Jinger Duggar: IBLP Taught Me that Having Crushes Was a Sin!

Following Jinger Duggar’s embarrassing revelations about her childhood and family in a memoir, she’s still talking up a storm.

In one recent interview, she opened up about her courtship experience. And this time, not about Jim Bob vetoing suitors before Jeremy came along.

Jinger admitted that she (obviously) found some men handsome. Men who were not Jeremy. Even cultists have adolescent crushes, folks.

At the time, within the cult, she could not confess these “sinful” thoughts to anyone … including her own sisters.

Allie Beth Stuckey from The Blaze sat down for a Relatable interview with Jinger Duggar Vuolo and her husband, Jeremy.

In the Facebook video, they covered a number of hot topics related to Jinger and her famous family.

Among other things, they delved into the “purity culture” of the IBLP cult. Jinger grew up in that mode of thinking … and so did her infamous brother, Josh.

There are more issues with toxic purity culture than Josh, but … yeah, it didn’t work. In fact, it’s the kind of upbringing that makes children and even adults easier targets for abuse.

Of course, a lot of Jinger’s concern seemed to be about how Josh makes other Christians look bad. Many people have reasonable fears along those lines when a crime makes headlines … but those people tend to be of minority faiths.

Christianity is a massive religion, making up over 60 percent of the population in the United States alone. Whatever tarnishing Josh does, we’re talking about a massive mainstream faith that no one (living) person represents.

Jinger noted that, within her family’s cult, things like repentance were very external. She sees true repentance as an internal and inherently divine act … on that Josh clearly never underwent.

Going through the motions is not the same thing as actually undergoing change.

There are countless critiques to make of IBLP theology, which stem from Bill Gothard, that have nothing to do with Josh. In fact, some have to do with Jinger’s own misplaced sense of childhood guilt and shame.

With her husband beside her, Jinger opened up about religious commitments within the cult.

“He wanted them to abstain from thinking about another person they’re attracted to,” she said of Bill Gothard.

“That almost was looked at as sin,” Jinger recalled. “Like, if you have attraction?”

“I would feel guilty if I was attracted to a young man, who was Godly, who had good character,” Jinger detailed, recalling her own adolescence.

“I would feel so guilty,” she admitted. “And I would never talk to my sisters about it because I was like, ‘that’s almost sinful.’”

Jinger emphasized that her big takeaway is that there are appropriate times to talk to your child about human sexuality. The alternative, she noted, can be disastrous.