Another Duggar has been arrested on molestation charges.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/us/joseph-duggar-arrest-child-sex-abuse.html
When the news broke, you bet I’d be writing about it again—not from a place of condemnation, but from the perspective of someone who has experienced harm and is still navigating my faith in light of it.
At some point, it stops feeling shocking and starts feeling predictable. That’s not something I say lightly. It’s something I say as someone who grew up in environments shaped by IBLP, the Institute in Basic Life Principles, where purity was emphasized relentlessly, but accountability, especially for men, was dismissed. The more I’ve sat with the news of yet another Duggar, the more I’ve realized that what we’re seeing isn’t just about individuals making bad choices. It’s about patterns, and more specifically, the systems that allow those patterns to continue.
Growing up, I followed the Duggars on TLC, and I’d say my siblings wanted to emulate them in their romantic lives. They admired how the girls honored and respected their parents, chose modesty, and followed the structure of courtship. But rarely were there conversations about the boys in the family and their wrongdoing—if there were any at all. When there was a girl, like Jana, who defied the rules, it was always noticed and talked about. When it came to someone like Amy Duggar, who was often seen as the “black sheep” of the family, the narrative felt already decided. Her perspective was treated as the problem, while the Duggar family’s way of doing things was upheld as the standard. Any pushback or difference in belief was framed as rebellion rather than something worth listening to.
When the original scandal involving Josh Duggar came out, something Amy later shared stood out to me. She talked about how, growing up, she wasn’t allowed to be alone with her grandfather. There were clear rules. He couldn’t be in a car with her, and doors were locked at night. Boundaries were put in place that signaled something wasn’t right, but it was never named. She didn’t understand why as a child, and it wasn’t until later that she was told he had been considered a predator. While those boundaries may have offered a level of protection, they also reveal something deeper about how situations like this are often handled. When something is serious enough to require protection but not serious enough to be spoken out loud, that’s where complicity begins—not in loud, obvious ways, but in what people know is wrong and keep quiet about. Because when something is never named, it doesn’t just disappear—it gets carried.
That kind of silence isn’t unfamiliar to me. I remember an incident growing up that has stayed with me, not just because of what happened, but because of how it was handled. Someone in our home made the decision to grab a ladder and use it to look into a bathroom while a guest was showering. Even as a young teen, I knew something about that wasn’t right. What stayed with me wasn’t just the situation itself, but everything that followed. There was a shift in the atmosphere, tension you could feel but not talk about. There were consequences. That person wasn’t included in Christmas that year and was eventually sent away for the summer due to ongoing conflict within the family. But what actually happened was never openly named. Whether or not anything could have been pursued legally, what stayed with me was how quickly it was handled internally, quietly and indirectly, without ever fully naming what had happened. I learned early on that things could be serious enough to require action but still not serious enough to be spoken out loud.
The more I’ve reflected on that, the more I’ve realized it wasn’t just about that moment. It was about the environment that shaped how it was handled. In spaces influenced by IBLP teachings, there was often a pattern of dealing with serious issues internally and quietly in ways that prioritized maintaining the image of the family over confronting the truth. There was language around forgiveness, restoration, and protecting unity, but not always the same urgency around accountability or fully acknowledging harm. When you combine that with authority structures that discourage questioning leadership or bringing things into the open, it creates an environment where harm doesn’t just happen. It gets absorbed, managed, and quietly carried forward. Not resolved. Not confronted. Just absorbed.
“Because protecting a marriage at the expense of protecting children was never the heart of the Gospel.”
In addition to men being positioned as the authority, IBLP also teaches women to submit in ways that often require them to present themselves as softer, smaller, and less assertive.
I think about how Michelle Duggar presented herself on 19 Kids and Counting. The tone of her voice, the way she spoke to Jim Bob, the posture she carried—it was all seen as the standard. In my own home, and in many others, that dynamic was viewed as the pinnacle of respect and adoration. It was framed as what it meant to be a godly wife, to honor and respect your husband in the way the Bible teaches. And while that’s something Scripture does call women to, it also calls husbands to love and care for their wives in the same way. Looking back, I don’t just see respect—I see a model of submission that required women to diminish themselves in order to maintain it.
Purity culture, at its core, claimed to protect. But in practice, it often centered men in ways that shifted responsibility onto women. Girls were taught to be mindful of how they dressed, how they acted, and how they might “cause” someone else to stumble, while accountability for male behavior was softened, redirected, or handled behind closed doors. When something did happen, it was often dealt with quietly and reframed in ways that made it seem like it was being handled appropriately, even when it wasn’t. I’ve seen situations described as “counseling” or “time away,” when in reality it was more about managing perception than actually addressing what had happened. Because when the goal is to preserve the image, truth becomes secondary.
We see this dynamic play out not just in theory, but in real time. Anna Duggar has remained with her husband through his arrest, trial, and conviction, even as extensive evidence was presented in court. She has continued to stand by him, maintaining his innocence, and has relocated to be closer to the prison where he is serving his sentence. According to the terms of his release, he will be required to register as a sex offender, will not be allowed unsupervised contact with minors, including his own children, and will have strict limitations on his access to the internet, all under monitoring. And yet, she remains. Not because the situation is unclear, but because in many evangelical spaces, especially those influenced by teachings like IBLP, women are taught that faithfulness means staying, enduring, and preserving the marriage at all costs. Divorce isn’t just discouraged, it’s often framed as failure regardless of the circumstances.
When that kind of belief system is in place, it doesn’t just influence decisions, it shapes what feels possible. And in systems like this, women are often raised to depend on their husbands, not equipped to support themselves independently, and taught to build their entire lives around the home. Walking away isn’t just emotional—it can mean losing financial stability, community, and everything they’ve been taught to rely on. So when people ask why someone would stay, I don’t think the answer is always as simple as loyalty or belief. Sometimes it’s about what feels possible. Systems like this don’t sustain themselves on truth. They sustain themselves on silence, on compliance, and on people doing what they’ve been taught is “right,” even when it comes at a personal cost. When silence is required to maintain righteousness, something has already gone wrong.
It forces a deeper question that can’t just be brushed aside. Is this actually biblical? When we’re called to care for and protect the vulnerable, children in this instance, what does it say when those same children are placed in environments where harm has already been established? What does it say when protecting the image of a marriage is prioritized over protecting the people within it? At what point do we stop calling that faithfulness and start calling it something else?
Because protecting a marriage at the expense of protecting children was never the heart of the Gospel.
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