Jinjer 49: Westward Ho!

[Bobology]

Maybe are they (those droning preachers) all trying to impress each other with their smartipantsness? Because after 3 or so years in Laredo it seems Jeremy didn't impress many local folks. I can't imagine staying on anyone's payroll with such dismal membership after that length of time. Their main purpose is to convert more people, right?

[Daisy0322]

3 minutes ago, Bobology said:

Maybe are they (those droning preachers) all trying to impress each other with their smartipantsness? Because after 3 or so years in Laredo it seems Jeremy didn't impress many local folks. I can't imagine staying on anyone's payroll with such dismal membership after that length of time. Their main purpose is to convert more people, right?

I can't believe even with him being on tv they couldn't manage to get more people. Some people you would think woul go just because if that. Not that it's right just how some people are- like how Ben wentbto jessas church to meet her. 

[Coconut Flan]

People are already submitting to the Daily Mail:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7224781/Newly-blonde-Jinger-Duggar-spotted-husband-daughter-Los-Angeles-mega-church.html

 

[PainfullyAware]

On 7/7/2019 at 10:56 AM, Palimpsest said:

WASC found the institution in violation of multiple standards of accreditation... The visiting accreditation team observed – and received reports of – a climate of fear, intimidation, bullying, and uncertainty among significant numbers of faculty and staff.[10] 

Wow, I had no idea! They probably believe it's really about persecuting Christians. Ugh. But it speaks pretty loudly to the real values and operating ethos of the Grace Church/ Masters Seminary. As far as I'm concerned, anywhere you've got this hierarchy among people is just asking for unhealthy, toxic, exploitative behavior.

God-->John MacArthur--> Preacher Men-->Christian Men-->Christian women -->Christian children  --> everyone else.

Without a more truly democratic or egalitarian approach, or at least accountability, religion seems doomed to keep leading to various abuses because bad apples get put in exalted, untouchable positions of power. People like Jeremy become complicit because they don't want to jeopardize their prized position, like  being groomed for a role as future mega church preacher.

I've read sociological research showing that white evangelicals in the US are the most individualistic group out there, and they generally deny the existence of systemic effects on groups of people --other than the purported 'war on religious liberty'-- (ex. "racism is just a few bad people, not an institutional or cultural bias"). This is rooted in the religious emphasis on individual salvation or damnation.

Individual choices are the only force at work shaping identity or destiny in this view, not membership in social groups (gender, race, LGBT, class etc.) and corresponding privileges or prejudices. I think that's where the anti-social justice crap comes from. If you admit social forces like racism exist, you have to accept that individual choices aren't the only thing determining outcomes in people's lives. Then, how can you tell whether your success is really because God favors you, or just because you're a straight, white male? 

Edited July 9, 2019 by PainfullyAware

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

So Jinger is still blonde, I wonder if she put a temporary brown color on her hair while in AR? 

[Fundie Bunny]

Ok. I have to say it. That dye job is terrible

[Antipatriarch]

8 hours ago, Coconut Flan said:

People are already submitting to the Daily Mail:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7224781/Newly-blonde-Jinger-Duggar-spotted-husband-daughter-Los-Angeles-mega-church.html

 

Nice socks, Jeremy. ?

[Snarkasarus Rex]

Good gravy, Claudia Wells looks like the Joker!

[HarleyQuinn]

Did they learn to call the paps now that they're Californians? 

[tankgirl]

I so agree that dye job, was very poorly done, wrong colour, not laid in well, just a mess. But that SUIT ??, it doesn't match, it's too big on top, to short on the bottom, it looks like he got dressed in the dark, I mean the socks just top it all off, ? You aren't going to impress anyone dressing like that. I prefer them to make more of a sinking plunk, in their push to be a revelant preacher and then political pair of right wing nutters, much more then a nice splash. I hope that they stand out and he stays boring and useless at bringing in crowds. Faux celebrity does not go nearly as far in So Cal as Texas and Alabama.

Edited July 9, 2019 by tankgirl

[AtlanticTug]

45 minutes ago, tankgirl said:

 But that SUIT ??, it doesn't match, it's too big on top, to short on the bottom, it looks like he got dressed in the dark, I mean the socks just top it all off, ? 

I was going to say, it's like every photo we see of him, he persists in wearing socks with loafers that should be worn sockless. This (and all the Duggar men's haircuts) is what happens when you have no gay friends.

Edited July 9, 2019 by AtlanticTug

[Exposedknees]

2 hours ago, Antipatriarch said:

Nice socks, Jeremy. ?

There's a new Insta photo of Jeremy wearing some ridiculous looking loafers with jeans and a coral golf shirt. Dude has issues with foot related apparel. ?

[Virago]

13 hours ago, Smee said:

How did it get so strongly intertwined in the US, such that so many Christians have a massive blind spot and thought voting for Trump was a good idea simply because he had an R next to his name?

Abortion. It is the single issue most white fundamentalist/evangelical Christians vote on in this country. Trump could be the devil himself on Earth, promise to spread plague on all our lands, and if he promised to end abortion they would still vote for him. The plight of the aborted unborn is, they have been convinced, more important than social welfare to feed, house, educate, and care for the needy. The Republican Party almost uniformly supports ending abortion and the Democratic Party mostly (but not entirely) supports a right to choose, typically with limitations. 

[louisa05]

14 minutes ago, Virago said:

Abortion. It is the single issue most white fundamentalist/evangelical Christians vote on in this country. Trump could be the devil himself on Earth, promise to spread plague on all our lands, and if he promised to end abortion they would still vote for him. The plight of the aborted unborn is, they have been convinced, more important than social welfare to feed, house, educate, and care for the needy. The Republican Party almost uniformly supports ending abortion and the Democratic Party mostly (but not entirely) supports a right to choose, typically with limitations. 

That and the GOP has done a good job at pandering to them. The evangelicals I worked with in Christian school for six years would fall for anyone, in any public position political or otherwise, saying "God" into a microphone in any capacity. The GOP figured out that you just have to say "God" a lot, maybe even "Jesus", or perhaps wave a Bible around a bit. You don't have to live by any faith, attend church at all, ever open the Bible you are waving or anything inconvenient. 

But they time I left there, I had become truly fascinated with those people's need for someone famous to validate their belief system. Politicians, celebrities of any kind, athletes, whoever. They would latch onto them if they gave even the slightest lip service to Christianity. They latched on to Sammy Sosa in 1998 during the big home run record season he and Mark McGwire had. A few random God mentions and they were painting him as the most faithful Christian in the history of Christianity. They latched on to rumors of celebrity conversions that would float through their churches. I never even figured out where those rumors came from--they would be various actors, musicians or athletes mostly. Gene Simmons once. Jane Fonda multiple times (eventually, on public record, she acknowledged being involved in a mainline Protestant church for a time--but that certainly wouldn't have fit their conversion story). Alice Cooper multiple times. Tom Cruise supposedly was leaving Scientology to be an evangelical once. Various 90s boy band members (because I was there in that era). And athletes. Constantly athletes. Any athlete getting a lot of public attention at any given moment. 

Beyond their need for public lip service from the rich and famous, the individualistic theology as mentioned above helps to align them with the Republican party. And the prosperity gospel also helps. I saw more than one person I know from my days in the evangelical world proclaim in 2016 that Trump must be a Christian regardless of his actions because God gave him a lot of money. That's prosperity gospel influence. 

[medimus]

2 hours ago, louisa05 said:

That and the GOP has done a good job at pandering to them. The evangelicals I worked with in Christian school for six years would fall for anyone, in any public position political or otherwise, saying "God" into a microphone in any capacity. The GOP figured out that you just have to say "God" a lot, maybe even "Jesus", or perhaps wave a Bible around a bit. You don't have to live by any faith, attend church at all, ever open the Bible you are waving or anything inconvenient. 

But they time I left there, I had become truly fascinated with those people's need for someone famous to validate their belief system. Politicians, celebrities of any kind, athletes, whoever. They would latch onto them if they gave even the slightest lip service to Christianity. They latched on to Sammy Sosa in 1998 during the big home run record season he and Mark McGwire had. A few random God mentions and they were painting him as the most faithful Christian in the history of Christianity. They latched on to rumors of celebrity conversions that would float through their churches. I never even figured out where those rumors came from--they would be various actors, musicians or athletes mostly. Gene Simmons once. Jane Fonda multiple times (eventually, on public record, she acknowledged being involved in a mainline Protestant church for a time--but that certainly wouldn't have fit their conversion story). Alice Cooper multiple times. Tom Cruise supposedly was leaving Scientology to be an evangelical once. Various 90s boy band members (because I was there in that era). And athletes. Constantly athletes. Any athlete getting a lot of public attention at any given moment. 

Beyond their need for public lip service from the rich and famous, the individualistic theology as mentioned above helps to align them with the Republican party. And the prosperity gospel also helps. I saw more than one person I know from my days in the evangelical world proclaim in 2016 that Trump must be a Christian regardless of his actions because God gave him a lot of money. That's prosperity gospel influence. 

This is so fascinating. 

Whoever came up with the prosperity gospel seems to have a lot to answer for! Or rather they were very canny to come up with it. I confess to having never heard the term before here, but I am a heathen. I wasn't brought up with religion and neither were my parents. Though I did go to Catholic schools in a Catholic country but I suspect the prosperity gospel isn't such a thing with the catholics? Maybe it is. I find it all really interesting (and lots of the traditions beautiful).

[louisa05]

4 minutes ago, medimus said:

This is so fascinating. 

Whoever came up with the prosperity gospel seems to have a lot to answer for! Or rather they were very canny to come up with it. I confess to having never heard the term before here, but I am a heathen. I wasn't brought up with religion and neither were my parents. Though I did go to Catholic schools in a Catholic country but I suspect the prosperity gospel isn't such a thing with the catholics? Maybe it is. I find it all really interesting (and lots of the traditions beautiful).

Theologically, in the Catechism, in the general teaching of the Church, in all official ways, no, prosperity gospel is not Catholic. 

Unfortunately, the Evangelicalism, Inc. has managed to make it so popular that it has leaked into the day to day consciousness of a lot of Catholic lay people. The insufferable woman who does our Confirmation retreats with 8th graders plays evangelical music at them and preaches bits and pieces of prosperity gospel at the kids. I've heard other lay people claiming God gave them material things or that they avoided some calamity or another through faith. And at the Catholic school I taught at for ten years, the principal brought in a motivational speaker one year who was a practicing Catholic who had merged The Secret and her faith into a version of the prosperity gospel and preached it at our entire staff for two days and to various student groups that year with no real objections. 

I could derail the whole thread with my objections to the prosperity gospel as it underpinned everything at the Christian school. Taken to extremes, it easily becomes abusive to people. 

 

[medimus]

4 minutes ago, louisa05 said:

Theologically, in the Catechism, in the general teaching of the Church, in all official ways, no, prosperity gospel is not Catholic. 

Unfortunately, the Evangelicalism, Inc. has managed to make it so popular that it has leaked into the day to day consciousness of a lot of Catholic lay people. The insufferable woman who does our Confirmation retreats with 8th graders plays evangelical music at them and preaches bits and pieces of prosperity gospel at the kids. I've heard other lay people claiming God gave them material things or that they avoided some calamity or another through faith. And at the Catholic school I taught at for ten years, the principal brought in a motivational speaker one year who was a practicing Catholic who had merged The Secret and her faith into a version of the prosperity gospel and preached it at our entire staff for two days and to various student groups that year with no real objections. 

I could derail the whole thread with my objections to the prosperity gospel as it underpinned everything at the Christian school. Taken to extremes, it easily becomes abusive to people. 

 

Is this in the US? It somehow seems culturally fitting for the prosperity gospel to take off in the US, like a religious version of 'the american dream'.

I'm not sure I could stand someone preaching at me about it for two days! How was that?

[louisa05]

1 minute ago, medimus said:

Is this in the US? It somehow seems culturally fitting for the prosperity gospel to take off in the US, like a religious version of 'the american dream'.

I'm not sure I could stand someone preaching at me about it for two days! How was that?

Torture. This woman was batshit crazy. In oh so many ways. She had been a victim of domestic violence in her first marriage and literally told us that "there are no victims, only volunteers" and that she learned this when she left her abusive husband. The abuse was all her fault for not believing he could be better or some such absolute bullshit. 

She told us Tiger Woods wins golf matches because he believes he can and this is true for all athletes in any competition. They only lose when they don't believe they will win. No talent or practice required. They had her preach this to the football team. We had some devastated kids when they lost in the state playoffs after being told all season they just had to believe they would win a state title. 

She told us that whenever she gets food in a drive through, she just believes it will be free and "every single time" they mess up her order and she complains and gets it for free. That made me and another teacher angry as you know good and well the poor people working the drive through get the cost taken out of their pay. And we assumed part of her belief was probably mumbling her order or lying. 

During that school year, a student wrote more than one very realistic story about shooting up the school in his English class. My colleague who they were turned into reported it to the principal. His solution was to consult this crackpot who suggested that they have the kid draw pictures of his ideal school so he would have a more positive view. Nothing else was done. Thank God nothing bad came of it. 

[tankgirl]

11 minutes ago, louisa05 said:

Torture. This woman was batshit crazy. In oh so many ways. She had been a victim of domestic violence in her first marriage and literally told us that "there are no victims, only volunteers" and that she learned this when she left her abusive husband. The abuse was all her fault for not believing he could be better or some such absolute bullshit. 

She told us Tiger Woods wins golf matches because he believes he can and this is true for all athletes in any competition. They only lose when they don't believe they will win. No talent or practice required. They had her preach this to the football team. We had some devastated kids when they lost in the state playoffs after being told all season they just had to believe they would win a state title. 

She told us that whenever she gets food in a drive through, she just believes it will be free and "every single time" they mess up her order and she complains and gets it for free. That made me and another teacher angry as you know good and well the poor people working the drive through get the cost taken out of their pay. And we assumed part of her belief was probably mumbling her order or lying. 

During that school year, a student wrote more than one very realistic story about shooting up the school in his English class. My colleague who they were turned into reported it to the principal. His solution was to consult this crackpot who suggested that they have the kid draw pictures of his ideal school so he would have a more positive view. Nothing else was done. Thank God nothing bad came of it. 

She sounds like a right little peach. UGH

But having worked in fast food in my time and similar, I have never heard or had payment for wrong food taken out of my check. Fast food places think nothing of binning food all the time. Now workers, get sick of you real quick if you magically complain a mess up every time, or the worse those who think you some how get a better burger if you get a ketchup free burger and then ask for ketchup for it on the side, but things happen and there are so many people invloved in getting your food to you, it would be hard to pick who to blame in many cases.

Now in sit down service, in many areas, if you complain and a manager does not remove the items from the bill or you just decide to short tip then it can often be the server who pays for your food. In many states, the government takes a set tax 8% in some states, from all of the sales a server does in a shift, that is expected to be based on how much the server receives in tips. But if a server gets under or not tipped at all then the goverment does not care and you still have that 8% removed from your check even if you received less. If you get a really bad server complain to the manager, its still better to get the food removed or have a manager sort it, then make some one pay for your meal, especially if its a kitchen issue instead of a server issue.

[HereticHick]

5 hours ago, Exposedknees said:

There's a new Insta photo of Jeremy wearing some ridiculous looking loafers with jeans and a coral golf shirt. Dude has issues with foot related apparel. ?

If only Jeremy had participated in sports in his younger days, and become acquainted with "athletic shoes."

Oh wait...

[Smee]

5 hours ago, Virago said:

Abortion. It is the single issue most white fundamentalist/evangelical Christians vote on in this country. Trump could be the devil himself on Earth, promise to spread plague on all our lands, and if he promised to end abortion they would still vote for him. The plight of the aborted unborn is, they have been convinced, more important than social welfare to feed, house, educate, and care for the needy. The Republican Party almost uniformly supports ending abortion and the Democratic Party mostly (but not entirely) supports a right to choose, typically with limitations. 

But how/why did American Christians decide that abortion was THE MOST IMPORTANT AND GODLY thing? I mean, most evangelical Christians here are pro-life too (I’m a reluctant pro-choice myself), and abortion has restrictions in pretty much all Australian states (although practically speaking, is for the most part easy to access in the first trimester), but for so many people to be single issue voters on that rather than anything Jesus said is baffling to me.

3 hours ago, medimus said:

Is this in the US? It somehow seems culturally fitting for the prosperity gospel to take off in the US, like a religious version of 'the american dream'.

That’s a really interesting way to put it!

[louisa05]

@tankgirl She didn't say it, but I wouldn't be surprised if she pulls the same crap to get free food in sit down restaurants, too. She seemed to have a firm belief that she deserves free food from restaurants. 

A quick google search tells me she has conned her way to a Ted Talk recently. She speaks to business groups, sells her crap to schools as a "program" for discipline, motivation and student improvement at ridiculous prices, and sells books, of course. Her "system" is the secret to an absolutely perfect life. 

She's local and sources that know her personally say it's all bullshit, too, and that she's actually a shit mess and probably clinically depressed. 

 

[NakedKnees]

1 hour ago, Smee said:

But how/why did American Christians decide that abortion was THE MOST IMPORTANT AND GODLY thing? I mean, most evangelical Christians here are pro-life too (I’m a reluctant pro-choice myself), and abortion has restrictions in pretty much all Australian states (although practically speaking, is for the most part easy to access in the first trimester), but for so many people to be single issue voters on that rather than anything Jesus said is baffling to me.

*snip*

This is such an interesting question and I'm certain I'm not the best person to answer it, but I want to try. I think the modern movement has evolved in 3 distinct phases.

The initial emergence of the modern Pro-Life and Pro-Choice movements in the US was strongly linked to the women's liberation movement of the early 1970's. So let's say you're an adult conservative Christian then. Even if you don't personally think much about the legal status of abortion, perhaps you think about things like maintaining "traditional" family structures and gendered division of responsibility, encouraging women to stay out of the workforce or to leave once married/pregnant, generally following what your Christian leaders say, etc. There was a lot going on and it probably wasn't hard to wrap abortion up into this tidy package of what being in the then-fledgling "Religious Right" meant. I think it was easy for both sides to see how easily abortion access in particular could disrupt the types of concepts listed above (the nuclear family with complementarian division of domestic and public labor, basically).

Fast forward a bit to the late eighties and nineties when you basically have a generation that's grown up in this context of abortion being an important part of Christian values. From what I've seen, being militantly pro-life could be branded as "cool" among a wider set of youth (think sort of alternative, aggressive/inspiration "I am the Pro-Life Generation" type stuff). As much as we talk about it here, extreme fundamentalist youth stuff from the nineties like "Beautiful Girlhood" dolls and Hope Chests are harder to make seem "cool." You also get an increase in violence done to abortion providers in this era. To me, in this way it's not much different than animal-rights and other activist groups sometimes considering their ethical mission "above" the law and destroying property/risking hurting people. That's not to say that these tactics are fundamentally wrong- there are certainly social issue areas in which I'd be tempted to tolerate or encourage those tactics- but I'm just referring to this anarchist/punk rock sort of "the bravery of the youth will save the world" type quality that emerged in the pro-life movement and galvanized a new generation.

Finally, in the post-9/11 George W. Bush era, I think we saw a similar "wrapping up" of pro-life views as being another bulletpoint in what it meant to be a Republican: pro war, pro gun, nationalistic, openly Christian... and sure, pro life too. There was also a big tack away from prayers and bombs and toward legislation in the pro-life movement, which has unfortunately been successful much of the time. The goal is to get an abortion case that could effectively overturn Roe V. Wade to the Supreme Court, at which point we'll see much of the geographic area of the US "go dark" in terms of abortion access.

So, that's where we're at now. I know that some countries have it worse (I'm just coming from living in Chile, which I might say generally has it worse) but I think there's a special kind of anxiety that comes from constantly feeling like you, your rights, and your autonomy are on a knife's edge when it comes to abortion. Maybe that's American exceptionalism talking though, haha.

The Pro-Life movement, while even thinking about it makes my blood boil, has proven itself agile to changing times. I think the die-hard believers in it are a vocal minority that's really good at keeping the majority at least vaguely supportive of their mission.

Anyone who wants to- please correct me! I'm not getting this from any particular sources, but I am a woman from the US who has been interested in this issue and at times quite active in the pro-life movement for about 15 years (and the United Methodist church for about 10 of those). Some things I've read and watched recently that are probably informing this diatribe are Life's Work by Willie J. Parker, Reversing Roe on Netflix, and The Purity Myth by Jessica Valenti (which is about purity culture rather than abortion, but really helps illuminate the timeline of modern American conservative Christianity and its markers).

Edited July 9, 2019 by NakedKnees
wanted to add the vocal minority bit

[Virago]

@Smee everything @NakedKnees said and this:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/beta..com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/01/22/how-abortion-became-the-single-most-important-litmus-test-in-american-politics/%3FoutputType%3Damp

Plus the undercurrent that abortion is ultimately about female liberation and Evangelicals (the patriarchy) can’t have that. The moral core of the abortion argument aside (is it murdering innocent children or removing a non sentient clump of cells?) totally set aside, evangelicals want men to control women, whether they’re in your cult and you’re their headship, or whether they’re outside your cult but you still try your hardest to take their autonomy. Their entire religion is built upon the idea that God declares women are lesser than, and shouldn’t make their own decisions. Being able to decide when and whether or not to have children (abortion and birth control) is so crucial to women’s liberation from the patriarchy and poverty - blocking those two locks women back into their system. 

[louisa05]

Abortion politics is closely woven into dominionism becoming a factor in our politics through the latter half of the 20th Century. 

Although it is a bit outdated now, the book Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States by Sara Diamond is a good academic look at the social and political history and climate that got us here. 

Another author who writes about the issue of evangelicals pushing to influence culture and politics is Randall Balmer. The two books of his that I have touch on the issue: Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America and Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts Faith and Threatens America. He also has two newer books on American evangelicalism that I haven't read but one or both likely address the political issues as well. They are The Making of Evangelicalism: From Revivalism to Politics and Beyond and Evangelicalism in America.