There is a new documentary on Amazon about fundamentalism, the Duggar family, and the draw of rigid rules called “Shiny Happy People.” I truly hesitated to watch it because there has been a lot coming out lately about deeply flawed church organizations and I’m close to an overdose level.

But, I have two observations to begin:
1. What is it with people’s obsession with “reality TV”? The Duggars were created by reality TV and that happened because people watch it. WHY?
2. What is it with people’s obsession with Donald Trump? (I ask this because today he was indicted in federal court and there were hundreds of supporters outside the courthouse yelling his innocence and insulting anyone daring to think he committed any wrongdoing whatsoever. Nothing to do with anything, but I’m burying it here.)

While a lot of people may focus on the sex scandals of the Duggars and Bill Gothard, David French took another route:

I’m going to address the issue of abuse below, but I also want to focus on a different question: Why are otherwise good, solid people attracted to movements like Gothard’s? How can they not see its controlling darkness?

This is indeed the fascinating question. I can remember skirting very close to people in these Bill Gothard circles because we homeschooled our boys early on. We would be at conventions with families having a lot of kids and wearing matching jumpers or other matching outfits and it struck me as… weird.

Gothard’s seminars were huge and incredibly influential in fundamentalist churches. He spoke clearly about “authority” and it always began with the man (just below God, but that was often lost). It has an attraction. It’s “order” in a world of chaos. It’s just deceptive as well.

I grew up in a strict household. Some of this stuff was a fresh reminder for me:

Life was strictly regulated. All music with a rock beat, including Christian rock, was deemed spiritually dangerous. Men and women should not date, or at least not in the way most Americans do. Instead, young people could only “court,” which was a father-directed, father-supervised process that could be strikingly similar to arranged marriage, especially if both families followed Gothard’s teachings.

The thing is this: it wasn’t “cult like” in that there were good people trying to find answers for their marriages and families.

They found community in the people who flocked to the churches like the one I visited in Louisville. Certainty, however, was elusive. The formulas they received from Gothard seemed to work for some, didn’t work for others, and deeply damaged many, many people — especially women and children.

We need health in our churches and communities. We search for certitude and safety and all too often end up with despots and fascists leading the way. We file predators and abusers all too ready to “head things up.”

MORE HERE from David French’s article.

We search for what is best in our lives, our families, and our communities. We do it in sincerity most of the time! We strive. We look. We study. And there are times we find that a path we look down may seem to have “light” when all it has is the illusion of certitude (“Your children will be godly.” “Your nation will be righteous.”).

We don’t stop seeking. For me, I don’t stop seeking and I don’t move away from the anchor I have found in Christ.