Posted on 11/07/2014 5:04:15 AM PST by Kaslin
While so much of reality television dwells on catty "Real Housewives" and Snooki-style party-hearty debauchery, it's interesting to note that a small fraction of this ever-expanding genre is celebrating evangelical Christianity and values like chastity.
This drives the libertines crazy. Washington Post TV critic Hank Stuever recently raged on the Internet against the Duggar family of TLC's "19 Kids & Counting" and how they are no more worthy of attention than the Kardashians. Their children are denied "freedom of choice."
"My thoughts on the Duggars are few and far between because I think the show treats its viewers like they're learning-disabled," he wrote. Then he doubled down. "The viewers, not the Duggars. Although ... "
Leftists, especially openly gay writers like Stuever, itch for the children to rebel against that old-time religion. "I guess we just sit and wait and hope that there's a contrarian in the bunch who gets the itch to write a tell-all at some point down the road. I'd be surprised if anyone seriously watches the Duggar show out of a place of envy."
It is the right of a TV critic to knock the Duggar show as too sweet and happy and prim for his snarky tastes. But how do those critics react when you knock a show they like? "If you don't like it, turn the channel!" Let's face it, the Duggar family isn't broken by divorce or addiction or other social maladies. That is why the critics are turned off.
On the other hand, the celebrity magazines have found these popular Christian reality shows to be worthy of cover stories. The latest Us Weekly forwards "Duck Dynasty" teenager Sadie Robertson's decision to forego premarital sex. A recent edition of People magazine reported on newly married Jill Duggar and the family's "Extreme Courtship Rules." Those principles are a direct challenge to today's hookup culture, and that's what makes magazine readers so curious about them.
It naturally follows that loutish "sex columnist" Dan Savage would get in his insults at these "professional virgins." The conservative blog site Twitchy took exception to his wisecracking on Twitter that the Duggar daughters should observe his mating rules, including his notion of "F--- First." Savage thinks people should be sexually compatible before marriage, so chastity is a terrible idea. In fact, he despises virginity and its advocates. His rules also include cheating, which is "inevitable" in his mind.
After Twitchy spurred the conservative Twitterati to attack him, Savage then responded with a 2,500-word attack on the Duggar worldview. Like Stuever, it begins with the notion that Christians are an organized "hate group." Their oldest son Josh now works for the Family Research Council, which validates their charge, they would tell you.
Savage argues that if the Duggars were Muslims and Josh worked for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, conservatives would never embrace them. "But the right wing doesn't have a problem with the Duggars: They're the right color, they worship the right God, and they want to impose the right brand of theocracy."
Savage, like Stuever, wishes these robot-children would grow up to reject their freakish parents: "I have hopes for all the unmarried little Duggars still being pimped on television and dragged to campaign rallies: I hope they all get out from under the thumbs of their crazy, controlling, virginity-obsessed parents."
Leftists better hope their "best wishes" for rebellion are never turned on them. Would it seem kind for conservatives to wish that Dan Savage's adopted son should write a "tell-all book" about growing up having to hear all about his "father's" extreme sex rules and obsessions? It would seem unkind, intolerant and smug --S all adjectives that apply to the Duggar bashers.
Extremism in either direction is never a good thing.
Have to agree with you there, although my wife does love the show. Interesting reference you had to the ‘Social Gospel’, which stemmed from a 1907 German book(Germany at the time was going through religious withdrawal, obsessing on concepts like Higher Criticism that reject the Word. How’d that path ultimately work out for Germany?) Yet American Protestant churches lapped up the Social Gospel concept, and still blindly follow it today. http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/twenty/tkeyinfo/socgospel.htm
If only believers would read the scriptures and realize the purpose of the ekklesia (meaning “called-out group of people” and tr. “church”) is not to solve the world’s social problems. Our purpose is (a) to teach the Gospel directly, not through bait and switch entertainment and social programs, and (b) “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13) Every passage of love and good works throughout the NT focuses on building up and taking care those in the church— not society at large per the Social Gospel.
Be fruitful and multiply!....Love it :)
Precisely. It just shows the differences between the left's way of looking at young women (they need to be sluts or they are not fully expressing themselves); and, the more conservative way of looking at a beautiful girl (and she is just lovely) and being impressed with her strong respect for herself; plus, a young man who is willing to wait for marriage as well.
The Left has spent so much time and energy in destroying marriage, that The Duggars appear, to them, as a real threat to their ideology.
Yet American Protestant churches lapped up the Social Gospel concept, and still blindly follow it today.
...please be aware that the Catholic Church of tday has seen fit to follow in that same erroneous pathway, to its great detriment...
...when ‘social justice’ becomes the bailiwick of a supposed pro life organization, then that organization must be prepared to rebut the suggestion that abortion itself is ‘social justice’, as it can be promoted that ‘relief from cultural and social hardship’ through it’s use is beneficial...the Church is then put in the position of adequately defining ‘social justice’, rather than in its true mandate of affirming a Christian principle...
So do I. And when they complain, I tell them they have the "choice" to achieve financial independence and leave home.
It costs you the illusion that you're the center of the universe. (General you, not you personally.) You are not the center of the universe, all you other "yous." Kathleen is.
Why do you think they have no choice? They can rebel and break away like any other teen, can’t they?
So maybe more reasonable gospel groups can pick up the baton here and show the Duggars and the world how it really should be done?
Gothard “got hard.” He went legalistic. That doesn’t recover grace; it recovers pride. Just a different kind of pride than most modern libertines have.
The church has never really done a great job at policing unbelievers. God never expected it to.
My parents gave us the choice of like it or lump it. The in silence addition to the lump it option was implied. If not observed it was then imprinted usually with some unpleasantness.
We were on a road trip a couple of weeks ago, and wifey made sure - when we were reserving our Tuesday night hotel stay - that their channel lineup included TLC...no way was she gonna miss the wedding special.
Both the Duggars and the Bate’s {friends of the Duggars} in Tennessee have raised good responsible kids. The Bates oldest son Zack is a County Commissioner going into his second term in my county. Zack is married and they’re expecting a child soon.
The Gospel is the solution to the World's social problems. But you may be confused as to what is the gospel. Listen to the angel of heaven proclaim it...
Revelation 14:6-7 Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth -- to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people -- saying with a loud voice, "Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth,...
It is a little more than have a relationship with your personal Jesus girl-friend.
Perhaps it is sufficient to encourage right thinking. I will take homeschoolers with the parental liberty and responsibility to raise their own children over the socialist indoctrination and claim to children as belonging to the state every day of the week.
That sounds very familiar. We were all observing in my prayer group last week that all our parents were tougher on us than we are on our children. This is a group that includes women from early 40s to almost 80!
They are kept very sheltered, associate only with other children of their own beliefs. But mostly that's nky when their family has rare get together so with other families like them. Mostly their siblings are their only friends.
That's why so many selfish people don't procreate. Which is fine by me. In other news: WHO has some 'splaining to do.
Watching the Duggars is one of the best things I do! Thank you God for such a wonderful family!!
Liberalism IS a MENTAL DISORDER!!!
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