Jinger 50: Making the Most of Los Angeles and Studio City

[Idlewild]

In fact, while I’m in rant mode- it strikes me these two are the least employable of the Duggar marrieds if the show tanks. Everything they do relies on their Z list reality show status- you won’t find Jeremy flipping houses or working in a car sales business.

There’s a supermarket here in the UK that every Christmas has a special range of sandwiches and snacks and for every item purchased a donation goes to Shelter- a charity that helps homeless people. Jinger could have pledged a portion of donut profits to a similar cause ( preferably non religious & non Duggar run, but baby steps....). But then JB didn’t raise kids kids to turn down free stuff.

[AprilQuilt]

1 hour ago, Idlewild said:

In fact, while I’m in rant mode- it strikes me these two are the least employable of the Duggar marrieds if the show tanks. Everything they do relies on their Z list reality show status- you won’t find Jeremy flipping houses or working in a car sales business.

But this is definitely why they're cultivating Brand Jinger now! That's the sort of thing that actually will have longevity after the show, and presumably will transplant really well to somewhere a bit more Bible-y when they're done with being glossy in LA. They're obviously not suited to house flipping, but we live in an age where instagram celebrity can pay quite a few bills.

[Idlewild]

13 minutes ago, AprilQuilt said:

But this is definitely why they're cultivating Brand Jinger now! That's the sort of thing that actually will have longevity after the show, and presumably will transplant really well to somewhere a bit more Bible-y when they're done with being glossy in LA. They're obviously not suited to house flipping, but we live in an age where instagram celebrity can pay quite a few bills.

You’re right of course. I suppose the challenge for them is how far they are prepared to keep quiet about their horrible beliefs - if they are compromised about opposing gay marriage or reproductive rights will they turn down an endorsement? 

[Leftitinmysnood]

The eponymous donut is weird. I don't associate Duggars with trendy healthy-ish food at all. I think I tried a fonut once, when they were the hot new thing in town. They were not earth shattering, had interesting flavor choices,  but I'm not vegan or gf. My money is on Stan's Doughnuts over in Westwood. Hot cream cheese and blueberry doughnuts straight from the fryer. Stan's has been there since the 40s or 50s.

[bal maiden]

Quick, someone buy jingervuolo.com and jinger.com, so she has to buy them back off you when she launches herself as a brand...

[HereticHick]

On 11/30/2019 at 5:45 PM, SilverBeach said:

Have you encountered any statistics to backup your assertion thst most US Christians are fundy? I'm an American living in America, a black american, and I can tell you that while most black folks are Christian, we are not mostly fundy. Openly identifying as Christian hardly marks one as fundy in my book, if it is not done to proselytize. Please don't stereotype all of us because of the high profiles of the worst of us.

Thank you.  I am continually amazed at the number of non-American FJites  who, over and over and over and over again, prefer to assume that 100% of Americans--especially southern Americans-- are white.  

[Eponine]

On 11/30/2019 at 5:45 PM, SilverBeach said:

Have you encountered any statistics to backup your assertion thst most US Christians are fundy? I'm an American living in America, a black american, and I can tell you that while most black folks are Christian, we are not mostly fundy. Openly identifying as Christian hardly marks one as fundy in my book, if it is not done to proselytize. Please don't stereotype all of us because of the high profiles of the worst of us.

Wooo statistics fun!

This is a little bit old (2014) but according to this Pew Research analysis: about 36% of Americans who identify as Christian are "evangelical" Protestants, as opposed to "mainline" Protestants (20.8%) and "historically black" Protestants (9.2%). I don't know how many of those who identify as "evangelical" would be considered fundies here, but I would guess probably a solid majority? I think I would personally consider any evangelical to be fundie. https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/

Nearly 30% of American Christians identify as Catholic, but there isn't an easy way to tease out fundies from that group: Catholics are split about 50/50 between Democrats and Republicans. This study shows the differences between Catholic Republican and Democrat opinions on political and faith-based issues: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/24/like-americans-overall-u-s-catholics-are-sharply-divided-by-party/

Pulling these stats out for some issues more directly related to religion: about 51.5% of Catholics think abortion should be legal in most cases; 46.5% think government aid to the poor does more good than harm; about 67.5% think gay marriage should be legal. And this shows that Catholics tend to be more progressive on issues than most Americans: https://thinkprogress.org/on-almost-every-major-issue-catholics-are-more-progressive-than-the-average-american-a49b95445c29/.

Based on all that and some wild guesstimation, if someone is Catholic it's not good odds that they would be fundie - maybe like 15% chance? That would assume about 4.4% of self-identified Christians are Catholic fundies.

I would consider Jehovah's Witnesses to all be fundie (1.1% of Christians) and guess about half of Mormons to be fundie (half of 2.3%, which is 1.25%) So here is my calculation, based again on that first Pew study: 36% are evangelical Protestants; about 4.4% are fundie Catholics, 1.1% are Jehovah's Witnesses, 1.25% are fundie Mormons, brings us to 42.75% of Christians. Bump that up a little to accommodate the "other" Christian category, any fundies in the Orthodox Christian category, and any fundies hiding out in one of the other groups - let's say that brings it to about 44%?

Then behold, based on some statistics and a lot of guessing, my official estimation is that about 44% of American Christians are fundie! (Biggest margin of error is how many "evangelicals" are fundie, I have no clue how that breaks down in reality; they all seem pretty fundie to me.)

[Sorry guys, I was actually very curious about this!]

Edited December 2, 2019 by Eponine

[livinginthelight]

"Evangelical" is more a style of Christianity, while "Fundamental" is the form of beliefs. Not everyone agrees on exactly what "Evangelical" means. I think this article does a good job talking about the difference between the two categories. https://www.christianity.com/church/denominations/what-does-the-term-evangelical-really-mean-here-are-10-things-to-know.html

Point #7 in this article addresses the differences between the two:

Most agree that evangelicals and fundamentalists are different or describe different things. Evangelicals are a broad group of Christians, while fundamentalists are also Christians, but a division of Christianity in itself. They are mostly politically conservative and take a literal interpretation of the bible. Steve Waldman, editor in chief of Beliefnet, says, “Evangelicals have a much wider range of political views. A lot of them are conservatives, but not all of them.”

There is agreement between evangelicals and fundamentalists on some subjects, such as the belief that the Bible is inerrant as well as the need for conversion.

I kind of think of it as, evangelicals are louder about their faith and put pressure on people to convert, as a function of their belief that a prayer of repentance is necessary to get to heaven. Fundies overall have very very conservative beliefs. A person may be both fundie and evangelical, but it is possible to be one or the other and not both.

As a side note, there was a movement in the progressive branch of Christianity to reclaim the word "evangelical" back to its more original meaning of simply talking about the good news of how God loves people and wants to be in relationship with them, without the judgmental aspects. I think that movement never gained much traction.

 

Edited December 2, 2019 by livinginthelight

[Coconut Flan]

I don't think the majority of evangelicals are fundie as I define it.  All the evangelicals I know in Southern California do not use the KJV, use birth control, don't believe in a literal 6 day creation, tend to view the Bible not anywhere near as literally as the Duggars and other IFB, send their kids to public school, have or have had debt, don't attend church every time the doors are open, don't vote the church ticket (especially after Trump), don't tithe an exact 10%, and don't campaign against abortion.  They're a mixed back on most other issues.

[Charliemae]

I would consider most evangelicals fundie. 

Is there an accepted definition of fundamentalist Christian? I feel like it's more  "I know it when I see it". 

[livinginthelight]

1 hour ago, Charliemae said:

Is there an accepted definition of fundamentalist Christian? I feel like it's more  "I know it when I see it". 

I don't know about an accepted definition, but there are some common clues. Almost all fundies use the King James Version of the the Bible, considering it the most authoritative version, despite every reasonable standard of scholarship.  Any church with the words "Bible Believing" on its website is definitely fundie. The phrase is kind of a code so that fundie people looking for a church will know they've found their tribe. ("Bible believing" always cracks me up, as if us more progressive Christians don't believe in the Bible. We just view it through a different lens.) Fundies, in general, are not open to debating the meaning of any given biblical passage. In their minds, the Bible is crystal clear. The Bible says it, they believe it, and that settles it.

Where fundies overlap with some evangelicals is in headship theology and belief in a literal six day creation and worldwide flood, not to mention the more progressive issues. But evangelicals generally aren't as hard-core.

Edited December 2, 2019 by livinginthelight

[SassyPants]

BEC- I don’t think blonde hair suits Jinger. Next thing she’ll be a contestant on Dancing With the Stars.

Why can’t they just get educated so that they can earn an honest living? Why can’t those with educations and marketable skills use them? Props to those currently doing so. The rest need a swift kick to the backside.

[Idlewild]

36 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

BEC- I don’t think blonde hair suits Jinger. Next thing she’ll be a contestant on Dancing With the Stars.

Why can’t they just get educated so that they can earn an honest living? Why can’t those with educations and marketable skills use them? Props to those currently doing so. The rest need a swift kick to the backside.

Because she grew up seeing her family live a privileged existence for little effort together with the adoration of their fans and it has instilled a sense of entitlement, no matter how ‘meek’ she is and he had a taste of fame and money with his football and saw his friend Ben marry into this life and thought he could capitalise on it even more than Ben. Everything they do is styled and staged - they are just waiting for the offers to roll in.

[Lurker]

I think they have actively been looking for sponsors, their instagram pages both have wording and contact information  for business opportunities.

 

[nausicaa]

3 hours ago, Eponine said:

Then behold, based on some statistics and a lot of guessing, my official estimation is that about 44% of American Christians are fundie! (Biggest margin of error is how many "evangelicals" are fundie, I have no clue how that breaks down in reality; they all seem pretty fundie to me.)

[Sorry guys, I was actually very curious about this!]

So still not a majority of American Christians are fundy? Even with a ton of number fudging in favor of Fundies?

Since a hallmark of Fundamentalism is literal interpretation of the Bible (one of the few nearly universally agreed on aspects of Fundamentalism), I would think only a very small minority of Catholics would qualify, as the Vatican's official stance is that the Bible is not the literal word of God, and for instance, rejects YEC.

In addition, the official stance of the LDS church is that the Bible is not inerrant (not to mention that "Fundamentalist Mormon" means something wildly different among mainsteam Mormons).

[scoutsadie]

1 hour ago, livinginthelight said:

Fundies, in general, are not open to debating the meaning of any given biblical passage. In their minds, the Bible is crystal clear. The Bible says it, they believe it, and that settles it.

IT BIBLE ??? 

(If this did not make you double over in laugher, go check out the Bro. Gary Hawkins thread over in Quiver Full of Snark. He's redonk.)

Edited December 2, 2019 by scoutsadie
Fixing spelling of discussion thread name

[Eponine]

4 minutes ago, nausicaa said:

So still not a majority of American Christians are fundy? Even with a ton of number fudging in favor of Fundies?

Yeah, I think that's the absolute maximum, with, as you say, a lot of fudging to assume more fundies. Again this is based largely on data from 2014 from self-identified Christians, the key group being those who say they're evangelical. It's likely that less than the 36% self-identifying as evangelicals are fundamentalist but I don't really know how to guess at that. There is some data on how many people adhere to different types of Protestantism but it's hard to get more granular than that. And even with that there is really no data on how many in each group are true fundamentalists, so it's just some semi-informed guessing!

[neuroticcat]

I agree that evangelical does not equal fundamentalist. There’s no way that 44% of American Christians are fundie. We here at FJ are super familiar with our fundie friends, but I think most evangelicals are more mainstream  as far as lifestyle goes - TV watching, divorce/remarriage accepting, public schooling, and probably split over LGBTQ positivity. I’d think their main signifier is a belief in Jesus and the importance of a personal relationship with him. 

While we might pull some things out of general evangelical beliefs that cross over to fundamentalism - reading the Bible as if it were written to you personally, for instance, a lot of the landscape is changing. Even big evangelical names are rethinking their stances on classic fundamentalist platforms like LGBTQ relationships, women in ministry, etc. 

I think the number of fundamentalists as we’d consider them - skirts only, SAHD, homeschooling, rigid gender roles, etc. is much smaller than the broader evangelical pool. Before the Duggars and the Bates, I think most of American society would have been unaware of these folks.

Some of it also depends on what part of the country you are talking about. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and while there are fundamentalist groups out here, it’s nothing compared to when I lived in the south among Southern Baptist - both nominal and zealous. Certainly, the Bible Belt has more fundamentalists. But even so, there are many nominal fundmentalists, who might hold fast to certain tenets but don’t go out and proselytize and still otherwise seem to live a “normal” American life.

Evangelical seems to have become a broad term for generic Christian. Most mainline liberal Christians probably don’t want to have the term associated with them, especially after the last election. And some fundamentalists probably reject the evangelical umbrella as too worldly as well. When I think broad-term  “evangelical” I think cultural American Christianity - people who believe in Jesus and a personal relationship with Him to some extent but aren’t super committed to a set of hardcore theology principles - so like someone said above, they live a mainstream life compared to our fundie friends. 

Now, broad evangelicalism still has some alarming components and hybrids (I’m in the Pacific Northwest and remembering how Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll managed to hipster up fundamentalism and Calvinism and make it all seem more mainstream evangelical) but I still think that’s not mainstream. 

I think the Barna research group has some interesting stuff simply because they are coming at it from a religious angle and trying to diagnose what’s going on within the church. Their website is worth a read, and here’s a bit of a breakdown that also defines different terms at the end:

https://www.barna.com/research/state-church-2016/

 

 

For those who don’t want to click through to the article above:

”Evangelicals Are a Small but Influential Group
Classifications and metrics are vital to understanding the religious makeup of the United States. Barna uses several of these to identify key faith groups in America, including “born again Christians,” “evangelical Christians” and those who are “Bible-minded.” The largest of these groups are born again Christians, which make up roughly one-third of the population (35%). These individuals have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and believe that, when they die, they will go to heaven because they have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. The next largest group are those considered Bible-minded, who make up about one-quarter of the population (23%). They believe the Bible is accurate in all the principles it teaches and have read the Scriptures within the past week. Finally, the small (7%) but influential group of evangelicals are those who meet the born again criteria plus seven other conditions (detailed below), which are made up of a set of doctrinal views that touch on topics like evangelism, Satan, biblical inerrancy and salvation.”

[SilverBeach]

On 11/30/2019 at 6:32 PM, Zebedee said:

From a European perspective, US people are very open about their religion (in a way that Europeans are not:

We are a different culture, again, this is not an indication of being fundy. Openness means nothing here. Cultural differences must always be recognized and not imposed on other countries.

[AmericanRose]

I'm still super confused by what JinJer have done to warrant sponsorships or participation on a TV show. She comes from a large family (that has some legal issues). She got married and had a baby... like most people do. She moved to a city... like people do.

Can I have a TV show?  Maybe some sponsorships for my cats?

[AliceInFundyland]

1 hour ago, AmericanRose said:

I'm still super confused by what JinJer have done to warrant sponsorships or participation on a TV show. She comes from a large family (that has some legal issues). She got married and had a baby... like most people do. She moved to a city... like people do.

Can I have a TV show?  Maybe some sponsorships for my cats?

Would you like to be president?

Perhaps another elected office? We can get the cats their own instagram...

[Eponine]

17 hours ago, neuroticcat said:

I think the number of fundamentalists as we’d consider them - skirts only, SAHD, homeschooling, rigid gender roles, etc. is much smaller than the broader evangelical pool. Before the Duggars and the Bates, I think most of American society would have been unaware of these folks.

I don't think people need to be skirts-only/homeschooling, etc to be fundie. To me, if they believe the Bible is literal and inerrant, that in itself is most of the way to fundie, regardless of how they dress or how many kids they have. So that would encompass the ones who don't believe in evolution for religious reasons, for example, which is way more people than I would have thought.

There are a few other things that would indicate "fundie" to me, but it's hard to define! I feel like we run into this problem a lot here, it's hard to pin down exactly what fundies are/how to spot them.

Maybe there should be some kind of checklist, where if they check enough boxes they're fundie! The married Duggar girls, for example, are all wearing pants now (I think), but they're still fundie as ever.

[SassyPants]

I watched last week’s show, and OMfreaking Lord, Jeremy didn’t even know the # 10 in Spanish. All those freaking years in Laredo and he didn’t even know the numbers through 20? 

Way to make an effort, NOT.

I just watched last week’s show. Jeremy literally did not know the # 10 in Spanish. And how about Cuanto cuesto? Has he never been in a Latin operated business?  These people have to be the least motivated people on the planet. And were they selling all that nearly new stuff? Won’t they possibly need an ice chest in CA? If the paint was recently used in that home, we usually leave it as a courtesy to the next owner.

[PennySycamore]

3 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

I watched last week’s show, and OMfreaking Lord, Jeremy didn’t even know the # 10 in Spanish. All those freaking years in Laredo and he didn’t even know the numbers through 20? 

Way to make an effort, NOT.

I don't remember how it happened, but I was telling my husband about how, when you are counting in Spanish, after you get to quince (15),  it's dieciseis, in other words, ten and six.  It rather like how a character in a Jane Austin novel might be one and twenty.  Emma Woodhouse* was one and twenty.  

*II, of course, am not referring to our sister FJite, @EmmaWoodhouse.  I don't know if she's one and twenty or not.

[QuiverFullofBooks]

On 12/2/2019 at 2:39 AM, Idlewild said:

It’s also noticeable that the only good cause they appear to support is one run by Jeremy’s mother - no idea if it’s a Duggar style ‘non profit but the director draws a wage’ but it wouldn’t surprise me.

She’s paid $12,000/year. At least the organization is legit enough to have its financial statements online (swan4kids.org).