I watched some of the TV videos of the show, which I had not seen before. It's all pretty much staged and scripted as others have stated. Pretty phony which is what makes this family sound weird.....and their lifestyle as much.....because it is.
I would not say at all they are a ‘representation’ of a Christian family as is depicted frequently. Rather there are some obvious cult type markers in how the family speaks and believes. Always with cults people do genuinely ‘believe’ what they're saying and doing even if they're being manipulated. However aside from their "weirdness" they were not chosen because of their faith...but because of their family size.
It really doesn't matter who the family sought out for help with Josh...the fact is the family could not be shown to be 'negligent' in handling this matter of Josh touching other family members....even if we might question those that they sought help from.
There's a lot of knit-picking after the fact that only confuses the actual facts...which we really don't know. Even so...this is the price people pay for seeking and obtaining 'celebrity status'...it goes with the territory.
I tend to think the father believes he can and will control the circumstances the family has to contend with. Regardless of what the fall-out is and might be...and regardless if others think or not he's handling things "correctly".
Bottom line is the family continues to feed the media and putting their family right out there for the "wolves" to devour. This is simply bad Judgement by the parents,....and I would suspect their church has a big hand in this as well, behind the scenes.
I think looking at the safeguards put in place is helpful to know what was going on:
1. No boys babysitting - Josh must have taken advantage of parental absence
2. Locks on the girls bedroom doors - self-explanatory
3. No more hide and seek - Something went down with that. I think it might have been the laundry room incident