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The Duggars: Authoritarians Trying to Protect Their Tainted Brand

Last week, the Duggar clown car family hit the headlines again. Unsurprisingly, those headlines centered on the arrest of family scion Josh Duggar. Federal authorities charged him with possessing child pornography. Slowly, news has been trickling out about what his father, Jim Bob Duggar, knew and how he handled his eldest son’s impending arrest. I wasn’t at all surprised to hear about his reactions, either. His family struggles hard these days — not with substantively addressing Josh Duggar’s sickening perversion and degeneracy, no, but rather with protecting their family’s two increasingly tainted brands. Today, I’ll show you what the Duggar brand is and how the Duggar patriarch is desperately trying to protect it from that taint.

By Captain Cassidy, ago

Christian Strategies Reveal Their Disbelief in Their Own Claims

For a bit now, we’ve been looking at an evangelical podcast called Gospelbound. In the specific episode we listened to, two Christians outlined their strategies for reversing their religion’s decline. Interestingly, both strategies reveal the speakers’ distinct lack of faith in their own religious claims. Today, let’s marvel at their accidental reveal — and ask what their strategies might look like if they actually believed that anything they said about their god was true.

By Captain Cassidy, ago

Gospelbound: Authoritarians Think More Control Means Less Churn

The tagline TGC created for Gospelbound claims it offers listeners “firm faith in an anxious age.” Of course, it does nothing of the sort. Instead, it offers the usual authoritarian blahblah from the most toxic elements in their entire end of Christianity. I’ve saved the most alarming of that blahblah for last: their oh-so-very Calvinist plan for churn reduction. They think more control over congregants means less churn from their churches. Today, I’ll show you what that means — and why it’s such a laughable contradiction of the supernatural claims of authoritarians.

By Captain Cassidy, ago