Jinger Vuolo - Free Indeed

[TravelingChris]

Yeah, I don't know how long.  

I first heard of Dyenitics because they had a place on the way to my library and always had ads out there about free IQ tests- which I thought was a scam. 

But what has super surprised me is the big change in LA area.  I remember LA Times having articles about them in the late 80's and how they were very sue happy.  But there were no missing people yet

 

[TechWife]

Adding in some info concerning what many have said about GCC.  This has just been published, although their adherence to this approach (for lack of a better word) to abuse has been known for quite some time. It’s not a safe place for women & children. 
 

“While the woman was hospitalized due to her husband’s physical abuse, Shannon called her and advised her to go home without calling police, she told CT. At times, the torment at home was bad enough that she worried she was going to die, but she said she was told that her situation may be ‘God’s will for your life.’

In marital counseling, pastors asked wives whether their attitudes contributed to the patterns of violence, anger, and manipulation in their relationships. In some situations, they implied women were looking for fault in their husbands.

‘It’s hard for a pastor to conceive of a dynamic where a woman is receiving mistreatment, where at some point along the road, she is not expressly responsible for it,’ Holmes said.”

https://christianitytoday.com/news/2023/february/grace-community-church-elder-biblical-counseling-abuse.html

 

[Faith-manor]

33 minutes ago, TechWife said:

Adding in some info concerning what many have said about GCC.  This has just been published, although their adherence to this approach (for lack of a better word) to abuse has been known for quite some time. It’s not a safe place for women & children. 
 

“While the woman was hospitalized due to her husband’s physical abuse, Shannon called her and advised her to go home without calling police, she told CT. At times, the torment at home was bad enough that she worried she was going to die, but she said she was told that her situation may be ‘God’s will for your life.’

In marital counseling, pastors asked wives whether their attitudes contributed to the patterns of violence, anger, and manipulation in their relationships. In some situations, they implied women were looking for fault in their husbands.

‘It’s hard for a pastor to conceive of a dynamic where a woman is receiving mistreatment, where at some point along the road, she is not expressly responsible for it,’ Holmes said.”

https://christianitytoday.com/news/2023/february/grace-community-church-elder-biblical-counseling-abuse.html

 

This is why SpyCar and I say she has just exchanged one cult for another.

[Spy Car]

2 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

This is why SpyCar and I say she has just exchanged one cult for another.

I mean, for sure.

I'm not going to violate the privacy of those I know, but the stories I've heard mirror what is reported in the post by @TechWife above.

Women, who are frequently victimized by abusive domestic situations (that follow the patriarchal lead of this cult) are pulled into so-called "counselling" by authority figures in the church, and then have all the blame for their abuse put back on them.

It is a sick "church" culture. Not one that is good or godly.

And they break people's lives.

GCC is a cult. And quite a malicious cult.

Bill

 

[Katy]

It's a NYT bestseller.

[Faith-manor]

17 minutes ago, Katy said:

It's a NYT bestseller.

It's not because of popularity. If you notice the dagger symbol, that is the symbol that is used to indicate that the author has bulk purchased the book in order to up the quantity purchased in order to get on the list. They began using this after they were called out for authors buying huge amounts of their own books in order to get on the list. It seemed like a bit of dishonesty so they agreed to use a symbol to indicate that bulk sales from non book sellers is the reason the book crossed the threshold of sales in order to make the list.

 

[Grace Hopper]

2 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

It's not because of popularity. If you notice the dagger symbol, that is the symbol that is used to indicate that the author has bulk purchased the book in order to up the quantity purchased in order to get on the list. They began using this after they were called out for authors buying huge amounts of their own books in order to get on the list. It seemed like a bit of dishonesty so they agreed to use a symbol to indicate that bulk sales from non book sellers is the reason the book crossed the threshold of sales in order to make the list.

 

Mark Driscoll-style shenanigans. 

[Guest]

Thank you for adding that, @TechWife

Just to the thread in general: as I said, my biggest impression is that she is not finished her “disentangling” and I will not be at all surprised if it ends up more like “deconstruction.” I know how difficult it is to re-write the program when you grew up a certain way and had no examples of anything different. 
 

In my own life, my parents (at least) did not believe the stuff about a women always being under either the father or a husband’s authority. While I and my sisters were not encouraged to go to college, we also were not encouraged to marry early and never work (although all of my sisters did marry while they still had “teen” in their ages; I married at 23). When I got a job at a law firm in The Big City when I was 18, it opened huge vistas for me. Before that I had no imagination for what I could be in life; I figured I would marry *somebody*, have kids and that was my life plan. 
 

Jinger would not have been allowed to be courted by Jeremy if her parents had not deemed him sufficiently Christian (and they no doubt say to themselves, “See? We knew this would happen…”) As she relates in the book, her parents blocked him for six months because he of his “worldly”background - he played soccer and completed college and seminary. 
 

What I’m saying is: it may be true she essentially traded one cult for another, however she could not have come this far if she had married someone else in the ATI network. (Look at Jessa and Ben…) It’s a start. When she married Jeremy, she still thought it was her job as a wife to keep him attracted to her. She says in the book that she realizes now how wrong that is. 
 

So. If the same thinking permeates the church where they are now, I expect *something* will happen. I don’t know what that something will be. But I think it’s huge how far she has come and I expect there will be more and probably at least one more book about this from Jinger. 
 

What I would really love is a similar book from someone like Joe or Jed. Would love to hear from the “less famous” boys how all the stuff affected them. 

[TechWife]

GCC issued the following statement.
 

Edited February 10, 2023 by TechWife

[BronzeTurtle]

12 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

It's not because of popularity. If you notice the dagger symbol, that is the symbol that is used to indicate that the author has bulk purchased the book in order to up the quantity purchased in order to get on the list. They began using this after they were called out for authors buying huge amounts of their own books in order to get on the list. It seemed like a bit of dishonesty so they agreed to use a symbol to indicate that bulk sales from non book sellers is the reason the book crossed the threshold of sales in order to make the list.

 

How do you know it's the author making the bulk orders? When I look at the list, Atomic Habits has the same daggar and I know that one actually sells (doesn't it? I know a ton of people who bought it!) and the foot note doesn't seem to indicate anything either way just that it's bulk orders from somewhere.

[katilac]

14 hours ago, Katy said:

It's a NYT bestseller.

Apparently I'm very slow today, I google and it only takes me to the lists of the top 15, and I don't see this or Atomic Habits. 

Can anyone link me directly? 

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, katilac said:

Apparently I'm very slow today, I google and it only takes me to the lists of the top 15, and I don't see this or Atomic Habits. 

Can anyone link me directly? 

I don’t know how to copy the link, but here is a screenshot. 

[Annie G]

https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/

 

I found it as #4 on advice, how to, and misc list. I don’t see daggers. In the first post showing the list I thought the daggers were arrows. 

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by Annie G

[bolt.]

2 hours ago, TechWife said:

GCC issued the following statement.
 

Translation: "We only approve spousal abuse and discipline people for leaving abusive marriages behind closed doors. Just because other people are telling the truth in public and on social media doesn't mean we have to. We deal with accusations secretly by rebuking anyone who brings these things up, including harshly rebuking our own elders and threatening with expulsion them unless they 'walk back' their accusations. We think secrecy like this is biblical -- we just can't find any specific bible verses about it right now. You'll have to trust us, they are in there somewhere. Also the secrecy approach allows us to pretend every one of these accusation is just one event, not a pattern of spiritual abuse. We don't respond to anything publicly, which allows us to paint honest victims and their advocates as liars and injured parties as cowards. Our firm control of anybody we allow to remain in our congregation is some sort of evidence of our good conduct -- for example, if, say, 90% of the people you counsel are not being abused, why would it matter if a small fraction of people actually are? After all, lots of the non-abuse cases really like the way we treat them! Everybody agrees. They all say so: just ask them and see how fast they will line up with the party line. No problems with spiritual abuse here. Nope, nope, nope."

[Katy]

I thought the arrows meant change from the last week too, not bulk orders. Idk. 

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Katy said:

I thought the arrows meant change from the last week too, not bulk orders. Idk. 

The arrow beneath the number does mean this. The dagger is beneath the text, above the “BUY” button. 

[Spy Car]

57 minutes ago, bolt. said:

Translation: "We only approve spousal abuse and discipline people for leaving abusive marriages behind closed doors. Just because other people are telling the truth in public and on social media doesn't mean we have to. We deal with accusations secretly by rebuking anyone who brings these things up, including harshly rebuking our own elders and threatening with expulsion them unless they 'walk back' their accusations. We think secrecy like this is biblical -- we just can't find any specific bible verses about it right now. You'll have to trust us, they are in there somewhere. Also the secrecy approach allows us to pretend every one of these accusation is just one event, not a pattern of spiritual abuse. We don't respond to anything publicly, which allows us to paint honest victims and their advocates as liars and injured parties as cowards. Our firm control of anybody we allow to remain in our congregation is some sort of evidence of our good conduct -- for example, if, say, 90% of the people you counsel are not being abused, why would it matter if a small fraction of people actually are? After all, lots of the non-abuse cases really like the way we treat them! Everybody agrees. They all say so: just ask them and see how fast they will line up with the party line. No problems with spiritual abuse here. Nope, nope, nope."

You absolutely nailed it.

Bill

[Faith-manor]

Here is an explanation of the symbol. I have seen numerous boom ranking systems online all say the same thing. Bulk order by author or publicist.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/methodology/

 

https://bookriot.com/buying-books-onto-the-bestseller-list/

Edited February 10, 2023 by Faith-manor

[katilac]

1 hour ago, Annie G said:

https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/

 

I found it as #4 on advice, how to, and misc list. I don’t see daggers. In the first post showing the list I thought the daggers were arrows. 

 

Thank you! I was looking at the main list and the non-fiction list, and it's not on those. 

Edited to add: looks like 5 of the 10 have the dagger. 

Edited February 10, 2023 by katilac

[Katy]

3 hours ago, Quill said:

The arrow beneath the number does mean this. The dagger is beneath the text, above the “BUY” button. 

Thank you. So half of the spots are purchased. That’s disappointing 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Katy said:

Thank you. So half of the spots are purchased. That’s disappointing 

Yeah kinda. But also, I can see how a lot of authors use bulk purchasing for marketing purposes and landing on the NYT list is sort of a nice side-effect. For instance, consider how many churches bulk purchased The Purpose-Driven Life around 2002/03. So, both things were true: lots of people were actually reading the book but also lots of books were sold. 

[BronzeTurtle]

1 hour ago, Katy said:

Thank you. So half of the spots are purchased. That’s disappointing 

Well, I don't even know if it's disappointing. I can't figure out what it means. I mean doesn't a big bookstore or chain buy in bulk orders? Or wouldn't Amazon make a large order based on pre-orders? I try to support authors by pre-ordering because they say it helps them because then Amazon buys more copies. I'm confused about how it's a bad thing or notable to have bulk orders in the days of big box stores and Amazon.

[katilac]

6 hours ago, BronzeTurtle said:

Well, I don't even know if it's disappointing. I can't figure out what it means. I mean doesn't a big bookstore or chain buy in bulk orders? Or wouldn't Amazon make a large order based on pre-orders? I try to support authors by pre-ordering because they say it helps them because then Amazon buys more copies. I'm confused about how it's a bad thing or notable to have bulk orders in the days of big box stores and Amazon.

It's bulk orders that aren't from known bookstores. So it could range from a special group that is actually using the books, like the churches Quill talked about, to the author or a supporting organization buying the books simply to drive the numbers up. 

[Pawz4me]

I haven't read much of this thread, but this morning I saw a review of Jinger's book on the NYT and thought some of you might be interested. It's a gifted link, so hopefully will work --

A Duggar revisits her spiritual upbringing

[kbutton]

On 2/10/2023 at 1:52 PM, bolt. said:

Also the secrecy approach allows us to pretend every one of these accusation is just one event, not a pattern of spiritual abuse.

...

Our firm control of anybody we allow to remain in our congregation is some sort of evidence of our good conduct -- for example, if, say, 90% of the people you counsel are not being abused, why would it matter if a small fraction of people actually are? After all, lots of the non-abuse cases really like the way we treat them! 

This is how some people inside the congregation don't know about it either. 

A lot of people don't realize how easy it is for only some people to know how this stuff works, and how easy it is for people to think their good experience or good teaching is how everyone is encountering the group they are enjoying. (And this is why I hold out some hope that this doesn't *have* to be a lateral move for her and could truly be a move toward better things.)

[Terabith]

I totally agree that she's exchanged one cult for another, but it sounds like the new cult is maybe less damaging to the future of her children?  

She's not being forced to keep having children every 18 months until menopause.  She says she's planning to send her kids to public school.  

I think that alone will give them options and open vistas for them, even if she herself never further deconstructs, that her first cult would not permit? 

[MercyA]

Not a MacArthur fan, but I think we're playing a little fast and loose with the cult designation here.

To me, a cult is a group that tries to keep you from interacting with the outside world; that requires you turn over large parts of your income to them; that imposes strict extra-Scriptural guidelines in many areas of life; that wants to make major life decisions for you, like where you will work or who you will marry.

I think MacArthur's church sounds super unhealthy, as well as unloving, based on how they treated their neighbors during the pandemic and based on how they've treated abused women. I personally would not go so far as to call it a cult.

[Spy Car]

47 minutes ago, MercyA said:

Not a MacArthur fan, but I think we're playing a little fast and loose with the cult designation here.

To me, a cult is a group that tries to keep you from interacting with the outside world; that requires you turn over large parts of your income to them; that imposes strict extra-Scriptural guidelines in many areas of life; that wants to make major life decisions for you, like where you will work or who you will marry.

I think MacArthur's church sounds super unhealthy, as well as unloving, based on how they treated their neighbors during the pandemic and based on how they've treated abused women. I personally would not go so far as to call it a cult.

But they do almost of the things that you require as making for being a cult above.

The don't make their members shun the world, but the rest applies.

Bill

[MercyA]

4 hours ago, Spy Car said:

But they do almost of the things that you require as making for being a cult above.

The don't make their members shun the world, but the rest applies.

Bill

Could be, Bill. I wouldn't think a church that big would be involved in things like arranging marriages, arranging for specific occupations for people, etc., but nothing surprises me any more.

I guess I was thinking of when my aunt and uncle were in a cult and they were encouraged to tithe some HUGE percent of their income (50%?) and just socialize with people at that church, etc.

Also, I live in a community with a large number of Amish and conservative Mennonite people, and I wouldn't go so far as to call their churches cults, even though some have severe excommunication practices and very strict guidelines for everything from clothing to technology to the colors of their houses and barns.

Semantics, maybe, but I think I have wrongly labeled some groups cults myself in the past so I try to be careful now.

[Spy Car]

2 minutes ago, MercyA said:

Could be, Bill. I wouldn't think a church that big would be involved in things like arranging marriages, arranging for specific occupations for people, etc., but nothing surprises me any more.

I guess I was thinking of when my aunt and uncle were in a cult and they were encouraged to tithe some HUGE percent of their income (50%?) and just socialize with people at that church, etc.

Also, I live in a community with a large number of Amish and conservative Mennonite people, and I wouldn't go so far as to call their churches cults, even though some have severe excommunication practices and very strict guidelines for everything from clothing to technology to the colors of their houses and barns.

Semantics, maybe, but I think I have wrongly labeled some groups cults myself in the past so I try to be careful now.

If the GCC isn't a cult, then the term is without meaning.

I'm not sure you fully appreciate just how deeply the abuse of spiritual authority runs in this church, or how powerful Johnny Mac is as this cult's leader.

This goes way beyond being a conservative church. This is a cult. Pure and simple. 

Bill

[Katy]

Ugh I read a horrible account of a woman in Grace’s seminary who was tossed out for not dropping charges against a stranger who drugged her and kept her drugged and raped for three days. He admitted what he did but was crying in repentance so it was drop the charges or get kicked out. No one there would support her because if they did they would get fired or kicked put too. And today there are rumors that Jeremy himself has participated in similar counseling, threatening to excommunicate women who press charges and leave abusive relationships. It’s still a cult. 

[kbutton]

16 hours ago, Katy said:

No one there would support her because if they did they would get fired or kicked put too.

There are more and less passive ways of controlling people. People don't want to leave their social networks readily, lose a job, or lose influence, and that enables a range of things from bad behavior to abuse. 

I think cultic conformity can take a lot of forms, and it's not necessarily that everyone does the same thing or is asked to make big sacrifices. Social pressure and a certain amount of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing can create a cultic atmosphere. Add in what happens when someone gets a peek behind the curtain, and you have a cult of a different kind. I don't know that every cult leader feels a need to exert the same kind of control. There may be some that enjoy having people think they are normal leaders and delighting in showing them that's not the case when they step out of line vs. controlling every little thing. If there are bad rumors swirling, and the leader can somehow hoodwink a significant swathe of his congregation into defending him because their personal experience actually is pretty normal, imagine the sense of power that leader would feel.

Yeah, it's a cult.

 

[ktgrok]

A big issue is that like IBLP, GCC is another place where it is about a single person rather than a process. He has SO much power, and there is no getting away from it. And that power extends into communities, not just church life. 

[Katy]

Scrupulously is right… Interesting but long video. 
 

 

[Guest]

Omg, I tried to watch that incomprehensible video….it’s like Zooming with Boomers, who can’t stop awkwardly interrupting each other, which creates a delay, which makes the attempted joke incomprehensible..also, what was the purpose of leading in with an interminable 30 second count down? 
 

I just couldn’t. 

[Katy]

It’s supposed to be funny. I just fast forwarded through the opening. You’ll be delighted to know that you also skipped a completely unnecessary “sponsor” commercial that satirically says Gothard’s umbrella of authority can prevent all sorts of sins like foot tapping or beards on men. And an ending with made-up crew members, researchers, and lawyers with ironic names like “the law firm of Dewey, Chetham and How.”