#it’s not trendy to be a part of iblp

[spurgie-cousin]

Re: the Bates kids not changing denominations; I think a big part of that is how their specific denomination has changed, at least in its outward presentation, over the past 10-20 years. Like, all most of the kids really wanted was to be able to wear what clothes they wanted and to do whatever activities and watch whatever media they wanted, and it appears the “standard” has become a whole lot more lax their circle. Trendy is fine, shorts/pants are fine, even bathing suits; it’s fine to play sports and watch movies and TV, as long as you’re “mindful” of it. Because they’ve gotten the changes they personally wanted, and there’s been no (as far as we’re aware) major scandals of abuse, they see no reason to challenge the rest of their beliefs. The Duggars tried to hold on to the same standards their kids never cared for, and had J*sh right in the middle making clear how useless the whole charade was.

(It probably also helped that they had a much smother transition to becoming Influencers due to the lack of familial scandal, so there’s no “why isn’t God providing like we were told” to start pondering over, just “God is so good! Swipe for 50% off”)

Yea I get what you're saying, but the Bates specifically were kind of a one-off in their denomination as far as their early standards of dress. the vast majority of even southern baptists are not as strict with their clothing choices as the Bates were, whereas the Duggars definitely held baptist values but weren't as eager to attach themselves to a denomination in most of the early days.

The common thread was their involvement in IBLP, which I do think the Duggars leaned into more overall, bc with Gil being a specifically Baptist preacher, the Bates by default had a structured approach to church/worshipping, if that makes sense. but the Duggars put more emphasis on home church, and structured it around the values of Gothard as opposed to an existing denomination, so I think when the time came it was just easier for the Bates to slip out of that thinking for that reason. as members of an outside church they had more examples of "godly" people who weren't uber modest, whereas the Duggars mostly held home church with people who held their exact same values on everything, including modesty.

That's an oversimplification for sure, but I think JB was the bigger Gothard fan girl at the end of the day, and I think it has something to do with the differences bt the Bates/Duggars as adult kids.