Pensees: Plus Eight minus Gospel: Thoughts on TV “testimonies” like Duggars and Gosselins

Plus Eight minus Gospel: Thoughts on TV “testimonies” like Duggars and Gosselins

Understatement of the year: “We evangelicals are easily impressed.”

There is a thought-provoking article in Christianity Today on the TV sensation Jon & Kate Plus Eight that ought to be considered. I still feel myself to be a foreigner in this country and one of the things that never ceases to amaze me is the celebrity addiction of American Christians.

I was not here long before I realized that it was almost blasphemous to say openly (as I did) that the Duggars are not as helpful a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as thousands of star-struck homeschool moms imagine. Since the Gospel of Jesus Christ saved me from the sub-culture village-like worldliness — yes, worldliness — of the Gothardesque gospel I am particularly sensitive to the potential delusion that “perfect families” cause about the Gospel.

The Duggars and Gosselins appeal to the worldliness of the flesh. Religious people are easily impressed by anything that has the form of godliness even though it may know nothing of the power of godliness. Those who grew up in a religious sub-culture have been indoctrinated to believe that worldliness is anything that is less conservative than they are. They might consider the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons as a cult, but they would never ascribe the word “worldly” to them. After all, their women wear dresses.

Worldliness, however, is “to be like the world.” The world deals with corruption with forms, rules, traditions, and in some extreme cases, with isolation and sectarianism. The hijab-wearing Muslim, the compound-dwelling Mormon, and the Gothardesque home-churched legalist all need to hear the Apostle Paul’s challenging questions to the Colossians about worldliness.

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations - “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used) — These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh (Colossians 2:20-23).

To make Jon & Kate heroes of the faith for one good decision, the decision not to abort, was to highlight a form of godliness without any real concern about whether there was any power of godliness. However, Jon & Kate could have been Mormon, or JW, or moralistic Americans, or nominal Christians and still have made the decision. And, if one loves money, why not market your “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch,” make money, and appease your conscience (if you have one about these things) by calling it a “testimony”?

The reason the Duggars and the Gosselins show is prospering is because it appeals to the elemental spirits of the world. Worldliness is more than just anything less conservative than you. Worldliness is “do nots” that have an appearance of wisdom but have no power against the indulgence of the flesh.

It didn’t for Jon & Kate. And I know from the testimony of hundreds (as well as my own) that the sub-culture of the Gothardesque gospel is just as powerless.