Breaking news on the duggar family religion

The Duggars are an Arkansas family who became famous on the TLC network show 19 Kids and Counting. The family is known for its strict adherence to the Baptist faith and conservative values, which include restrictions against any birth control methods. However, the Duggars have been criticized by those who believe that such large families are not healthy for children and those who oppose their anti-contraceptive activism. On May 22, 2015, TLC announced that they were pulling all episodes of 19 Kids and Counting after Josh Duggar, the eldest child of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, admitted publicly that he had engaged in acts of child molestation as a teenager; the show was officially canceled later that year. However, certain of the Duggar family members were featured in the follow-up series Counting On, which was canceled in 2021 after Josh Duggar was arrested and charged with receipt and possession of child sexual abuse materials (more commonly, and inaccurately, called child pornography). He was convicted later that year.

Jim Bob Duggar was born on July 18, 1965, and Michelle Ruark was born on September 13, 1966. They married on July 21, 1984. Both of them are real estate agents, and Jim Bob Duggar served two terms as an Arkansas state legislator (from 1998 to 2003). The Duggars reside in Tontitown (Washington County) in northwestern Arkansas.

The Duggars have often explained why they chose to have a large family. Initially, Michelle used birth control pills, but between her first and second children, she became pregnant while on birth control, and the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. The couple felt that their use of birth control had caused them to lose the baby, and so they decided that they would no longer use it; in their words, they would “let God decide how many children we would have.”

There are nineteen children in the Duggar family. The oldest, Josh, was born in 1988. Twins Jana and John David were born in 1990, Jill in 1991, Je

American reality television show

For the British series most recently known as 22 Kids and Counting, see Radford family.

19 Kids and Counting (formerly 17 Kids and Counting and 18 Kids and Counting) is an American reality television series that aired on the cable channel TLC for seven years until its cancellation in 2015. The show features the Duggar family: parents Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar and their 19 children – nine daughters and ten sons – all of whose names begin with the letter "J". During the duration of the show, two children were born, three children were married, and four grandchildren were born.

The show focuses on the life of the Duggar family, who are devout independent Baptists, and frequently discusses values of purity, modesty and faith in God. The Duggars avoid birth control, saying they have decided to allow God to determine the number of children they have. All of the children are homeschooled and access to entertainment such as movies and television is limited. They practice chaperoned courtship, in which a couple becomes acquainted only in a group setting. The values presented on the show have been associated with the Quiverfull movement, which has been described as promoting strict family conformity, male hierarchies and subservient roles for women. The Duggars have stated th

Former reality star Jinger Duggar Vuolo, made famous on TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting,” is speaking out about the religious beliefs her family followed, describing them as “harmful” and having “cult-like tendencies.”

Vuolo, the sixth child of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, previously adhered to and zealously promoted the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), a nondenominational Christian organization founded in 1961 by disgraced minister Bill Gothard. But she left the fundamentalist organization in 2017 and is now opening up about it in her new memoir, “Becoming Free Indeed.”

“Fear was a huge part of my childhood,” the 29-year-old told People. “I thought I had to wear only skirts and dresses to please God. Music with drums, places I went or the wrong friendships could all bring harm.”

The mother of two said she felt “terrified” she was defying the will of God even when the family would play broomball, a sport similar to hockey: “I thought I could be killed in a car accident on the way, because I didn’t know if God wanted me to stay home and read my Bible instead,” she said.

Chronicling her experience in her third book, “Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith From Fear,” Duggar writes about how she was expected to fastidiously obey modesty guidelines, always obey her parents and authority figures, promote relationship standards of courtship, and avoid any music with a worldly beat. The memoir details “how she began to question the unhealthy ideology of her youth and learned to embrace true freedom in Christ,” and what it was like living under Gothard’s tenets, according to Christian content publisher Thomas Nelson.

“[Gothard’s] teachings in a nutshell are based on fear and superstition and leave you in a place where you feel like, ‘I don’t know what God expects of me,’” she told People. “The fear kept me crippled with anxiety. I was terrified of the out

The nine Duggar sisters — and their super-sized family — spent more than 10 years appearing on television shows.

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar are the parents of 19 children, whose names all start with the letter J: Josh, Jana, John-David, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, Joseph, Josiah, Joy-Anna, Jedidiah, Jeremiah, Jason, James, Justin, Jackson, Johannah, Jennifer, Jordyn-Grace and Josie.

The Duggars first rose to fame in 2008, when they landed their own reality television show 19 Kids and Counting. The TLC series became an instant hit and gave viewers a peek into their ever-growing family and ultra-conservative Christian household.

A Guide to Everyone in the Duggar Family

However, in 2015 — after nine seasons on the air — the Duggars came under fire after news broke that Josh Duggar, the eldest sibling, had allegedly molested five underage girls when he was a teenager. It was revealed that four of the alleged victims were his sisters, and that both Jim Bob and Michelle were allegedly aware of their oldest son’s abuse. As a result of the molestation scandal, TLC canceled 19 Kids and Countingin July 2015.

But the Duggar girls, particularly Jill Duggar Dillard and Jessa Duggar Seewald, returned to reality television in December 2015 with their own spinoff, Counting On. The show ran for 11 seasons until TLC pulled the plug in June 2021, following Josh’s arrest on child pornography charges.

Beyond Josh’s convictions, the Duggar family has faced criticism in recent years for their affiliation with Bill Gothard and the Institute in Basic Life Principles. The controversial religion was the subject of a 2023 Prime Video docuseries Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, which exposed the dark side of the religion — and how it shaped and negatively impacted the once-beloved Duggar family.

Throughout the family’s ups and downs, many of