By now, most of you have probably heard what happened this year involving 1 of the 19 Duggars. This homeschooling family from Arkansas are best known for their Christian beliefs, conservative background, and TLC reality show, 19 Kids and Counting. The Duggar's eldest son, Josh, who is married with four children of his own, was found guilty this year of sexual misconduct as a teenager. Since then, the journalism industry and society in general has capitalized on the incident, going to great lengths to discuss this terrible event.
Yes, it’s terrible. It’s terrible because the young women involved now have to deal with the emotions and stress and embarrassment all over again. It’s terrible because the Duggars will now have to explain to their small children why society dislikes them so intensely. It’s terrible because the journalism industry has laid out the details of the Duggar's personal lives for the entire world to see, just as it has done with countless other celebrities.
As a nation, we are so busy ranting about how the Duggars are hypocrites who preach Christianity but have dirty secrets that we don’t even stop to logically consider what we are saying. Let’s unpack this a little. Stay with me, okay? I promise this makes a lot of sense, if we just put aside our righteous anger and actually look carefully at our own behavior toward the Duggar family.
First of all, let’s keep in mind that what happened all those years ago is the Duggar family’s business. They have the right to deal with the problems that Josh’s behavior has caused. Everyone else who was personally involved in the case has that same right. We, however, do not have the right to blame them when we were not even involved in this affair. Most of us have never met the Duggars personally. Why, then, do we feel the need to make scathing comments about the hypocritical Duggar family?
Which brings me to my next point. I was on Facebook one day earlier this summer and saw that someone had shared a link to an article about the Duggars. The subtext read, “It’s about time these hypocrites got what they deserve.” What? How in the world are the Duggars hypocrites? Now, if they had said on their TV show, “Well, we believe we are a pretty perfect model of a Christian family, and everything in our past has been perfect,” then yeah, that would make them hypocrites. But the Duggars never claimed to be perfect. They just try to live out their Christian faith. It’s inaccurate, then, to call the Duggars hypocritical just because they are Christians who have some bad things in their family history.
As it turns out, the Duggar sisters have forgiven their older brother for what happened all those years ago. His family has forgiven him, and he’s been blessed with a lovely family of his own. So here’s the bottom line. If the Duggars can forgive their son and move on from the past, why can’t we?
Yes, Josh made a mistake, just like every single one of us do. But he’s been forgiven by a family who loves him deeply. So the least we can do as a nation and as a community is to learn an important lesson from the Duggars: it’s not impossible to live peacefully with someone who has wronged you. And maybe, when we recognize just how incredible it is that these people treat their family member with love no matter what, we can finally appreciate just how strong the entire Duggar family is and give them the respect that they, as fellow human beings, deserve.
