A little on my background. I have worked with children ages 2-20 who have been sexually abused and as a result have had severe behavioral and psychological damage. These are the extreme cases with kids that ended up in a Residential Treatment Center and Therapeutic Foster Care. So I have seen the damage that this can do, as well as working with teenage perpetrators as well. I also am an evangelical Christian, who believes that the Bible is true and that Jesus Christ is my savior. I am a mother of three and have been married to an amazing man for 12 years this July. So I have experience on both sides of the spectrum.
First off, I do not blame Josh. He was fourteen at the time, and while that does not excuse any of his actions, he has been honest with who he needs to be honest with, and has asked for forgiveness. There really is nothing more that he could have done, at the time, with the way that his parents handled it. As a christian, if he has asked for forgiveness and done all he could, then he is forgiven. End of story, his sin is no worse than anyone else's, however, much more public.
What I have a problem with is the way that his parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, handled it.
This is the most objective piece I can find about the timeline of what happened: In Touch Weekly
This did not sit right with me for so many reasons, but the way the Duggar parents have handled and did handle this whole thing, did not scream christian to me. If you honestly think about what you would have done as a christian, if your older son was molesting your daughters in their sleep, for over a year, I doubt that anyone would have waited to report it. I have been deeply concerned about fellow christians who have stated that this is just curiosity, and they wouldn't have wanted to be put in jail for their curiosity when they were 12. Christians as a whole need to educate themselves on this topic, because it related to our children, their safety and innocence.
Many perpetrators are juveniles themselves, as I have seen in my work. As many as one third of perpetrators are juveniles. And most perpetrators are someone your family knows well. This is not a one time curiosity of innocent play. This was repeated molestation (some of which would have been counted as felonies) to young girls in their sleep (on most of the occasions). I will not go into the details here, as you can read it in the In Touch Weekly article. But Christians stating that this was a "normal" childhood experience are not forgiving Josh for his transgressions, but they are excusing it. That is not what Christ has called us to do, we are to call sin a sin, and that is what calls people to Christ, not excusing his sin and pretending that it wasn't as bad as it has been portrayed. Please when you are discussing this, don't think about Josh's experience in this, think of his victims, his own sisters and what they have gone through. Like I said above I don't think we need to crucify Josh, but we are forgetting who the victims are.
And it seems that so are the parents. All the Duggars have said is that a horrible thing happened and that it brought them closer to God. Josh has stated that he and his victims received counseling after this occurred but there has yet to be any evidence given to support this claim. In fact as you can see in the police records, Jim Bob lied to authorities about the "treatment" that Josh received, and it was only when Michelle was questioned that the "treatment" was really working for a friend of theirs. Now, I know treatment is extremely touchy for some christians. But when there is molestation that occurs multiple times in your home, it is time to request help from professionals. And really only christian therapy would work, but outside help from a professional is absolutely critical, not only for Josh but for his victims. I got called out on this by christians that stated if he was raised in a christian home, he would not need help because coming to Christ is the only way to be truly forgiven and to start a new life. I fully agree with this, but it made me question what kind of home he was living in to do this in the first place. Perpetrators don't do this on their accord. Something has to be taught or done to them to do so many horrible things to young girls, especially his sisters.
So, I looked into it more closely, and I am here to tell you friends that the Duggars are not just fundamentalist Christians. They subscribe to some abusive and unbiblical beliefs. This explains why they acted in such a way after their son was found molesting their daughters. I obtained the information of what they believe and their resources for how they run their home directly from their blog. My first case for them veering from the Bible is their stated church, the Independent Baptists. While most of what they believe is christian, there is much legalism that has stepped out of it, which leads people to believe that works can save them instead of Jesus alone. For more information on what they believe and why it is different that Evangelical Christianity look Here. As you can see they add much to the Bible about what it means to be a Christian and take the freedom that is able to be found in Christ out of the equation. The correct response that a truly Biblical church needs to have is found at by Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. He wrote the following about the correct response not only to the perpetrator but more so to the victims and the correct intervention that should have occurred.
Second I looked into their homeschool curriculum that has been under much scrutiny. They subscribe to the Advanced Training Institute for homeschool which in itself has many horrible practices, and pretty much blames the victim of any sexual misconduct on the female. You can see the whole article about this here. Not only is this pretty much a cult, but it also has horrible parenting practices like "blanket training" which is associated with the book "To Train up a Child". This book has lead to deaths of many young children due to the corporal punishment that it endorses.
I am stating all of this to shows that we, as christians who believe in the Bible, and the simple gift of salvation, cannot in anyway defend the Duggars, how they handled this situation, or the "additions" that they have added to the Bible. To defend these people is stating that the truth does not matter, that the Bible does not teach what it says, that sexual immoralities are the same sin for the victims as the perpetrator, and that there is no freedom found in Christ. We are called to show our children God's love, does that mean no rules? Of course not, but neither does it mean to whip them until they sit on a blanket, quietly, or excuse their sexual molestation of their siblings. God's love to a child means boundaries, seeing who God has made them to be, and teaching them who God is so they can appreciate the gift of salvation that has been given to them if they accept it.
