The prurient god of the Duggars

Full disclosure. I never watched the Duggar's television show. Heard about it, of course. But the show's entire premise left me feeling nauseous. The focus on fertility and a constant state of pregnancy as some kind of prurient proof of religiosity, as if god has his head up everyone's groin, set alarm bells ringing.

Turns out my alarm bells were working just fine, thank you.

According to the police report, Jim Bob and Michelle, paragons of parenting, hid Josh’s crimes from the police and the public. In Touchreports, based on the police report it obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, that:

   

Josh Duggar was investigated for multiple sex offenses — including forcible fondling — against five minors. Some of the alleged offenses investigated were felonies. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar were interview [sic] by the Springdale Police department on Dec. 12, 2006. The report says that James told police he was alerted in March, 2002 by a female minor that Josh — who turned 14-years-old that month — had been touching her breasts and genitals while she slept. This allegedly happened on multiple occasions. In 2006, Jim Bob told police that in July, 2002 Josh admitted to fondling a minor’s breasts while she slept. “James said that they disciplined (redacted, Josh) after this incident.” The family did not alert authorities.

The police report reveals that Jim Bob Duggar “met with the elders of his church and told them what was going on” rather than contacting law enforcement. Josh was then sent to “Christian counseling” for three months, which, according to his mother’s admission, was not any sort of licensed counseling facility:

Once again, the religious right's obsession with sexuality, and the control there of, is revealed as deeply twisted. No surprise to those of us who have paid attention through the years, and yet far too many typical responses blame or silence the victims of Josh Duggar's molestations, while excusing his actions and his parent's cover up of the same.

In faith communities like the Duggars, abuse victims are encouraged to be filled with grace. It’s not that simple

As usual, the victims of sexual abuse are being called to forgive and forget, to give grace, while none is being given to them. In the Duggar's Biblical Patriarchy, all things masculine have worth and are redeemable, while all things feminine are not.

Girls and women are reduced to property, to things, whose only virtue is in submitting to men, no matter how harmful those men may be.  

   ...God reveals Himself as masculine, not feminine.
    God ordained distinct gender roles for man and woman as part of  the created order.
    A husband and father is the head of his household, a family leader, provider, and protector.
    Male leadership in the home carries over into the church: only men are permitted to hold the ruling office in the church. A God-honoring society will likewise prefer male leadership in civil and other spheres.
    Since the woman was created as a helper to her husband, as the bearer of children, and as a “keeper at home”, the God-ordained and proper sphere of dominion for a wife is the household and that which is connected with the home.....

According to Rachel Held Evans, the biblical patriarchy movement is "committed to preserving as much of the patriarchal structure of Old Testament law as possible."[8]

Apparently the defining characteristic of god and men is the phallus, and the right to wield it. In an act of supreme hubris, the Biblical Patriarchal movement compresses a supposedly infinite god into the size and shape of a penis. That is the supreme definition of God and man. Not empathy. Not insight. Not creativity. Not caring. Not wisdom. Mind boggling, isn't it?

But in the world of the Phallus Cult, anything goes. Including molesting young girls, even one's sisters. Including excusing it all away, because - "God."