said:

So what do horrible core values have to do with distinguishing fundies from other similar groups? 

Is there a real difference? If a frumper family drives a gay child to suicide because they tell him being gay is a sin is it any worse than if a family does it who wears regular clothes and sends their kids to school? What is the real difference if both share beliefs that cause massive amounts of harm?

2 hours ago, TatiFish9 said:

Fundies seeks to separate themselves from worldly behavior and all things deemed secular such as drinking, dressing in a revealing or provocative way, cursing, listening to secular music and therefore dancing to it, interest in things that do not decidedly put God first aka “Jesus talk” more so than the average conservative Christian.

 How do you think the survivors  of Remenant Fellowship, a church that most certainly doesn't meet these standards, would feel if they heard you don't think their church was fundie? Because drinking and dancing and dressing in revealing clothes seemed to be the norm for them. If you truly feel this way, then go to that thread and tell them they the church that caused them so much harm wasn't fundie. That Gwen isn't fundie. If you aren't willing to go do that, then maybe you should consider that you aren't correct here and take time to really think about if you want to tell people who have suffered so much that they are fundie just because their religious leader drank, danced and wears revealing clothing. 

2 hours ago, TatiFish9 said:

what kind of Christians the Bates were becoming.

They all seem to IFB if you are curious. 

2 hours ago, TatiFish9 said:

wonder where IBLP is going now that Gothard and his cookoo, non-real world philosophies are no longer at the helm. Will they shift? Will they change significantly? Will they fall back deeply into the old order? Was current leadership waiting in the wings hoping to change things once the inevitable fall of Gothard occurred. Will they denounce fundie practices at large?

Well Gil joined others in taking over, stabbing Gothard in the back and almost certainly covering up mountains of abuse. The BoD, which Gil is a member of had an investigation into all the abuse claims, they then buried the investigation results and won't let a soul peek at them.  IBLP is still shilling the same awful shit. Gil and Kelly go teach classes on how to avoid raising "sensual women" and how to grift your way through life. Were Gil and company hoping to change things? Nah. They wanted the money and power, IMO. They slapped some glitter on some shit to try and pretend they aren't as bad as Gothard, called all the abuse victims liars and keep on making money selling Wisdom Booklets. 

2 hours ago, TatiFish9 said:

It will be interesting to see where they are at as an organization publically by the time say Callie or Jeb comes of age.

I suspect it will fold and Gil and the rest of the BoD will make a fortune off this. You should remember that a judge had to force the BoD to stop  liquidating assets and moving money around because they were going to make damn sure that no victim of IBLP got a dime. 

 

 

[nickelodeon]

I do differentiate between fundamentalists and conservative Christians, and the way that the Bates in particular try to signal themselves as one or the other is very interesting. However, I also think that conservative Christianity is fucking awful, so stepping back from fundamentalism and embracing that isn't really an improvement.

1 hour ago, TatiFish9 said:

"No, because some fundies don't get involved in politics."  This is an interesting take considering the foremost response to significant changes highlighted is that those changes do not matter because theses families still have harmful and oppressive views.  

Well, it's complicated, but there are some fundamentalists who are like "the public doesn't share our beliefs so we need to go completely off-grid, refuse social security, not license our marriages or get birth certificates for our kids, just completely sever ourselves from government"; then there are some fundamentalists who are like "the public doesn't share our beliefs so we need to become politicians and change it so it's illegal not to". (We call the second group Dominionists.) The core logic is the same, and it leads to harm and oppression of others, but in different ways. Does that help to clear up the contradiction you see here?

[TatiFish9]

1 hour ago, formergothardite said:

What makes the fundamentally harmful and destructive church teachings she listed not fundie? Is it because a lot of people share these truly dangerous and awful beliefs? Do you not believe they are fundamentally awful beliefs? The church Destiny grew up in used religion to hurt people. How isn't that fundie?

To me what she wrote were all things I have also seen from conservative Christians. I was trying to see what she specifically identified as fundie. 

Yes, I do believe that religious beliefs such as "hate the gays" are awful and destructive. I however don't identify them as specifically fundie. I also know that all sorts of Christians hate the gays and although  they may not picket clinics or openly proselytize, that does not mean they will not go behind the curtain to vote this way either. I think that is where I was initially confused but I have pretty much concluded that here fundie is a catch all term here for many christian groups that may not have traditionally been considered fundie. I really do get it now. lol

[formergothardite]

I just checked to see if IBLP was still selling all the same old awful stuff. Yes they are. They are trying to make themselves look more modern and mainstream. It kind of reminds me about how Gothard did it. When he first came out he attracted crowds because he didn't look freakish and, while the Basic Seminar has some crazy shit in it, the real awful stuff was kept hidden. You didn't find out what IBLP truly was until you got deep into it. 

So it seems like they are taking the same tactic. Look non threatening and hide the crazy until people have been assimilated. Of course, it is less easy now because back when Gothard did it people couldn't Google the cult or scan and easily share copies of the awful teachings. 

This is an IBLP program. It doesn't look IBLP and there is no indication that it is, but in reality those are hired by the cult.

https://lifeseries.org/

[TatiFish9]

10 minutes ago, nickelodeon said:

I do differentiate between fundamentalists and conservative Christians, and the way that the Bates in particular try to signal themselves as one or the other is very interesting. However, I also think that conservative Christianity is fucking awful, so stepping back from fundamentalism and embracing that isn't really an improvement.

Well, it's complicated, but there are some fundamentalists who are like "the public doesn't share our beliefs so we need to go completely off-grid, refuse social security, not license our marriages or get birth certificates for our kids, just completely sever ourselves from government"; then there are some fundamentalists who are like "the public doesn't share our beliefs so we need to become politicians and change it so it's illegal not to". (We call the second group Dominionists.) The core logic is the same, and it leads to harm and oppression of others, but in different ways. Does that help to clear up the contradiction you see here?

Yes it does. Thank you for your response.

I know personally, I look for rebellion of overt rules as a sign of not agreeing with core beliefs. Also, conservative christianity is often a gateway branch for movement from and to extremism. Some people will leave fundieville and rest there never going further. Others will soon see that conservative groups can be just as heinous and eventually leave those churches/belief systems as well.

Just like here. Some will say I see change in some of these fundies and it means nothing. Others will say it means possibility. I don't think either approach is wrong. I also believe in having open and positive dialoague with people who do not have the same values as me, most likely because of my own changes in life. I do believe in tolerance to a certain extent.

 

[Coconut Flan]

Michaela's husband Brandon was heavily involved in developing and promoting The Life Series.  The Bates family overall is still in IBLP.  We only have a couple of years to see if the second generation starts taking their kids to Big Sandy for the conference(s).  

Does anyone know enough about the financial structure of IBLP to say where the money goes when it disbands or will they run it into the ground so nothing is left?

[Palimpsest]

26 minutes ago, Coconut Flan said:

Does anyone know enough about the financial structure of IBLP to say where the money goes when it disbands or will they run it into the ground so nothing is left?

Nope.  It is fascinating though and they are sitting on a shit-load of cash and much real estate.

IMO, IBLP will not disband anytime soon.  It is running in the red and needs to scale back dramatically.  Slowly but surely it will sell off property and reduce programs.  They should be able to generate enough income from remaining humpers to delay the big crash for a while. 

It probably will not go bust in Pecan Waller's lifetime. That is, if the scum that has risen to the top in Bill Gothard's scummy foot-prints are careful and try not to overdo the luxury perks. 

IBLP assets run deep and wide. VF imploded far more dramatically and with far fewer assets.  Probably because DPIAT had scooped off a lot for his personal pockets, and had completely mismanaged the remaining millions with self-promoting projects.  But VF had far fewer millions than IBLP.

[nelliebelle1197]

2 hours ago, TatiFish9 said:

To me what she wrote were all things I have also seen from conservative Christians. I was trying to see what she specifically identified as fundie. 

Yes, I do believe that religious beliefs such as "hate the gays" are awful and destructive. I however don't identify them as specifically fundie. I also know that all sorts of Christians hate the gays and although  they may not picket clinics or openly proselytize, that does not mean they will not go behind the curtain to vote this way either. I think that is where I was initially confused but I have pretty much concluded that here fundie is a catch all term here for many christian groups that may not have traditionally been considered fundie. I really do get it now. lol

No. Fundie is used here for people who are Biblical literalists, just like it is in the rest of the world,

[Destiny]

27 minutes ago, nelliebelle1197 said:

No. Fundie is used here for people who are Biblical literalists, just like it is in the rest of the world,

Which is exactly what the Bates and Duggars are. No amount of pants or makeup can change that. 

[VelociRapture]

Popping in briefly to mention that I recently added links to the Church websites we know the various Bateses attend. Here they are:

Kelly & Gil

Chad & Erin

John & Alyssa

Tori & Bobby

Evan (Carlin attends here when she visits him - she shared a link to their recent anti-abortion sermon on her Instagram stories recently.)

Josie & Kelton (Kelton’s family also attends Temple - I’d say that’s a decent indicator of the type of family Josie opted to marry into.) 

And yes, those Churches all appear to be pretty Fundie.  

[nelliebelle1197]

Alyssa and John’s pastor attended this fundie college and the website of the church they attend states it is KJV.

The minister’s school is definitely fundie once you dig into the rules. The only difference with the standards of conduct between this college and my IFB school is the fact that girls can wear modest pants. Skirt length and boys’ hair length standards are exactly the same.

https://www.abu.edu/library/public/documents/Handbooks/ABU-Student-Handbook-2018-2019.pdf

@TatiFish9 I do not know what your game is. If you are not a legit troll, then you are either willfully ignorant or you have some personal issue that is keeping you from understanding. 

[Palimpsest]

13 hours ago, formergothardite said:

This is an IBLP program. It doesn't look IBLP and there is no indication that it is, but in reality those are hired by the cult.

https://lifeseries.org/

It really isn't so easy to hide the deceptive offshoots of IBLP any more.

Oh look there!  Brandon Keilen, in the flesh.  And the audio/visual ministry in Chicago couldn't possibly be IBLP.   No, no, 

Here's Ross Holdeman at Embassy Media:  https://embassymedia.com/media/ross-holdemans-testimony  Embassy Media has nothing to do with IBLP either.  Until you look at the list of speakers.

I feel I should know that Tim guy's last name too.  Can anyone place him?

[formergothardite]

14 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

I feel I should know that Tim guy's last name too.  Can anyone place him

I don't know but he seems familiar. 

15 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

It really isn't so easy to hide the deceptive offshoots of IBLP any more.

They are trying, though! IBLP used to have a certain look but they are trying hard to appear more modern and less culty. 

[Palimpsest]

6 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

They are trying, though! IBLP used to have a certain look but they are trying hard to appear more modern and less culty. 

It's as though this place isn't Gothardite either:  http://www.characterfirst.com/

Nice building, generously donated by  the Green family, IIRC.  https://www.emporis.com/buildings/388647/character-training-institute-oklahoma-city-ok-usa

Well embedded in the Oklahoma public school system too.

To go back to @Coconut Flan's question, that it why it is impossible to predict the fall of IBLP-Gothardism accurately.  They have split off into different nonprofits that all work together and successfully hide assets.  I think Big Sandy is technically owned by ALERT,  although it now houses ATI functions as well. 

So the actual IBLP Form 990 doesn't give a real picture of the assets.

[formergothardite]

4 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

  I think Big Sandy is technically owned by ALERT,  although it now houses ATI functions as well. 

For awhile they were trying to pretend ALERT wasn't a part of ATI, but I guess they gave up that once they moved everything to Big Sandy. 

I think that even figuring out how many Bates are attending the family conference will be difficult. We know they lie by misdirection on their social media, so that can't be trusted to show if they attended. And they have started avoiding being in pictures of the conference. Pictures from the conferences have become limited but pictures of the Bates at the conferences are extremely rare. Even Gil and Kelly are rarely shown in conference pictures. The last family conference there was  a video that cuts off right when Gil starts talking. 

 

[Palimpsest]

55 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

The last family conference there was  a video that cuts off right when Gil starts talking.

That was so bloody obvious it was funny.

[Melissa1977]

16 hours ago, nelliebelle1197 said:

A fundie is literally nothing more than a religious person who takes his/her scripture literally. Many conservative Christians border on fundie. Anyone who believes in the inerrancy of the Christian Bible is a fundamentalist, full stop.

There are fundamentalists that believe in science and affirm that Bible is a metaphor and who believe in evolution. At least, Spanish Opus Dei followers are that way. They have good schools (many heathens take kids to their schools for academic reasons) and push both boys and girls to get accredited degrees, including scientific ones. 

But it doesn't avoid these people to have an agenda which wants to: make laws to protect Catholic church over the others, make abortion illegal, ban gay marriage, etc.