Here's Why Jinger Duggar Vuolo Chose NOT to Deconstruct Her Faith

foreign [Music] podcast where we equip Christians to identify the core beliefs of historic Christianity discern its counterfeits and proclaim the gospel with Clarity kindness and truth and today's episode is brought to you by impact 360 who creates life-changing summer experiences plus a gap year program for students go to impact360.org to learn more I am so excited about the conversation that I just got to have with ginger Duggar Volo now many of you may know her from the reality show 19 Kids and Counting she basically grew up on TV as a part of the reality show of the family of the Duggars they grew up as a really connected with the teachings of Bill Gothard and I honestly before I read her book I didn't know that much about that whole world and so her book was very enlightening it's called becoming free indeed my story of disentangling Faith from fear and so I I there were some things in this conversation that really stood out to me that I hope will really minister to you one thing that really stood out to me about Ginger's story is that as she became aware that some of the teachings of Bill Gothard and that whole gothardism and that whole kind of culture were very unbiblical and even abusive she didn't just deconstruct the whole thing and throw out her faith in fact she doesn't use the word deconstruction in her book she calls it disentangling in fact that's in the tagline of the book my story of disentangling Faith from Fear so instead of choosing deconstruction she did the hard work of taking years to go to scripture and say is what I taught who Jesus really is is the gospel I was given the real gospel it's a phenomenal book I want to recommend that everybody read it and I'm very excited for you to get to hear this conversation I have with her today I have a co-host today you all know Melissa Doherty we both were really intrigued by this story and so we just decided to go ahead and do a mashup release it on both of our channels and interview Ginger together and I think you're going to just find her to be delightful and just a beautiful representative of Christ and what it can look like to grow up in hyper legalism and disentangle that from real authentic biblical faith and become free from fear and living in a just thriving Christian faith so can't wait for you to hear this conversation I do want to let you know I know this is an unusual day for us to release a podcast on YouTube it's Thursday and that's because Melissa and I are going to release it on the same day but if you're listening on the audio platforms this is your normal day you're getting this on Sunday but I do want to let you know for All of You YouTube people watching this that on Sunday afternoon we are going to be doing a live stream with Scott Lindsay from Logos Bible software I use Logos Bible Software every day for my regular Bible reading and for my deeper studies I absolutely love it there is just endless possibilities of things you can discover on logos wonderful commentaries word studies maps um top like topical commentaries it's just it's so wonderful and so Scott's going to bring a special discount for our audience so tune in for that if you're looking for a way to dive deeper into your Bible study to make it a little bit more accessible to you easy to oh there's so many wonderful devotionals it's just so great so we're going to be doing a live stream on Sunday that will actually not go to the audio platforms because it's going to be so visual he's going to walk us through some of the software options and show us what it looks like when you open this tab and how to do a word study things like that so if you're listening on the audio platforms and you might be interested in maybe checking that out and getting that discount watch the live stream because that's where you're going to be able to get that information all right guys without any further Ado I'm so excited for you to hear from Ginger and how she disentangled Faith from Fear all right Ginger so glad to talk with you today we're so we've been so looking forward to this I loved reading your book and for anyone who might be unfamiliar with you and your story you basically grew up on TV and was have been a Christian your whole life tell a little bit about your story of coming to Faith as a young girl and growing up on TV and then what kind of started this process of you rethinking some of the teachings that you grew up with yeah it was an interesting Journey definitely that the Lord took me on I was raised in a family who um sought to point me to Jesus so a Christian family I went to church um every Sunday and I'm so grateful for how my parents sought to point me to Jesus from an early age and tell me that salvation was not by works and I had a good foundation for that um and so then also alongside that I was raised on TV from the age of 10 until just a couple years ago about 27 and so um that was an interesting Journey being in the public eye it's definitely not always easy especially when you walk through the most difficult seasons of your life in front of a camera that's kind of hard but it was also interesting to see God gave awesome opportunities for us to like be able to speak truth in that setting um but it yeah they definitely had challenges as well um and so I was so grateful for that Foundation that my parents gave me though with like the gospel but at the same time I also followed a teacher in those throughout those formative years that would teach the exact opposite he uh he even told a story at one point of a woman who needed a cleanup for her life clean up this mess because you can't bring Jesus into this mess so do my steps and that will um be what you need to do before you can come to Jesus so that there was confusion there was a lot of fear in my life um and uncertainty about what was expected of me from God and um those early years I'd say like once I was a Christian I was saved at the age of 14 the Lord really did a work in my heart and I'm so grateful because I can see how growing up under teachings that give you all these steps to reach God it would be so easy to lean on that for being right with God and so I was so grateful that the Lord humbled me and opened my eyes to my need for a savior and he snatched me out of my legalistic out of my performative attitude of coming to him and I just saw I couldn't do anything to gain favor with God and he saved me from my sins and I'm so grateful yeah well your book is called becoming free indeed my story of disentangling Faith from fear and I loved I loved your book I thought you did such a good job of communicating you really honored your family and your parents while at the same time your word disentangling some of the teachings you grew up with from real Christianity from authentic faith and you know I think growing up I grew up kind of in the 80s and 90s in Evangelical culture and I had zero exposure to the the specific teachings that you did which so I learned so much from your book of just that real hyper legalism and the approach to you know even gender roles and things like that and so often in the deconstruction movement you have people who might have grown up in a legalistic context and then when they realized that some of that is wrong they tend to kind of tangle it all up together and throw the whole thing away or maybe reinvent a faith that's really more palatable to them or something that feels safer to them and that's understandable I think we can all understand the knee-jerk reaction to want to do that to to want to find teachings that feel safer to you that feel you know non-toxic to you um but but in your book you talk so specifically about the years-long journey you went on to disentangle um the false teachings from the real gospel and I was so excited when I saw that word because so many people tend to just jump to that word deconstruction and I wanted to ask you specifically like why did you reject the word deconstruction in favor of something like unthreading or disentangling because not a lot of people are making those distinctions and I think you did a beautiful job with that yeah I think it's so interesting to see I think in the culture that we're in there's so much focus on how much pain Somebody went through which is a lot of times this real pain and I know I experienced that the confusion that you experience when whenever you're listening to a teacher who claims to speak for God but doesn't or um you're in a church setting that is difficult and it's um it's challenging to come out of that and to say okay well God's word is true even though that teacher may have implied some things that weren't based in the Bible or maybe they um would were abusive in their words or even sadly so many who have experienced much more pain than I could have ever imagined within the context of church or somebody who was a minister so I I understand there's so much pain there and hurt but sadly this deconstruction movement has become a thing where if you've been harmed within Christianity at all then a lot of people are just tearing their faith down to the studs never to build it up again saying this is how I'm going to cope this is how I'm going to get through is by Throwing It All Away and that's something that we've seen a rise in really and and it's so sad so I whenever I was thinking through my story um I had uh that word I remember the word deconstruction I was like that's definitely not it that's not my journey because you see like Joshua Harris has this deconstructure starter pack that he's offering for people and I was like that is so sad and it's so tragic that people are turning to that and I think so many in the Christian world may use the word deconstruction because of like I don't have a good word for what I'm going through yeah and they feel like you have to narrow it down to one word so um the word disentangling is just something that makes sense and um I did tell the story so many times because it it just kind of gives a good picture but like if you get putty stuck in your hair you can just shave your head you can just take all of your hair off and say I'm done I'm not gonna work through this to take it out of my hair but there's also another way that you can go you can take the time to pick out the putty even even though it's painful it's hard it will take a very long time and it's a slow process so that's something that I feel like I've been on this journey with the Lord and with an Open Bible just going and saying okay I was so confused about who God was the nature and character of God the union with Christ I have as a believer that I can view God as a loving heavenly father when I thought that he was always out to get me as this child that if I stepped outside of some boxer stepped across a line I didn't know that even existed that God's waiting there to punish me or to kill me and like from something that I didn't even know I did so some of those things you have to disentangle is just realizing you need to go and examine everything according to the Bible and so with an Open Bible saying okay I want to see what this teacher said because he claimed to be a Bible teacher so let me see what he says is it based in the Bible or is it not and if it's not I want to follow God's word and that's a hard a really hard thing to do and I think so many people um have a challenge with that because they've been like they can only view a verse of the Bible one way because a teacher has always taught it that way and so drilled into you um so it's tough but being in a good church also helps with that like I'd say that's something where I know so many have been harmed by Christianity they want to run to the Other Extreme of like well I'm just going to figure this out on my own for so many years and um the the trust of like finding a good church finding that Community where you can heal and also where you can be grounded in what is true and I think it all goes back to regardless of who you are you have to be bery and you have to open the Bible for yourself and see what it says and um also like not putting your trust in a person because people will always let us down inside the church outside the church you will never find anyone um aside from Jesus himself who is perfect and will never let you down he will never leave you or forsake you as his child and I think that's where my soul found rest is in those truths and realizing who Jesus truly is that's so great have you received much pushback from the deconstruction community there's been some interesting um interactions that uh I've had but for the most part I think a lot of people have said huh that's so interesting like maybe that's a better way to describe this so good it's I think it's been more maybe Christians who were using the word deconstruction and they thought that was their only word that they could find so I think there's been more of that than people actually pushing out back against it unless they were like ginger you need to leave Christianity all together right right um and that that definitely has happened um but other than that it's not been too bad yeah so for it sounds like that you are looking for answers and not exits and I find that very interesting that uh people who tend to deconstruct um at least from what I can tell a lot of times they don't want it anymore right like they don't want to actually know what the Bible teaches and you have a really good point as I was reading your whole book I just I I was really interested in how it seemed that Bill Gothard took the place of what the Bible was actually trying to say and I find that a lot of teachers do that where if you want to learn about the Bible and know about it they will basically be the Bible by proxy what would you say to someone who maybe is coming from a legalistic background and they're going through this where they want out because they've been hurt and there's another way to disentangle and look for answers instead of exits what would you say to someone in a similar situation as you are I think from I remember whenever I first realized that Bill Gothard was not a Bible teacher and that his teachings were totally opposite of the scriptures then that was what was the first the first like moment where I saw like my eyes were open to realize that this man is not who he said he was and that was scary for me I remember feeling very scared because if these teachings aren't true then he doesn't have something mapped out for me that is going to lead me to this perfect life of success guaranteed success for my kids to turn out perfectly for um everything in my life to go well her finances to always be there for all these things that he promised it was more of like a health wealth and prosperity gospel even though you never said that he would my family would have rejected that entirely um and so I I started to see that's not right but for me because I love Jesus because I was saved at the age of 14 I genuinely just wanted to love Jesus I wanted to see what his word actually said and sadly like I had gotten on that treadmill of trying to perform in a way like I wasn't trying to earn my salvation by it but I definitely was trying to like figure out okay how do I grow what is what does it mean to grow in in love for Jesus doesn't mean like keeping up all these outward things so I felt like I was constantly working towards that and I think a lot of people can identify with that mindset of like okay once I love Jesus what do I do what can I do and so yes there's a doing side of the gospel because the when we're transformed from the inside out that's what the Overflow of our heart is we want to glorify God so I think for me I was coming at this from a different perspective seeing like okay I I can see how everybody wants to throw everything off that's not what I want to do I want to see who Jesus truly is because I love him and I want to know my savior more and more um and so for me it was it was looking at the Bible as a whole and seeing okay I'm not going to just be able to pick out verses anymore that was something that I'd done all these years and so yes looking for those answers and I'll exits that's a really good way to put that because I think so many people maybe if if they don't have a genuine relationship with Jesus and they've only been doing all the outward stuff you will look for exits because when it gets exhausting whenever life is tough or maybe these guarantees don't turn out if your heart's not truly transformed by the gospel then it's only you working you're trying to work your way to God and that will only reveal itself in the true nature of what your heart wants and what it Longs for desires and I think a lot of kids who are raised in that setting I saw a lot of them be you spend years of like being in confusion or hurt but then the ones who genuinely love Jesus and whose Hearts have been changed by the gospel they will run to Jesus even if it takes some years of like processing this stuff um so I think it goes down to the inward heart like where your heart it hasn't been transformed by the saving work of Jesus Christ or is it just an external performance that you've been living in [Music] well I want to tell you about our first sponsor today it's good ranchers you guys know I love good ranchers I have always been someone who has sought out grass-fed beef pastured chicken wild caught Seafood I just love good quality meat and what I love about good ranchers is that they deliver it right to your home it comes Frozen you can stick it in your freezer and it makes it so easy to decide what to have for dinner right now I've got some chicken breasts thawing out that I'm gonna cook up tonight I don't even know what I'm gonna do yet I might just do salt and pepper and Grill them in the pan but it is ready to go and it makes it so easy and then I know that I'm giving my family good quality meat that's not pumped full of hormones and antibiotics pastured chicken grass-fed beef and this is the month to sign up month of March is when you're gonna get free bacon for a year so if you sign up at goodranchers.com during the month of March you're going to get free bacon for an entire year the other thing I love about good reenters is that when you subscribe once you lock in that first subscription your price will never go up that will be your price for the life of your subscription and then you know you can also use the code Elisa to get 20 off of your first box so it's a no-brainer March is the month to do it to get your free bacon go to goodranchers.com use the code Elisa for 20 off your box and free bacon for a year goodranchers.com American Meat delivered [Music] that's a really profound Insight um I'm going to be thinking about that one for a long time it's like when when your heart is transferred because I feel like that that was my story I had a faith crisis over 10 years ago that nearly led me to the edge of agnosticism and yet I knew Jesus I had my heart had been transformed and I could not walk away and I I think that's a really profound Insight you know it's interesting I mentioned that growing up I had zero exposure like to Bill Gothard let's say you know specifically but some of that stuff I think got in everywhere because I related with so much of your story like when you talked about how you you felt like maybe God would punish you if you made the wrong choice and you had this angst over whether to go pray play broomball or stay home and read your Bible you know and I so relate with that because I remember going to summer camp and just feeling like I really recommitted my heart to Christ and then I didn't watch Punky Brewster for like two weeks and I was like that was my legalism you know I was like self-imposed but um it's so interesting too that that you mentioned picking out verses maybe not really being taught or given being given the tools to read the Bible for yourself I feel like that's I experienced some of that too where I would pick out verses like you'll be blessed in the city you'll be blessed in the field and just this morning I was out walking and listening to my daily Bible reading and it was the next section where it says and if you disobey you'll be cursed in the city you'll be cursed in the field but never like re I never claimed that part or you know said that works for me so that's really interesting but the the legalism it's like when I read when I read your book I just there was just this purity of your heart so wanting to please Jesus and in the deconstruction movement you see people who come from maybe some type of a legalistic background like that and um like you said maybe their hearts haven't been transformed by the gospel so they're looking for a way out they want to call the whole thing toxic but your story is such a ray of Hope for people because here you are saying look here's how you can do this without losing Jesus and it's just I don't know it's such a beautiful beautiful story but for people who might not really be familiar with Bill gothard's teachings and even the controversy surrounding that whole thing because I I didn't I really learned about that from your book and then I started doing some internet research on that whole thing but but give us an idea of of just basically what these teachings were specifically as they related to women in particular and um and the legalism that came along with that Bill Gothard he came on the scene in the 60s and 70s whenever parents were super scared that their kids were going to get involved in sex drugs and rock and roll and that whole movement so they they were looking for answers and Bill Gothard came on the scene promising a guarantee of success for your family so if you follow my seven basic life principles then God will bless your life but if you don't then your life will be one disaster after another and so these principles were some of them were character he would give like character qualities which I think a lot of people thought oh that's harmless it's good and I mean I would kind of agree there was some good like character stuff that he would say we need to teach our kids good character because um kids are rebellious nowadays against parents or whatever Authority any Authority and so he would talk about that but then the further in you got to his teachings you started to realize man this is just really um oppressive and it's very it's not based in the Bible so he was very comfortable placing burdens on people's lives where the scripture spoke nothing about it so where the scripture is silent he was very comfortable speaking and building a case for something and then having you make a vow to keep this and so that was something that um whether that was like not listening to music with drums which I know a lot of people probably grew up in churches where whenever drums first started to enter the church they'd be like hold on this is not okay it's a new thing but you can almost be stuck in an era of time so it's like well in the 60s and 70s if something's changing let's push back against that change let's stay in the 60s and 70s let's keep this like what we've always known and there's a certain sense of like tradition and all of that but when it goes to the extreme of saying okay well this is Bible and you need to live your life like this don't wear pants if you're a woman don't work outside the home stay at home until you're married and if you don't then you could be bringing destruction upon yourself and you're not under the protection of God or under the protection of your parents if you're outside of an umbrella so he he would teach all of these things that on the outside I think a lot of parents would say okay that's easy enough let's have our kids do courtship and never be alone um without a chaperone or don't kiss until you're married don't hold hands until you're engaged like all these rules that he was you would come up with within this system it seems so easy and what it really did though sadly was it it didn't leave any room for Christian Liberty or for even bleeding of the Holy Spirit within each Christian's life you all look the same you were cookie cutters and it was it was so easy because Bill Gothard had prescribed everything that you were to do to gain favor or Success With God and so as a young person I remember even in my younger teen years I remember looking at other families who maybe their kids rebelled or maybe they had a tough financial situation and I look at their families and I would think they just haven't learned yet about these teaching and so they just need to hear Bill Gothard only because he's the only man who has this you know these special teachings from God and they need to learn these teachings for their kids to be success for their family to be a light to the Nations for them to have good finances and I was I would look at that and judge so quickly and I thought whenever I have my own family one day I'm going to raise them in these teachings and I'm not going to have to worry about my kids rebelling they're all going to turn out to love Jesus and it's going to be easy and that really takes the total Reliance upon like even having to pray because you realize man like if it's all prescribed for me I'm just I mean in the bible we have what's right and wrong but there are still those areas where it's like Lord what do you desire for me to do you know like inches on your skirt in those days was like okay well you have to have like two inches below the knee or whatever it was never buying a sleeveless shirt um but you can roll your sleeves up in the sun of course but it was like all of those things that I thought this is easy like I have it all figured out and once I realized that and these teachings just aren't based in Scripture it was scary for me because then I thought oh my I have to go to the word of God now to see what Lord would have me to do in all of these areas that I thought were so already black and white um and so that's something that I think sadly like a lot of parents would get wrapped up in because it's just it's just the guarantee seemed so good [Music] well I hope you're enjoying our conversation with ginger Duggar Volo about her book becoming free indeed my story of disentangling Faith from Fear And as I have this conversation I just can't help but think about how important it is to really model for our kids a genuine authentic Faith to teach them the real gospel so that one day they won't have to disentangle that stuff and one great resource for that is impact 360. this is one of our sponsors on the podcast I have partnered with impact 360 for years I'm one of their faculty speakers I go to all the events the summer events the Gap year program it's one of my favorite things to do is to drive up to beautiful Pine Mountain Georgia they have a beautiful campus you guys and teach for a couple of days on the Gap year program and one day for the summer experiences which is the two-week immersion experience and the one week Propel experience now immersion is full it's March we're getting near the summer it's already full get on the the wait list for that one for sure but if you have never gone to an impact 360 experience Propel is a great introduction it's one week long they do a lot of apologetics training theology training Community discipleship they have fun they play games and they just it's just a wonderful experience for kids to start to really get solidified in their faith and learn leadership skills that will last last them their whole lives so there are still spots open for Propel for this year so go to impact360.org propel to register your student for that experience and then you know who knows maybe they'll end up doing the Gap year I'm really hoping my kids will both end up doing that it's a wonderful program so again go to impact360.org or impact360.org Propel to register for this year's Propel experience foreign [Music] yeah throughout the reading of your book I was enamored with everything you just said the black and white-ness of it all where it was almost formulaic like if you do this formula then you're gonna be breath for it and you and I have a mutual friend donvino where yeah he wrote a lot about gothicism and I didn't even know anything about it but he wasn't the first base so to speak on me even knowing oh that's what the Duggars believe because I used to actually used to watch uh it was when it was 14 Kids and Counting I used to watch it when it first came way back that's so crazy it was when you guys were in the first house and everything and um crazy when baby Josie was born all that I was kind of there for that it was it's interesting so um but I was curious about that I'm like well why why what is up with this like how come you know what's up with the dresses what's up with the rules and all these things and there's a pattern with high control religious where they say if you do this then you will be blessed and I was so enamored by your uh comparing it to the health and wealth gospel I would actually love for you to unpack that a little bit more where you would have said and I call this spiritual gaslighting where you will have a leader basically teach something and then deny they teach that thing and it really messes with you yeah and uh I would love for you to unpack that a little bit more how would you have been in a position to deny the health and wealth gospel while at the same time uh have followed those four moleic uh attitudes to bring about blessing I think that is so interesting because I I I just didn't realize the amount of teachings that Bill Gothard had that were um just that they were the health and wealth gospel because as a young kid I think because that was all I ever knew I just heard that there were all these false teachers all these guys that promised you everything um and you shouldn't follow them because you know they're promising you like you're gonna get a big plane so claim it you know like we wouldn't say we're gonna claim anything but we would we would deny that and we watched Like This Strange Fire I remember watching The Strange Fire um thing from Pastor John McArthur and I was like wow that's really crazy what are those guys doing at the same time I was like the most about Bill Gothard follower um like I remember once I got into the teachings the Gothard even said at one point um he said when talking about suffering he said job had three fears and he went into like these fears and this is why he you know that his kids would die and he lost everything that he had his wealth and it's because he had these fears that all these terrible things happened to him so you just the thing that I feared came up on me as he would say and it was like well what about Joe being the most righteous man on the earth you know you see this that it was not it was not what he didn't do or what he said these words I started to believe I started to believe that if I had this fear of like what if I fear I'm gonna get cancer what if I fear that I'm going to get married and my husband's gonna die the same day like if I fear that it's going to come upon me so I started to believe that and I thought if I just don't believe these things I'm going to control what's going to happen in the future so it was that weird superstitious confusion that I lived in for so many years because I thought it's it's what I think what I say what I do like like I was just saying but the broomball thing was crazy because I would just say okay how do I feel today like oh do I feel like I should go do I feel like I've read my Bible long enough even if I read my Bible for an hour that morning it didn't matter I would still feel like maybe I'm supposed to stay home maybe I'm supposed to fast today okay I have this feeling I'm supposed to fast if I don't I might be killed in a car accident or maybe I'm gonna get some crazy disease so you started to live your life by that instead of by basing anything that Bill Gothard said off of the word of God so that's how I felt like with him there was a certain understanding a lot of people had within that setting saying okay he's almost like maybe he's a modern day Prophet sent from God which we would have totally rejected if any other Church said that but because it was Bill Gothard I just kind of fell into that and believed it was there a consequence so there's uh something you write in your book about uh bill gothard's I think it was the principles and his teachings and one of the things that you said was like a generational curse yes or yeah so if something bad happened and honestly it reminds me a lot of what I used to believe is a new agester you could bring that into your Reality by thinking about it yeah yeah and I think it don't fall into align with a lot of the new age um the new age perspective which is crazy like I just yeah I think this it all what a twist down to like examining everything it doesn't matter who the teacher is like in your own church you're able to examine and see is this based on the Bible or is this just a man's opinion that I'm just saying oh because he's my pastor because he's my teacher I'm just going to take it in and not open my bible there's that is where these things slip in or if you're raised in something um like I just thought this guy is just a he's amazing everybody needs to know his teachings but that he he would teach like he would say life is a very delicate cause and effect sequence so you're just kind of you're on this fine line and so if you barely cross it then your life could be a total disaster so he has these seven basic life principles that you you need to follow to a T and if at any point it breaks down then you have to go back and say well why is my family a mess or why did my kids not turn out now I think every parent could probably do that and I think that can be a healthy thing to do if your kids are like crazy but at the same time you still see like there is there's the sovereignty of God is missing in this whole picture there's not a Reliance upon the Lord and on him even in in Salvation the the reality of him um being a sovereign God in Sovereign over salvation as well where I think a lot of those things were relying on the parents so you see all these parents who if their kids don't turn out then they're like they go back so carefully through these principles well was it occur from my grandfather maybe he had a curse on him that we failed to see and and sadly he went to adoption he said for so many years about adoption you need to be extra careful because you never know um what curses these kids are bringing into your family and so you need to um be careful he told a crazy story about a baby who was screaming and crying this is an infant and the baby was screaming crying looked at the parents with rage and they were like oh we just didn't realize this kid had you know this generational curse and so they prayed and they said the baby ended up calming down it's like well maybe the baby was just sick or maybe the baby was gassy like you don't know what the cause is this is an infant that just came into your home and you're thinking oh no he's adopted we're freaking out because we don't know what curses he's gonna bring into our family that's insane and so that whole perspective you become so afraid of everything around you thinking that you are controlling it instead of a sovereign God who's over it all in I think you you want to be able to trust in that and you trust in a sovereign God and we all struggle every day with like okay Lord help me to trust you if you bring difficulties or sufferings and trials I want to love you more and their wrestlings within the believer but in this setting it was like I'm going to turn to myself or I'm going to turn to these principles to solve it all instead of turning to Jesus and you know what you grew up in with the Gothard teachings you got the enigmatic charismatic figure at the top of it you know and and the way you even describe you know when you get to go uh to the conferences and and have interactions with Phil Gothard and go to dinner with Bill Gothard with your family and just how that was like oh wow and you know it's not difficult um to to really see some kind of cult-like comparisons possibly with with um his teachings and his personality um and yet I was so like in a stunning turn of irony in your book you talk about how he had even written how to safeguard teens from Cults what I so when I was doing research for this book is when I discovered that and I was so shocked because I was thinking goodness you're describing yourself in this and how to how to safeguard them from Cults really okay and this was very cult-like in nature um I'll leave it to the experts to say if it was full difficult but a lot of people look the same talk the same avoid the same things and look to one teacher as this man who had the element of truth that we all needed and you couldn't find anywhere else which is a big red flag now I look at that I'm like oh anytime somebody says you can't hear this teaching anywhere else or they always have a new revelation from God stop right there that's a red flag so um that's something now that like oh my goodness it's crazy I don't know how I could have just been so into that and thought it was okay and he is the only person that I could allow to say these things that were not in the Bible um but yeah it was crazy like I remember going to the conferences and feeling like these are my people I really do genuinely like have so many friendships that are still within that community and even those who have come out of it that's where all of my friends were so it's interesting even in writing this book my heart is not to like be like how crazy are they for still being there because I get it I was there all of my life until you know like six years ago seven years ago now almost um I was in those teachings and I can see how appealing it is I can see how scary it is to come out of it uh but the beauty of knowing Jesus for who he truly is in his word is far greater than any relationship that you could ever find in a person or in a teaching to guarantee you the success or the safety there's safety found in knowing and loving Jesus and knowing his word yeah it's so interestingly so that was so interesting you brought that up because it does remind me of spiritual gaslighting of what we just talked about where they are saying oh we're not a cult then they do cultish things and then they give direction for it which solidifies The Narrative it makes people even feel more you know safe in that environment and I knew a lot of people said oh this is a cult or they would try to persuade us out of it um I remember a billboard by recovering Grace that they had put up and I just kind of saw that and was like huh those poor people they just don't know that this would this would help their kids to not be rebellious so one day maybe they'll see and maybe they'll repent of that and stop trying to pull all of us out of this so they were like sending up this warning flag not in a bad way but they were just saying like just realize what you're in and examine stuff according to the Bible that's their message but for me I would say well thank you but you don't need to say that like you need to come in with us like come closer because this is not a cult and so um yeah it is that that weird weird thing in our head right like there was a certain disconnect we would have rejected any other cult but we were in a cult-like setting yeah and I have to say when I uh I first saw you on Ali Beth Stuckey and I was so intrigued I immediately wanted to read your book and I picked it up thinking I was going to get a memoir and it was a gospel presentation and it was so wholesome to read and very wonderful and there was one there was one thing I kept waiting for you to bring up in the book and I had the opportunity to ask you so I'm going to at this point the um the the dress code that you guys had how did it feel when you first put on pants when you were able to ask me that like two days ago I don't know why he asked me that like two days ago and I said how did it feel the first to put on pants I was like that's a really interesting question I hadn't thought about too much until a couple days ago um it was it was interesting listening to like as always like a Christian CD all the things yeah right there was something in my mind of like okay I know this isn't sinful so my heart was just free in that it just then I started thinking oh man this is it's not just wearing pants like putting on pants it's like okay I'm wearing pants but the weird thing was I just started thinking man how much more convenient is it going to be to ride a bike to like work out not wearing a skirt with like this long skirt with leggings underneath you and you can't move you can't move so I was like well I'm just grateful for that like let's just start there so but as far as wearing pants it seems like it it seemed like maybe a little weird at first but it wasn't it wasn't like this crazy strange thing because it was like for me it was just going to the word of God and seeing okay is this okay so I'm not going to feel like uncomfortable because I realize okay I want to still be modest I want to glorify God but at the same time it doesn't mean that I have to wear a skirt to do that so that was freeing for me I wasn't like questioning should I be doing this or not because whenever the Bible was silent on that I wanted to be silent so um it was yeah I don't know it's kind of interesting my husband just asked me that and like still trying to figure out how do I feel how do I feel the whole book I was waiting for it that's a great question I love that I love that well we only have a few more minutes here with you Ginger I would love for you to speak to anybody who might be watching or listening to this who might be very confused where maybe they grew up in a situation where real authentic gospel teaching was all mixed up with maybe abuse or abuse of power or legalism or um just all sorts of different deceptive things that can lead people away from the gospel they don't know what to do they don't know where to go and they're you know maybe been courted by the deconstruction movement who would say it's all toxic throw it out You Gotta Be You Know healthier than this Christian thing I just you speak to our audience with some encouragement about what message you would have for anybody who might be in that position that you were in several years ago where you're like oh my gosh I have a lot out of fear but I know Jesus is real what do I do with this yeah I would just say wherever you are in that in that journey of your life just running to Jesus is the answer like I said before people will let us down whether that is inside the church or outside the church people outside the church they you know you can promise okay you're not going to be hurt here but I think anywhere we go in this Fallen broken world the answer and our hope that we can find is in Jesus in the truth of his word and putting our the Trust In Our Hope there because I think that that's something that we know the anchor for our souls is there and if you come to Jesus too like he is a kind and loving savior um and there's there is also like I think within this this whole idea of like having to throw everything off it's because we'll look at the justice of God look at this and you can like throw that off but looking at the word of God as a whole and seeing that but there is um both both Justice and mercy found in the gospel and that if you run to Jesus he is there with open arms and he will forgive your sin and He will draw near in a closer relationship a sweeter relationship then you could ever find anywhere and he is our peace he is our hope he is our strength and through it all just entrusting yourself to a faithful Savior is where your your soul will find rest and so that would be my plea to anyone who's outside of that and if you're living in legalism if you're living in um by trying to do enough good things to get to God that's never going to work it's calling out in Repentance and calling upon the name of the Lord and trusting in the finished work of Christ that will save you from your sin and so that's my plea That's My Hope because I know that I was in that place and there's so much confusion there but my hope would be that um anyone who's been harmed would realize that that Jesus Is Our Hope amen yeah well thank you so much ginger for you know coming on talking with us becoming free indeed is your book and I just want to thank you so much for taking the time come and talk with us about this about your book about your journey uh Lisa do you want to add anything no I'm good that's great thank you so much Ginger it was wonderful thank you for having me I really appreciate it well I want to thank my guest Ginger Duggar Volo again get her book becoming free indeed my story of disentangling Faith from Fear I think it's really going to bless and encourage you especially in a culture of deconstruction if you're looking for higher level education I recommend Southern Evangelical Seminary I am asked all the time what seminaries are good solid standing for a good Theology and historic Christian beliefs I'm telling you SCS is the best in my opinion you can go to ses.edu Elisa to download a free audiobook and they've been a sponsor on the podcast for a while I love partnering with SCS so go to ses.edu Elisa if you're watching on YouTube please subscribe click the Bell icon to be notified every time we release a new video if you're listening on audio platforms it helps so much if you go to Apple or Google or Spotify rate and review this podcast let other people know that you really like what you're hearing that's equipping you that it's encouraging you and then it's helping you become stronger in your faith and stronger intellectually to know what you believe and why and if you're see this post on social media clicking like leaving a comment sharing it out to your friends it helps so much guys thanks so much for watching today and let's remember as we pursue Christ to keep a sharp mind a soft heart and a thick skin we'll see you next time [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Alisa Childers

Views: 42,076

Keywords: apologetics, progressive christianity, deconstruction, live your truth, another gospel, historic christianity, alisa childers, podcast, philosophy, christianity, truth, gospel

Id: Q-6PP-g2XbQ

Length: 48min 59sec (2939 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 23 2023