Show Cover

Gothard turned every father into a cult leader and every home into an island.

# Review

This documentary miniseries explores and exposes the Duggar family, famous for being in the hit reality TV show 19 Kids and Counting on TLC. The documentary series explores the family dynamic, which has been heavily influenced by the teachings of the Institute of Basic Life Principles (IBLP), a fundamentalist Christian organization founded by Bill Gothard advocating for things such as homeschooling and male dominance within families.

The documentary talks about how TLC helped normalize IBLP teachings across America by showing a very polished and edited version of the Duggars’ lives to the public. The documentary focuses on the core tenants of IBLP teachings, namely how children and women have to submit to their father and husband, and how homeschooling and child abuse create submissive children ripe for further abuse. The documentary then covers the case where Josh Duggar, the eldest son of the family, molested his younger sisters and Jim Bob, the patriarch of the Duggar family, as well as TLC producers conspired together to downplay Josh’s actions and cover up the incident. The documentary finally details all the allegations of abuse by the IBLP organization itself, including sexual assault allegations leveraged against Bill Gothard himself, before updating the audience on the current state of matters, such as the larger Christian fundamentalist attempt to infiltrate the government and Josh Duggar’s latest arrest and imprisonment for downloading child pornography.

The documentary has a really solid narrative arc that is roughly chronological. The documentary makes use of many first-person accounts, which include estranged members from the Duggar family as well as former IBLP victims. The pacing is a tad slow and repetitive at times, but the documentary is very impactful on exposing the wide range of misogynistic teachings of IBLP and the resulting abuse levered against women because of said teachings. I also appreciate that the documentary separates the teachings of IBLP from mainstream Christianity by having a journalist who is also a pastor explain the absurdity of IBLP’s teachings. I also found it interesting to learn about the fundamentalist Christian movement to enter into positions of influence within American society to spread their faith, such as the Joshua Generation movement to teach and encourage young fundamentalist Christians to engage in civic discourse.

# Conclusion

A surprising look at radical Christian fundamentalism in America.

# Overall rating: 7.6

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